More great stuff from Chrysostom

This is attached to the end of John Chrysostom's reflections on John 16:15. It is a great statement on the power of unity, both of mind and heart.

There is nothing equal to unanimity and concord; for so one is manifold. If two or ten are of one mind, the one is one no longer, but each one is multiplied tenfold, and you will find the one in the ten, and the ten in the one; and if they have an enemy, he who attacks the one, as having attacked the ten, is vanquished; for he is the mark not for one, but for ten opponents. No, he is not in want, for he is wealthy in his greater part, that is, in the nine; and the needy part, the lesser, is concealed by the wealthy part, the greater. Each of these has twenty hands, twenty eyes, and as many feet. For he sees not with his own eyes alone, but with those of others; he walks not with his own feet alone, bu with those of others; he works not with his own hands alone, but with theirs. He has ten souls, for not only does he take thought for himself, but those souls also for him. And if he be made a hundred, it will still be the same, and their power will be extended. See the excess of love, how it makes the one both irresistible and manifold, how one can even be in many places, the same both in Persia and in Rome, and that what nature cannot do, love can. If then he have a thousand or two thosand friends, consider again whither his power will extend. Do you see what an increase-giving thing is love? Why then do we not acquire this power and place ourselves in safety? This is better than all power or riches. Suppose a man without a friend, a mark of utmost folly, what sort of life will such a one lead? For though he be infinitely rich, in plenty and luxury, possessed of ten thousand good things, yet is he desolate and bare of all. But in the case of friends not so; though they be poor men, yet are they better provided than the wealthy. For this cause we salute one another at the Mysteries, that being many we may become one; and in the case of the uninitiated, we make our prayers common, supplicating for the sick, and for the produce of the world, for land and sea. Do you see all the power of love? This is what causes all good things. If we hold carefully to this, we shall both rightly dispense things present, and also obtain the Kingdom; which may we all obtain through the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom and with whom, to the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory, for ever and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

First thoughts on John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Jesus identifies the Holy Spirit as the Advocate, or Helper. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and is sent by the Son. It is the Spirit of truth, who testifies on behalf of Christ. So, the Spirit is the Advocate of the Son. Often, at least for me, I think of the Spirit of the Advocate for us. Actually, Jesus is our Advocate, because He prays for us. But the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ Advocate, speaking on His behalf. And we, His disciples are also to testify on behalf of Jesus. We are Jesus’ advocates.
Jesus is telling His disciples these things now because He is about to leave them, as we talked about last week. He is preparing them for His ascension and for what they will be called on to do after He leaves. The disciples, realizing that Jesus will leave them, are so sorrowful they cannot speak. Jesus needs to go so that the disciples can receive the Advocate, that is, Jesus’ Advocate. The Advocate will be of benefit for the disciples because it is the Advocate that proves the world wrong about sin, righteousness, and judgment. It is not all on the disciples to convince the world. This is what the role of the Holy Spirit is, to be the Advocate sent from the Father, by the Son, to convince the world. The Spirit, as an Advocate, will also further convince and guide the disciples into all truth. The Holy Spirit does not speak on His own, just as the Son does not speak on His own. The Spirit, the Son, the Father, they are of one mind and will. What the Spirit speaks is in agreement with the Father and the Son. When the Holy Spirit speaks, the Father and the Son speak. He glorifies the Son because He is an Advocate, or testifier on behalf of the Son. The Spirit testifies to the glory and power of the Son, to whom the Father has given all things.
Verses 12-13 are significant. Jesus was not able to share with the disciples everything they needed to know because they could not bear it all. The Holy Spirit continues to reveal the truth to the church over time. The book of Acts, especially Acts 15, shows how the Holy Spirit continues to guide the church into all truth. We believe that the Spirit continues even today to guide the church into all truth. Much of what is truth has been settled. The Spirit does not lead us into truth that contradicts what has been received. The mystery of God is endless and unknowable. Yet, the Spirit continues to guide us into what we once did not know. It is important to remember that the example of how the Spirit leads the church into truth is through conciliarity. It takes time, and it isn’t always smooth. But the main point is that we do not know everything there is to know about the mystery of God. The Spirit still speaks, still testifies, still guides the church into all truth. So while we defend what has been revealed, we remain open to deeper understanding.
When Jesus says the Spirit will tell the disciples what will happen, I wonder if this could mean that as we look at the past and find parallels to our own time, the Spirit helps us discern what will happen because we see the patterns. For example, we are going through a period that has a parallel to the time of the Great Reformation. Perhaps the Holy Spirit will guide us as we look to the past to find markers for where we may be heading in the future. Also, prophets speak by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Prophets are not fortune tellers, however. They don’t predict the future, except to the extent that this is what will happen if people don’t change, or that God will restore the righteous and destroy the wicked. With this first idea, that by looking back the Spirit can guide us into an understanding of what will happen, that this is an aspect of how the Spirit continues to guide us into all truth. This is of advantage to us, because if we can affirm previous patterns, then the future becomes less mysterious and frightening, and hopefully less bloody than previous times of transformation, such as the 15th and 16th centuries.
Tertullian makes the point that the disciples did not know everything about God. But they did know some things because the Spirit guided them in to what they did know. We hold to what the apostles taught, because it was revealed by the Spirit. But we also acknowledge that there is more to know, that the apostles did not know everything. Still, they knew something. And the something they knew we have received as Tradition.
Related to this, Cyprian points out some of the predictions that Jesus and Paul gave. Christians can expect persecution. This will happen. But those who suffer for Christ can expect a reward in heaven. This “prediction” is based on past experience. The Spirit is the revealer of what will be when we look back on what has happened, for we can anticipate patterns.
Augustine points out that the sending of the Holy Spirit not only comforted the disciples, enabling them to be bold witnesses of the truth, but the Spirit also convinced those who before had cried out for Christ to be crucified, leading them to repentance. The Holy Spirit gives the believer confidence to be a witness, and convicts and convinces those who before were enemies of Christ.

