John 14:15-21
“What Love Looks Like”
May 14, 2023
How are you at being told what to do?
There are certainly times and places when that is all that seems to be happening – I’m guessing all of you veterans with us can relate as the military is built on taking orders.
Having worked as a waitress in college, I know my job was always easier when people knew exactly what they wanted and were able to communicate that clearly except for the lack of communication that sometimes happened when our French-Canadian tourist guests were sure that what they wanted was ham with their breakfast but what they really wanted was jam for their toast.
On this Mother’s Day, I am remembering that my own Mom had little patience for any of the 7 of us kids who questioned why she wanted something done – now, not when you feel like it – such as folding the never-ending baskets of laundry or picking up the shoes that seemed to multiply exponentially.
So here we are at the point in John’s Gospel where Jesus is preparing his disciples for his earthly departure and there’s this lovely vision from the theologian Fred Craddock who paints this scene with a distinctly memorable image.
He imagines “the disciples as children playing on the floor, who happen to look up and see the parents putting on coats and hats. Their questions are three: Where are you going? Can we go? Then who is going to stay with us?” (John Knox Preaching Guides, 98)
This is certainly not Jesus’ first attempt at trying to help lay out what is going to happen after he’s gone but as so often is the case throughout the Gospels, the disciples don’t get it.
The love, of Jesus and that they are to live into, is not going anywhere.
What he’s saying is that the Holy Spirit looks like an Advocate – just what helps little ones and adults in times of trouble.
The Advocate is the one who backs you up, who speaks up for you, who reaches out to help when you need them and who will stick by you through thick and thin.
The Holy Spirit, which can be a tough concept to grasp regardless of how old we are, looks like Jesus.
The Spirit is referred to as another advocate because Jesus was the first one.
Bottom line – the Holy Spirit looks a lot like Jesus.
And we probably don’t have to look too hard to find that essence of Jesus – it’s the person who pulls over to help you on the side of the road when your car gives out on you.
It’s the phone call with the reassurance that you are important and make a difference just when you are feeling your lowest.
It is the one who sees you alone at a social gathering and invites you to sit with them and introduces you to other folks there.
It’s those that show up weeks or months after the loss of a loved one with a meal and a listening ear.
What Jesus wanted the disciples to know before he left is that that same love they were drawn to and admired and wanted to be close to in him, was also within each of them. What he left them was hope.
One of the hardest parts of this commandment to love – the only commandment mentioned in John’s Gospel – is that we not only need to love the loveable ones but also the mean or disagreeable ones also.
We don’t have the luxury of giving up on anyone.
We have not, as a people always had the greatest batting average with the loving business over time.
In the past two millennia, we’ve fallen down on the job of loving each other more times than we can count.
D.A. Carson, a New Testament scholar put it this way:
“This new command is simple enough for a toddler to memorize and appreciate, and yet it is profound enough that the most mature believers are repeatedly embarrassed at how poorly they comprehend it and put it into practice.”
Why is it so hard to carry out Jesus’ final wish for us?
It could be that loving makes us vulnerable.
Loving requires that we trust.
Loving takes work.
So even though we may bristle at being commanded to love, that may be why Jesus smushes together love and obedience.
We, as Christians follow a crucified and resurrected God whose love for us knows no bounds.
We have so many reasons to love but first and foremost is because we are loved.
It is not enough to say back to God, I love you, too.
We must build on that love, act on that love, live into that love.
What starts out in today’s passage with “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” finishes with “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me.”
Duke Divinity School Professor and writer Kate Bowler has written a book of blessings and this one is for those of us who still work on the “loving all” part of loving Jesus. It’s called “A Blessing for Those Who Care for Strangers”:
What a waste.
That wasn’t going to get you a nicer apartment.
Bless those who give their health
in service of patients who might not even deserve it.
What if that patient took unnecessary risks
or was selfish or was never going to say thank you?
You could have been protecting yourself
or God forbid, sleeping through the night.
Bless those who listen too long,
winding stories from lonely hearts.
Instead of rushing off to more interesting friends.
You picked boredom or patience
instead of the warmth of being known.
That was your time and you’re never going to get it back.
Bless those who loved people who weren’t grateful.
The sick who endangered your health,
the deeply boring, who know you have things to do.
Loving people can be the most meaningful thing in
the world, but it can also be hard and scary and boring and disgusting or sad or anxiety inducing with zero overtime.
Thank you to those who make these bad investments.
Those acts of love that are not going to add up to success in the way that the world sees it.
You, my darlings, are the definition of love.
Amen.