You Just Know

Based on John 3:1-17

    I wonder what was going on inside Nicodemus? Something must have been stirring in his heart that he was moved to get a message to Jesus so that the two of them could meet privately under the cover of darkness. He knew that meeting with Jesus in a public way might stir up some controversy. People may have started wondering about Nicodemus. Is he becoming a disciple? That could hurt his standing with the rest of the Sanhedrin. But there was something about Jesus that was pulling on his heart. Listening to Jesus from a distance wasn’t enough. Nicodemus was compelled to come closer to Jesus. It was more than mere curiosity. Something was drawing him to Jesus.

Nicodemus says that he and the rest of the Sanhedrin know that Jesus must have come from God because of the signs he has performed. I think Nicodemus said that just to let Jesus know that he is meeting with him from a supportive place. He isn’t meeting Jesus to accuse him or warn him to stop teaching, any of that. He wants Jesus to know that he is potentially willing to stand with him. He just needs to know more, get some assurances, because of the controversy Jesus has been stirring up. In other words, Nicodemus is coming to Jesus in peace, not to fight, but to understand. Jesus could trust him.

However, we already know that for Jesus, those who believe him because of the signs are missing the point.  Just above in 2:23-25 we read:

When Jesus was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.

What we learn here is that believing in Jesus because of the signs was not enough. Jesus knows that this kind of belief based on external things like miracles is not permanent. We have all heard the phrase, “What have you done for me lately?” It’s that idea that if you are highly skilled then you have to keep producing impressive work. Once that starts to fade people start to doubt you. This is definitely the case in sports. A baseball player can go on an amazing hitting streak, have a few seasons where he is putting up amazing stats and scoring lots of runs. But then he has a bad year, and then another. All of a sudden people are doubting his skills and there is talk of trading him. Putting trust in people based on externals is inherently unstable. And, in Jesus’ case, will these same people keep believing in him when he is hanging on a cross? Probably not. Jesus knows what is in the heart of everyone. So, when Nicodemus starts off by saying everyone in the Sanhedrin knows that Jesus is from God because of the signs, that does not impress Jesus. He knows better.

Jesus wasn’t going to waste his time talking about those signs that Nicodemus is referring to. Instead, Jesus cuts to the chase. He goes straight to the heart of his message. “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born again from above.” That word in Greek Jesus ends with is a word that has two meanings: born again and born from above. Jesus means for that word to be understood in its fullness. To enter the kingdom of God requires being born again from above. We can look back to 1:12-13 to understand what Jesus is saying here:

To all who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of humans, but of God.

In other words, to be born again from above means becoming a child of God, which is what happens when someone believes Jesus is who he says he is, not because of the signs, but because of an inner heart knowing that is not dependent on externals. It reminds me of when my sister asked me how I knew that Kim was the right person for me to marry. I was at a loss. I couldn’t give any specific examples or proofs. All I could say was, “I just know.” That’s what this is about. This kind of belief in Jesus is not based on external signs or proofs. You just know in your heart that it’s true. You take that leap of faith.

This is where Nicodemus gets all mixed up. It reveals where he is blocked. He is feeling drawn toward Jesus but he is getting in his own way. He wants Jesus to explain himself by saying, “That’s ridiculous. How is someone supposed to be born again? No one can enter a second time into their mother’s womb.” Does Nicodemus really not get the word Jesus used? Does he miss the double meaning? Maybe he is stumbling over the practicalities of being born a second time. He’s trying to take Jesus in a literal sense and that’s getting him all mixed up.

The bottom line is this. Nicodemus is having this meeting with Jesus because he wants to better understand where Jesus is coming from before he is willing to believe Jesus is who he says he is. He needs to understand before he will believe. He is not going to take that risky step and claim his belief in Jesus until he has a full understanding of what Jesus is about.

