Everyone knows it’s bad form to listen in on other people’s conversations, tempting as it may be. Yet, that’s exactly what we’re invited to do in the gospel passage appointed for next Sunday. We are eavesdropping on Jesus’ conversation with his heavenly Father on the night he takes leave of his beloved disciples and prepares to enter into the suffering which will complete his mission in this world.
We will explore the text of this prayer, but first I feel the need to deal with a “meta-question.” How is it that we know what Jesus prayed that night? Was one of his followers listening and feverishly writing it all down as a transcript which got passed along for the forty or fifty years before John’s gospel was composed? That’s possible.
Or perhaps what was passed down was the tradition of what Jesus prayed. “And then, do you remember, after he talked to us all that while, he started to pray for us, that we would be protected and know the truth….”
It’s also possible this is a literary device used by the author of John to reiterate the themes he has been emphasizing all along. Would that make this text any less valid for us? It doesn’t have to. Remember, what we receive as Holy Scripture bears the fingerprints of many, many fallible human beings. We receive it as holy and authoritative, not as a court transcript, but as a document given authority by the early church and generations afterward.
In other words, it is holy in part because it has been regarded as holy, and because it gives life to the communities that regard it as holy. This “high priestly prayer,” as scholars call it, has given life to generations of Christ-followers, who have been encouraged to persevere in mission by the promise of belonging and love and intercession encompassed in these words attributed to Jesus.
In a sense, we are always eavesdropping when we read Scripture – we overhear God’s words to other people, their stories about their encounters with God, their letters to one another about their encounters with God. But this is not meant to be a passive overhearing. We are invited to join this conversation and bring to it our own stories and doubts and connections and joys.
God also speaks to us directly through prayer, through proclamation, through encounters that we realize are “God-moments.” If the records we leave in our journals and testimonies last a fraction of the time these stories did, we might find they’ve been smoothed out and edited a bit too. I hope you are leaving a record of God’s dealings with you. That is precious and holy writ, if not Holy Scripture.
We believe, by faith, that the pages of Scripture are not merely human documents, though we needed human beings to record and preserve them. We believe these are Spirit-inspired, God-breathed words of life. It doesn't matter whether or not these are the exact words Jesus prayed. The Holy Spirit was with him when he prayed. The Spirit was with those who remembered it. The Spirit was with those who eventually wrote it down, and those who saved it, and those who wove it into the record we now call the New Testament.
And the Holy Spirit is with us as we encounter it and ask God to bring it to life for us. This week, as we explore this prayer, let’s keep asking where we find ourselves in these ancient words. The Holy Spirit with us - that’s what makes this holy for us.
5-8-15 - Chosen
Most people like to be chosen, right? Whether it’s for a team in grade school, a dance in high school, a job, an award, a date, it makes us feel good to be seen and selected (when there’s nothing creepy involved, that is…). But being chosen is somewhat passive – we can’t ensure being picked, as hard as we might try to be the best candidate.
That makes some people more comfortable being the chooser, even choosy. That puts us in control. Freedom of choice is a huge value in American life (so much so that I consider it un-American to be told I cannot have a Diet Coke in places where Pepsi has secured an exclusive contract!) We champion the right to choose our jobs, spouses, healthcare and reproduction, even gender. And, of course, freedom of choice is a core value for all human life and interaction.
Jesus’ disciples thought they chose to follow him. He didn’t compel them – he came along and said, “Follow me.” They made that choice, often at great cost to their families and communities. So imagine their surprise to hear Jesus say that’s not the way it happened:
“You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.” (This Sunday's gospel passage is here.)
Did Jesus really choose this motley crew of hard-headed, occasionally thick-headed men and women? Maybe he should have used a head-hunter. Or maybe Jesus has different values than we do. Maybe this mixed up group was just exactly who he wanted to graduate as his first team of apostles. And maybe he has chosen us for the same reason, because he believes that we too are gifted and lovable, capable of bearing fruit, abundant fruit that will endure.
Do you feel chosen by God to be a follower of Jesus Christ? Or did it feel like something you chose, or someone else chose for you? There has to be an element of response on our part; we’re not puppets. I believe it is the realization of being chosen that elicits a response in us. That’s how it works when two people are courting. And this relationship with Jesus is more love story than job selection process.
How do you respond to being chosen by God?
Does it affect the way you live your faith?
