Sermon for 6th Sunday of Easter – John 15:9-17

This week, our gospel reading is a difficult passage. Jesus is trying to teach his disciples about love. But love is a hard word to pin down. We have such different ideas about what it means. It starts with what we learn as children. Maybe your family always told that you were loved, and everything’s gregarious and demonstrative. Or maybe they avoided saying the word out loud, but showed it by their actions. Or maybe love was something that was given or withheld as a way to manipulate folks into doing what you want them to do. Lots of situations. As adults, that stuff still plays out in our relationships. Or therapy wouldn’t be a thing, right? Not that we’re just stuck on repeat. We all change in one way or another. But our love still has baggage. It’s complicated.

It’s complicated for Jesus’ disciples too. Jesus tells them, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” That’s reassuring, considering that Jesus has been telling them how he’s going to be taken away from them. But then Jesus says something strange. “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” Now, when we think of Jesus, we think of how he loves sinners. Forgiveness and unconditional love. But here it sounds like Jesus is basically saying if you do what I say, then I will still love you. If-then. So right away, what’s our first question? What happens if we don’t? Will Jesus stop loving us? And it doesn’t help that Jesus just told the parable where he’s the true vine and his Father is the vinegrower. Jesus says, “He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” That’s not reassuring.

But the disciples are a pretty ambitious bunch. They don’t need threats. They really want to be obedient. Jesus knows this. After all, as soon as Jesus warned them that he was going away, Peter spoke right up. He vowed to lay down his life for Jesus. But Jesus says, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly I tell you, before the cock crows, you will deny my three times.” And we know how that played out. Wishful thinking. Except Jesus raises the bar again. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” What do we make of that? I mean, that sounds like martyrdom. Like dying for the cause. Now, on the one hand, what good does that do? It’s hard to be a witness for the cause if you’re dead. But on the other hand, it’s hard to argue that Jesus is just being metaphorical here. We know what happens to him on the cross. He dies.

Of course, Jesus is really talking about love here. The kind of love that would give anything and everything for another’s sake, even life itself. But Jesus knows we’re not very good at that kind of love. After all, for all of Peter’s courage and loyalty, he promises to lay down his life and Jesus basically calls him a liar. None of the other disciples even dare to speak up. And when Jesus is lifted on the cross, they all scatter in shame and fear for their own safety. So, what about us? If there’s one thing that Covid has shown us, it’s that we’re not very good with self-sacrifice, but we’re really good at judging others for what kind of people we think they are. This pandemic keeps bringing to the surface all of our deep divisions and animosity. What folks think about vaccines. How folks vote. Where folks stand on social issues. It’s not that we weren’t always this divided. It’s just that we were really good at hiding it before. But now it’s out in the open and none of us are blameless. I confess my own judging.

But here’s the thing. It’s not just that Jesus commands us to love one another as he has loved us. To lay down our lives for folks who, if we’re totally honest, we wish weren’t in the church. That’s pretty damning. But what’s harder is that Jesus says, “You did not choose me but I chose you.” Almost as if Jesus calls us together, knowing full well our conflicts, just to prove to us how unwilling we are to love one another. Of course, unless we’re actually in that dire place where we lay down our lives for each other, how do we know whether we’re even capable of the kind of love that Jesus demands? We don’t.

But here’s what we do know, that Jesus chose us anyway. He chose us all to be his beloved friends. So he tells us “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” And this is how we know that he loves us unconditionally. That he laid down his life for his friends. He went to the cross, to suffer and die. But after three days, he was raised in the glory of his resurrection. And no one has greater love than this, because he sees us in our strife, our judging, our divisions. Yet he loves us so much that he does it anyway, because he’s so stubbornly determined that this kind of love would be a reality in this broken world. And Jesus always gets what he wants.

Of course, Jesus also wants us to show that same sacrificial love to others that he showed to us. So he gives us the Spirit of love by making faith in us. Now, I know this sounds all fluffy and sentimental, but it’s not. I mean, faith is a powerful thing. How else could we look at the cross and see life in the midst of death. It’s irrational. It’s beyond anything we have in ourselves. But it works. So this is why Jesus says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” He’s not being conditional, or setting us up to fail. And Jesus is smart. He knows you can’t really command love, or any feeling for that matter. But he’s so confident in the power of faith to love beyond our means that he dares to call it a commandment. In the time of trial, faith will do what it promises to do. It’s a done deal. Everything has been accomplished. So Jesus says, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”

And Jesus appoints us to go and bear fruit. Fruit that will last. Fruit like relationships with those folks we would have avoided before. Of course, they’ll be defensive, because we’re all pretty defensive these days. But if you really want to catch folks off guard, you reach out a hand. It’s the last thing anyone would expect. And clearly facts and arguments aren’t working, so why not? Because we’re not after right or wrong anymore. We’re after the common good, the kingdom of God made manifest in the least likely places. Where there is possibility and change, because it’s not about abstract issues anymore. It’s about what it takes for us to live together in community, when we all bring out our baggage and reveal it to each other, like Jesus’ wounds. That’s when we finally care about each other, and we all want that. Maybe it sounds like a stretch. But Jesus promised. “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” May it be so for you and for me in Christ Jesus our Lord.