Sermon John 14:15-21

We continue where we left off last week with Jesus farewell speech to his disciples. Remember what Ed said about this being one of the longest red-letter sections of John's Gospel. This section where Jesus talks, strange talk about being in the Father and the Father being in him. And this week, talk of Jesus asking the Father to send another into this relationship, the Holy Spirit. This Spirit who advocates, who calls, who beseeches, who entreats, who consoles, who exhorts, who comforts.

Jesus says, "I you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world can not receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

It's strange for westerners to hear talk of love connected with obedience isn't it. For those steeped in romantic ideas of love, Jesus connecting love with the keeping his commandments, with obedience seems odd. A friend once told me that among her people in marriages they did not say, "I love you." He responded by asking, "How do you know someone loves you?" She laughed, "You know by how they treat you." Here love is a policy. And with Jesus' love, and loving Jesus, it is about listening and following in his mission. In chapter 15 Jesus makes this even more clear by saying, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you."

Remember we are talking about the plural "you" here; y'all y'all, as Ed has been saying for a while. The promise made to a community of people. It is about a community that is faithful to the commandments of Jesus; that loves in the way of Jesus. That lays down its life for friends ... and the world. It is among a community engaged in faithfully living out the commandments of Jesus, that the Holy Spirit is promised to abide with.

You see, this is the farewell speech of Jesus to his disciples whom he has called to be his Church. To be the people who will share with the world what Jesus has revealed to him about who God is and what God is up to in the world. This small rag tag group of people, who think they have Jesus, and God, and what God is up to figured out are going to have their world shaken apart. They will abandon him, be dispersed, be dismayed and shaken when they see him crucified. When they abandon him. They think he is gone, however here, before they can understand who Jesus is, and what part they have to play in God's mission of reconciling the world, it is here that Jesus gives them the assurance that if they follow his commandments, the Father will send the Holy Spirit to live among them.

Even though we know the rest of the story, how we saw Jesus betrayed, crucified, and buried. How Mary, Peter and the beloved disciples found the tomb empty. How we gathered in fear behind locked doors on the first day of the week, and Jesus came and stood among us and said, "Peace be with you." After this he showed us his hands and his side, and we rejoiced. Jesus said again, "Peace be with you. As the Father sends me I send you." When he said this be breathed on us and said to us, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

And so we sit on the other side of Easter, having received the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower us in being sent. Remember Ed preached a few weeks ago about the Pool of Siloam, which means "Sent". Where the blind man was told to wash his eyes so he could see, and be sent.

Jesus in our reading today is preparing us to be sent ... all of us. The gift of the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all the community. Not just a select few ... the men ... the priests ... the wealthy, but all the community ... the women ... the lay folks ... the poor ... the outcast ...

And as a community they are sent.

This is a challenge for westerners who have been shaped to hear these stories personally. It is unfortunate issue that we have no plural "you". Ed, and others have been pressing this issue home since it is key. Jesus breathed on "them" ... on all the disciples gathered there. The Holy Spirit is given to us and all the others who are sent on this mission which is the Church. Therefore spirituality for Christians is never just a personal matter.

This is a challenge for us since for the last few hundred years the western understanding of what is means to be a human being is substantially based upon Decarte's assumption ..." I think therefore I am." I know I exist because I think ... and eventually a number of forms of Christianity in the West get built upon this false understanding such that knowing God becomes primarily or solely an inward and experiential activity.

I'll give you some examples so you can get a sense of what has happened through such a misunderstanding of our faith. How many of you have encountered people in your lives who have little desire to share in the collective life of the Church. They say things like, "I garden, that works for me. Or sailing on the bay ... that's my Church." Now if the witness of those who have come before us is true, it ain't the Church of Jesus Christ. Jesus came among them, and breathed on them saying "Receive the Holy Spirit." The anointing of the Church to be sent as the mission of Christ to love the world is a collective one.

Now don't get me wrong. There is a personal component to faith which is expressed in a number of ways; accepting Jesus as your personal saviour; acknowledging the Divine light within; contemplation of the deepest kind ... and more. God can touch us deeply and personally, however in some way this is done for the benefit of the Church or the world. All through the Bible there are examples of Spiritual gifts and experiences being given, however they are given for the up-building of a particular community of people called together to be the church.