And how does knowing God’s desire for us is fruitfulness affect the way you live your faith?
The fruitfulness and the chosen-ness go together, I think. We cannot make ourselves fruitful any more than we can get ourselves chosen. When we let in the mystery and wonder of how precious we are to God, that God would choose us to participate in God’s great mission of reclaiming, restoring and renewing all of creation to wholeness in Christ – that knowledge of our chosen-ness generates a desire in us to bear fruit in that mission, the fruit of lives transformed and hearts opened.
Our hearts become opened by the awareness of Love, and then we bear the fruit of Love into the lives around us, as God's transforming power works through us as Jesus promised.
That is how we see fruit that will last.
That makes some people more comfortable being the chooser, even choosy. That puts us in control. Freedom of choice is a huge value in American life (so much so that I consider it un-American to be told I cannot have a Diet Coke in places where Pepsi has secured an exclusive contract!) We champion the right to choose our jobs, spouses, healthcare and reproduction, even gender. And, of course, freedom of choice is a core value for all human life and interaction.
Jesus’ disciples thought they chose to follow him. He didn’t compel them – he came along and said, “Follow me.” They made that choice, often at great cost to their families and communities. So imagine their surprise to hear Jesus say that’s not the way it happened:
“You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.” (This Sunday's gospel passage is here.)
Did Jesus really choose this motley crew of hard-headed, occasionally thick-headed men and women? Maybe he should have used a head-hunter. Or maybe Jesus has different values than we do. Maybe this mixed up group was just exactly who he wanted to graduate as his first team of apostles. And maybe he has chosen us for the same reason, because he believes that we too are gifted and lovable, capable of bearing fruit, abundant fruit that will endure.
Do you feel chosen by God to be a follower of Jesus Christ? Or did it feel like something you chose, or someone else chose for you? There has to be an element of response on our part; we’re not puppets. I believe it is the realization of being chosen that elicits a response in us. That’s how it works when two people are courting. And this relationship with Jesus is more love story than job selection process.
How do you respond to being chosen by God?
Does it affect the way you live your faith?
And how does knowing God’s desire for us is fruitfulness affect the way you live your faith?
The fruitfulness and the chosen-ness go together, I think. We cannot make ourselves fruitful any more than we can get ourselves chosen. When we let in the mystery and wonder of how precious we are to God, that God would choose us to participate in God’s great mission of reclaiming, restoring and renewing all of creation to wholeness in Christ – that knowledge of our chosen-ness generates a desire in us to bear fruit in that mission, the fruit of lives transformed and hearts opened.
Our hearts become opened by the awareness of Love, and then we bear the fruit of Love into the lives around us, as God's transforming power works through us as Jesus promised.
That is how we see fruit that will last.
5-7-15 - No Longer Servants
I’ve heard of promotions and upgrades, but rarely a status upgrade like the one Jesus' followers got on his last evening among them. He was telling them what it means to abide in his love, to live by his commandments, to love one another with the kind of love they received from him. He said, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”
In a culture in which people attached themselves to a spiritual master, whom they served and revered, followed and learned from, this language of friendship must have sounded jarring. So Jesus explained,
“I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”
Being someone’s servant and being their friend are very different. Being a servant can be easier – you have no responsibility to strategize, to plan, or to achieve the grand vision. You need only fulfill the tasks assigned you with all the skill and commitment you can muster. And then collect your paycheck and take your assigned time off. Contractual, hierarchical relationships can be simpler.
Friendship, with its mutuality and intimacy, is much messier, not so much contractual as covenental, based on commitment to nurturing the friend and growing the friendship. Friends are responsible for one another in a way that a boss and servant are not. Friends are recipients of each other’s joys and worries and confidences. This is what Jesus highlights; he says he has entrusted his followers with everything he has heard from God the Father. That must have been daunting to hear.
And yet, it must also have been exhilarating to be told they were no longer servants, but friends. If we work for someone we respect and admire, it’s a rush to be elevated from employee to friend. There is more freedom and collegiality, along with more responsibility.
I wonder if I have taken Jesus up on his offer of friendship. I tend to think of myself as a servant; some days I feel more like a pack mule struggling up a hill than an independent, respected, friend of the Living God. Have I not fully integrated this promise of Jesus’? Or do I not want the responsibility that goes along with it? Do I prefer to think I work for Jesus rather than with him?
