John 15: 5-17
“I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.
“I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.
“I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.
“You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.
“But remember the root command: Love one another.
This is our third week looking into the Gospel of John – the “different” gospel. I spend so much time emphasizing those differences that I thought I’d throw in a brief list of the things that John does the same, roughly, as the synoptics.
• the story of Jesus’ adult life start with his interaction with John the Baptist
• his public life begins in Galilee
• all 4 tell the story of the storm at sea and Jesus walking on water
• the multiplication of the loaves and fishes to feed the multitude is all all four gospels
• Jesus gives sight to a blind man
• and he heals a paralytic
But, even when John recounts the same stories, he usually tells them very differently. Remember, this account was written 60 to 70 years after the life of Jesus – and John is, apparently, not pulling from the same sources as the other gospel writers do. In fact, New Testament scholars don’t seem to have any clear idea of whether or not John had direct access to the previously written down Mark or Matthew or any of the same sources they used. We simply don’t know where John comes from, aside from the supposition that he is a Hellenized Jew.
Anyone reading John looking for a straight-line historical account of the life of Jesus is going to be befuddled. Even when John tells the same stories as the synoptics, he places them differently in the timeline. For instance, here Jesus’ very first public act comes at the wedding at Cana - turning water into wine - a story told only in John, by the way. He does have disciples, at this point, but not because he called them to him - they’re there because John the Baptist pointed him out to them and said, “there, that’s the one you’re looking for.” At Cana he isn’t out preaching or teaching, already in the public eye – in fact, he appears to be distinctly annoyed with his mother for forcing him to act at all out in public.
And the very next story recounted by John – in chapter 2 – is that of the cleansing of the Temple. This story is told in the synoptics, but it is always placed into the last week of Jesus’ life - at the end of his ministry instead of as only the 2nd public thing Jesus does. And in the synoptics it is presented as the “last straw,” the thing that Jesus does that forces the authorities to act publically against him – the act that convinces them that he needs to be shut down. In John, it becomes more Jesus’ “Here I am, world” statement – an opening move rather than a move to force an ending.
In all my years of preaching I have emphasized the vast difference between “Truth” and “Fact” when dealing with the life of Jesus. “History” is, theoretically at least, “facts” -- recorded and dated and verifiable from outside sources, taken from eyewitness or at least trustworthy witness accounts. History is also, we must never forget, always written by the victor – and “facts” can easily be added or omitted and arranged by the victor into something unrecognizable as the actually “truth” of an event.
Although John tells a story of Jesus that is in many ways similar to the stories told by Matthew, Mark and, later, Luke, John appears to be less interested in an historical accounting of a certain period of time and one man’s life – than in the “truth” of what that man’s life meant in the world – both then and now. As Marc Borg puts it: “John is a remarkable testimony to what Jesus had become in the early Christian milieu in which the gospel was written.” Not just who and what Jesus was but what he had become to the people impacted in some way by his life and his story.
If John tells different stories than those in the synoptics, he tells the same type of story – stories of healing and exhortations to grow and be better. The Jesus we meet in John is entirely familiar to us – just a lot wordy-er.
I took my title for this particular message from the last line of today’s scripture reading: “But remember the root command: Love one another." Throughout John’s account Jesus’ message is that we were brought into being for one purpose – to love. To love God, to love Jesus, and to love one another. We have no other reason for existence. In what is probably the best known bible verse in the world, John 3:16, Jesus tries to show us this loving God: “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.” Somewhere along the way this statement became, in our minds, all about reward and punishment – believe in Jesus and you’ll be rewarded, don’t believe and you will be punished.
But if we hear these words without the centuries of cultural expectation it’s had layered on it is possible to hear something very different. Jesus exists to tell us all about God’s love for us. Those who hear Jesus will receive the message and know God’s love. Those who do not recognize or understand Jesus will not hear that message and will never know how very much they are loved. They will live and die without ever knowing that they are cherished. No threat - just a statement of what is.
The phrase “eternal life” as John uses it does not mean “life after death.” The original Greek phrase that we translate as “eternal life” is actually better translated as the “life of the age to come” or “the kingdom of God.” To know God as Jesus knew him is to enter into the kingdom of God - here and now – in this world, in this life. To miss knowing God as Jesus knows God is to live unaware of the joy offered to us. It doesn’t take away the love or the offer of joy - it simply means we remain deaf and blind and unaware. We remain - in the words of an old song - standing knee deep in a river and dying of thirst.* And there’s absolutely nothing here that says the offer is only made once in our lifetime.
Jesus tells us we are told all these things in order that “my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love.” Love as God loves – not as humans love, with conditions stuck on all over the place and threats - real or implied - to enforce them. Just love.
We’ll take one more week with John next week and look at the "last discourse," as it it is known – Jesus’ long last teaching at the Last Supper.