But that’s not how this is going to work. There are some things in life that we won’t ever understand but we believe anyway. Jesus gives an example. He points back to that story when the Israelites were being killed by snakes and they pleaded for help. So, God told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole. Then if anyone was bitten by a snake all they had to do was gaze upon the bronze snake and they would live. They didn’t know how that worked. But they believed what Moses told them to do and it worked. They didn’t have to understand. They just had to believe. In the same way, we don’t understand how it works, that by gazing on Jesus the crucified one that we are healed from the poison of sin. We don’t have to understand how salvation works. We just believe it to be so. We don’t have to understand how the Spirit of God moves about the earth. Like wind the Spirit moves here and there. We sense the presence of the Spirit, but we don’t know where the Spirit comes from or where it is going. We believe in the Spirit anyway. We know the Spirit is real even though we can’t physically see it.

This is what Jesus is getting at. When we come to believe in Jesus as the savior, not based on external signs, not based on understanding how this works, but with an inner knowing and trust, taking it on faith, it is like being born again. We are born again as children of God. No longer only the child of your mom and dad, you also come to realize that you are a child of God. It’s an expanded identity. You present yourself in the world differently. Indeed, you see the world in a new way. For not only are you a child of God, you are surrounded by children of God. You belong to a larger family. Yes, you are living your life within a community comprised of the children of God, what Jesus refers to as the kingdom of God. When you come to that belief in Jesus as your savior, everything changes.

I wouldn’t say I saw signs or miracles, but I did hear the teachings of Jesus in a way that opened my eyes and softened my heart. I was at a youth retreat. During the retreat we watched the movie version of Godspell. In that movie, the gospel and the teachings of Jesus were presented in a way that really spoke to me. I did not know that was what the message of Jesus was about. I was smitten. And then, one evening, we were told of how Jesus died on the cross for our sins so that we could live forever with God, who loves us and has a purpose for our lives. That did it. At that moment I fell in love with Jesus. No miracles. No rational arguments. No explanation of how this salvation thing works. It was an experience of an inner knowing that I was loved by God. I just knew that it was true. And my life changed. I was filled with love. I felt so free inside. It seemed I had an abundance of love that had to be shared with everyone around me. For a good month I was on an emotional high. Of course, as the months went by there were highs and lows. My new found faith had to be tested and seasoned. But I can tell you that on that night when I came to believe that Jesus died for my sins so that I could live forever with God who loves me and has a purpose for my life, I haven’t been the same. It was as if I had been born again from above.

You know, it’s probably a good thing that our job is not to convince anyone about who Jesus is. Working miracles or explaining how it works are not methods we need to use to get people to believe in Jesus. As we learn in the scripture reading today, Jesus was not impressed with people who said they believed in him because of the miracles he performed. Jesus didn’t answer Nicodemus’ “how” questions. Jesus just lived his life, sharing his teachings, loving people well, and fulfilling the purpose God had given him to perform. That’s our roadmap as those who have fallen in love with Jesus and believe he is who he says he is. We just live our lives. We share the teachings of Jesus as we love others well, knowing that the Spirit of God that wooed us into belief is still moving about the world, still drawing people to Jesus, still leading people to belief.

Love in Any Language

Based on Acts 2:1-21

Earlier this week, my youngest son came home from college to live with us during the summer. Everyone is back home. When we gather for family dinner on Sunday evening, Jadon will no longer be joining us via zoom. We will all be gathered around the table. It’s nice to have everyone back. The family feels complete.

It’s that sense of having everyone together again that runs through this passage we hear today from Acts chapter 2, the story of Pentecost. This whole experience is about everyone being together. It starts with verse one, where we read, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” According to Acts 1:15 there were about 120 of them, including Mary and Jesus’ brothers. They were all together in a house in Jerusalem. It must have been a rather large house, or they were all on top of each other. But they were all together. This important detail is a key to understanding what the Pentecost story is all about, the action of God through the Spirit to bring everyone together.

Luke struggles to give words to what the Pentecost experience was like. He says there was a sound like rushing wind. There were divided tongues that were like fire. He’s not saying it was wind and fire. That was just the best way he knew to help us get a sense of what was going on. And look how the whole space of the house is impacted by this experience. Luke says the sound like rushing wind filled the whole house, every floor, every room, every nook and cranny. There was nowhere in the house you could be that you did not hear that sound. And then Luke says that these divided tongues that looked like flames of fire settled on each person in the house, like 120 human candles. Every person had a flame resting on their heads. And then Luke says that each person, all 120, including Mary, the mother of Jesus, was filled with the Spirit and began speaking all the languages of the nations, from Syria to Egypt to Rome to Arabia. This experience was fully inclusive. No one was left out. No one was a mere spectator.

