Reflection on John 14:15-21

 

John 14:15-21 (NRSVue)

[Jesus said to the disciples:] 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

  18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 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.”

 

Reflection

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).  Today’s gospel reading begins with love.  “If you love me…”  And those commandments that we are supposed to keep because we love Jesus, well guess that those are about?  Jesus said just before this, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).  Do you feel the love?  It does not stop there.  There is even more love at the end of our gospel reading for today: “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by me Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them” (John 14:21).

“Love, love, love.  Is it always about love?” the woman sitting next to me in the dentist’s office proclaimed rather loudly.  Let me explain.  I had sat down in the waiting area of the dentist’s office to await a normally scheduled cleaning when a woman came and sat next to me.  And by “sat next to me,” I mean right next to me; I mean sharing an arm rest next to me; I mean I can smell her morning coffee on her breath next to me.  Just so you get the full picture, there were at least 20 other empty seats from which she could have chosen to sit in the waiting area…20…other…seats!  Yet, she decided to choose to sit arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder, lower cheek to cheek, right next to me.  I was just a man in his early thirties at the time, and with this older woman squished right next to me like we were newlyweds, we seemed to be reenacting a scene from the Graduate right there in the dentist’s waiting room.  “Hello Mrs. Robinson.”

I was too polite to leave, I did not want to seem rude or hate filled, but I did lean on the other arm rest to provide a little space, and I did bury my face even deeper in my magazine to hint that I might be polite, but I am not the conversation type.  She did not get the hint.

“Hello, my name’s Kelly.  I’m a retired grandma.  Or maybe, I’m just a tired grandma.  Ha!  So, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a pastor,” I said briefly while keeping my nose in my magazine.

Here is a simple truth about the world.  If you want to keep a conversation brief, the one thing you never say to another person is, “I’m a pastor.”  If you want brief interactions, you lie and say something like, “I’m a septic cleaner.”  Or you say, “I deal in death row medications.”  Or you can even say, “I’m a dentist, and a bad one at that.”  Any one of these options will effectively ensure that the quiet of the space is maintained for the next ten minutes.  But nooooooo, I just had to blurt out that I’m at pastor. 

“Really!”  She said, relishing the conversation that she was about to have, like I was a piece of steak, sizzling right in front of a salivating lion.  And then for the next five minutes she proceeded to tell me of her church searching journey, beginning with the Catholics, who are just too stiff and formal, proceeding through the Methodists, and Episcopalians and several non-denominational churches.  I heard about them all!  I heard about their pastors and her opinions of them.  I heard about their people and the types of food they brought to the potlucks, none of which she could eat because of her dietary allergies.  I was not shocked.

“Where is the hygienist anyway?” I thought to myself as the fake smile on my lips started to hurt my facial muscles.  She continued on about what kind of sermons she liked and did not like and that is when she loudly proclaimed, “Love, love, love.  Is it always about love?  Don’t get me wrong, I like love.  But there are a lot more important things in this world that can be preached on than some wishy washy words about love!  That is why I left the Methodist church.  Love was all you heard from that guy!”

I was at the dentist for a simple cleaning, but I would have gladly taken a filling, drilled with no Novocain in a heartbeat.  What was taking my hygienist so long?

It is not the first time I have heard the complaint.  I have heard it many times.  Many people desire that they would primarily hear from their pulpits some harsh biblical truths, judgments on this sinful world, and a lot more defining of who is saved and who is condemned.  Preachers are not to be lovers; they are to be speakers of biblical truths; modern day prophets who chastise the sinners and prop up the righteous.

But here is the problem with that desire.  Love is mentioned well over 750 times in the Bible.  God’s justice is mentioned just 250 times, and it is often mentioned because God is showing love to the lowly ones who need justice.  Now, of those 750 time that love is mentioned in the Bible, 57 of those times are right here in the gospel of John alone!  That is the gospel that we are reading this morning.  On top of that, Jesus blatantly says that his new commandment is to “love” in the same way that he loved us (John 13:34). 