****************************
*Standing Knee Deep in a River (Dying of Thirst) - written by Bob McDill, Dickey Lee and Bucky Jones, 1993
• the story of Jesus’ adult life start with his interaction with John the Baptist
• his public life begins in Galilee
• all 4 tell the story of the storm at sea and Jesus walking on water
• the multiplication of the loaves and fishes to feed the multitude is all all four gospels
• Jesus gives sight to a blind man
• and he heals a paralytic
But, even when John recounts the same stories, he usually tells them very differently. Remember, this account was written 60 to 70 years after the life of Jesus – and John is, apparently, not pulling from the same sources as the other gospel writers do. In fact, New Testament scholars don’t seem to have any clear idea of whether or not John had direct access to the previously written down Mark or Matthew or any of the same sources they used. We simply don’t know where John comes from, aside from the supposition that he is a Hellenized Jew.
Anyone reading John looking for a straight-line historical account of the life of Jesus is going to be befuddled. Even when John tells the same stories as the synoptics, he places them differently in the timeline. For instance, here Jesus’ very first public act comes at the wedding at Cana - turning water into wine - a story told only in John, by the way. He does have disciples, at this point, but not because he called them to him - they’re there because John the Baptist pointed him out to them and said, “there, that’s the one you’re looking for.” At Cana he isn’t out preaching or teaching, already in the public eye – in fact, he appears to be distinctly annoyed with his mother for forcing him to act at all out in public.
And the very next story recounted by John – in chapter 2 – is that of the cleansing of the Temple. This story is told in the synoptics, but it is always placed into the last week of Jesus’ life - at the end of his ministry instead of as only the 2nd public thing Jesus does. And in the synoptics it is presented as the “last straw,” the thing that Jesus does that forces the authorities to act publically against him – the act that convinces them that he needs to be shut down. In John, it becomes more Jesus’ “Here I am, world” statement – an opening move rather than a move to force an ending.
In all my years of preaching I have emphasized the vast difference between “Truth” and “Fact” when dealing with the life of Jesus. “History” is, theoretically at least, “facts” -- recorded and dated and verifiable from outside sources, taken from eyewitness or at least trustworthy witness accounts. History is also, we must never forget, always written by the victor – and “facts” can easily be added or omitted and arranged by the victor into something unrecognizable as the actually “truth” of an event.
Although John tells a story of Jesus that is in many ways similar to the stories told by Matthew, Mark and, later, Luke, John appears to be less interested in an historical accounting of a certain period of time and one man’s life – than in the “truth” of what that man’s life meant in the world – both then and now. As Marc Borg puts it: “John is a remarkable testimony to what Jesus had become in the early Christian milieu in which the gospel was written.” Not just who and what Jesus was but what he had become to the people impacted in some way by his life and his story.
If John tells different stories than those in the synoptics, he tells the same type of story – stories of healing and exhortations to grow and be better. The Jesus we meet in John is entirely familiar to us – just a lot wordy-er.
I took my title for this particular message from the last line of today’s scripture reading: “But remember the root command: Love one another." Throughout John’s account Jesus’ message is that we were brought into being for one purpose – to love. To love God, to love Jesus, and to love one another. We have no other reason for existence. In what is probably the best known bible verse in the world, John 3:16, Jesus tries to show us this loving God: “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.” Somewhere along the way this statement became, in our minds, all about reward and punishment – believe in Jesus and you’ll be rewarded, don’t believe and you will be punished.
But if we hear these words without the centuries of cultural expectation it’s had layered on it is possible to hear something very different. Jesus exists to tell us all about God’s love for us. Those who hear Jesus will receive the message and know God’s love. Those who do not recognize or understand Jesus will not hear that message and will never know how very much they are loved. They will live and die without ever knowing that they are cherished. No threat - just a statement of what is.
The phrase “eternal life” as John uses it does not mean “life after death.” The original Greek phrase that we translate as “eternal life” is actually better translated as the “life of the age to come” or “the kingdom of God.” To know God as Jesus knew him is to enter into the kingdom of God - here and now – in this world, in this life. To miss knowing God as Jesus knows God is to live unaware of the joy offered to us. It doesn’t take away the love or the offer of joy - it simply means we remain deaf and blind and unaware. We remain - in the words of an old song - standing knee deep in a river and dying of thirst.* And there’s absolutely nothing here that says the offer is only made once in our lifetime.
Jesus tells us we are told all these things in order that “my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love.” Love as God loves – not as humans love, with conditions stuck on all over the place and threats - real or implied - to enforce them. Just love.
We’ll take one more week with John next week and look at the "last discourse," as it it is known – Jesus’ long last teaching at the Last Supper.
****************************
*Standing Knee Deep in a River (Dying of Thirst) - written by Bob McDill, Dickey Lee and Bucky Jones, 1993
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