Greater Love

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday May 13, 2012, the 6th Sunday in Easter. Happy Mothers' Day.

Podcast of "Greater Love" on Sermons.net


Acts 10:44-48

Psalm 98

1 John 5:1-6

John 15:9-17

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen

If you have never come to the Lectio Divina Bible Study, I highly recommend it. Every Thursday morning we come together and examine the coming Sunday’s gospel reading using this holy reading technique. We read the passage three times. Between the first and second times, I ask everyone for words and phrases that jumped out at them during the reading. Between the second and third readings, we delve into the passage deep and wide. After the third reading we ask what the passage is calling us to do in the coming week.

Let me add, if you don’t come because you don’t feel comfortable speaking up, you don’t have to speak up, that’s up to you. I hope that everyone who comes will get their sea legs quickly and join right in, but I don’t expect that right out of the box. If you think you aren’t qualified to speak at the meeting, let me say that I learn something new weekly. We teach one another more than I teach.

Thank you for the shameless plug; we hope to see you soon. Now back to the sermon.

On Thursday when I asked “What is this calling us to do this week?” the answer came with speed and authority. The first answer to that question comes straight out of verses twelve and seventeen, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” What a wonderful command, “Love each other.” Jesus says in these three words what he expects.

Jesus doesn’t go at the Ten Commandments. He doesn’t go through the 613 mitzvah of the Old Testament. He doesn’t establish and discuss the Westminster Confession of Faith and its Catechisms. Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter and tells his disciples to love each other. Does it get any easier than that?

So now for the “$64 Question,” what does Jesus mean when he says “Love one another?” Now there’s the rub. There’s no better place to answer that question than John’s gospel itself.

One of the ways to analyze John’s gospel is “everything that comes before chapter 13” and “everything that happens after chapter 13 begins.” This is because everything that happens from that point, which begins with John’s version of the Last Supper, makes its way to the passion narrative. Using Jesus’ words from the Garden of Gethsemane, one of the ways to mark the separation between chapters 12 and 13 is that the former happens “while the hour is coming” and the latter happens “once the hour is upon them.”

The hour begins with the sharing of the Passover meal. John’s gospel doesn’t have much about the meal itself. Since John was written at least ten years after the other gospels, the celebration of the meal was pretty well set by then. There wouldn’t have been anything significant to add to the feast and the sharing of bread and wine, the body and the blood. John adds something else.

John’s gospel is where foot washing is added to the celebration. The purpose of foot washing was to allow guests who have travelled to freshen up before the festivities begin. Ordinarily the host would provide the water so guests can take care of their own dusty feet, or would provide servants to wash the feet of the guests.

At this Passover, Jesus shows his disciples how to love one anther acting as their host offering the water and acting as the slave washing their feet. This is one of the ways Jesus shows his love for his disciples. He is their host, their master, their Rabbi. He is also willing to set aside all of those symbols of his power and authority and wash his disciples’ grimy feet.

If you remember last week, in John 15:3 we heard Jesus say, “You are already clean…” In these words, Jesus reinforces the lesson of the foot washing. Those who are bathed are clean; they only need sprucing up before being ready for what follows.

This is one way Jesus shows his love to his disciples and shows us how to love one another. He provides what is necessary to be clean and to be fresh and sets aside his divine standing to serve his disciples as a slave.

At this point in John’s gospel, a devastating turn of events befalls the celebration. For the final time, Jesus announces his betrayal Judas leaves. The other disciples thought he was going to get supplies. Boy, were they wrong.

Jesus knew better. He knew what was about to happen. He knew it was going to be a circus ending in his death. So does Jesus mobilize the troops? No. Does he call out the National Guard? No. Does he bug out and head for higher ground? No.

After Judas leaves, Jesus looks at his disciples and says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.” He follows these words by teaching them about the Son of Man and the Glory of God. He also gives them a now familiar command. “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

In the face of coming death, even death upon the cross, Jesus stays with his disciples. He continues to teach. He gives them their most fundamental instruction. People often say that “bible” means “basic instructions before leaving Earth.” When I look at what’s happening in this reading I believe that expression is too limited.

