Chosen for Love, Loved for Love—Jn 15:9-17

A couple of Sundays back, I shared one biblical scholar’s view of what made Christianity unique on this side of eternity, what helped it, from an earthly perspective, to grow and spread to such prominence.  There were religions, long-established, where gods were served to curry favor with them, much as one would seek favor from a human patron.  There were religions that taught mysteries regarding the path whereby initiates could themselves become god, divine, liberated from all cares and desires.  In many places even today, people approach religion in much the same way.

Then there was Christianity, which, at that time and in that place, offered something quite different: a relationship, a relationship of love, with God.  Christianity spoke of a Father in heaven, who was all a father should be: firm, strong, clear, patient, wise, fair, merciful, compassionate, and loving.  Christianity was about the Son of this Father, who came to bring us to the Father, to show us the Father, to teach and to show us what the Father’s love for us meant.  Jesus Christ came, in part, in large part, to bring us the love of the Father and to draw us to the Father in love: “I love you just as the Father loves me; remain in my love” (15:9).

I hope your own experience testifies that there is no safer, no better, no happier place to dwell, than in love.  How do we remain, abide, how do we continue in the love of Christ?  This is no secret.  We continue in the love of Christ by obeying his commands, and the essence of his commands is this: that we love one another as he has loved us.

Our translation uses remain: remain in my love, Jesus says.  You might remember hearing that rendered as abide in my love.  Both translations point to something quite helpful.  To remain is to continue, to persevere, to hold steady, to hold fast: constancy.  Fickleness is no part of true love.  To remain is to continue to commit, for life.

Abide is a curious word.  We know it and might be able to use it in a sentence, probably a biblical-sounding sentence, but it isn’t a word we use often.  Jesus uses it, here.  You might remember the old hymn, “Abide with Me,” which is sort of sad, yet beautiful.  Abiding is like continuing, remaining.  The root sense of the word has to do with trustful waiting, like hope, like conviction, like faith.

So, yes, Jesus tells us to abide in him, to abide in his love, and so we do.  So we are; we’re trying.  And our abiding is ongoing.  Choice by choice, act by act, we abide.  I think this is part of what Jesus means when he tells us we abide in his love as we obey his commands: choice by choice, act by act, ongoingly.  Truly, remaining in his love is sanctifying us, purifying us, preparing us for something far, far better than we have ever known.

We know we’re to follow the example Christ sets us.  St. John helps us to see very plainly why: when we follow the example of Christ, we remain close to God, we remain in a healthy, a robust relationship of love with our Father in heaven.  He is our Father through Jesus Christ.  In John’s account, we often hear Jesus say, as I with my Father, so you with me.  As I do what my Father tells me, do as I have told you.  As I am in my Father, so you are in me.  As I abide in the love of my Father, abide in my love.  Jesus is our pattern.  Jesus is our point of contact, our access to the Father.

Jesus has and knows the love of the Father.  This makes him joyful, just as the Father is joyful.  Like many who are ill-disposed to Christianity, we get preoccupied with the wrath of God.  I think we secretly sort of like the wrath of God, when it’s directed at others: you know, the ones who have brought it on themselves, the ones who deserve it, unlike you and me.  It can surprise us, then, it can mess with our minds and certainly with our expectations, to learn, through Jesus, that the Father is not wrathful but joyful, fundamentally, radically, essentially joyful.  How could He not be?  Have you considered the universe?  Have you considered stars and atoms and cells and life and clouds and seas?  Flowers and trees, fish and birds?  Joy!

Jesus tells us what he tells us so that his joy may be in us (15:11).  In us.  Not with us or upon us, like a backpack or a jacket.  In us.  How does the joy of God our Father in heaven get in us?  Jesus shares his teaching with us, shares himself with us, so that his joy may be in us and our joy be complete (15:11).  Complete joy.  That is the life into which God calls us, in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit.  This divine joy is available to us as we love one another, doing what Jesus commands us.  Jesus is quite clear here: “you are my friends if you do what I command you” (15:14).  He commands us to love one another and to abide in his love, trustfully awaiting the fulfillment of what he has promised us, remembering all he has already done for us.  What has Jesus done for you?  If someone were to ask you what Jesus has ever done for you, what would you say?

