Sixth Sunday of Easter, John 15:9-17

May 5, 2024 

Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman

We seem to be living through a particularly loveless time in our nation’s history. Everyday we’re bombarded with news stories of people being at each other’s throats – sometimes literally. The hateful spirit of our age burdens us and weighs us down. 

But we know from the testimony of the scriptures that God is all about love, not about hatred. We heard that message of love repeatedly and clearly in the readings from last week. And that God is love is a clear message in today’s gospel reading as well.

But just to drive home the point, I want to return to one of the readings from last week where it states unequivocally that “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:8) And to make the point even more emphatically, that passage goes on to say: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate a member of the community are liars.” (1 John 4:20a)

Which is to say, in the absence of love, God is absent. And Christians who preach hate, and anger and grievance and retribution are not really Christians at all, but liars who actually betray the loving truth of the gospel. Such angry, vengeful, hate-oriented Christians are loveless liars and, in the end, Godless. 

But thank God, there is another way, and today’s gospel reading makes that clear. Today’s passage is taken from Jesus’ farewell discourse in John’s Gospel which he addressed to his disciples in the context of the Last Supper – when Jesus lovingly washed the disciples’ feet on the night before he died. 

This was Jesus’ last chance to teach his disciples what was of central importance before his death, resurrection, and return to the Father in heaven. And all of these events – the cross, the empty tomb, the ascension – are all wrapped up in this one evening teaching session at the Last Supper. 

Imagine the setting: Jesus is not seated around a table as in so many depictions of the Last Supper. No, Jesus was reclining on the floor with his disciples, the beloved disciple resting on Jesus’ shoulder. It’s a very intimate, loving setting. 

And now feel the tone of what Jesus says as I share again some of the crucial words. Listen for the gentleness, the lovingness, that stands in such sharp contrast to the anger and hatred evident throughout our land right now.

Here’s what Jesus says: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love…. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends…. I do not call you servants any longer…. But I have called you friends…. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:9a, 12-13, 15, 11)

Aren’t Jesus’ words lovely? They are a loving, healing balm, like oil for anointing which spreads over the gaping wounds evident all over the place in our sorry, divided, hate-burdened nation right now. 

Friends in Christ, as Jesus’ words echo through the centuries into our ears right now, we re-enact here today the Last Supper, that final occasion of teaching as Jesus reclines with us at this table of grace. Imagine Jesus reclining with us now in your mind’s eye, from the creative vantage point of faith. 

We do during this Sunday hour exactly what Jesus commanded his first disciples, and now us to do, namely, to abide in God’s love in Christ. We abide with this love, dwell with it, linger, recline and remain with this love as we hear and keep Jesus’ loving words close to our hearts. 

Indeed, this Sabbath hour is the recreation of Jesus reclining with the disciples. And this Sabbath hour begins to heal us from the hatred that weighs us down for so much of the rest of the week. And here in this place of rest, our faith, our trust, is renewed, restored, by the healing balm of God’s love in Christ Jesus known to us in the sacred word and the breaking of bread. 

Here’s a testimony to the power of our renewed faith as recorded in today’s second reading: “For the love of God is this, that we obey the commandments of God, which are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world, our faith. Who is it who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:3-5) In other words, by faith in Jesus, “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37)

This faith-creating, faith rejuvenating love of God is washed over us in the waters of baptism. And this is the sacred love that we eat and drink around this table. For “this is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood.” (1 John 5:6a) Through Christ’s presence known to us in the baptismal water that cleanses us, and in the wine or juice we drink as the blood of Christ, we share in Christ’s victory over the forces of sin and death and evil and hatred and vengeance and unholy retribution. Thanks be to God!

Thus, restored in faith and renewed, we go to do our Lord’s bidding, as Jesus said recorded by John. “You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last…. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” (cf. John 15:16-17)

Thus, when we go to do this sacred missionary work to which Christ appoints us, God’s love overflows from this time and this place into the world which God has lovingly created and even more lovingly redeemed in Christ. 

And we go out into a hateful world that seeks to divide and conquer and exclude people from the divine love. But we go out in boldness with a wholly different spirit – the Spirit of the living Christ – a spirit of welcome and hospitality, of openness and inclusion, a spirit of radical, unconditional love.

And we echo in our words and deeds what Peter said when he acknowledged that the Holy Spirit was poured out not just on the Jewish people, but on gentiles: “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people?” 

That’s the kind of stance we are beckoned to embody as a counter witness to the hatefulness that pervades the spirit of our times: Can anyone withhold God’s love from being poured out on all people?

Oh, may our word and witness make a difference for converting the hateful into agents of God’s love, for Alleluia, Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia! Amen.