John 14:15-24
“Keep Calm and Carry On.”
The WWII era poster has made a big comeback in recent years. Yes, it strikes me as very stereotypically “British”—“stiff upper lip” and all that. But it was probably just the kind of encouraging advice that was needed in the face of massive bombings.
It has been parodied in countless ways. This past week a young woman got on the bus wearing a T-shirt that read: “Keep Calm—I’m (almost) a doctor.” Well, that’s reassuring.
And I couldn’t resist using the tie-in with this morning’s Gospel lesson as the bulletin cover: “Keep Calm and Keep My Commandments.”
What advice, what instructions do we need when the bombs are falling—literally or figuratively, or when the news out of Washington disturbs as much as it has over the past two weeks, or when the financial markets start to get jumpy?
What instructions do we in the church get for living in these chaotic days. Should we “keep calm?” And just what might it mean for us to “carry on?”
On recent Sundays we have listened as John’s Gospel tells of Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene outside the empty tomb. Later on Easter day, he appears to the other disciples, locked away in a room, hiding in fear. A week later he returns to them and even to “doubting” Thomas. Finally, he shows up on the beach, giving Peter, John, and others some new fishing lessons and offering them breakfast.
And that’s it.
No parting instructions. No last words for the early church.
John simply concludes by telling us that Jesus did a lot of other things, too, but all the books in the world couldn’t contain them.
Strange.
Parents going out for a few hours can leave pages of detailed notes for the babysitter, covering where they will be, how long they will be gone, how to contact them, what to do in an emergency.
A teacher who will be away from school will write specific lesson plans for the substitute, stating what to teach, when to give the test, and assignments for the days ahead.
When you leave on vacation, you might tell the post office to hold the mail or arrange for a teenager in the neighborhood to mow your lawn.
And when I leave town, I always make sure that the moderator and the chairperson of the Diaconate and Nan in the office all know how to get in touch with me and who to contact if emergency pastoral care is needed.
But in the Gospel of John, the risen Christ does little or nothing to equip his followers for life in his absence.
Instead of final instructions, in the Gospel of John we find the “Farewell Discourse” of Jesus in chapters 14 through 17—four chapters presented as a conversation that Jesus has with his closest disciples on the night of his arrest. It’s a very one-sided conversation. Jesus does most of the talking. When the disciples do speak, it is usually out of confusion, asking questions as they try to grasp what is happening.
“If you love me,” Jesus says, “You will keep my commandments.”
That’s not much to go on, is it?
No organizational chart. No model for growth. No leadership hierarchy.
Simply—love Jesus and keep his commandments.
A little later it sounds as though Jesus is repeating himself when he says “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me.” But perhaps we can hear this more as clarification than repetition. We listen—and we begin to sense that to love Jesus is to keep his commandments; to keep Jesus’ commandments is to love him.[i] The two actions are more closely connected than we might have imagined.
This is the case for those of us who would follow Jesus even to this day. The words of Jesus invite us, not into a private, mystical communion with God, but into a public community of love that exhibits the love that God showed in Jesus—a love that welcomes the stranger, a love that accepts the outcast, a love that forgives the sinner.
“Keep my commandments,” Jesus says. A little earlier he gave his followers what he called a “new commandment,” the commandment that we remember each year on Maundy Thursday—“Love one another as I have loved you.” Connection with Jesus does not depend on a physical presence but on the presence of the love of God in the life of the community, this community.
Jesus speaks to a group, not simply to individuals. This is somewhat obscured in English translations by the word “you.” Jesus is using the second person plural—“you, the whole lot of you.” His concern is with how all of us together will behave toward one another and how we will live in the larger world.
“If you love me,” Jesus says, “you will keep my commandments.” If all of you love me, all of you will keep my commandments. There is no place here for some warm, fuzzy, individual “love of Jesus” apart from our love of one another. There is no place here for the ill-will that characterizes so many congregations (ask your friends). There is no place here for the exclusivity that favors some over others.
Jesus calls us to respect one another, to seek the good the community of faith, to—simply put—do to others as we would have done to us. As a congregation we can’t rely on a few people to do this. We are—all of us—called to love. We are—all of us together—called to keep Jesus’ commandments.