On John 17:6-19

Thursday marked the 40th day after Easter, which is the day when Jesus ascended to heaven. His ascension into heaven is as important as the rest of his ministry on earth. It is not an add-on. It is important because of who Jesus is when he returns to heaven. When he came down from heaven he was fully divine. But when he returned to heaven he was fully divine and fully human. He came down as God. He returned as God and human, as one of us. Jesus was the first human to enter heaven. It was necessary for him to return to heaven to fulfill His purpose, which is to make a way for all of us to go to heaven. The ascension completes Jesus Christ’s mission to earth. Now He sits at the right hand of the Father. And He prays for us. Isn’t it good to know that of all the people that may be praying for you, there is another person that is lifting you up in prayer, and that person is Jesus Christ?
What we have in ch. 17 is Jesus praying for His disciples, and for us. The disciples, and us, are overhearing this prayer that Jesus is offering. And there is a lot in this prayer. You know, the way John writes, with a limited vocabulary and with words and phrases that are woven together and have layer upon layer of meaning. He can pack a lot of meaning in an economy of words. And sometimes it’s hard to unravel all that is being said here. So it is with his writing down of the prayer Jesus offers for his disciples. It’s a challenge to understand everything being said in this prayer. We’re going to try to follow a few threads.
Before getting into some of what Jesus is praying for, let’s reflect on what the disciples would be facing once Jesus left them. Most of us have experienced the realization that the one we depended on for daily life, for guidance, for security, for stability, that this person has left us. Maybe it was your mom or dad. Maybe it was your wife or husband. Maybe it was your closest friend. And life without that person is a life that feels very different. Your world is turned upside down. You are lost. This person was such a part of your life that without them life just doesn’t seem like it can hold together. It is a confusing, uncertain, and unsettling place to be. It could perhaps even make a person wish that they could die too.
Jesus knew that once He left His disciples, that they were going to be vulnerable. Their whole life was wrapped around Him. They would be confused and uncertain about what they were supposed to do now that Jesus was gone. It was because of what the disciples were going to need, in order to keep it together and keep living the life Jesus taught them, that Jesus prayed to His Father. He cared about His disciples. He loved them. He wasn’t going to just leave them on their own. He was going to lift them up in prayer so that they could be confident and unified after He leaves them.
One of the things Jesus prays for is for His disciples to be protected. Jesus says in the prayer, “I have protected them while I was with them. And I have kept them together, united in their faith, except for one who by necessity had to betray me in order to fulfill the scriptures. So now, I put them in Your hands. You protect them.” While Jesus was with them, He protected His disciples from straying away from the faith, except Judas, of course. By His teaching and His example He was able to show them how to live, how to be truly human as God made us to live. Now that He was leaving, He knew that the disciples were still going to need some help in this area because living like we are meant to live, ironically, is very hard to do. Sin is rampant. We have a tendency to not live as we ought. So Jesus is not willing to leave us on our own because He knows that won’t work out so well. So, He prays to His Father to protect us. And that’s what the Father does, by sending down the Holy Spirit to be a paraclete. Paraclete means to come alongside. The Father protects the disciples, protects us, by sending the Holy Spirit to come alongside us, to teach us, to compel us, to correct us, to show us the way, to heal us of the ravages of sin that afflict us, so that we can more fully live our lives as God intends for us. So, one thing that Jesus prays for is that they not be left on their own but that the Father now protect them, and us. And the Father answers that prayer by sending among us the Holy Spirit. And that’s what we will celebrate next Sunday, which is the Day of Pentecost.
The other thing Jesus prays for is for the disciples to be sanctified. To be sanctified is to be set aside for a special purpose. Jesus is sanctified. He, being a man, was set apart for a special purpose, which is to redeem all of humanity from slavery to sin and death. Jesus prays that the Father would sanctify His disciples, set them apart, for a special purpose. The Father answers this prayer. The disciples, and us, are being sanctified, that is, being set apart for a special purpose. We are becoming something different from what is common. We are uncommon, or, as Paul once described us Christians, a peculiar people. There is something qualitatively different about us. Jesus talks in the prayer about how He is not of this world and says that His disciples are also not of this world. Here, world means worldview, the way one understands reality. It is our experience as Christians that when we look at the world and our lives through the lens of faith, that the world looks different and our place in the world, our understanding of the world and what most matters, it all changes. It is as if we have been born again. As followers of Jesus, we are being set apart, in the world but not of it. We live here, but our citizenship is in heaven. You could say that as Christians we have a sort of dual citizenship. We are Americans but we bow our heads only to God. We love, support, defend, and pray for our nation. And we are grateful for those who have died to protect and extend the principles upon which this nation was formed and seeks to perfect. We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. But there is another country, another nation, a holy nation, with a King and a Law, to which we obey and are ultimately accountable to. The king is Jesus and the Law is the Law of love. And that holy nation is the church, a nation that is held together by Christ, a nation that recognizes no border of geography or even of time. For we, the church, are a nation in which it matters not if you are an American or an Iranian. Nor does it matter if you are alive on earth or in heaven, for we believe in the communion of the saints, that all who have died in faith are gathered together and are among us, looking down on us. So, dual citizenship, maybe that captures the set apartness that Jesus prays for us. William Willimon has captured something of the dynamic of who we are by saying that we are resident aliens. Our true home is heaven and we are a colony, God’s kingdom on earth. Paul talks about how we are ambassadors of Christ. Our church buildings can be understood as embassies, or “heavenly consulates.” This is what Jesus is getting at in this prayer, that just as He is not of the world, so we are to not be of the world but separate, distinctive, an alternative way of being. Still in the world, but not of it.
I know, this is getting kind of deep. Let me try to tie this down by pointing out the impact of this prayer on the disciples. What is reassuring to the disciples, and for us, in this prayer is that as Jesus is leaving them, He is not leaving the disciples to fend for themselves. He’s not turning the keys over to Peter and the rest and saying, “Good luck. Don’t mess it up.” No, Jesus is praying for them. And He’s praying for us. We have the Holy Spirit, to guide, guard, and protect us. We, as the church, are not on our own. Even though Jesus is not physically present, He is still connected to His disciples. Jesus did not place His disciples into the hands of some great, divinely appointed leader. He placed His disciples into the hands of His Father. There can be no greater assurance of protection than this, to know that we are in good hands, the hands of the One who created us.
Their future, our future, the future of the church, is in the hands of God. And that is good news. The church has faced ups and downs all through its history. The church has been and still is persecuted and threatened. The church has and still is experiencing great vitality and growth. There have been high points in our life together and there have been low points when the church was hanging on by a thread, a barely flickering candle. Through all the threats, external and internal, the church remains. And the future of the church is secure, of this we can be certain. That is because the future of the church is not in our hands. The future of the church is in God’s hands. It is not our burden to save the church. It is our burden to be the church. Our burden, our task, is to follow the Spirit. Our task is to be who we are, children of our heavenly Father, the hands and feet of the Son, being born anew and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Our task is to be one, even as the Father and the Son are one, that is, united in mind and will. It is a big task. But we are not on our own. Our future is in God’s hands. So, let us learn from the past, live for today, and trust our future to God.

