He got about a dozen steps when he stopped and turned back to me and said in a defiant tone, “I suppose you think I should thank you for this,” as he help up the twenty.  I responded, “That would be good.”  He countered, “Well, I ain’t going to.  You didn’t give the money because you wanted to but because He (now he pointed heavenward) told you to do so.”  He turned and began walking back toward Larkin Avenue probably to hit Al Abbott at the Presbyterian Church two blocks north.  I just stood there dumbfounded and angry.  What an ungrateful so and so, I thought.  As I was driving home, it suddenly hit me.  He was absolutely right!!  I didn’t give the money out of a spirit of generosity or good will.  I gave it because I was compelled to do so. Jesus expected it of me.  Granted I could have been more gracious, but I was doing what was expected.  Such is the point Jesus is scoring in our text from John.

Sometimes Jesus speaks in parable or metaphor.  No so this time. Sometimes Jesus’ words seem somewhat obtuse, hard to get a hold of, demanding interpretation.  Not so this time.  Sometimes what we are called to do is a bit blurred, unclear, left hanging.  Not so this time.  There are no options.  There is a command, one overarching command.  Jesus says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”  In other Gospels, Jesus offers a list of commandments, forgive 70 times 7 times, feed the hungry, cloth the naked, give to the poor and so on.  Here he offers just one command, one command that includes and fulfills all others, that the disciples love one another.

The command flows from the relationship disciples have with Jesus.  He is the Vine and they are the branches.  As the disciples abide in Him and He in them, the disciples swim in the love shared by the Father and the Son.  It is this love they are called to share.  Because disciples are loved, they are enabled to love.  This is what Jesus expects of those who follow Him.  No engaging story, no subtle argument, no miraculous event.  Simply a command to love one another as He had loves them.  The qualifier is critical.  Jesus’ love is both the motivation for the disciple’s loving and the standard and substance for what is expressed.

So, here is what Jesus expects of you and me.  We are to love one another as He has loved us.  This is what Easter makes possible.  In Jesus’ death and resurrection, we encounter the fullness of His love for us.  He loves us with a love that is for us. This love goes to a Cross for us that the powers of death and evil may be confronted.  His love is the power by which He is raised for us and we are set free from the powers of sin and death.  His love is triumphant and we are given life eternal.  Yes, Easter matters.  It makes what is expected possible.  We can love one another as He loves us.  What then does this all mean for you and mean in our daily living?

Obviously, it means what it says: Jesus expects us to love one another as He loves us.  Less obviously, however, is what such love means.  So, first we must be clear.  Such love is more than a feeling or an emotion.  Jesus is not commanding you and me to have warm tingly feelings for one another.  Likewise, such love is far beyond being a synonym for “like.”  The Greek word translated “love” describes acts of the will by which we show ourselves to be “for” the other person by seeking good for them or working for justice for them.  To love the other person as Jesus loves us, is to be for him or her just as Jesus is for us.  Certainly emotions play some role, but they are not central.  This love represents your commitment to seek the good for the other, to act for him or her, even when it is costly to you.  Such love demands truthfulness, respect, authenticity, self-giving, justice-seeking.  It is what Jesus expects or you.