Suddenly being the UCC—the United Church of Christ is not as “freewheeling” as we often think it to be. To be a part of this congregation takes some discipline so that in what we do we might all keep Jesus’ commandment of love. It is a great calling and a high challenge that you took on in covenanting to be a member of this congregation. When we baptize, we are reminded that Christianity is a demanding way of life. It requires much and gives even more. A liberal, open-hearted Christianity calls for the best in us as individuals and as a congregation.
Keeping Jesus’ commandment to love one another does not necessarily come easily. As we seek to follow Jesus, we sometimes find that we are not following our own impulses. So we need each other to help all of us keep the commandment.
In the Congregational tradition we often emphasize the responsibility that each individual has before God. And that is an important part of our tradition. It is one of the deepest roots of democracy in our nation—and in these days that emphasis on individual responsibility in our tradition can be a gift to our nation.
And yet, our Congregational tradition is not about isolated individuals but the whole people of God assembled in a particular place and time—the congregation. And love for one another is commanded of the whole community.
Perhaps now, we can better understand the words of Jesus when he suggests that his absence will result in a deeper sense of connection between him and those who would still follow him. “I will not leave you orphaned. I will not abandon you,” Jesus says. The Spirit of God will come to those who “believe,” that is, to those whose lives show a commitment to the way of Jesus Christ.
My guess, however, is that there have been times when you have felt abandoned—orphaned—by God. There, no doubt, have been times in your life when God was known most deeply by God’s absence. Such times carry many names: the dark night of the soul, a dry season, the winter of the spirit. Maybe you came here this morning in spite of feeling abandoned by God. Maybe you came here because you feel abandoned.
It’s crushing to feel abandoned by God—to carry the sense that the lives of others are somehow more favored, to suspect that even in their difficulties and trials other people draw closer to God and God to them, while you are left to your own devices.
At least that’s how it has felt to me.
Because we can feel the despair of abandonment, the absence of God, these final words of Jesus come as good news. Jesus speaks of another Comforter who will come to us in his absence—the Spirit of Truth. Just as Jesus was himself a Comforter to those who were with him, so the Spirit will be our Comforter, our Counselor, our Advocate.
Again, we need to hear in plural. As one person put it, “The promises of [God’s] presence are promises made to the community, not to the individual…Jesus does not promise the Comforter, or his own return, or the [abiding presence of God] to individuals but to a community who lives in love.” When we follow Jesus’ model of love, it is possible for the relationship with Jesus to extend beyond the first generation of followers, because that relationship depends not on physical presence but on the presence of the love of God in the life of the community. And that love is present when we keep the commandments of Jesus.[ii]
Are you beginning to get a sense of how important you are to this community?
Are you beginning to get a sense of how important this community is to you?
Your love is a sign of God’s love among us. The love in this community is how you can know that you are loved.
The Spirit comes to the congregation so that, knowing we are loved, we will be able to love one another.
The Spirit comes to the congregation so that as we love one another, we will know that we are loved by God.
Reflecting on this morning’s lesson from the Gospel of John, the great 20th century New Testament scholar, Rudolph Bultmann, asked: “Can the disciples still love Jesus when he is gone? Can the next generation love him, without having had a personal relationship with him?”[iii]
How can we love Jesus after he is gone? How can we have a relationship with Jesus when he is not here?
In recent weeks we have listened as the scriptures pointed us toward a number of ways to do this.
We look to something beyond ourselves, something greater than our own lives, something that transcends our everyday, predictable reality. We stretch who we are and what we do into that new reality.
We look forward to the new things that God is doing among us and in the world rather than being trapped in the past
We listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd who calls us by name.
In our brokenness, amidst the brokenness of our world, we hope—and we act on that hope as we continue to seek justice.
As we attempt this Easter lifestyle, we find that we are not abandoned. God’s Spirit is with us and among us.
How do we love Jesus after he is gone? By following in the ways of Jesus Christ, made known and to be made known to us as we live out all the instructions we need: love one another as Christ has loved us.
[i] Gail O’Day, “John,” Interpreter’s Bible, v. IX, pg. 745.
[ii] ibid.
[iii] Rudolph Bultmann, The Gospel of John, pg. 613.