This is the kind of God that we worship. A Triune God that draws people into a community. Perhaps even drives us into community. Are you aware that the Holy Spirit never gives all the gifts to just one person? Some of us can care for others, preach, some can teach, some can pray, some can administrate, some can help others decide what God wants them to do with their lives ... some can comfort, and other serve and there are more gifts. It is as if God is saying that it is the purpose of God that none of us can be self reliant. That we need each other in order to be the Church. We need to be in community together for support, and to be a community of loving obedience to the way of Jesus. And ultimately that we need God ...

And you know, being in community within the Church can be a great source of joy. I know some of you may not even be alive now, if it was not for the support and love that came through Christ's Church. There has been a joy in a kind of friendship that is a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

However we also know that at times in the Church it is difficult for us to love each other. To lay down our lives for each other. To love each other as Christ loves us. Some of us are crushed when we encounter the serious challenge of loving those who are different. Or loving those whom we dislike. Or loving those whom we revile.

At some point, the essential communal nature of the Church drives us to know the limits of our capacity to love ... and by the grace of God being given the opportunity to enlarge our ability to really love. At some point, the love of Christ must include obedience ... to love when we don't feel like it. To love those whom, we would not rather love, or who are difficult to be part of our community.

And it is difficult to know what to do, especially as individuals. I know that many of you struggle to know how to be faithful Christian witnesses. I remember teasing a friend of mine named Norman about his accounting vocation, I said Remember Norm, money is the root of all evil." Immediately I realized I had offended him with the jab. He looked downward, pursed his lips, and his face when red. He replied, "Jim, that's wrong. It says 'the love of money is the root of many evils.' Money is not evil, it is what is often done with it that is evil. He then went on to share his deep struggle with the whole issue of wealth and being a Christian witness as an accountant. I apologised and he forgave my offense. It was an example of many who struggle to know how or if they can witness to the way of Jesus in their vocations. Make no mistake, often it is something that we can no resolve by ourselves. We need others to assist us to know what to do ... and in the final analysis, we need to the love of God to know how we are to be the Church together.

And the Good News, is that if we keep Jesus commandments the Spirit of Truth will be sent to dwell among us. But if this is the case, why do we Christians seem to have a long history of screw ups. A friend of mine was challenged once by another who said, "How can you be a Christian with such a long list of wrongs committed in the name of Jesus; the crusades, the inquisition, the burning of heretics, the residential schools ..." Gail replied, "How do you think that list came to be remembered? Other Christians throughout the centuries kept track of our failures, so that we might avoid them. They were not afraid to tell the truth about our betrayals.

And how could they do that? They knew that after we abandoned Jesus in greatest time of need, abandoned him to death, that three days later, while we gathered locked behind closed doors, and stood among us, saying "Peace be with you." And he breathed on us, and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." This to a church that had just failed their closest friend, to a church without power, without status, without expertise, to this Church it gave the power to become sons and daughters of God, and be sent as representatives and witnesses of Christ's love for the world.

And yes, there have been great failures, but there have also been great successes. Where communities of faith have really been faithful to the commandments of Jesus, there we have seen the Holy Spirit alive among a people who are comforting the afflicted, advocating for the oppressed, calling others to follow Jesus, beseeching others to seek justice, entreating on behalf of the dispossessed, consoling those who are grieving, exhorting each other to more human living, and giving praise to Christ who was willing to call us friends and lay down his very life for us, and for this fallen world. And sends the Holy Spirit such that we can be a community seeking to be shaped into a people of the Cross.

We a strange people with a strange God. Its true ... we worship a God who is three in one; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A God who is a community but is one ... the Trinity. And if God is never alone, but in community, is it strange that the Christian life should be one of community? The truth is this, that without a host of people who have come before us seeking to follow the commandment of Jesus ... many times failing and sometimes getting it right, we would not know that ours is a God who is willing to pour out God's very self in shame, suffering and death, such that we and the whole world might have life and even eternal life.

And we too are caught up in what God is doing in the world as part of the Church of Christ, in this time and place, called to teach and baptise in his name. Called to forgive those who seek forgiveness, and proclaim the love of God in word and action. To those who follow, Jesus has promised the Holy Spirit, this spirit of truth to be lived out through the life of those seeking the joy of being his Church for the world

Sermon John 14:15-21
by James Love