about helping the poor

This is an excerpt from John Chrysostom teaching on John 17:6-13. It doesn't really fit with the passage. But I love what he says about the benefit of helping the poor.

Wherefore I pray and beseech you not to bring loss on yourselves, nor, keeping hold of mire, rob yourselves of the treasures which are above, bringing your vessel to port laden with straw and chaff. Let each say what he will concerning us, let him be angry at our continual admonitions, let him call us silly, tedious, tiresome, still we will not desist from continually repeating to you that of the Prophet, "Break off your sins by almsgiving, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor (Daniel 4:27)". Do not act in this way today, and desist tomorrow. For even this body has need of daily food; and so too has the soul, or rather that much more; and if it give not, it becomes weaker and more vile. Let us then not neglect it when it is perishing, choking. Many wounds it receives each day, by being lustful, angry, slothful, revilling, revengeful, envious. It is therefore necessary to prepare also remedies for it, and no small remedy is that of almsgiving, which can be placed on every wound. For "give alms, of such things as you have, and behold all things are clean for you." (Luke 11:41) Alms, not covetousness, for that which proceeds from covetousness does not last, you who give to those who need. For almsgiving is that which is free from all injustice. This makes all things clean. This is a thing better even than fasting, or prostrations; they may be more painful and laborious, but this more profitable. It enlightens the soul, makes it sleek, beautiful, and vigorous. Not so does the fruit of the olive hold up the athletes, as this oil recovers the combatants of piety. Let us then anoint our hands, that we may lift them up well against our adversary. He that practices showing mercy to him that needs it, will soon cease from covetousness, he who continues in giving to the poor, will soon cease from anger, and will never even be high-minded. For as the physician continually tending wounded persons is easily sobered, beholding human nature in the calamities of others; so we, if we enter upon the work of aiding the poor, shall easily become truly wise, and shall not admire riches, nor deem present things any great matter, but despise them all, and soaring aloft to heaven, shall easily obtain the eternal blessings, through the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ; to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Ritually real

This is the bulk of an email written by Taylor Burton-Edwards, who is with the General Board of Discipleship of the UMC and also a member of the Order of St. Luke, which I affiliate with. This is a thought provoking connection between ritual practice, neuroscience, and the experience of God.