Jesus didn't ask me - or you - to work for him. He wants us working with him, filled with his Spirit, not checking off tasks and asking him to sign off on our time-sheets. I believe he has entrusted us with the honor and responsibility of being his friends. Have we accepted? Do we hang out in prayer with him as a friend? Do we go out, healing and transforming people with him, sitting with sinners, challenging oppressors, loving the loveless?
How do we move and talk and sit and listen as friend of the Risen and Anointed One? Figuring that out - that's the work of ministry.
In a culture in which people attached themselves to a spiritual master, whom they served and revered, followed and learned from, this language of friendship must have sounded jarring. So Jesus explained,
“I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”
Being someone’s servant and being their friend are very different. Being a servant can be easier – you have no responsibility to strategize, to plan, or to achieve the grand vision. You need only fulfill the tasks assigned you with all the skill and commitment you can muster. And then collect your paycheck and take your assigned time off. Contractual, hierarchical relationships can be simpler.
Friendship, with its mutuality and intimacy, is much messier, not so much contractual as covenental, based on commitment to nurturing the friend and growing the friendship. Friends are responsible for one another in a way that a boss and servant are not. Friends are recipients of each other’s joys and worries and confidences. This is what Jesus highlights; he says he has entrusted his followers with everything he has heard from God the Father. That must have been daunting to hear.
And yet, it must also have been exhilarating to be told they were no longer servants, but friends. If we work for someone we respect and admire, it’s a rush to be elevated from employee to friend. There is more freedom and collegiality, along with more responsibility.
I wonder if I have taken Jesus up on his offer of friendship. I tend to think of myself as a servant; some days I feel more like a pack mule struggling up a hill than an independent, respected, friend of the Living God. Have I not fully integrated this promise of Jesus’? Or do I not want the responsibility that goes along with it? Do I prefer to think I work for Jesus rather than with him?
Jesus didn't ask me - or you - to work for him. He wants us working with him, filled with his Spirit, not checking off tasks and asking him to sign off on our time-sheets. I believe he has entrusted us with the honor and responsibility of being his friends. Have we accepted? Do we hang out in prayer with him as a friend? Do we go out, healing and transforming people with him, sitting with sinners, challenging oppressors, loving the loveless?
How do we move and talk and sit and listen as friend of the Risen and Anointed One? Figuring that out - that's the work of ministry.
5-6-15 - Love One Another
I don’t know many people likely to be asked to lay down their lives for friends, though some under persecution or threat of war are faced with such choices. The highest sacrifice asked of most of us is that we lay aside our prerogatives, preferences, convenience for our friends.
Much more was asked of the friends Jesus was addressing on his last night in human life. He set a pretty high standard for friendship: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
He knew what was ahead – for him, and for them. The persecution that would be unleashed on Jesus’ followers after his arrest, crucifixion and resurrection would eventually claim the lives of most of those with him at that momentous Last Supper. Before they could offer that kind of sacrifice, though, they would have to be willing to truly love each other. Jesus had said that keeping his commandments would enable them to abide in his love. “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”
Now he spells out the heart of that mandatum novum.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
"But we do love each other," they may have thought. After all, they’d spent three years in close quarters and sometimes no quarters at all. But the gospels tell us how much squabbling and jockeying went on among these disciples. And no matter what affection they may have had for each other, Jesus was now upping the stakes: they were to love each other as he loved them. That was a love that laid down everything to draw near them, that bore with their misjudgments and inability to grasp the ways of the Kingdom Jesus was trying to inculcate in them. That was a love that would ultimately lead to sacrificial death, and then an empty grave and new life beyond comprehension.
These men and women were to be the agents of sharing that new life with the world. They couldn’t do that if they didn’t love each other as Jesus had loved them. And so he commanded them to love, even unto death.
We are the beneficiaries of their love. The legacy they left, though it developed all the strains and dysfunction common to human institutions, also grew into the incubator and container from which sacrificial love can pour out in God’s mission. That kind of love is asked of us as well if we are to be part of God’s reclaiming, restoring, and renewing all things to wholeness.
How do we love like that? We can begin with allowing Jesus to love us like that, to truly take in the depth and breadth of his love, not only “back then” but now, forever and always. Those moments in which we grasp the extent of God’s love for us, deserved or not, help form us as vessels of that love for others.