The inclusion doesn’t stop there. Jews that lived in every nation in the world were in Jerusalem. Now, obviously when Luke is talking about all the nations of the world, he is not speaking of literally the entire world. It really is confined to the world around the Mediterranean Sea. He’s not thinking of present day Australia, or China, and probably not northern Europe. The main point was that in those days Jews were scattered all across the Mediterranean, and had been for generations, long enough to claim those nations as their home, learning the language and the customs. Still, Jerusalem was the center of their identity as Jewish people. And every year, fifty days after Passover, Jews from all over would come to Jerusalem to celebrate Shavuot, or Pentecost. It was a celebration of the coming wheat harvest. It also marked when God gave Moses the Law. It was a time to feast and celebrate. So, God acted in a powerful way to bring everyone together on an occasion when Jews from all the nations of the world were physically there, in Jerusalem.

What drew their attention to that house where the Spirit came down on the followers of Jesus? Well, it may have been the sound of rushing wind. Or maybe it was the sight of flames of fire on their heads. That would have gotten your attention! But in the hustle and bustle of a crowded city, with all that noise and all the spectacle of the celebration of Shavuot, perhaps what really grabbed the attention of the people was what they heard come from the mouths of the disciples. The crowd heard the disciples speak in the language of their native tongues, the language of their homeland. Not Hebrew, or Latin or Greek, but the language of Phrygia, Elam, and Crete. They didn’t have to try to translate what was being said into their native tongue. They could instantly understand. But there’s something more than just having an easier time to understand what the disciples were saying.

There is something about including people who speak a foreign language by speaking their language. A while back, I was listening to Bishop Palmer preach, and he mentioned that he had taken on a practice of learning how to say “hello” and “thank you” in as many languages as he could. He did that partly because, as a bishop, he gets to travel all around the world on general church business. So, he interacts with lots of people for whom English is not their native language. He wanted to be able to say “hello” and “thank you” in their language to express inclusion, to make non-native English speaking people feel included, even honored.

For those of us who have traveled to foreign countries, isn’t it comforting to run into someone who speaks fluent English? My experience is somewhat limited, having only been to Mexico as a country where English is not the native language. I know a little Spanish, but walking the streets of Monterrey, hearing everyone speaking Spanish and all the signs and restaurant menus in Spanish, it can cause a person to feel a bit out of place, a little confused, really reminded that you are not from here. But to then have someone who is Mexican be able to talk to you in fluent English, that is a relief. There is a feeling of security and comfort, really, in engaging with someone in a foreign land who speaks your native language. I wonder if that feeling of belonging, of comfort and security perhaps, was stirred in all those people who heard the disciples speaking in their own native language. By speaking this way, the disciples were able immediately to make a connection with all those people. There was an immediate sense of being included in whatever it was that was going on.

Now, we aren’t done with this inclusion theme. When Peter begins his sermon, he quotes from Joel 2:28-32 in which the prophet speaks of the time when the Spirit will be poured out on all flesh. And by all flesh is meant all who are Jews. It is a prophecy directed not at the whole world but at Israel. Prior to this event, the Spirit would fall on some people, like David, or one of the judges, or a prophet like Joel. But in this prophecy proclaimed to Israel Joel says that the Spirit will fall on the sons and daughters of Israel. He says to Israel your sons and daughters will prophesy. On the young and the old, and even on slaves, will the Spirit be poured out. All Israelites will receive the Spirit, says Joel. All Jews will be empowered to prophesy, to speak on God’s behalf. It is a prophecy that announces the inclusion of all. All will speak of the works of God. All will speak of the ways God demonstrates God’s love in the world. They will all speak of God’s love.

I am reminded of a song sung by Sandi Patti called “Love in Any Language.” The chorus goes like this:

Love in any language

Straight from the heart

Pulls us all together, never apart

And once we learn to speak it

All the world will hear

Love in any language

Fluently spoken here

This song takes us to a deeper level in understanding what is happening at Pentecost. It is true that the Spirit enabled the disciples to speak in all these languages so that people could hear and understand in their own native language what the disciples were saying about God’s deeds of power. But there is a way that the Spirit of God can communicate with us no matter what language people are speaking. It’s that love in any language that Sandi Patti sings about that touches on how this Pentecost experience continues to happen in our own day.