What Is Ritual Realism?
Actually, I don't know exactly where this phrase came from. I may have
coined it, I don't know. But it seems to me to capture, as does Sr Sarah's
excellent description of real presence, what I am finding to be a point of
convergence in the circles where I travel in the UMC and ecumenically.

If I were to try to summarize what I mean by it, or what I understand it to
mean, it would be this:
What we do in ritual is just as real as what we do in other venues of our
discipleship to Jesus Christ. Ritual is not merely metaphorizing our truth
before God. Ritual action compresses and intensifies the reality of our
lives with God and each other.

Put positively, what ritual can accomplish, in this sense, is a powerful
connection by all present with what is "really real" or "real beyond real."
This kind of perception of "super-reality" that emerges both from ritual
action and from more intensive "spiritual practices"over time is now being
explored rather deeply in both ritual studies and neuroscience. I would
commend Newberg and d'Aquili's "Why God Won't Go Away" for one of the more
recent explorations in this direction. Newber's work is also being featured
this week on All Things Considered. Yesterday's installment (transcript and
audio) is here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104310443 Barbara
Bradley Hagerty's new book, Fingerprints of God, also explores this
territory. (See the Time Magazine interview and review, here:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1898804,00.html

Given that ritual and spiritual practice have this capacity to connect
people to the "really real," what happens in ritual does matter. The symbols
matter-- they are not "merely referential." We are not pretending, but we
are making believe. From a neuroscientific perspective, we are wiring our
brains and strengthening the neuronal connections every time we repeat the
same practices. This is why for those who receive the Eucharist regularly,
for example, there is actually not a sense that it is "less important" over
time. Quite the reverse: the importance is amplified, the reality more
concretely felt-- perhaps not in each instance, but definitely so over time.

Put negatively, the failure to recognize how our brains are wired for ritual
realism, and not just for "pretending," means we create the potential to
reinforce actual neural disjunctions for people every time we "interrupt"
the reality of what we're doing with any sort of "explanation" that says,
"Well, we "say" this is the body of Christ, but, you know, we don't really
MEAN that."

That neuronal disconnect-- and its reinforcement-- can happen through words,
symbols, or actions. I've just given an example of the words. Or, one of my
pet peeves, not singing AMEN at the end of "Praise to the Lord, the
Almighty" when the final line is "Let the Amen, sound from God's people
again, gladly forever adoring"... and then instead, "You may be seated." An
example of symbols doing this might be the use of hardly any water in
baptism, or the use of bad tasting bread or wine/juice at the Eucharist, or
not actually reading from scripture in the service of the word. Examples of
actions doing this include reading rather than praying the Eucharistic
prayer, failing to use any sort of "manual acts" (failing to embody the
prayer), or, as the example that started the previous thread, treating the
consecrated bread and wine with disrespect, thus violating the principle of
real presence we SAY we believe.

Ritual realism, among other things, invites us to recognize how our brains
actually work and so to embody by our words, our symbols, and our actions
such coherence between what we say, what we show, what we sense (taste,
hear, smell, see and touch), and what we do (gesture, rhythm, motion) that
no neuronal disjunctions take place. When these things happen with deep
coherence, stronger neuronal bonds are made and deeper encounters with God
are made more possible for all in the assembly.

Transubstantiation and consubstantiation, as I see them, are both ways of
trying to explain, after the fact as it were, what is already sensed at the
Eucharist when it is offered well. We do encounter the body and blood of
Christ there in our own bodies. Transubstantiation tries to explain that in
categories of substance and accidents, borrowed from Plato and Aristotle.
Consubstantiation rejects that kind of description of ontology (that somehow
the substance, whatever that is, is more real than its physical form, the
accidents) and rather than claiming transformation of substance
(transsubtantiation) claims instead the real presence of Christ, perhaps
"added," "in, with and under the signs of bread and wine." Ritual realism
can live with either explanation but needs neither of them. What it cannot
live with is the insistence that the ONLY right way to understand this
mystery is either of them. That is because, from a neurological perspective,
the moment you leap from the ritual reality of the presence of Christ to an
explanation of the same, you have just created a disjunction, or at least
you have just interrupted the inputs from the limbic system and placed the
primary focus in the pre-frontal cortex. You have moved from the reality
itself, Christ present, to an abstraction of that reality, the explanation
of how.

