Easter 6A
“If
you love me, you will keep my commandments.”[1] I’ve been reading this sentence over and over
again this week. Sometimes even saying
it out loud in my office when no one is around to look at me funny. “If you love me, you will keep my
commandments.” I keep reciting it, in
part, because I want there to be more to the sentence. For example, here are some versions that I
like better. They are clearer:
1. “If you love me, then you will
keep my commandments” – simple cause and effect. If this, then that.
2. Or, how about this version: “If you
love me, you will want to keep my commandments” – an acknowledgement
that my doing and my wanting are not always the same thing; an acknowledgement
of my full humanity – foibles and all.
3. Or, maybe this version: “If you love
me, you won’t be able to help yourself – you will keep my
commandments.” I admit, this is my favorite. There’s a sense of new love in it,
right? I fall in love with someone and I
can’t help myself, I buy them flowers or a treat at the bakery. I fall in love with someone and I want to be
with them all the time. I am
infatuated. If we love Jesus, we will
keep his commandments because that’s what love drives us to do – to please the
object of our love.
But
we don’t get any of that. We simply get, “If you love me, you will keep my
commandments.” And immediately after
this we get the promise of Pentecost – that Jesus will send the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit of truth, an advocate to abide in and with us.[2] And too
the promise of the second coming, that Jesus will not leave us orphaned but
will come to us again.[3] And then our passage ends where it began, “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.”[4] And it all leaves me wanting something more. Because
it makes me worry that Jesus’ love is too dependent on my actions and that is not at all comfortable.
Jesus’
love depending on my actions makes me really uncomfortable BUT, when it is
Jesus’ love depending on someone else’s actions, then, suddenly, it’s not so
bad. A couple of weeks ago, for example,
I was pretty upset by an executive order issued by the President and by
Congress’ move to undo the Affordable Care Act and I stood here in this very
spot and proclaimed “white evangelicals are practicing a Christianity that
Jesus would not recognize as a reflection of his life and death witness to the
gospel.”[5]
It
felt good to say that. It felt good to acknowledge that when people do things
that I think are really, really abominable that they are not demonstrating
their love for Jesus and to use a passage like this morning’s, twist it around
just a bit, and soon I’ve convinced myself – and maybe you as well – that it
says: “They who have my commandments and do not keep them are those who do not
love me; and those who do not love me will not be loved by my Father, and I
will not love them and will not reveal myself to them.” But, it doesn’t say that. It doesn’t say that at all. It simply says, “If you love me, you will
keep my commandments.”
So,
what to do – besides walking around reciting the words over and over again
(which, by the way, is not a bad spiritual discipline in the great scheme of
things)? Most scholars assume that the
gospel of John was written for an audience of believers – in other words, it
was probably written for Jews who already were followers of Jesus. The text was not written to convert people;
rather, it was meant to uphold and strengthen those who already believed so
that they would continue believing, so that they would have courage to believe,
so that they would – now several decades after Jesus’ death – continue to keep
the faith.
So
the ‘you’ in the “if you love me” sentence is us – it’s believers. We cannot assume that the “you” applies to
non-believers because they were not the author’s intended audience. So, it is not a passage that we can use with
any integrity to say that only Christians are saved. But, and perhaps this is even more important,
it is also not a passage that can be used for finger-wagging at other
believers. If that were the case it would
read, “If they love me, they would keep my commandments.”
So
what’s left? It’s us. It is a passage that is for believers. It is an invitation for us to take an honest
look at our own lives – individually and corporately. And ask ourselves, “Are we loving
Jesus?” “Are we keeping Jesus’
commandments?” And God knows there is no
simple litmus test for that. Oftentimes
circumstances are so complex that it’s not a simple yes or no that will
determine our next course of action. We
have to pray and discern and listen for God’s call to us. We need constantly to
ask, “What is the next right thing to do?” “What’s the next right, loving thing
to do?” And we need to remind ourselves that sometimes we might get it wrong.
And
it’s that part – the possibly being wrong part – that I think those middle
verses of today’s passage speak to.
Because if Jesus’ words, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”
cause us to live in fear of doing the wrong
thing rather than to rejoice in our love of Jesus, then we need those middle
verses. We need to hear that God has
given us another Advocate, that God has sent the Spirit of truth to be with us
forever.
And
forever is not conditional, my friends.
Forever is not dependent on anything we do or do not do. Forever is not dependent on our action or
inaction. Forever is dependent only on
God and we are never abandoned by God.
For we are loved. And because we
are loved we are free to rejoice in our love of Jesus and keep Jesus’
commandments and know with certainty that “those who love me will be loved by
my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” Forever.
And
because we are loved, we are also free to walk around with a single sentence
repeating in our minds or maybe even being uttered by our lips: “If you love
me, you will keep my commandments.” See what comes to you if you do. Let me know what you discern. Because I’m not
done yet.
[1]
John 14:15.
[2]
John 14:16-17.
[3]
John 14:18-20.
[4]
John 14:21.
[5]
Bullock, Debra, “Serving as Christ’s Mirror to the World: Sermon for May 7,2017”, Turtle on Wheels, May 8, 2017,
accessed May 18, 2017. (Note: never cited myself before. . . now I have.
Probably didn’t need to; but, there it is).
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