We can also ask Jesus to show us his love for people we find it a challenge to love. His vision can help us love people when it’s difficult to get past what we see and hear in them.
The church of Jesus Christ is increasingly divided among factions and peoples who find it nearly impossible to "love one another as he has loved us." It’s no wonder our proclamation has so little impact. So we have ample opportunity to practice loving those who interpret the Good News is ways that radically diverge from our ways of seeing, who seem to us to miss the whole point of Jesus’ grace and love. That's who we are commanded to love. Yikes!
And if we can find a way to love one another across the barriers that separate us? I do believe the world will finally know that Love of which we are stewards.
Much more was asked of the friends Jesus was addressing on his last night in human life. He set a pretty high standard for friendship: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
He knew what was ahead – for him, and for them. The persecution that would be unleashed on Jesus’ followers after his arrest, crucifixion and resurrection would eventually claim the lives of most of those with him at that momentous Last Supper. Before they could offer that kind of sacrifice, though, they would have to be willing to truly love each other. Jesus had said that keeping his commandments would enable them to abide in his love. “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”
Now he spells out the heart of that mandatum novum.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
"But we do love each other," they may have thought. After all, they’d spent three years in close quarters and sometimes no quarters at all. But the gospels tell us how much squabbling and jockeying went on among these disciples. And no matter what affection they may have had for each other, Jesus was now upping the stakes: they were to love each other as he loved them. That was a love that laid down everything to draw near them, that bore with their misjudgments and inability to grasp the ways of the Kingdom Jesus was trying to inculcate in them. That was a love that would ultimately lead to sacrificial death, and then an empty grave and new life beyond comprehension.
These men and women were to be the agents of sharing that new life with the world. They couldn’t do that if they didn’t love each other as Jesus had loved them. And so he commanded them to love, even unto death.
We are the beneficiaries of their love. The legacy they left, though it developed all the strains and dysfunction common to human institutions, also grew into the incubator and container from which sacrificial love can pour out in God’s mission. That kind of love is asked of us as well if we are to be part of God’s reclaiming, restoring, and renewing all things to wholeness.
How do we love like that? We can begin with allowing Jesus to love us like that, to truly take in the depth and breadth of his love, not only “back then” but now, forever and always. Those moments in which we grasp the extent of God’s love for us, deserved or not, help form us as vessels of that love for others.
We can also ask Jesus to show us his love for people we find it a challenge to love. His vision can help us love people when it’s difficult to get past what we see and hear in them.
The church of Jesus Christ is increasingly divided among factions and peoples who find it nearly impossible to "love one another as he has loved us." It’s no wonder our proclamation has so little impact. So we have ample opportunity to practice loving those who interpret the Good News is ways that radically diverge from our ways of seeing, who seem to us to miss the whole point of Jesus’ grace and love. That's who we are commanded to love. Yikes!
And if we can find a way to love one another across the barriers that separate us? I do believe the world will finally know that Love of which we are stewards.
5-5-15 - Joy
Joy is an elusive state of being – and a gift. It must be received; it cannot be acquired. We cannot achieve joy by trying, or by talking about it. I’ve tried. And yet it seems it is something Jesus wants his followers to possess: “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” (This week's Gospel passage is here.)
Joy defies easy definition. It is not the same as happiness or contentment, though it shares attributes with those conditions. It is deeper, a way of being and seeing that comes from the core of us, and gives us a sense of “alrightness” no matter what our circumstances. It takes deep faith, decisive faith to believe that “all things shall be well” in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. The evidence God gives us, of resurrection life triumphing over all evil and degradation, disease and death, can seem flimsy in the face of what our natural senses tell us. Those who possess joy are able to proclaim life in the face of death, not denying the reality of pain and evil, but living in the "already" of the victory Christ won over them.
Joy cannot be acquired or fabricated. But I think it can be cultivated. We can expand our capacity to receive joy. We can take the kernel that is there in us, which we are promised as a gift of the Spirit, and help it to grow. How do we cultivate joy and increase our capacity for joy?
We can start with gratitude. The spiritual practice of gratitude waters the seeds of joy in us. Calling to mind God’s gifts to us, unexpected blessings, all the times things do work out against the odds, or in spite of them, creates an atmosphere in us in which joy can grow and flourish. Similarly, compassion for ourselves and for others helps nurture a climate in which joy can thrive.
