“Remain In My Love”
John 15:9-17
Once again, I want to say Happy Mother’s Day to our mothers and mother figures. On this special day we thank all of you who helped shape our lives and build our families and serve as our safe place as we go out into the world. Mothers have the unique power to influence their children no matter how old those children get.
Phil Keith, the former police chief of Knoxville, Tennessee, tells of receiving a call from his mother while he was in the middle of a televised press conference. Keith knew his mother wouldn’t call him under those circumstances unless something was seriously wrong, so he excused himself from the press conference to answer the phone.
When his mother picked up the phone, she said, “Phil Keith, are you chewing gum?” He said, “Um, yes, ma’am.” She said, “Well, it looks awful, spit it out.”
So, Police Chief Phil Keith spit out his gum and returned to finish the press conference. Isn’t it amazing the power mothers have over our lives? But if you ask most mothers, they say their power is very limited.
Not sure if you have noticed or not but we throw the word LOVE around a lot in our society. The Apostle John, our author this morning, who identifies himself as “The one whom Jesus loved,” writes a lot about love. He says we can read and pray and fast and study and do good and be in small groups until the cows come home but it won’t matter much if we aren’t loving our brothers and sisters around us. For John, love isn’t a feeling or an affection. Biblical love means putting the needs of others above our self-interest. Remember what I said last Sunday about how love isn’t love until you give it away?
We are to love each other as Jesus loved us, and He loved us enough to give His life for us. We may or may not have to die for someone, but we can practice sacrificial love in other ways: listening, helping, encouraging, giving. Think of someone who needs this kind of love today and give all you can.
Our lesson begins this morning with Jesus saying to His disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love” (John 15:9 NIV).
Jesus’ words are the model for us all: mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers, as well as children and siblings and friends. Because God loves us, we love one another. Because He forgives us, we forgive one another. At the center of the Gospel is the self-giving love of God.
We can get a little lost in the timing of our Biblical events and maybe you know this, but the Last Supper starts with the first verse of John’s 13th chapter and continues until the end of the 17th chapter. And in the mix of the bread and the cup and the foot washing, Jesus’ words of hope about mansions in heaven and His sending the Advocate or the Holy Spirit—He actually spends a lot of His airtime talking about commandments.
Please hear me out on this, He isn’t wagging a finger in our face urging us to behave ourselves. No, Jesus loves in the way His Father loves Him. To remain in Jesus’ love one must keep His commandments. Jesus doesn’t ask for anything more than He is willing to give Himself—for He abides in His Father’s love by means of keeping His commandments. Lest all this sound stern and lifeless, Jesus reminds His disciples that the path of love and obedience is one of joy, both for Him and for His disciples.
Though Jesus has spoken of commandments in the plural, He boils down His ethical imperative to a solitary command: “Love each other as I have loved you” (v. 12)) And what does that love look like? Well, He laid down His life for us—what are you doing in return?
Also, during the Last Supper, Jesus tells the disciples, “You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends (v. 14-15a)
Up to this moment, Jesus had given them good cause to think of Him as Lord, God, the Word incarnate, Light of the World, Savior. This utterly magnificent, inspiring divine One invites them to see Him as a friend.
I love the movie Driving Miss Daisy. Before our daughter Katie got her driver’s license it was my job to make sure she got to school and her other appointments. People would call and ask what I was doing, and I would reply, “Driving Miss Daisy.”
At the end of the movie Miss Daisy is in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s or Dementia and on Thanksgiving Day her son, Boolie, played by Dan Aykroyd, brings her driver, Hoke, played by Morgan Freeman, to visit her. She sends her son away and it’s just her and Hoke who is feeding her some pumpkin pie; and she says, “You’re the only friend that I have.” Their servant-master relationship had turned into a friendship—the best friend she had, and it wasn’t always like that if you haven’t seen the movie.
For us, a “friend” might be someone you have fun with, someone who likes what you like, someone like you, someone easy to be around. But such friendships can be thin. We hold back from going very deep, not wanting to risk disagreement.
So, we stick to chattering about food, ball games, and lifestyle nuggets. Or we find our way into a group of people who agree with us—echo chambers for our biases—feeding our narcissism.
This small group of men that Jesus called disciples—and now friends—were very different kinds of people. We know some of them were fishermen, one was a tax collector; the rest we don’t know much about. We know that some of them weren’t afraid to share their feelings and opinions while the others we never heard from. At least nothing is recorded of what they might have said or done.
Probably the only thing that held them together would have been Jesus. Other than that, they would have been perpetually at odds, and I suspect often were. Otherwise, Jesus would not have to keep emphasizing the scripture weread today about loving each other!
Christian thinkers, from St. Augustine to Soren Kierkegaard, thought of friends as those who help us to love God. If Jesus is your friend, you become like Him, touching untouchables, seeing through false religion, prayerful, generous, ready to lose everything to do the will of your Father—ready to love and accept those folks that no one else wants!
Love one another, He said. Enough to lay down your life for each other, and for Him. Enough to be in mission together. Keep your eyes on what needs to be done. Enough to show the world that being His disciple means that even the most diverse and at-odds people can be in community together and work for the common good. Show the world that it works.
Max Lucado once told an interesting story about a group of men who went on a fishing trip. When it rained, they were all stuck inside their trailer with nothing to do. As a result, they began sniping at each other, critiquing each other, lashing out in tempers, and feeling grouchy. His verdict: when fishermen don’t fish, they fight.
Disciples in mission are focused on the mission. Disciples who are not focused on the mission will focus on their differences.
In our scripture this morning Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other” (v. 16-17).
Be united in your mission, Jesus told them. He chose and appointed us to carry on His mission, to change the world, to heal the sick and the doubting, to proclaim God’s sovereignty and saving grace, to let people know, they are beautiful exactly the way they are in all their differences and diversity, to be their example of what the world can look like when people work together for a common goal.
This is the message that assures us that being part of the family of God has nothing to do with genealogy, culture, blood type, or DNA; but everything to do with sisterhood, brotherhood, and the beauty of God’s creation. In the end, it all comes down to love. Love for God. Love for each other. And belief in a mission that upholds and initiates this kind of loving.
Who are your brothers and sisters? Who are your neighbors? Everyone. Not just the people in our neighborhoods. Not just the people in our building. Not just the people you know. But everyone. We are all sons and daughters of God. The more we see the world this way, the more loving and beautiful the world will become.
Eastman First Methodist Church 