When I was in college, I belonged to the United Methodist Student Fellowship, which was a United Methodist campus ministry. Every Spring break we would go somewhere in Mexico to work with Methodists there. I still recall one trip to Miguel Aleman, a border town in Mexico across from South Texas, not far from Reynosa and Brownsville. Mesquite grows wild there, which made the mesquite charcoal grilled chicken delicious that some of the youth of the church prepared for us. I watched as some of the women made the best tamales I have ever eaten. But to this day I still have in my mind a worship service we participated in. The singing was full of energy. Most of the tunes were unfamiliar and they were all sung in Spanish. But it didn’t matter. We sensed the presence of the Spirit even though we didn’t understand most of what was being said or sung. We prayed the Lord’s Prayer together in our own languages. We all knew that each of us loved Jesus. The language barrier did not prevent the movement of the Spirit and a powerful expression of worship. Language differences did not prevent from all of us being included in that time of worship. All of us belonged.

Can the Spirit enable us to speak words that bring people together, words that express the works of God in ways that bring people together, in ways that people can relate to? Yes. Notice what the disciples were not talking about when the Spirit opened their mouths. They did not talk about doctrines or theology. They talked about the power of God. They talked about how they had seen for themselves the mighty power of God in their lives. As we read in vs. 11, “in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” They talked about the power of God’s love. They talked about experience of God in the world.

That’s our cue. Always possible but it is not likely the Spirit will enable you or me to speak another language we are not already fluent in to talk about how we have experienced God’s power in our lives. But with the language we know, we can speak of God’s deeds of power. We can tell of our experiences when God was present in our lives, of how God has impacted our lives and our families and communities. We can tell of the experience of being swept away by God’s love, of that time we gathered with others, singing together, and felt the movement of the Spirit, or that time we entered into a small chapel and sat for awhile in silence and felt the presence of God in a real way, or a time when we were feeling alone, feeling low, and heard that voice in our head, the voice of God saying, “I am with you, I love you, I will never forsake you, you are mine.” These are some of the deeds of power that we can talk about with others, of how God saw us through times of struggle and grief and loss, of how we have experienced the presence of God in the silence, in the beauty of nature, with a gathering of dear friends, and in the eyes of a newborn infant.

This passage from Acts ends with verse 21, “then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” How has the Lord saved you? How has God responded when you called out to God in your time of need? Those are the experiences of God’s power that you can share with others, so that they might come to realize that in their times of struggle and in time of joy and peace, that God is with them as well, pouring love into their lives. This is love in any language that brings all of us together.

The Prayer of Jesus

Based on John 17:6-19

The past few weeks, we have been looking at Jesus’ farewell discourse, a long speech Jesus gives his disciples before his arrest. He is giving them the substance of his teaching and his instructions so that the disciples will know where they stand and what they need to do when Jesus leaves. We reflected on the image of Jesus as the vine, the disciples as the branches, and God as the vine grower, and how God, Jesus and the disciples work together to produce fruit that blesses the world. Last week, we reflected on how Jesus chose us to be his friends, how we are in Jesus’ “square squad”, how he loves us as a dear friend, and how we are challenged to love every person we encounter as a friend of Jesus.

In today’s passage, there is a shift from Jesus talking to the disciples to now Jesus is talking to God. All of chapter 17 is a prayer Jesus offers on behalf of his disciples. Jesus is praying for his disciples. But it is a prayer that we get to overhear, a prayer intended not just for the disciples that were with Jesus in the upper room but is also meant for us. Jesus is praying to God on our behalf in this prayer. What is Jesus telling God in this prayer?

As is typical in John’s gospel, there are a lot of threads that are woven together in this prayer which we can’t possibly tease out in one sermon. I think of the gospel of John like a tapestry of themes all woven together into something glorious. The themes all fit together. But it is such an intricate tapestry that we can spend our whole lives trying to follow those themes and see how they are all woven together. With just a few moments together we can only focus on a few threads to do it any kind of justice. So, I have found a few threads for us to follow.