There is a reason that we hear so much love coming from our pulpits.  It is because love is the single most important thing to the life of faith according to our savior, Jesus Christ.  Even the Apostle Paul, who cares a lot about our moral lives centers his theology around this statement: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Now, I understand where she was coming from.  I get it.  I know that there are preachers out there who preach a cheap sort of love and a cheap sort of grace.  It is all flowers and baby giggles and trophies for everyone!  It get it.  I truly get it.  We are all tired of cheap love that costs nothing.  Cheap grace saves no one.  Pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once taught:

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship).

The love of Jesus Christ, the love shown his disciples, the love poured out on us and expected from us is not a cheap love of sunshine and rainbows.  It is a love that dares to heal a paralyzed man on the Sabbath, causing Jesus personal persecution and harm from the religious leaders (John 5:1-15).  This love is a costly love.  

It is a love that dares to care for the hunger of 5,000 people in a deserted place when there was nothing but scraps of food to split among them all (John 6:1-14).  This love is a costly love.  

It is a love that dares to heal and care for a blind man that has been cast out from his own people (John 9:1-41).  Do not underestimate the cost of associating with the wrong people.  This love is a costly love.  

It is a love that ventures into dangerous territory to raise someone Jesus loves from the dead, knowing that the disruption that it causes among the people will directly lead to his own death (John 11:1-45).  This love of Jesus Christ is a costly love that goes all the way to the cross to save a sinful world.  There is nothing cheap about this love.  “You were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20).

But make no mistake, the world is saved because of this love.  It is not saved by moral perfection.  It is not saved by damning and eliminating the sinner.  It is not saved by preaching a hard biblical truth that is actually hate speech in disguise.  The world is saved by love.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).

And just in case we have a problem latching onto that sort of costly love, in case we have a problem inhabiting the sort of life that graciously shares that sort of costly love to the people around us, Jesus promises someone who will walk beside us: the Holy Spirit.  Jesus promises you that the Holy Spirit will “be with you forever” (John 14:16).  “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live” (John 14:18-19).

We are people who have been loved at a cost.  We are people of costly love.  We are people who love others in costly ways.  And it is the Holy Spirit that reminds us of that truth again and again and again.  “I will love them and reveal myself to them,” Jesus promises (John 14:21).  We will be given that costly love again and again, so that the true power of God’s costly love, a love that threatens to get us into trouble with the world, might take root within us and grow deeply within our very souls.

I did not say any of this to the woman who was seated much too close to me.  I just smiled and nodded as she went on and on with her nonsense; trying to teach me how to preach properly when she did not even have a basic grasp of what true gospel preaching is all about.  It is like me trying to tell a rocket scientist how to make rockets fly better.  And just as a polite rocket scientist would give me a fake smile and pray for me to just fly away, I continued with my own fake smile.

And just as my fake smile muscles were about to give up for good, the muscles beginning to twitch slightly with jabs of pain, my dental hygienist, oh my glorious, lovely, gift of God’s love dental hygienist came out of the door and called my name. “Jira, you are up next.”

I got up, turned to the woman, and said, “Here’s my sermon: God loves you!” I did not mean it in a snarky way…well…I did mean it is a snarky way, but I also truly meant it.  Because according to the logic of Jesus, the logic of the cross, the logic of the good news, you cannot possibly know the deep importance of love until you are loved in a deep and important way.  You cannot possibly know the deep importance of love until you are loved in a deep and important way.  I prayed, as the plaque was scraped from my teeth, that whatever was keeping that woman from experiencing the deep, costly love of Jesus Christ might also be scraped away from her soul.  I prayed that the Holy Spirit be with her forever, abiding with her and transforming her with love so that the deep, courageous love of Jesus Christ might “abide” with her and be “in” her (John 14:17).

Who knows, maybe the Spirit would transform her into a vessel of love, and she would be aware enough and loving enough to sit at least one seat away from the next person she encounters in the dentist’s office.  One can only hope.  If Jesus’ love can cause a man to come back to life, then I am certain that Jesus can resurrect her love for her fellow humans as well.