We can also flex our “joy muscles.” We must decide to be people of joy, apart from how we feel on a given day or hour. If we accept that joy is a gift of the Spirit, and we accept that Jesus names it as a mark of Christ-followers, we can commit ourselves to letting it grow in us. So often we let anxiety or grief to take root in us; for some, these are so deeply rooted we can’t imagine living without them. How about allowing God to plant the seed of joy that deep in us, to gradually uproot those life-squashing states of being?
What is your relationship to joy? Is it familiar to you, or rare? Some of us didn’t learn joy growing up, or have had it suppressed by circumstances. We need to make space for it now, as a choice and a decision.
If we allow that God has already planted the seed of joy in us, then we need to water it and weed around it and make sure it gets plenty of sunlight. We water it with gratitude and compassion and generosity. We weed away the cares and preoccupations that threaten to choke our joy – worry, envy, competitiveness, greed, gluttony – the usual suspects. And we give it plenty of exposure to the light of the Son in prayer, and worship and mission.
Jesus told his followers he wanted their joy to be complete. Not just a little – the whole deal. We can feel and show forth joy in times of trial and sadness, stress and adversity. Perhaps, like the light cast by a beacon on a stormy night, joy is most visible in the dark.
Joy defies easy definition. It is not the same as happiness or contentment, though it shares attributes with those conditions. It is deeper, a way of being and seeing that comes from the core of us, and gives us a sense of “alrightness” no matter what our circumstances. It takes deep faith, decisive faith to believe that “all things shall be well” in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. The evidence God gives us, of resurrection life triumphing over all evil and degradation, disease and death, can seem flimsy in the face of what our natural senses tell us. Those who possess joy are able to proclaim life in the face of death, not denying the reality of pain and evil, but living in the "already" of the victory Christ won over them.
Joy cannot be acquired or fabricated. But I think it can be cultivated. We can expand our capacity to receive joy. We can take the kernel that is there in us, which we are promised as a gift of the Spirit, and help it to grow. How do we cultivate joy and increase our capacity for joy?
We can start with gratitude. The spiritual practice of gratitude waters the seeds of joy in us. Calling to mind God’s gifts to us, unexpected blessings, all the times things do work out against the odds, or in spite of them, creates an atmosphere in us in which joy can grow and flourish. Similarly, compassion for ourselves and for others helps nurture a climate in which joy can thrive.
We can also flex our “joy muscles.” We must decide to be people of joy, apart from how we feel on a given day or hour. If we accept that joy is a gift of the Spirit, and we accept that Jesus names it as a mark of Christ-followers, we can commit ourselves to letting it grow in us. So often we let anxiety or grief to take root in us; for some, these are so deeply rooted we can’t imagine living without them. How about allowing God to plant the seed of joy that deep in us, to gradually uproot those life-squashing states of being?
What is your relationship to joy? Is it familiar to you, or rare? Some of us didn’t learn joy growing up, or have had it suppressed by circumstances. We need to make space for it now, as a choice and a decision.
If we allow that God has already planted the seed of joy in us, then we need to water it and weed around it and make sure it gets plenty of sunlight. We water it with gratitude and compassion and generosity. We weed away the cares and preoccupations that threaten to choke our joy – worry, envy, competitiveness, greed, gluttony – the usual suspects. And we give it plenty of exposure to the light of the Son in prayer, and worship and mission.
Jesus told his followers he wanted their joy to be complete. Not just a little – the whole deal. We can feel and show forth joy in times of trial and sadness, stress and adversity. Perhaps, like the light cast by a beacon on a stormy night, joy is most visible in the dark.
5-4-15 - Love and Commandments
Here are two things that do not go together: love and and commandments! Since when is keeping commandments a sign of love? What happened to flowers and chocolates? Oh, it starts out okay; Jesus tells his followers, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”
That I get - the love which we have received is what we give to others; love is something we can abide in, hang out with. That sounds beautiful and comforting and profound and unconditional. But Jesus isn’t finished: “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.” (This week's gospel passage is here.)
I know those psalms that talk about how “the law of the Lord" is sweet, like honey, but I confess I think of commandments as “shoulds” and love as “want to” and never the twain shall meet. This verse certainly makes it sound as if God’s love is not unconditional after all, and highly contingent upon our ability to obey. Since I tend to I prize unconditional love above all other theological concepts, and because I think efforts to obey are bound to end in failure, disappointment and self-condemnation, I react negatively to this word.
