Love and Obey

(Scriptures: Acts 7:55-60, 1 Peter 3:13-22, John 14:15-21)

In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus and his disciples are celebrating the Last Supper, and Jesus is continuing his farewell address to his disciples. Jesus has been preparing them for the reality that he will not be with them much longer. Of course, the disciples are full of questions: where are you going? Why can’t we come? Are you coming back? Perhaps most pressing, how will we be able to live when you’ve gone away. As I considered how the disciples must have been feeling, a Laura Branigan song – or maybe the Michael Bolton remake, depending which version you’re familiar with – started playing in the back of my mind – “How am I supposed to live without you....” and the disciples may well have been thinking something very similar. How are we supposed to live without you, Jesus? How are we supposed to carry on, when you, who are all that we’ve been living for will soon be gone?

Jesus assures them that he will not leave them orphaned. Jesus’ words are mysterious: even though “in a little while” he’ll be going away, still, Jesus says, “I am coming to you.” “In a little while” Jesus says, “the world will not see me, but you will see me.” Jesus tells the disciples how they’re supposed to carry on, how they’re supposed to live: “Because I live, you also will live.” The earthly Jesus, the man of Nazareth with whom the disciples had walked for three years, would be with them no longer, but Christ’s spirit would continue to be beside them, even within them. Jesus tells them that he will ask the Father for “another Advocate”, whom Jesus calls “the spirit of truth” who will abide with us and be with us forever.” The original Greek word, “Paraclete” – means “someone along side us” – as an Advocate – like our attorney at trial – or as an intercessor, someone to go to God on our behalf – or a Helper - or a Comforter, one to strengthen us in difficulties. The world cannot see or receive the spirit of truth, because the world is not open to the truth. But Christ’s disciples will receive this Spirit. Two Sundays from now we will celebrate Pentecost, the story of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early church.

Of course, I’m considering the text in light of last weekend’s excitement about Harold Camping’s false predictions about the Rapture. It was certainly interesting, if that’s the word, to hear Camping’s last-minute elaborations on his predictions – on May 21, there would be earthquakes at 6 pm in each time zone around the world, and the graves would be opened, the righteous would be Raptured, caught up in the clouds, and the bodies of any unsaved people would be thrown on the ground to be shamed. And, of course, the members of the VFW and legion posts visit our cemetery on the Sunday of Memorial day weekend every year…and we surely couldn’t have them seeing open graves and century old corpses and such. I’m only one person, 50 years old, overweight, short of breath and out of shape….How would I ever get all that mess cleaned up in time for the visitors from the VFW and the Legion and such later today?

OK…I’m being a little tongue in cheek. But, amid the laughter, I think that there’s some truly sad commentary to be found underneath the silliness. We may shake our heads wondering how on earth people can get caught up in Camping’s silliness, or the silliness of other End Times preachers that are just as off-base. People run around here, and there,
and everywhere, looking for Jesus’ second coming in glory, at the end of time – and it is indeed part of our tradition that Jesus will come again in glory, though we don’t know when this will happen - but, if we take today’s Gospel reading seriously, we realize Jesus never left. Jesus never left. Jesus said that, “in a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.” We live in an in-between time: Indeed, the earthly Jesus ascended to the Father – we’ll be considering the Ascension next Sunday – and Jesus will come again in glory at the end of time – but in between the Ascension and the Second Coming, this in-between time in which we live, Jesus said “I am coming to you. I will send another Advocate, the Spirit of truth.” And in two weeks we will celebrate Pentecost, when Jesus’ promise to come again to his followers, to send the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, was fulfilled. Jesus specifically said, “I will not leave you orphaned.” I will not abandon you. And Jesus did not abandon us. Why do we sometimes find ourselves acting like orphans, acting as if we’d been abandoned, acting as if God has left the building?

Where will we find Jesus? One place to find Jesus is in church. Jesus said, “where ever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.” But it’s easy, especially in a small, struggling congregation like Emanuel, where I’m sometimes sending up prayers at 9:30 that more than 2 or 3 show up, to wonder some weeks if anything worthwhile is going on. We show up, greet each other, stand and sit for the various portions of the liturgy, hear some stirring organ music – or some hit or miss guitar playing – and sing some hymns, and take up the offering, and listen to Pastor Dave natter on in the pulpit – once a month we come forward for our cube of bread and cup of wine, and at the end hang around for coffee and cake and maybe a Bible lesson – and if we think that’s all that’s going on, no wonder we’re feeling empty at the end of the service. If we miss the presence of Christ in our midst, no wonder we feel let down. If all we expect to find the coffee and cake, or Ralph’s organ playing, or heaven help us my guitar playing, or the sermon, or even the fellowship, no wonder we leave feeling hungry. No wonder we feel leave feeling empty. No wonder we feel a need to look for someone or something that can help us feel more a more vivid, tangible connection to God.