More reflections on John 17:6-19

I could talk about the distinctions between the worlds. Jesus was in the world, now is no longer in the world. He is not of this world. We, as believers, are also no longer of this world. We are in the world, but not of the world. We are not of the world because we are increasingly able to see the unseeable. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we perceive what those without faith can’t perceive. To those without faith, Jesus speaks in parables. But for us who have the Holy Spirit, Jesus speaks plainly, in the sense that we are able to understand the parables which Jesus speaks. He opens our minds to understand the scriptures (Luke 24:45).
Augustine points out that Jesus is referring to the Church in vs. 6, and not to the 11 apostles only. What glory is there in being known only by 11 people? Not the apostles only, but to the Church, the Bride of Christ, who belongs to the Father and has been given to Christ, to whom Christ has made His name known, and the Church which keeps His Word. However, Jesus also is speaking specifically of the apostles.
Reflecting on vv. 12-13, Augustine says that Jesus is talking about his bodily presence only. When he was physically present with the apostles, he protected them. But now that he was about to ascend bodily back to the Father, he prays for them. Jesus is still with us spiritually. But now he is physically at the right hand of the Father and will, physically, return one day to judge the nations.
The Father and Son are one in essence. We, as Christians, are one in essence. This unity, when it is manifested, stirs joy within us. Our hope is to fully realize our unity in Christ, which will be the fullness of joy of which Jesus speaks, who is fully human and fully divine in one Person. Joy is manifested in unity.
By the Holy Spirit, we are regenerated, born anew. This is how we are drawn out of the world, by being born of water and the spirit. Jesus has never been of the world because he was born by the Holy Spirit. We were not born of the spirit, which is why we entered life in the world. But now, by the grace of God and by our response, we are born anew, and are now not of the world. However, we remain in the world, but not of it. We remain in order to witness to Christ, even as we know that our citizenship is now in heaven.
When Jesus says He sanctifies Himself, He means that He sanctifies humanity in His Person. We, as humans, are being sanctified in our humanity as we live our lives in Christ. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

notes on John 17:6-19

I have decided, in addition to posting my sermons, to also post my notes as they come along as I prepare my sermons. They may provide further grist for anyone who reads them. It will be the weeds and wheat. So, here goes.

This passage is a portion of a long prayer offered by Jesus. It begins by Jesus speaking on behalf of his disciples. He acknowledges that they belong to the Father, who has given them to Jesus. He affirms that they believe in Jesus and have received the words that Jesus received from the Father. In other words, the disciples are on the same page. They are faithful believers. Then, Jesus asks on their behalf for something. And he is asking only on their behalf, the disciples, and not on behalf of the whole world. A clear distinction is being made by Jesus. And he defends his distinction by affirming that the disciples he has belong to the Father. He clarifies that all He has belongs to the Father and that Jesus has been glorified in his disciples. With all these preliminaries, Jesus gives the reason for why he is offering this prayer on their behalf: because he is making a shift. He is leaving the world and returning to the Father, but the disciples will remain in the world. This has an impact on them. He asks, in vs. 11, for the Father to protect the disciples for a specific purpose: that they be one, even as the Son and the Father are one. Jesus’ greatest concern is unity among the disciples, that is, unity of mind and will, because that describes the unity of the Father and Son. Jesus affirms that while He was with the disciples, He protected them and kept them united in their faith, except Judas, who was destined to be the betrayer so that scripture might be fulfilled. I am not sure what verse 13 means. Perhaps what Jesus is saying is that as the disciples recall this prayer that Jesus is offering that it will inspire fullness of joy among them. I wonder what it is about what Jesus is saying that would inspire such communal joy. Jesus then repeats that He gave the disciples the Father’s word which has caused the world to hate the disciples as a result. The world hates the disciples and hates Jesus because he is not of this world and now, assuming because they belong to the Father, the disciples do not belong to the world either. Are there people who do not belong to the Father? Is there some kind of distinction between people in general and those who belong to the Father in a special relationship that removes them from the reality of the rest of the people of the world? I’m not sure what is being communicated here. I am weary of spiritual elitism or predestination. At any rate, Jesus repeats His request that the Father protect them now that Jesus is leaving them, that they be protected from the evil one. He repeats a second time that the disciples do not belong to the world just as Jesus does not belong to the world. I wonder if the reality of being united in mind and will among the Father, the Son, and the disciples is what marks a perhaps distinction of world view between them and those who are in the world. Perhaps those that are in the world, who fail to understand what Jesus is saying, do not understand because they cannot see, they are blinded by how they perceive reality. The disciples, however, have been illumined, and now have a different world view, thus, capable of believing in what Jesus teaches. This shift of world view is what shifts them out from remaining “in the world.” And they must be protected by the Father so that they do not shift back into the world view held by people “in the world.” Indeed, Jesus asks God to sanctify them in the truth. To be sanctified is to be set aside for holy purposes, turning what is common into what is holy. The sanctification of the disciples is enabled and guarded by the Truth which comes from the Father and which they have been enabled to receive. The disciples are sanctified, or, being sanctified, as they grow in their understanding of the truth. Thus, Jesus is sending them into the world, just as the Father sent the Son into the world. Verse 19, I’m not sure what that means either. What does it mean for Jesus to sanctify himself? How does He do anything “himself” since He and the Father are one? At any rate, the consequence of Jesus sanctifying Himself is that the disciples will also be sanctified in truth. I wonder if this relates in any way to their evangelistic and missional work that they are to do as those sent by Jesus into the world? After all, the disciples do not point to themselves but to Christ as the Light of the world. Jesus sanctifies himself so that the disciples can point others, not to themselves who are being sanctified, but to the One who is sanctified, Jesus Christ. I wonder why Jesus says that the disciples may be, and not will be, or are, sanctified. There’s a lot in this passage! Typical John.
One area to explore is the importance of unity in the church and how that relates to our ability to enjoy communion with God.