The first can be traced through verse 10 where Jesus says, “I have been glorified in them.” Jesus speaks of being glorified throughout the gospel of John, but this is the one and only place in the gospel where Jesus links his glory with the community of disciples. Jesus is glorified in the community. Why is this important?

The community demonstrates the glory of Jesus. That is a good thing to know as Jesus will soon be leaving them and ascending back to heaven. How will the glory of Jesus continue to be present in the world? Through the community of disciples. In other words, the church continues to glorify Jesus in the world. We present the glory of Jesus in the world.

Every couple of years the world’s attention is drawn to either the summer Olympics or the winter Olympics. Hopefully this year there will be a summer Olympics in Tokyo. The opening ceremonies are always a spectacle, when the host nation has an opportunity to showcase to the world their national myth. One of the highlights is the parade of nations. The athletes from each nation get to march around the track, waving their flag and often wearing uniforms that reflect something about their nation. Each nation gets to represent their glory to the world as they march around the track, whether the delegation is one or two athletes from Mauritania or Palau or one hundred from the United States or China.

Think of the church as a global nation. The community of Jesus followers are not confined to national borders. We are without borders. In 1st Peter we are identified as a holy nation. We are one people, a Christian people, that spans the world, a diversity of hues, of languages and cultures. And as we move about the earth ,we as a global community give glory to Jesus in all of our beautiful diversity.

Let’s trace another thread in vv. 11 and 15. Here we see the thread of Jesus praying for God to protect the disciples. Protect us from what and who?

Jesus prays for God to protect us from disunity. Jesus is asking God to keep the community unified. As Jesus says, “protect them…so that they may be one, as we are one.” It is very important to Jesus that when he leaves the community will remain unified, just as branches abide in the vine. So, how are we doing? How is that unity in the church working out? Uh oh. We are divided in so many ways. I remember visiting an Eastern Orthodox church once. They had this graph posted on the wall that showed the history of the church. There was a thick straight line at the bottom of the graph. At the start of that line was the mark labeled “Jesus and the apostles.” Around the year 1054, another line emerged from that main line at the bottom of the graph. That was labeled as the Great Schism when the Roman Church broke off from the rest of the church in the world. The Roman Catholic Church line continues along until the 15th century, marking the Protestant Reformation. At that point, there are lines breaking off everywhere showing all the denominations in the Protestant church. This graph tries to do a few things. First, it demonstrates how divided up the church is with all these denominations. But it also lets the Eastern Orthodox have the comfort in knowing that they are a part of the church that, according to the graph, has never changed since the days of Jesus and the apostles. Only they are the one, holy, and apostolic church. A little off putting for us Protestants.

But it does beg the question. With so many denominations and independent churches, are we unified or not? Where do we find the unity that Jesus prayed God to protect? Verse 8 may be our saving grace, the place from which we can claim unity in spite of all our divisions. Jesus says, “For the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.” There it is. This is the basis for our unity as followers of Jesus. All Christians, no matter what denomination or non-denomination we find ourselves, believe that Jesus came from God and was sent by God. In other words, we are unified in our belief that Jesus is who he says he is. That is the most basic form of unity that we can claim, a unity that God protects.

Our unity is protected in our common belief in Jesus. Who are we protected from? Jesus asks God to protect us from the evil one, just like in the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Who is the evil one? It is the enemy of God. It is the divider, the one who tears relationships apart, the one who lies and distorts the truth, the one who blocks love and strives to obliterate life. It is this evil one that Jesus prays to God to protect us from. We see evidence of the evil one all throughout the world and even among us. How devastating it is when the evil one uses the church as a means to rip apart relationships, perpetuate falsehoods, and block the expression of love. When it comes to protecting us from the evil one, God has God’s hands full.

Perhaps this is the big point. When Jesus left the disciples and returned to heaven, he did not leave the disciples to fend for themselves. They did not have to face the evil one alone. They were not left to struggle to maintain unity all by themselves. Jesus placed his community into the hands of God to be their protector. This applies to us as well. Each of us, individually and collectively, are placed in the hands of God. Yes, the church itself is in God’s hands. I don’t know about you but it is comforting to know that when it comes to unity in the church and protection from the evil one, the church is in God’s hands, not mine or yours. I, for one, am relieved to know this. It is from this stance that we can be confident to proclaim that not even the gates of hell can prevail against us. We are battered and bruised. And often the church is a tool to further the work of evil in the world. But the church will always remain. God will see to that.

