Sermon Brief

Honored to be blessed with the trust of the pulpit yesterday at First Christian in Hennessey. I had never preached John 15:9-17, and some may say I still haven’t. The paragraphs below represent the sermon brief.

Reside, Tolerate, Endure, Wait, Accept, Suffer: Abide
John 15:9-17

This is the Year B in the Lectionary, that organized way to read through most of the bible in a three year cycle. In Year B, we hear about Jesus of Nazareth through the Gospel of Mark. Mark is what I call an outline gospel. It is the short story that Matthew and John turn into their own novels, and then the author of Luke-Acts uses all three. Matthew, Mark, and John, to create a made for TV movie that could be optioned as a screen play.

Today, we meet up with Jesus and his disciples in a sort of flash back moment. Jesus is with the disciples in Jerusalem in the middle of a monologue that began with setting for you, for me, and anyone that would follow, an example: he washed the disciples’ feet. If you are ever unsure about what gospel looks like in your life, in your community, or in the world, John’s gospel suggests it begins with a basin of water, a towel, and humility.

The good news of God is always counter-cultural in deed and in word.

As Jesus continues to talk he reminds the disciples in that room, and this one:

Just as Jesus has loved you, you also should love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are his disciples if you have love for one another;

Anyone who believes in Jesus will do the works that he does and do even greater works than his;

If you love Jesus, you will keep his commandments;

Abide in Jesus as he abides in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Jesus.

And there is that word seldom used anymore: abide. Like so much of Jesus’ life and ministry, abide is a verb:

to remain; to reside; to continue in a particular condition, attitude, or relationship; to tolerate; to endure; to wait; to accept; to suffer for.

Remember, John’s gospel novel is not for the newly initiated believer or novice follower of Jesus. The language invites theological conversation that requires you to have spent some time personally struggling with God,
personally struggling with Jesus,
intimately struggling with Jesus in relationship with others; and risk.

Risk the friendship of disagreeing with someone you’ve known your whole life. That someone may be the face you see everyday in the mirror, a family member, co-worker, or neighbor. Risk disagreeing with Christian tradition’s presentation of Jesus and its presentation of God.

Jesus doesn’t make it easy. I’ve got to figure out how to abide in Jesus’ love, which is an example of God’s love, and be a model of reciprocal love with our State and Federal legislators, some whom flaunt their Christianity as a qualification for office, yet cannot apply love your neighbor as yourself to budgets, tax policy, healthcare, or discriminatory religious freedom laws.

Christianity is pretty comfortable with the idea that abide means “to suffer for” when it is others or when it is Jesus doing the suffering. But Jesus says, abide in my love. Whom have you ‘suffered for’? Did that feel redemptive?

It is common for clergy to discuss the text for the week, with colleagues and friends from a broad spectrum of belief and practice. Sometimes we even do that on social media. Talking with my colleague, Rev. Charles Ragland, minister at First Christian in Claremore, about one of the definitions of abide, “suffer for”, he noted:

“Suffer for” as in, “allow for”? As in “Suffer the little children…”? May I suggest that when we suffer [for] others (in the above sense), we “allow” them space in our lives. We make room (take time) for their needs. God constantly makes room in God’s life to abide with us, and seems to me that is a mark of authentic love as Jesus did it: to make welcoming space in your life for others.” Whom have you suffered for?

In John’s gospel the friendship based mutual, collaborative, risky, joyful, self-sacrificing, reciprocal companionship that Jesus wants for his disciples, and any who would follow, is enfleshed in the ability to abide in Jesus’ love;
abide in Jesus’ way of loving;
abide in keeping Jesus’ commandments.

Maybe it is a way of seeing the world, interacting with creation and people; it is a lifestyle as much as a faith statement about who God is and what Jesus means. Abide in Jesus and his way of loving, and your joy may be complete.

You’ve seen complete joy.

It is people who send some of their store of hay or feed or clothing or money for those whose lives have been consumed in flames, by flood, swallowed by earthquake, or blown away by wind.

It is the believer and non-believer alike that does what is right because it is right, even when it is unpopular.

It is Job declaring, “It is the Lord. Let the Lord do what seems right to the Lord.”

Disciples in Hennessey . . . abide.