I recently read part of one of Martin Luther’s sermons that seemed to speak to our present situation. Of course, Luther was preaching in the 1500’s in very different circumstances, and yet in some ways, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Luther’s sermon dealt with those in the Roman Catholic church of his day who advertised various religious relics, such as articles of clothing worn by various saints, which people would travel long distances to see, while missing God’s presence in their own churches and their own homes, missing God’s presence right in front of their noses. Here’s a few words from Luther:

“In times past we would have run to the ends of the world if we had known of a place where we could hear God speak. But now that we hear this in sermons, we do not see this happening. You hear at home in your house, father and mother and children sing and speak of it, the preacher speaks it in the parish church – you ought to lift up your hands and rejoice that we have been given the honor of hearing God speak to us through the Word. Oh, people say, what is that? What do we get out of it? All right, go ahead, dear brother, if you don’t want God to speak to you every day at home in your house or in your parish church, then be clever and look for something else: in Trier is the Lord God’s coat, in Aachen are Joseph’s britches, go there and squander your money. You have to go far for these things and spend a lot of money, leave house and home empty….all the while anyone can go to Baptism, the Sacrament, and the preaching-desk! How highly honored and richly blessed we are to know that God speaks with us and feeds us with the Word, gives us Baptism, and all the rest! But people say: What, baptism? Sacrament? God’s Word? – Joseph’s britches, that’s what does it!”

These days folks who are, in Luther’s words, being clever, no longer travel here and there to see religious relics. Joseph’s britches are no longer much of a draw. These days, instead of traveling to view relics, we clamor for people to tell us about the End times. And these days we don’t have to travel at all – we can stay home and turn the dial on our radio and TV for spectacular predictions of the End Times, one after the other, the more over-the-top, the more outlandish, the better. Reading the various predictions of end-time prognosticators is like listening to the old radio show, “Can You Top This?” Yet we forget that, for the prophet Elijah, God was not in the earthquake or the windstorm – not in the spectacular - but in the still, small voice that followed. We can find God right here, right now at Emanuel Church, in the sacraments of baptism and communion, in hearing the Word preached, and in the love we find when Christians gather. We, you and I can experience God’s presence here – both comforting us and challenging us - week by week, in worship, in hearing the Word, in the sacraments, in Christian fellowship. Like Jacob, having wrestled with the angel, we can say, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” Having experienced God’s presence here at church, our eyes and ears will be tuned and our hearts opened to God’s presence elsewhere in our lives, as we see God’s hand at work in our lives, the lives of our families, our communities – and if we are open to it, we’ll see God at work in all manner of unexpected places. And having experienced God’s presence, we can share that presence in our homes, our offices, everywhere we go.

There is one part of Jesus’ words that always brings me up a little short: “If you love me, you’ll obey my commandments.” As protestant Christians we believe in salvation by grace through faith, not by works, that we should boast. And yet Jesus speaks of obeying his commandments. Is Jesus saying we need to earn his love by our works? If so, boy are we in deep trouble! Jesus’ words could also could come across sounding manipulative, like a spouse telling us, “If you love me, you’ll take out the trash.”

But maybe Jesus was not manipulating, not coercing, but just observing, just describing how his followers would act. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. And Jesus summed up the commandments in the two Great Commandments; Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and Love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus also said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” We can’t do this on our own. It is only by having God at work within us, that we can love God and neighbor. But with God at work within us, we will more and more live into being able to love God and neighbor more fully. We can’t please God on our own by trying to will ourselves to love. We can only love because God first loved us, and because God’s love is within us. But because God’s love is in us, we can carry out Jesus’ commandment to love – a love that’s not just about warm fuzzy feelings – heaven knows my feelings aren’t always warm and fuzzy, and yours may not be either – but in Christ’s love we’re can work for the good of others, even those we may not like very much.

Keeping Jesus’ commandments is not easy. It can be dangerous, showing God’s love to folks who may not necessarily be ready to receive it. We’ll need God’s help to do it. In Acts, we read the account of the martyrdom of Steven, the first Christian martyr, who was killed for proclaiming the Gospel of Christ. Stephen’s obedience cost him his life. But Stephen was granted a vision of Christ in glory. We also, when we’re struggling to be faithful, may find Christ’s spirit to be present, giving us strength to carry on. Likewise, our reading from I Peter tells us that we should be willing to suffer, for Christ also suffered for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God. We need not despair over our weakness against sin and suffering, for, as Jesus told the Apostle Paul, God’s strength is made perfect in human weakness.

We may suffer, but we will not suffer alone. We have the community of the church to support us, to carry us when we can’t carry ourselves. And we have the love of God in Christ. Remember Christ’s words: On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. It sort of sounds sort of like a big cosmic group hug, doesn’t it? – an embrace that begins with our baptism, as we are washed from our sin and clothed with Christ.

As disciples of the Risen Christ, we are Easter people, expecting life where the world only sees death. We know that life, not death, has the last word. As we journey together in the Spirit, because the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Comforter from God is among us, we can comfort and advocate for one another in our needs and in our tragedies, and remind one another that whatever road we walk, however painful, however long, however seemingly lonely, we do not walk alone, for God’s spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate, walks with us. Amen.
*****************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street just off Thompson St. www.emanuelphila.org