Jesus is Our Friend

Reflections on John 15:9-17

I want to start with a proposition that may seem obvious to all of you, but bears repeating. God is not our enemy, but our friend. God, the almighty, all powerful, and just. God is not against us. God is on our side. God is our friend. And this is in spite of our behavior. Even though we disregard God from time to time. Even though we don’t nurture our relationship with God as we should. Even though at times we have doubts about God. God remains our friend.
And this is real grace. Amazing grace. And great condescension. That the creator of the universe is even interested in us and wants to relate to us as friends when we aren’t even very good servants. Jesus reconciled us to Himself while we were enemies. We should remain reconciled now that we are friends. He also loved us while we were enemies. We should love Him now that we are friends. He loves us without any benefit from us, for He needs nothing. We should love Him because of the benefit we do receive. Jesus leads the way. We could at least follow. But the truth is that we consistently fail to do all these things. John Chrysostom said, “We have been ransomed by Christ, and are the slaves of gold. We proclaim the sovereignty of one and obey the other.”
The friendship that we have with God is initiated by Him, and not by us. This is what Christ is saying in the passage read for us this morning. Christ initiates the relationship, for our benefit and not His own. Christ chose us to be friends not for His own benefit. Christ needs nothing, lacks nothing. There is nothing we can give that will make Christ complete. Christ initiated this relationship, not for his benefit, but for our benefit. Nor did Christ choose us because of our accomplishments or how good we are. The truth is that Jesus chose to be our friends because we needed His friendship. We need it because He finds us sick. Jesus is the friend of sinners, of which we are the worst. Jesus came to seek and save the lost, and that describes us. Christ chose us and befriended us so that we could become well, that we would become better people as a result of this friendship offered to us by Christ. God sees us and knows what we can become. God “sees something in us” and wants to befriend us so as to help lift us up and bring out the good potential that is in us all.
Now it is clear that although Christ calls us friends, that we are friends of God, that does not mean we are buddies. There is no question who has the rank in this relationship. It is not an equal relationship among peers. We remain servants and we must submit to God and obey His commands. By no means are we in an equal relationship because we are friends. However, and this is so important, we do submit and obey God, not out of fear or by force, not by means of oppression or with bitter resentment, but as friends, as acts of love, as ways to nurture this great privileged relationship we find ourselves in.
We are God’s servants. But we are not pawns. We are not expendable to God. We are not faceless cogs in God’s divine plan. Nor are we just a number on God’s employee list. Nor do we have to make an appointment to talk to God, only get a glimpse of Him at the “company picnic.” We can have a word with God at any time and God knows us on a first name basis. In fact, God knows us better than we know ourselves. And so we serve God, acknowledging the supreme power of God and that God is just and does hold us accountable. Punishment and destruction remains in God’s arsenal, if you will. God is no push over. We should always maintain a reverent fear of God. Yet, at the same time, we are compelled to be good and faithful servants out of love. We serve God, not because we fear God, but because we love God, who calls us His friends.
Last week, Jadon and I, along with his Tiger Cub den, got to take a tour of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Sharon Morgan, I believe, was the name of our guide. She has worked for the Enquirer for 21 years. She started as a young woman, only given work on the weekends. She worked on the weekends for eight years, until she finally was given more responsibility. We expressed how impressed we were with her dedication all those years. She admitted it was tough, but she loves it. She loves the newspaper. She loves working here. And what other reason than love would be a motivation to stick it out so long, especially when you have the option to walk away. And that’s the point here. This is why God wants to be our friend. This is why we are to be motivated to serve God out of love and not of fear. Because love is the motivator that lasts. Only love keeps us going through the tough times. Only love enables us to stick it out when we always have the freedom to walk away. And as servants of God, the freedom to walk away from God is always an option. God does not have a chain around us or a gun pointed at our heads. This is the truth of the matter, only love is sufficient to motivate us to serve God for a life time.
And what is our command from God? What is our job? To love one another. We are to love. And we love because God first loved us. God exemplifies self-giving love to us. We look to Christ as our first and greatest example of love. You could say to be a disciple of Jesus is to be a student of love. We look to Christ to show us how to love so that we can love one another. We are loved first. Then we are commanded to love. Christ loved us first. Christ chose us first to be His friends. The relationship was established first. Then came the command, the appointment, to bear fruit that lasts.
And this is the fruit that lasts: love for one another. I was privileged to see that love before my eyes these past few days, witnessing the celebration of the life of Patti Brown and the celebration of the marriage of Yeti Osinbowale and Ade Okunye. The love everyone had for the other who had been brought together in a time of need, the friendship that was on display, I can only say that God was pleased, indeed was present with us in a very real way. These were no throw away experiences, like yesterday’s news. These were events that will carry lasting memory, the funeral, the wedding. Fruit was produced over the past few days that will last among those of us that were privileged to share in thess acts of love for one another.
At the end of 1 Corinthians 13, we are told that these three abide: faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these three is love. Love is the most abiding, the most lasting, of all the fruits. Love is the summation of all the commandments of God. To love, this is our primary task, as friends of God and as servants of God. And the extent to which we produce this love cannot be exhausted in our life, and pushes us, compels us, to contemplate a love for each other that goes far beyond our comfort level. For we are called not just to love our family, which sometimes can be hard indeed. Nor are we called only to love our friends, or friends of friends. Yes, we are called, commanded, to love our enemies. When we love our enemies, we are realizing a depth of love that very few achieve.
A few chapters later in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 28, is a verse that drives our mission and points to what is at stake as we make our feeble attempts to love one another, even the unlovable. God have mercy on us. The verse says, “Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.” This verse points to where all of history is headed, to a point where God may be all in all. When we love others, that is, submit to others, for love is expressed in submission to the one you love, then we are bringing about God’s will to be all in all. What I’m saying is this: when we love our enemies, we are claiming them for God. We are loving them as God loves them. We are loving God through them. We love others not for their own sake, and not for our own sake, but for God’s sake. As imitators of God, we love those of whom we will receive no benefit. We love those who do not love us first. We love those who are our enemies, because even while we were enemies of God, Christ died for us. That proves God’s love toward us. Can we prove our love towards God by following His example? How far we fall short. How amazing is God’s grace.

