Witness of Love (May 23 – 29)

Sunday, May 29
Sixth Sunday of Easter

Weekly Theme
Witness of Love

Weekly Prayer
Living and gracious God, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ you have brought us out to a spacious place where we are called to live as those redeemed. Empower us by your Spirit to keep your commandments, that we may show forth your love with gentle word and reverent deed to all your people. Amen.

Weekly Reading
John 14:15-21

[Jesus said:] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
 
All readings for the Week
Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:8-20
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21

Focus Questions

1. Why do you think the disciples were anxious and distresed?

2. How have you experienced the Holy Spirit at work in your life?

3. How are personal faith and public love related?

4. What do you think an extraordinary life looks like?

5. When has your church been “a giant heart of a place”?
 
Reflection
by Kate Huey

In his farewell address, as Jesus summarizes his teachings one last time for his bewildered disciples, he reassures them that they will not be left on their own, to fend for themselves, to rely on their own resources and their own wits. Undoubtedly this was a good thing; they couldn’t have managed any better than we could on our own! He will not leave them “orphans,” Jesus tells them, without a loving Father/Mother God to care for them. The word “orphan” can also refer to the disciple of a departed teacher. But Barbara Brown Taylor’s beautiful sermon, “Good News for Orphans,” uses the parent/child image to describe the feeling of security that children long for when they’re left alone. They want to be reassured that someone greater, stronger, smarter is not only present but in charge. And they want to be reassured that this someone loves them.

As usual, we get the sense that the disciples are as lost as we would have been, back there, on that side of both Easter and Pentecost. John, by the time he writes his Gospel, does know about both the Resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit. He tells the story of Jesus saying good-bye to his followers, now that his “hour has come,” before he goes to his death. The longer he goes on (and it is a very long farewell speech), the more anxious and perplexed they are. As Taylor puts it, “The way he tells it, he is heading off to a family reunion with his father that no one else is invited to, and he is leaving them in charge while he is gone.” And even with Easter, and Pentecost, and centuries of faith between them and us, Taylor says, “from where we sit it has been so long that some of us wonder if we have not been orphaned after all.” 

It all reminds me of the spiritual, “Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child.” Perhaps that’s how the disciples felt, how terrified they must have been, after leaving everything behind for this Teacher, and then finding themselves outside “the mainstream” because of that decision. They couldn’t just slip easily back into their lives; clearly, things would never be the same. And yet it wasn’t clear to them exactly how things were going to be. It was beyond the power of their imaginations. Again, even with Easter, and Pentecost, our imaginations, too, often fall far short of the dream of God, and Jesus’ words about love and obedience may seem like just that: words in a lovely speech long ago.

But they aren’t just pretty words. Jesus backs up his claims with a promise to send the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, to be with these disciples, and with all of us today, two thousand years later. Richard Burridge says that “the word ‘Paraclete’ means ‘someone called alongside’ to help or assist,” and this helper is our “advocate…Counselor and Intercessor…Comforter.” But he draws on the original meaning of the word “to comfort,” which is to give strength or courage. Thus the Paraclete is our counselor, advocate, intercessor, comforter, strengthener–an all around helper.” We don’t often speak of the Holy Spirit in many of our churches today. It’s easier to “access” a Father-God, or Jesus, “the man of Nazareth” (and “our crucified and risen Savior”–see the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith) than it is to imagine and relate to a Spirit that has defied our attempts to shape or describe “Him” or “Her” (many consider the Spirit to be a feminine presence). 

Dianne Bergant helps us understand at least the role of the Spirit in our lives: “It is the Spirit who strengthens us, comforts us, guides us, and inspires us. It is the Spirit who enables us to interpret the signs of the times in ways very different from the ways of the world. It is the Spirit who works through us for the transformation of the world. It is because the Spirit has already been given to us that, in the midst of our journey of life, we are able to live the promises into fulfillment….We may be considered foolish by those who live without this hope, but it is the foolishness of the Spirit of God.” 

In two weeks, Pentecost will provide ample opportunity to reflect further on this Holy Spirit, but for now, we return to that hushed conversation between the departing Teacher and his anxious students. They are the future of the church, such as they are, and Jesus speaks to them not as individuals, each with his or her own private relationship with him, but as the church, the community of faith.

What does Jesus tell them to do?

The little band of John’s community would also be an embattled and uncertain little church, in need of reassurance and promises and yet, like those first disciples (and us today), also in need of challenge. Maybe, though, we all need to know exactly what the expectations are. We want to measure up, to fulfill our obligations, to make the grade, to do what’s right, to please God (and maybe others, too). So what does Jesus tell his disciples to do? He tells them to keep his commandments, and we all know what those are. What mattered to Jesus was love, and it’s no surprise that “love” is in the very same sentence with “obey my commandments.”