But let’s take a closer look. Jesus is not saying, “If you keep my commandments, I will keep loving you.” He says, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” There is no change to the love in which we are invited to abide, only to our capacity for experiencing that love. Keeping Jesus’ commandments, he is saying, makes us better able to swim in the love of God flowing to and around us at all times. It puts us in the “head space” and “heart space” to receive – and give – the love of God.
Jesus was the One who best made visible God’s love for humanity. He lived it, taught it, demonstrated it, finally died and rose again to complete it here on earth. He is saying that it was his fidelity to God’s commandments that made him able to manifest God’s love. And likewise, that our fidelity to his commandments makes us able to show forth his love in this world. We need only recall times in our lives when we’ve been in the grip of attitudes or behaviors that were outside of God’s will for us to know how much our ability to love can become compromised.
Could it be that God’s commandments are not about our ability to “be good,” but intended to enable us to be Love? Perhaps I think of commandments as guilt-inducing rather than loving because trying to live into God’s commands without the power of God’s love at work in us is an uphill climb. With God’s love flowing through us, it becomes more like riding a bike with plenty of gears, so we can keep a steady pace no matter what the terrain.
Where are you experiencing a lot of love in your life, from God or other people, or from yourself toward others? Where is it a little choked off?
Are you in the grip of anxiety or resentment, or taking from another? Are there adjustments you can make to the way you are thinking, acting, loving, to become more Christ-like?
It’s a chicken-and-egg thing. We can’t really live into God’s commands without God’s love in us, and we can’t fully abide in God’s love without living the way God commands us. We need to focus on both. The great news is that, as we increase in each area, the other increases too – the more we abide in God’s love, the easier it is to live God’s way, and finally we discover that living God’s way opens us to more love than we could ever imagine.
That I get - the love which we have received is what we give to others; love is something we can abide in, hang out with. That sounds beautiful and comforting and profound and unconditional. But Jesus isn’t finished: “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.” (This week's gospel passage is here.)
I know those psalms that talk about how “the law of the Lord" is sweet, like honey, but I confess I think of commandments as “shoulds” and love as “want to” and never the twain shall meet. This verse certainly makes it sound as if God’s love is not unconditional after all, and highly contingent upon our ability to obey. Since I tend to I prize unconditional love above all other theological concepts, and because I think efforts to obey are bound to end in failure, disappointment and self-condemnation, I react negatively to this word.
But let’s take a closer look. Jesus is not saying, “If you keep my commandments, I will keep loving you.” He says, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” There is no change to the love in which we are invited to abide, only to our capacity for experiencing that love. Keeping Jesus’ commandments, he is saying, makes us better able to swim in the love of God flowing to and around us at all times. It puts us in the “head space” and “heart space” to receive – and give – the love of God.
Jesus was the One who best made visible God’s love for humanity. He lived it, taught it, demonstrated it, finally died and rose again to complete it here on earth. He is saying that it was his fidelity to God’s commandments that made him able to manifest God’s love. And likewise, that our fidelity to his commandments makes us able to show forth his love in this world. We need only recall times in our lives when we’ve been in the grip of attitudes or behaviors that were outside of God’s will for us to know how much our ability to love can become compromised.
Could it be that God’s commandments are not about our ability to “be good,” but intended to enable us to be Love? Perhaps I think of commandments as guilt-inducing rather than loving because trying to live into God’s commands without the power of God’s love at work in us is an uphill climb. With God’s love flowing through us, it becomes more like riding a bike with plenty of gears, so we can keep a steady pace no matter what the terrain.
Where are you experiencing a lot of love in your life, from God or other people, or from yourself toward others? Where is it a little choked off?
Are you in the grip of anxiety or resentment, or taking from another? Are there adjustments you can make to the way you are thinking, acting, loving, to become more Christ-like?
It’s a chicken-and-egg thing. We can’t really live into God’s commands without God’s love in us, and we can’t fully abide in God’s love without living the way God commands us. We need to focus on both. The great news is that, as we increase in each area, the other increases too – the more we abide in God’s love, the easier it is to live God’s way, and finally we discover that living God’s way opens us to more love than we could ever imagine.
5-1-15 - On the Vine
“Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Context is everything. These words, to modern ears, can sound insufferably egomaniacal, pompous, even abusive. Spoken by Jesus, to his closest followers, shortly before he takes his leave of them forever? Loving truth about where their power for ministry comes from.