On John 15:1-8

This morning, our gospel reading teaches us of the interrelationship among the Father, Jesus Christ, and us. The key word in this interlocking relationship is the word “abide.” To abide is a state of being. To abide with someone is to have your identity melded with that person. The mother-child relationship is abiding. Husband-wife is the same. You are living your life within the context of this relationship. It is always present. You are in a married relationship, whether your spouse is presently with you. You are always the child of your mother. Just so, when we say about ourselves that we abide in Christ, as this passage calls us to, we are saying that our relationship with Christ is ongoing and always on. We don’t leave Jesus at the door of the church. We live our whole life as Christians, in relationship with Christ, wherever we are and at all times.
The other key word in this passage, a word that, although not in the scripture, describes the relationships is that of “interrelationship.” What this passage tells us is that “we are all in this together.” The branch needs the vine to produce fruit. The vine needs branches also to produce fruit. After all, a vine can’t produce fruit by itself. That’s what the branches are for. So if the vine is to be fruitful, it needs branches that will produce the fruit. And the vine grower also needs the vine and the branches to be functioning properly so that fruit can be produced. Again, the vine grower can’t produce fruit out of thin air. Finally, the world needs the vine grower, the vine, and the branches because the world needs the fruit the vine produces. That’s why the vine grower planted the vine, so that the vine grower could provide good fruit for the world He loves, and also so that He might be glorified as the greatest Vine Grower. So, you see, no one in this scenario acts on their own or is self-contained. The Father needs the Son, and the Son needs the Father. We need the Son. The world needs the Father, the Son, and us. God, us, we are all wound up together in this life, interconnected, interrelated, all in this together.
Now this needs to be looked at more closely. Let’s start with ourselves. To produce fruit, that is, to live a life that fulfills God’s purpose for us, we have to be connected to the vine. We have to abide in Christ, who is the vine. We cannot fulfill our purpose without abiding in Christ. Indeed, we can not be fully human, our truest and best selves, unless we abide in the true vine, which is Christ. The Holy Spirit, that energizes us and nourishes us, passes from Christ the vine into us. If, somehow, we close ourselves off to the Spirit, or to the vine, we whither and die. So, as John Wesley often said, we do no good thing on our own, but only by the grace of God do we do any good thing. It is only with a vital relationship in Christ that we produce fruit.
But also, Christ needs us to produce fruit. What good is a vine if it produces no fruit? What good is Christ if we are not producing fruit? Christ cannot produce fruit of himself. We are his hands. We are his feet. We are his witnesses. Jesus says that with the Holy Spirit we will be able to do works greater than what He himself did. Jesus wants us, needs us, to produce fruit. When we are connected to the vine, then we are doing what the vine wants us to do and will feed us so that we can produce the fruit the vine wants us to produce. When we produce fruit, we continue the ministry of Christ in the world, the ministry that He entrusted to us. So, the good works we do as Christians is not about us, or our vain glory, or need to be needed. It is done for the sake of Christ who enabled us to do these good works and in fact is the author of them. We are producing fruit of the vine, good works of Christ, not of ourselves. Without us, there would be no works of Christ, no fruit. And to the extent that we are fruitful, Christ is fruitful.
But also, the vine grower, the Father, needs both the vine and the branches to be working together in order to produce fruit. The vine grower planted the vine so that fruit would be produced. The vine grower had a purpose in mind when the vine was planted. The Father had a plan in mind when he sent His Son and planted Him in the earth. The purpose was not to destroy the world but to save it. The Father, the vine grower, wants the vine, His son, to produce fruit of righteousness, fruit of salvation, for the sake of the world that needs saved. Without the vine, the world cannot take from the fruit of salvation. Without the branches, us, there can be no fruit. So, the vine grower needs us to be connected to the vine so that we can produce fruit that brings the world to the vine, to Christ, to receive the fruit of salvation. Without us producing the fruit, those in need of salvation will not be able to get the fruit of salvation, which defeats the purpose of the vine grower. People come to Christ, come to the Father, because of the attractiveness, the nourishment, and the blessing which is the fruit that we produce. Our fruit, our good works, our active love, is what draws people to the vine, to Christ. Without the fruit, or a vine that produces little fruit, the people of the world pass by, and miss out on the fruit of salvation. The vine grower needs the vine to feed the branches so that we, the branches, can produce an abundance of fruit that draws the people of the world to the vine to eat from the fruit and live. And perhaps, like what has happened to us by the grace of God, those who come may be grafted into the vine and become branches themselves.