One more thread. In vv. 17 and 19 we follow the thread where Jesus prays for God to sanctify us in the truth. What does this mean?

First, to be sanctified in this sense does not mean being morally pure. This is not about being civilized, not cussing, or succumbing to vices. To be sanctified in this context is about being set aside for special use, even for divine service. In the service of holy communion, the bread and wine are sanctified, becoming for us the body and blood of Jesus. At baptism, the pitcher that contains the water and the bowl the water is poured into, along with the water itself, all become sanctified, instruments in the sacred work of baptizing someone. In that moment, it’s not ordinary water or an ordinary pitcher or bowl. Something happens that makes these things set apart for God’s use. That’s what being sanctified means here.

So, to be sanctified in the truth is to be set aside to proclaim the truth about Jesus to the world. We, as Christians, ordinary people, are set aside, sacred instruments for God’s use, for the purpose of proclaiming truth in the world. In other words, we are sanctified mouthpieces, continuing to speak the message that Jesus spoke when he was walking the earth. We extend the witness of Jesus up to this very day. When Jesus ascended to heaven, his message did not leave with him. His disciples were sanctified in order to continue proclaiming that message. And so, we do the same in our day, and generations to come will continue to proclaim that message, that Jesus is the Son of God and that through believing in him we receive eternal life. This is our sanctified purpose, to bear witness to the truth we know of Jesus so that others will come to belief.

Three strands in this prayer tapestry preserved for us by the gospel writer. We can be confident that what Jesus asks of God will be provided, as Jesus and God are of one mind. We can be comforted to know that even now Jesus is praying for you and me, having entrusted each of us into the hands of the one who creates and sustains, the God of love and life. This is where we find our hope and the basis for our joy.

Square Squad

Based on John 15:9-17

Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” This line is from what Biblical scholars refer to as Jesus’ farewell discourse. John 14-17 is this long speech that Jesus gives just before everything goes down with his arrest and everything that followed. It is Jesus’ opportunity to tell his disciples the most important things in this time of calm before the storm. It is this discourse that we have been looking at for the past few weeks. Today, I invite us to focus in on what it means to claim Jesus as a friend.

What is a friend? There are all kinds of definitions. But as I thought of what a friend is, I thought of this classic song written by James Taylor and Carole King:

When you're down and troubled

And you need a helping hand

And nothing, oh, nothing is going right

Close your eyes and think of me

And soon I will be there

To brighten up even your darkest night

You just call out my name

And, you know, wherever I am

I'll come running

To see you again

Winter, spring, summer or fall

All you've got to do is call

And I'll be there, yes I will

You've got a friend

Another way to think about friends is this simple exercise. If you can, draw on a piece of paper a small square, about two inches on each side. Now, think of the people in your life who you can call at 2 a.m. if you are in trouble, the people who will be honest with you, the people who you can let your hair down with and be your authentic self with no fear of judgment, the ones you have shared the depths of your heart. Write their names in that square. The square is intentionally small to force you to limit the number of names you can put in there. These are your closest friends. Those few special people whose names you have written in that square is your square squad.

Your square squad reflects this reality that we as human beings are only capable of having a few close friends. Of course, we can have literally thousands of acquaintances. We can have lots of people in our lives that we would call friends. But that deep, intimate bond of friendship takes many years of relationship. You have to have many experiences together. It’s a relationship that has to continue to be nurtured. That takes time. That trust has to be built up. No matter how friendly and outgoing we are, our square squad is going to be a small square of friends. And what a blessing it is to have that square of friends that you can rely on in your time of need. 

With all this in mind, this is what is so amazing about our relationship with Jesus. When Jesus says that he is your friend, he doesn’t mean that he is an acquaintance, or just a friend, or a Facebook friend. He is in your square squad. He is in your inner circle. He is one you can bare your soul to, the one you can call out to at 2 a.m., the one who will always be there for you, winter, spring, summer or fall.