“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
If we’re talking vines and branches, it’s clear: the branch cannot generate fruit if it is cut off from the vine. And a branch cut off from the vine, whether by pruning shears or by withering, is good for nothing. But what about when we’re talking people? Disciples? Can there be no good done in the world without its doers being connected to Jesus?
This passage does not address that question. Jesus is talking here to insiders, believers, disciples. He has been training them in the ways of the Kingdom of God, equipping them to participate in the mission of God to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness. THAT fruit, he says, is not possible apart from him. There might be all kinds of holy people, makers of peace, bringers of justice who have no discernible connection to God in Jesus Christ. But ministers of the Good News? We need to be connected to the Vine.
What kind of nutrients come through a vine to its branches and ultimately the fruit they bear? I’m not a plant biologist, so I can only speculate generally. I imagine there are sugars and enzymes needed for growth, for warding off diseases, for the formation of fruit. As the vine harnesses nutrition from its roots in the soil, and the water it receives, and the chemicals unleashed by the sunshine, it passes along to the branches what they need to be as whole and life-giving as possible. And the only way the branch gets what it needs to be fruitful is through staying connected to the vine.
So let’s transfer the metaphor to us. Jesus says he is the Vine, we are the branches. He is rooted in the long tradition of God's activity since before time. He is himself the source of Water of Life. He is glorified in the light of God; indeed he is the Light of the World. Through our connection to him - united with him in baptism, renewed in him in prayer and holy eucharist - we receive everything we need to exercise ministries of transformation.
And how do we stay connected? By spending time with him in prayer; by gathering with other branches regularly; through the Word, the sacraments; through the exercise of ministry in his Name – which means, letting his Spirit work amazing things through us. We can feel the difference between doing good work on our own strength, and how it feels when we're running on Holy Spirit wind. When we allow ourselves to be filled and "loved through," those nutrients come through to us from the Vine.
Branches are not responsible for the fruit they bear. We just need to be as connected as possible, and if the vine is healthy, the fruit will grow. Our Vine is Jesus – we can trust there will be wonderful fruit as we are faithful. Here endeth the metaphor!
“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
If we’re talking vines and branches, it’s clear: the branch cannot generate fruit if it is cut off from the vine. And a branch cut off from the vine, whether by pruning shears or by withering, is good for nothing. But what about when we’re talking people? Disciples? Can there be no good done in the world without its doers being connected to Jesus?
This passage does not address that question. Jesus is talking here to insiders, believers, disciples. He has been training them in the ways of the Kingdom of God, equipping them to participate in the mission of God to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness. THAT fruit, he says, is not possible apart from him. There might be all kinds of holy people, makers of peace, bringers of justice who have no discernible connection to God in Jesus Christ. But ministers of the Good News? We need to be connected to the Vine.
What kind of nutrients come through a vine to its branches and ultimately the fruit they bear? I’m not a plant biologist, so I can only speculate generally. I imagine there are sugars and enzymes needed for growth, for warding off diseases, for the formation of fruit. As the vine harnesses nutrition from its roots in the soil, and the water it receives, and the chemicals unleashed by the sunshine, it passes along to the branches what they need to be as whole and life-giving as possible. And the only way the branch gets what it needs to be fruitful is through staying connected to the vine.
So let’s transfer the metaphor to us. Jesus says he is the Vine, we are the branches. He is rooted in the long tradition of God's activity since before time. He is himself the source of Water of Life. He is glorified in the light of God; indeed he is the Light of the World. Through our connection to him - united with him in baptism, renewed in him in prayer and holy eucharist - we receive everything we need to exercise ministries of transformation.
And how do we stay connected? By spending time with him in prayer; by gathering with other branches regularly; through the Word, the sacraments; through the exercise of ministry in his Name – which means, letting his Spirit work amazing things through us. We can feel the difference between doing good work on our own strength, and how it feels when we're running on Holy Spirit wind. When we allow ourselves to be filled and "loved through," those nutrients come through to us from the Vine.
Branches are not responsible for the fruit they bear. We just need to be as connected as possible, and if the vine is healthy, the fruit will grow. Our Vine is Jesus – we can trust there will be wonderful fruit as we are faithful. Here endeth the metaphor!
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