          Well, he died for me, for starters.  Have you ever seen a war movie where one of the soldiers throws himself on a grenade?  Or a sailor pushes another sailor through the water-tight door and then closes it, closing himself in with the water and with death?  Why?  Why do that?  Who am I, that anyone would do that for me?  Why does he die and I get to live?  What does it mean?  Jesus gave his life so that we could live.  He gave his life not because of any special merit in us, not because any of us are so extraordinary, but because he loves us and really doesn’t want us to perish.  He’d rather die than see us die.  Not our glory but his grace.  Not our goodness but his love.

It’s not likely that any of us will die for our brothers and sisters in faith.  I don’t say it’s impossible; just unlikely.  We are, though, called to give our lives for one another.  It isn’t always convenient, or easy, to love one another.  Am I right, or what?  Not easy.  How much less for our Father in heaven and His only-begotten Son, who knows us better than we know ourselves, who has seen everything no one else has ever seen, who knows each thought, each appetite, who knows all that we will do.  Do you ever tremble at the thought of the sins to come?

Jesus threw himself on that grenade of sin, thrust us through the door of that compartment flooding with death, knowing perfectly that we are not perfect and that we will not be perfect, knowing that we are all of us very imperfect.  He gave himself for us, knowing all this, because he loves us.  We disappoint him, oh yes!  Even last week.  Even yesterday.  That does not cause him to stop loving us or to stop committing himself to sanctifying us.

If he has such patience with us, because he has such love for us, could we try to have love and patience for one another?  Even though we don’t always make it easy?  Because we don’t always make it easy!  We are truly friends of Jesus Christ when we do this: when we take a breath and, choice by choice, act by act, abide in the love of Jesus, together.

Choices.  Jesus talks about choices.  He talks with us about choices.  He says, “You did not choose me; I chose you” (15:16).  He chooses us.  He chooses us, even though he knows us!  He does not choose us to glorify or honor us.  We’ve been picked for the team, hand-picked.  I don’t know about you, but I was always one of those picked at the end—not the very last, mind you!  But close enough.  Chosen.  Chosen for the team, chosen for a task.  Jesus has appointed us, specially delegated each of us and all of us “to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures” (15:16).  Works of love.  Not works of salvation, as though we saved ourselves.  Not works of merit, as though we earned payment from God.  Works of love, the fruit of salvation, the fruit of sanctification, the fruit of Christ our vine, the fruit of the Spirit.

The Father will give us whatever we ask, in the name of Jesus Christ.  He will give to us whatever we ask for that furthers and accomplishes the mission, the work.  This teaches us about prayer: for what shall we pray?  For that which furthers God’s purposes in this world, in us and through us.  We pray that God will so be with us that we shall do His will!  (See 1 Jn 5:14-15.)

His will is joy; His purposes are joy, and as we abide in Him, He promises us complete joy.  We are on our way to complete joy: that’s a place I want to be.  But it isn’t a place, really, it’s a relationship: a relationship with God, a loving relationship with God.  Isn’t that where we have always found joy, in connection?  The church word for connection is Communion.  That is what this Ordinance, this Sacrament that we are about to celebrate, is all about.  Here is the love of God, the joy of God, complete.

When we partake, in faith by the Spirit, we have a taste of joy, a foretaste of heaven, a glimpse of Christ, our connection with God.  We say the body of Christ and the blood of Christ, and, in faith, by the Spirit, this is indeed what they are.  We remember the sacrifice: let us not lose sight of that sacrifice.  Let us also receive, in the body and the blood, the life, the love, and the joy, for us, and in us, for our transformation and blessing, for the work of a chosen, appointed people.  How does that joy, that love, that life, get in us?  In Christ, by the Spirit, here, in this Word proclaimed, from this table given.

Who are you, that God should come to you?

You are chosen.  You are loved.  Therefore, love one another.

To the God of all grace, who calls you to share God’s eternal glory in union with Christ, be the power forever!