Let’s see what else Jesus says about being our friend. He said, “I do not call you servants any longer, I call you friends.” That word “servant” is a soft translation of the Greek. The accurate word is “slave.” But we of course can’t relate to that term. A better way for us to think of it is like an employer/employee relationship. If you are the employee, you have a specific job to do and your boss supervises your work. You have a relationship with your boss. You probably have some kind of evaluation process. Your boss is hopefully friendly and supportive. But it’s unlikely that you are in the board room when the big decisions are being made. You don’t have an inside view on the big picture. As Jesus put it, the slave does not know what the master is doing. The employee is not in on all that is going on in the executive suite. You just do your job. But it’s not like that with Jesus. We aren’t employees or hired hands. Our relationship with Jesus is not on a need-to-know basis. Jesus has invited us into the inner sanctum. We are in on what God is up to. We have access to the executive suite. We are in Jesus’ square squad.

What else does Jesus say? “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Think again of those people that are in your square squad. Would you be willing to lay down your life for them? Honestly, that is asking a lot, isn’t it? Like Jesus said, is there any greater sacrifice anyone would be willing to make than to die for their friend? That is great love. If you are willing to lay down your life for someone, that would be an indication that they are in your square squad. And this is why we can affirm that we are in Jesus’ square squad. Jesus loved you and me so much that he was willing to lay down his life for us. As a friend, Jesus laid down his life for you and for me. We are in Jesus’ square squad.

Now, here’s the kicker. Jesus said, “You did not choose me, I chose you.” When it came to establishing this intimate friendship between us and Jesus, Jesus made the first move. Imagine yourself in a room full of people you do not know. You are among so many people but feel all alone. You are sitting on a couch by yourself and wondering if you fit in, if you belong. You are feeling so lonely. You wonder if you got up and left if anyone would notice. But then someone approaches you. They introduce themselves, sit down next to you, and start having a conversation with you, to get to know you. They exude interest in you. They believe you are the most important person in the room. Right away, you are sensing a connection with this person. You can tell that they want to be your friend. That’s sort of what it is like with Jesus. We didn’t have to search Jesus out. We didn’t have to get Jesus’ attention. We didn’t have to do anything. Jesus approached us. Jesus got our attention. Jesus chose to be our friend. It is Jesus who comes to us with open arms and an open heart to initiate that intimate friendship, just as we are. We were just sitting there and minding our own business until Jesus showed up into our life. As far as Jesus is concerned, he includes us in his square squad.

So, let’s go back to that first statement. “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” What command is that? Jesus answered that. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” How has Jesus loved us? As a dear friend. How do you love your closest friends? That gives you your example of what it means to love one another as Jesus loves you. This is a commandment that we can understand and that we can follow. It even comes naturally. That’s what friends do…they love each other. 

It’s still true. We are only humanly capable of having a few close friends. It is too much to love every person with the same depth and intimacy as we love our dearest friends. But that doesn’t mean we can’t choose to relate to one another, and to any person we interact with, as a friend. We can extend a hand of friendship. We can desire to be a friend to others. Especially when we see someone who is lonely, who looks like they need a friend, we can be the ones who reach out to them. At the minimum, we can strive to treat everyone as a friend, to aim to love people with the love of a friend.

Because the truth is that every person we encounter is a friend of Jesus, whether they know it or not. We know this to be true because Jesus laid down his life for every person that will ever live. Jesus loves every person as an intimate friend. We may only be able to have a few people in our square squad. But Jesus’ square squad is without limit. Every person fits in Jesus’ square squad. So, when you interact with someone, whether they be a close friend, a bagger at the grocery store, or someone sitting on a bench in the park, you are interacting with one of Jesus’ friends. There’s that old saying, “Anyone who is a friend of yours is a friend of mine.” If anyone is a friend of Jesus, can they not be a friend to us?

The Vine and the Branches

Based on John 15:1-8

Today’s gospel reading teaches us of the interrelationship among God the Father, Jesus Christ, and us. The key word in this interlocking relationship is the word “abide”, which appears eight times in vv. 4-7. To abide with someone is to have your identity melded with that person. The mother-child relationship is an abiding relationship. The marriage relationship is an abiding relationship. These relationships are core to your identity. You are in a married relationship, whether your spouse is in your presence or not. You will always be the child of your mother. Just so, when we say that we abide in Christ, we are saying that our relationship with Christ is part of our identity. We are always in relationship with Christ, whether we are at church or not. We don’t leave Jesus in the church building. We live our lives as Christians, in relationship, abiding with Christ, wherever we are and at all times. That’s what abiding in Christ means.