And that’s what this is all about. The vine was planted for the sake of people who have not yet been grafted into the vine. To be fully human means being grafted into the vine and producing fruit. This is our purpose, our reason for existing. We, as Christians, do not exist for ourselves. We do not live our Christian life for our own sake. We do what we do for the sake of the world, for the sake of others and to the glory of God. We do what we do so that others will be drawn to Christ, to benefit from the work of Christ produced by us, and be incorporated into the life of Christ, be grafted into the vine by baptism, and become yet another branch in this great vine which is the body of Christ.
It is the understanding of these intertwining and interdependent relationships that help us understand verse 7, a verse that, taken out of context, can be misused and can be a source of confusion. If we are abiding in Christ, connected with the vine in order to produce fruit for the sake of the world, then whatever we ask will be given us because we will ask for what God wants for us. We will not get what we ask for if we do not ask for what God wants for us. To ask for what God does not want for us is a sign of a less than complete relationship with God. And that’s where all of us are in our relationship with the vine . . . incomplete, less than perfect, because of the disease of sin. The goal here is to wish for what God wishes, to want what God wants. To the degree that we wish for what God wishes, and want what God wants, we will receive what we ask. This is what we should desire, to have the mind of Christ, to be of one mind with each other and with God, to abide in Christ, to be on the same page, to want the same things, wish for the same things, to be united in mind and heart with God and one another. To the extent that we can do that, the fruit that can be produced through us will be awesome.
And that leads to a final key word, “pruning.” In order for a plant to keep producing fruit it has to be pruned so that it can be revitalized, so there can be more growth. The more fruit we produce, the more pruning we experience, so that we can be even more fruitful. Pruning means being cut. Remember when Jesus said, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” This is pruning, having cut off what is unfruitful or even harmful to us, so that what is left of us is vital, effective, and healthy. We are never done being pruned. Being pruned by the Father, the Vine Grower, is necessary for rejuvenation. If we were not pruned we would turn to wood and become barren. We are in constant need of discipline, of repentance and amendment of our lives. God is never done tending to us.
So, let me pull all this together. The image of the vine and the branches relates to us as a congregation in this way. The more of us as a community of branches are abiding in Christ the vine, the more fruit we as a whole will produce. It is not sufficient for only a few of us to produce fruit. It is not sufficient because it runs against God’s purpose for us, it causes people to pass us by. It is incumbent on all of us to abide in Christ, to be in relationship with Christ through prayer, reflection, worship, repentance, to be nourished by the Holy Spirit that flows through Christ into our lives, so that each of us can bear fruit. Further, we as a congregation experience pruning. We are disciplined. We are in need of repentance as a body. We have to be pruned so that we as a congregation, as a whole, can be more fruitful. There are parts of our life together as a congregation that needs to be cut off, such as gossip, grudges, self-centeredness and vanity, insincerity, failure to mutually submit, and apathy, still looking back rather than looking forward. Yes, we as a congregation of branches, stand in need of repentance, of being pruned, so that we can produce even more fruit, not so we can keep this thing going, not so we can survive, but for the glory of God and for the sake of those who live around us who need the fruit of salvation, who need to be grafted into the vine. That’s why we do what we do, not for our own sake, but for the sake of others and to the glory of God who makes every good thing we do possible.
So, let us remember these simple things. God is the vine grower. Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. God prunes us so that we, individually and as a congregation, can produce more fruit, so that we can be a greater blessing to others. And to the extent that we, as a congregation, abide in Christ and draw closer to Christ, the greater the fruit we will produce, the greater the glory God, the Vine Planter and the Vine Grower, will receive.