Jesus is not teaching his disciples what to do before the last round-up. He is teaching them how to live today, in every moment, not just the ones before leaving Earth. He is also leaving them with their most important command, the first command, to love one another. Again, Jesus doesn’t go at the Ten Commandments. He doesn’t go through the 613 mitzvah of the Old Testament. He doesn’t establish and discuss the Westminster Confession of Faith and its Catechisms. Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter and tells his disciples to love each other.

Jesus stays with his disciples. He teaches them at his side. They stay together. Jesus doesn’t go out and seek holy vengeance upon the one who will betray him hoping he can get back in time for a quick review. He remains, he abides with his disciples, and they with him.

In this teaching, he says “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” He shows them how the people will know they are followers of Jesus, by their love. It’s like my favorite church camp songs, “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love.”

These are more ways Jesus shows his love to his disciples and shows us how to love one another. By the presence of Jesus, they stay together. They abide in one another. Together they bask in the presence and reflect the glow of their master.

Jesus tells them that as he is about to be forced to leave them and he will go to prepare a place for them. He promises this is the truth saying, “if it were not so, I would have told you.” He promised he would return. As Philip asks to see the father, Jesus promises that there is more to him than meets his eye.

Jesus declares his allegiance. He offers everything he has done as the sign of the promises of what he will do. He reminds the disciples of his promises fulfilled, and that he has the power and the integrity to follow through on the promises he makes. No lies, all truth, allegiance and integrity; this is again how the love of Jesus is made manifest for his disciples.

Jesus promises his spirit. Jesus promises his peace. Jesus tells his disciples to do as he has been doing. Let me testify for a fact that the only way we can possibly do as he has done is in his peace and by the power of his Spirit. This ties back into last week’s Gospel reading, without the Lord our God, without Jesus the Christ, without the Holy Spirit of God, we can do nothing. Jesus gives us what we need to do as he commands. His extravagant gifts of peace and power are more ways Jesus shows his disciples how to love one another.

These are the ways Jesus show his disciples how to love one another during the Passover meal alone, but this is not where I am stopping today. There is more because Jesus says more. In John 15:12-14, Jesus says, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.”

I talk about love. Jesus talks about greater love, love where a person lays down their life for their friend. We hear the call of Jesus. We know that he laid down his life for all creation. We know that he was resurrected three days later. We also know we won’t be able to follow that act, not like he did. But let me remind you that up to this point of the meal, Jesus didn’t say anything about his physical death. He was showing his disciples other ways to die, the death to self.

Jesus died to himself everyday. He set aside the power of God, power he could have exercised over humanity to force us into line. Jesus limited himself everyday. He could have done anything, and I mean anything in the most extreme sense. The best examples of this are found in the satanic temptation stories found after the baptism of the Lord. Satan tells Jesus what he can do, but Jesus tells Satan what he will do.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul describes Christ’s self limiting love this way. He says:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus,

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to death —

even death on a cross![1]

Paul reminds us Jesus was God who would be a man. He was the host who would be a slave. He is the eternal who allowed himself to be murdered. Jesus humbled himself for all creation. Paul begins this description of the Lord with this command, Paul knows what it means to die these deaths of self for his friends. He knows what it means through the example of his Lord, and ours. He says this is how we are to love one another.

This is the greater love our Lord wants us to share with one another. Jesus wants us to put one another first when we deal with those we love. Jesus wants us to empty ourselves of our own enlightened self interest.

Jesus wants us to love extravagantly while limiting our wants and desires. This may be the most difficult part of all; Jesus limited himself while loving us and wants us to do the same. He forced no one to love him. He forced no one to follow him. Jesus forced no one to do anything.

Jesus limited himself while allowing his friends to experience all that was possible on this earth with him as our guide. Friends, the best news is that as much as Jesus limits himself, the bounds of what is possible is beyond what we can imagine.

Of course, being asked to lay down your life is the obvious time to gulp. What if I lay down my life for my friend and my friend takes advantage of me? What if my friend hurts me? Well, the possibility of being hurt is the price of loving. Only when we lay ourselves bare to the possibility of pain can we experience the fullness of love.

Jesus says to be meek, but he never said to be abused. Jesus never said to allow anyone to abuse what he gives us. Abuse of love is not what Jesus intends when he calls us to love one another. To love one another, this laying down, this self emptying must be mutual.

Jesus gives us this gift. His death is the proof and his resurrection is the redemption of all pain.