There is another key word that is not specifically in this passage of scripture but the concept is what this passage is all about. That word is “interrelationship.” In other words, this passage says to us that we are all in this together. The branch needs the vine to produce fruit. The vine needs the branches 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. 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. Without them, there will be no grapes, no wine, no jelly. The vine grower plants the vine to provide fruit for others to receive and enjoy. It is all interconnected. In the same way, the gospel writer is saying to us that 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, Jesus, us, the world, we are all wound up together in this life, interconnected, entangled, all in this together.

Let’s look at this more closely. Let’s start with ourselves. To produce fruit, that is, to live a life that fulfills God’s purposes 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 cannot 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 spiritually 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 by abiding in Christ that we produce good fruit.

But also, Christ needs us to produce good 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 by himself. We are his hands. We are his feet. We are his witnesses. We are the branches. Jesus says that with the Holy Spirit we can do things greater than what he did. Jesus wants us, needs us, to produce fruit. When we are connected to the vine and producing fruit, then we are doing what the vine wants us to do and will give us what we need so we can produce the fruit the vine wants produced. 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, for our own glory, or to meet our 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. To the extent that we are fruitful, Christ is fruitful, because this is the fruit of Christ being produced through us.

But also, the vine grower, who is God, needs both the vine and the branches to be working together in order to produce fruit. A vine grower plants a vine so that fruit will be produced. The vine grower has a purpose in mind when the vine is planted. God had a plan in mind when God sent Jesus and planted him on the earth. The purpose was not to destroy the world but to save the world. God, the vine grower, wants the vine, Jesus Christ, to produce fruit of righteousness, fruit of salvation, for the sake of the world that needs saved. Without the vine, the world cannot receive the fruit of salvation. Without the branches, there can be no fruit. So, the vine grower needs us to be connected to the vine so that we can produce the fruit that brings the world to the vine, to Jesus, 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 and this frustrates the purpose of the vine grower. People come to Christ, come to God, because of the attractiveness, the nourishment, the blessing, the goodness of the fruit that we produce. Our fruit, our good works, our active love, this is what draws people to the vine, who is Jesus. Without the fruit, or a vine that produces 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 this is 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, to be our best selves, it takes being grafted into the vine and producing good 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 branches in this great vine which is the body of Christ.

It is the understanding of these intertwining relationship that help us understand verse 7, a verse that, taken out of context, can be misused and can be a source of confusion. Let’s hear this verse again: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” 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. Why would God give us what we ask for that would harm us or frustrate God’s desires for us? The point here is to want what God wants for us. To the degree that we want what God wants for us we will receive what we ask. And it’s likely that if what we ask will assist us in bearing good fruit, that God will grant our request. Maybe not the way we had in mind or planned, but granted nonetheless. God desires to equip and strengthen us so that we can love to the best of our ability. This is what we should desire, to have the mind of Christ, to be on the same page with Christ and with God and one another. To the extent that we can do that, the fruit that can be produced through us will be awesome.

There is one more key word that I want us to reflect on today…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 new growth. The more fruit we produce, the more pruning we experience, so that we can be even more fruitful. Pruning means cutting off what is diseased or not fruit bearing. Remember when Jesus said, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” Obviously he didn’t mean to literally cut off your hand. But he was talking about pruning, of cutting off what is unfruitful or even harmful to us, parts of our life that is diseased, so that what is left of us is vital, effective, and healthy. We are never done being pruned. The pruning God does in our life is necessary for our own rejuvenation and for new growth. If we were not pruned we would lose our capacity to bear fruit. Pruning can be painful. There is loss. And at times we may not understand or appreciate the pruning that God is doing in our lives. But it is necessary. It is all part of the process of becoming all God desires us to become.

So, let’s 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 close to Christ, the better the fruit we will produce, the fruit of good works, of active love. And the better the fruit we produce, the more glory will God receive and the better the world will be.