The commentators all seem to wrestle with Jesus’ command, or better, his observation that “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” It almost sounds as if all our talk of grace is meaningless in the face of a requirement like that. Does it really all come down to this: that we need to obey the rules (to love) and earn our way to heaven? We might respond, first, that the commandments that mattered to Jesus were those two about loving God and loving our neighbor (and, we might add, he expanded our understanding of those commandments to include things like forgiveness, praying for our enemies, caring about the poor and the marginalized, and ordering our lives well, including our use of money–the thing we mostly don’t want to talk about in church; none of this is easy!).

When you really, really love someone…

Second, perhaps Jesus isn’t making a conditional statement but instead is putting forth an obvious fact: when you love someone, really, really love someone, doing what is good and right comes so much more naturally and easily. Parents are a good illustration of this: it may be a challenge at times to be a parent, but the love one feels for one’s children makes it a “no-brainer” to do what’s good for them; it’s obvious that if you love your children, you’re going to take good care of them. (Think of the story of the Solomon and the two mothers in I Kings 3: it was obvious who the mother was, and who loved her child.) Perhaps Jesus’ statement is in that same spirit.

In any case, he’s speaking to a group and not to an individual, and preparing them for what is to come. Things are going to change, and change fast, and, Gail R. O’Day says, “The disciples can still love Jesus, but neither by clinging to a cherished memory of him nor by retreating into their private experience of him. Rather they can continue to love Jesus by doing his works (vv. 12-14) and by keeping his commandments (vv. 15-24). That is, when they move outside of their own private experience of Jesus, when they live what Jesus has taught them and demonstrated in his own life, then they will find themselves once again in his love.” We might reflect then on the “public love” of the Incarnation, the promises and challenges given to a community that continues in us today, and the presence of God through the Holy Spirit with us, right now, right here, in our life together. Charles Cousar says, “The relationship between disciples and Teacher is not to degenerate into sentimentality or into a wistful nostalgia once he has gone, about ‘how wonderful things were when Jesus was with us.'” No, instead, “Love expresses itself in obedience, in keeping Jesus’ words.”

What does obedience looks like?

What would this obedience look like? (Would they be able to pick us out of a crowd–because of our love–as followers of Jesus?) It’s more than individual acts and momentary flights of spirituality; it’s “a way of living in this world that is extraordinary, a way of living that requires that we give a reason for the hope within us,” Dianne Bergant writes. “Love prompts us to pattern our lives after the model of Jesus, the one we love. This means we will live with clear consciences, with gentleness and reverence. The love that comes to us through the Spirit will overflow into the lives of others.  We will be agents of God’s love in the world….Our lives will be evidence of the presence of the Spirit in our midst.” This may not harmonize always with the values of a world that is materialistic, competitive, and often full of empty promises, but then, she writes, there is a “breach between the world and the things of God….The world is captive to materialism, open only to what is tangible. It cannot see the Spirit….”

So we are not left alone; we are not orphans; we are “Easter people.” And Richard Burridge writes that “A church full of ‘Easter people’ will be a place where grieving or searching souls can be comforted, encouraged, and strengthened–a community where the risen and ascended Christ and his heavenly Father are made known through our life together in the Spirit, and from which we are sent out with good news for all the world.” If we want to know whether we are loving Jesus, perhaps we can hold up our life together in the light of this claim.

A table at the heart of things

Barbara Brown Taylor always brings a text like this one, no matter how difficult, right back to the heart of the message; she always brings it home: “‘…and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them’ (John 14:23). Not visit. Not pass through from time to time. Not send a postcard. ‘We will come to them and make our home with them’….John only uses the word ‘home’ twice in his gospel, both times around the supper table….” Is it any wonder that our church home has a table at its center, not just architecturally but at the heart of our sacramental life together? This “home,” Taylor writes, is not “a temporary place but a permanent one, an abode large enough to accommodate the love that binds him to God on one hand and binds him to us on the other, a giant heart of a place with room enough for everyone whom love unites. It is John’s idea of heaven to move in with the God who has moved in with us…” Does your church, and mine, does the United Church of Christ, look like “a giant heart of a place with room enough for everyone whom love unites”?

For Further Reflection

John of the Cross, 16th century
In the evening, we will be judged on love.

Jeremy Taylor, 17th century
Since the days of Pentecost, has the whole church ever put aside every other work and waited upon Him for ten days, that the Spirit’s power might be manifested? We give too much attention to method and machinery and resources, and too little to the source of power.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 20th century
One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.

Daniel Goleman, 21st century
The fundamental task of leaders, we argue, is to prime good feeling in those they lead. That occurs when a leader creates resonance–a reservoir of positivity that frees the best in people. At its root, then, the primal job of leadership is emotional.

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Weekly Seeds is a service of the Congregational Vitality Initiative, Local Church Ministries, United Church of Christ. Bible texts are from the New Revised Standard Version, © 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The Revised Common Lectionary is © 1992 Consultation on Common Texts. Used by permission.