Jesus promises his spirit. Jesus promises his peace. Jesus tells his disciples to do as he has been doing. I say again that the only way we can possibly do as he has done is in his peace and by the power of his Spirit. Not only is this what Jesus gave us, this is what Jesus expects us to share with one another, spirit and peace. Jesus gives us what we need to do as he commands. His extravagant gifts of peace and power are what Jesus gives his us so that we may love one another.

Jesus says “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” This is our command, to empty ourselves, to die to self, so that we may love one another as Christ loved us first.

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[1] Philippians 2:6-8

Making Choices

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday May 6, 2012, the 5th Sunday in Easter.

Podcast of "Making Choices" (MP3)

Acts 8:24-40

Psalm 22:25-31

1 John 4:7-21

John 15:1-8

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen

Last week’s sermon was called, “What It Means to Be Who I Am.” I used that title because I wanted to share who Jesus is and what that means when he says “I am the Good Shepherd.” It was also about who we are and what it means to be who we are as followers of the Good Shepherd. There was one piece that I left out of the sermon because it just would have made the thing too long, but that’s okay because it is still good today.

Last week Jesus said “I am the Good Shepherd.” Today we read Jesus saying “I am the true vine.” What doesn’t get lost in the translation gets lost in common language; what Jesus meant when he said “I am.” It gets lost for us because we’re all used to being something or other.

Those of us with a social media presence are asked to describe ourselves, sometimes very briefly. On my sermon blog, I joyfully tell the world, “I am the Reverend Paul A. Andresen of the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas.” On Twitter I describe myself as, “Child of God, Husband of Marie, Teller of Tales, Fortunate Son.” (I think that’s pretty good considering Twitter only gives you 160 characters to describe yourself.) On Facebook, I don’t have a personal description. I use a quote from the movie “Tango and Cash” that goes a long way toward describing why I use Mr. Potato Head as my avatar.[1]

When Jesus says “I am,” it means more than when we say it. Ancient Jews were very stingy with the words “I am.” When they used the Hebrew word we translate “I am” it was only used for the name of the Lord. When they said “I am,” they meant “The Great I AM.” They meant “I AM who I AM.” So when Jesus says “I am,” he invokes the name of the Lord for himself. When he says “I am the Good Shepherd” or “I am the true vine,” he uses these images to describe what it means for him to be fully God in the flesh and in the world.

This linguistic twist is lost on us because we don’t know to look for it. It’s not a part of our culture. It wasn’t lost on his audience. So what does this mean? Let’s answer that using what we are given in John’s gospel. Jesus declares himself the true vine while invoking the name of the Lord. He then says his Father the gardener.

Jesus says “[The gardener] cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” Honestly, except for those who have gardened vines, we don’t really know what it means. So here’s a quick primer: When looking at a grape trellis, the vine is a trunk that comes out of the ground. That’s all there is to the vine, relatively speaking it doesn’t take up much space in the field at all. The branches sprout from the vines. Most of what we see growing are the branches, fruit, and leaves. The fruit of the vine is borne on the branches, not the vine. Like with the “I AM,” this wouldn’t have been lost on Jesus’ first century audience either.

From what Jesus says we know that the father does two things with the branches, he cuts off the dead wood and he prunes the live growth. This does two things to the plant. The first, cutting off the dead wood prevents any fungus or what not in the dead branches from making its way to the healthy ones. It’s like amputating a finger before gangrene infects the whole hand. On a lighter note, cutting off the dead wood prevents the strain that the weight of the dead branch puts on the vine. It also provides valuable space for good growth to spread.

The benefits of cutting off the dead wood are obvious, and there is one more thing to remember about cutting off the dead, it’s painless to the plant. To us, it would be like clipping a toe nail. It doesn’t really hurt and as for me, my shoes fit better. It’s a win-win.

The second thing pruning does is focus the growth of a plant. Left to their own devices, a vine branch will tend to grow outward producing lots of branch length, lots of leaves, and little fruit. Proper pruning will reduce the length of growth and increase the amount of fruit. It is true after all that the closer the fruit is to the vine the more nutrients it will receive. The closer to the vine, the better the fruit.

Jesus is the vine and the Father is the gardener; as for the branch, that’s us. The fruit, well, that’s a wildcard isn’t it. John’s gospel doesn’t say what the fruit is. Let’s just say that whatever the fruit is, it’s valuable and desirable.

Jesus says “Remain in me and I will remain in you.” This is an adequate translation, it sure isn’t wrong. But in my opinion there is a better way to say it. The New Revised Standard Version has Jesus saying, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” When I hear “remain” I think of a waiting room. It’s not bad, it’s better than being on the outside looking in, but to remain has no sense of action, no real sense of relationship.

When I hear the word abide, I hear the word rest, I hear the word stay, and I also hear that I will be nourished. To abide in one another is to deal in relationship. To abide requires more than just waiting. We were never meant to stay in the waiting room of the Lord, we are meant to be together in word and deed, that is how abiding in Christ we bear God’s desirable fruit.

There is something else I want to share with you. If there is one thing people who come to faith wonder about, it’s how is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ going to change their life. I say this from personal experience. While I went to church as a boy, I wouldn’t say I was raised in the church. Neither would any of the pastors who knew me as a boy. I finally came to faith in my late twenties, certainly old enough to be set in my ways. As you might hear someone say, “I was a grown man.”[2]

Frankly, there were some things I didn’t want to change. I like making myself and others laugh. I love sports. I love trivial garbage knowledge and facts. I love jokes. I love wit. I love making others think. I really love good stories. There are days that I would love to sit around with a beer and a cigar and talk about the good-old-days that frankly from the perspective of 20/20 hindsight weren’t all that good. So yes, being a disciple of Christ has changed me. The dead branches get cut away and pruning happens regularly. But has this changed who I am?

At my core, I am the man God made me, but I am a better man because God shapes me. I’m a better man because God cuts away what is useless and ultimately harmful. My branches don’t grow so wild anymore. I am a better man because cutting away early buds produces more and better fruit later. Yes, I am changed, but at the heart I am who God made me.

To me, this is what it means to abide in Christ. To me, this is what it means when scripture says Christ abides in me.

One of the ways I can confirm that is by the folks who told me that they weren’t surprised I became a minister. I was flabbergasted, I never imagined ministry as a vocation. People saw things in me I never saw, and as I often say, I am glad God was looking out for me long before I was looking out for God.

I have had an internal debate about this next paragraph, but have finally decided to share this. More proof that some things don’t change is that I do still enjoy a Churchill and a Shiner Bock from time to time, just not every night.

Now, excessive pruning and pruning out of season can be harmful. You can’t prune too quickly, if you do you can kill the plant. Using fruit trees as a good example for this, if a tree is pruned too much too quickly, it can fall into shock and die. Too much pruning too quickly is harmful. Being rid of an addiction is a fine example of pruning, but if it’s not done properly the patient can become seriously ill maybe unto death during detox.

Another worry about pruning happens often in the church. It has happened with Christians since the year 35 and it still happens today. People try to do the work of the gardener. People try to do the pruning on their own. The Jerusalem Council from Acts 15 decided whether gentiles had to become Jews before they became Christians. To the old school disciples this made perfect sense. To newer gentile Christians, this was a stumbling block. Looking at our reading today, the Jerusalem Council’s work looks like two sides of a church argument trying to do the pruning and training of the vine that is God’s prevue alone.

Our reading from 1John teaches us that the pruning the Father does is done in love; not in anger or hate or fear. Fear has to do with punishment, but pruning is not punishment, it is shaping us to bear much good fruit. God does this in love. So it is up to us to remember, that Jesus is the vine, God is the vinedresser, and we’re the branches. We’re in the system, but we’re not in charge of it.

Last week’s sermon was called, “What It Means to Be Who I Am.” This week’s sermon is called “Making Choices.” I hoped to share that it’s about the choices the vine and the gardener make, the choices they make because they are who they are, two-thirds of the Holy Trinity of God. It is also about the choices we make because God sometimes lets a branch run wild because that’s what it needs to do before the pruning takes. Finally, it is about also knowing that being pruned, like discipleship, is a continuing process. What lives on the vine today may be tomorrow’s dead wood.

Only by the Lord’s careful tending will we ever live the lives that bear good fruit. Jesus wants us to do nothing less than bear good fruit, because this is to God’s glory.

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[1] The quote: “It wouldn’t be a party without Potato Head” was spoken by Sylvester Stallone.

[2] So the expression is “grown-ass man,” I didn’t think the lovely widows really needed to hear me to say that.