I remember when I first encountered this love Jesus expects.  It was while I was serving as youth pastor at First UMC in Elmhurst. The church was deeply divided.  All sorts of issues produced conflict.  Arthur Landwehr was sent there to bring healing.  I arrived during his second year.  Quickly I realized that a certain man, named Don, was the leader of a small, but vocal group that constantly criticized and challenged everything Arthur attempted to do.  These folks truly were CAVE people, people who are Consistently Against Virtually Everything.  They intentionally sought to undermine Arthur’s every effort.  After a number of rather brutal conflicts, I asked Arthur what he was going to do.  He replied he intended to keep working and trust that the Holy Spirit would find a way to bring healing. But until then, he said that he and Don had come to a resolution, he does not like me and I am not all that fond of him.  Then Mary, Don’s wife, was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I wondered how Arthur would handle the situation. He immediately responded as a pastor, caring for both Mary and Don, being with them through treatment and surgery.  A few months down the road, I asked Arthur, “I thought you did not like Don and Mary.  Why didn’t you send the associate pastor to care for them?”  He replied, “Jim, Jesus calls us to love one another, whether we like the other or not.  It is not about how I feel.  It is about what Jesus expects,” a lesson learned and never forgotten.  Incidentally, through this experience the relationship between Arthur and Don and Mary did improve significantly, giving credence to the words of Dr. Karl Menniger, “Love cures people, both the ones who receive it and the ones who give it.”

A second lesson, I believe, we take away from Jesus’ expectation that we love one another as He loves us is a basic choice facing the church.  It may be the most significant choice facing the church in the early 21^st Century.  The choice is this:  Will the church function as a law-driven community of faith or as a grace-based community of love?  Will we be defined by well-articulated, logically-delineated Articles of Faith or as a living, breathing, witnessing community known by our Acts of Love?  Will we be driven by enforcement or by engagement?  Now I firmly believe the church must articulate its doctrine and state clearly its theological understandings, expecting members to affirm both its doctrine and theology.  But I believe in the larger picture, if we are to be the people Christ Jesus expects us to be, we must be a community defined by Acts of Love, liberating, transforming love, the love with which Jesus loves us and calls us to share. We are to be a community that lives by engagement, engagement with Christ Jesus and with one another rather than a community of enforcement, demanding conformity.  Discipline, theological agreement have their place.  But Jesus did not say, “Here are five things you must believe about me.”  He said, “Love one another as I love you.  Follow me.”  Now, once again, such love is not warm, fuzzy feelings, nor is it indulgent, permissive agreement.  It is an act of the will by which we are for the other.  And that means it is often “tough love.”

Why is this important?  I am concerned about the growth in fundamentalism in the church, this hunkering down on beliefs and using doctrine and theology to exclude and condemn others.  I am also concerned, but to a somewhat lesser degree, about the church indulging the wishes and whims of the culture.  We are called to love one another as Jesus loves us, and this means we are eternally on the spot.  We are called to be engaged with Christ Jesus and others, in all aspects of life, come what may, to care deeply no matter what and to offer our witness.  Jesus does not call us to hide behind doctrine.  He expects us to be fully engaged.

In his book, WHO SPEAKS FOR GOD, Jim Wallis tells a story that both touched me deeply and illustrates Jesus’ expectation.  The incident took place in Sarajevo a few years ago.  A reporter saw a little girl get shot by a sniper.  The reporter threw down his pad and pencil, and stopped being a reporter.  He rushed to the man holding the child, and helped both into his car.  As he stepped on the accelerator, racing to the hospital, the man hold the bleeding child, said, “Hurry, my friend, my child is still alive.”

A moment or two later, he said, “Hurry, my friend, my child is still breathing.”  A moment later, he said, “Hurry, my friend, my child is still warm.”  Finally, he cried out, “Hurry, Oh God, my child is getting cold.”  When they got to the hospital, the little girl was dead. As the two men were in the lavatory washing the blood off their hands and cloths, the man turned to the reporter and said, “This is a terrible task for me.  I must go and tell her father and mother that their child is dead.”  The reporter was stunned.  He looked at the grieving man and replied, “I thought she was your child.”  The man looked back and said, “No, but aren’t they all our children?”

How would you answer?  Are they not all our children?  Does not Jesus expect you and me to love one another as He loves us, and just maybe the children most of all, the vulnerable, powerless ones, whether in Sarajevo or South Africa, or Mexico City, or Chicago, or here in Barrington.  This is the expectation that defines who and whose we are.  Thanks be to God!  Amen!

More than his physical appearance, Apple was a manifestation of Job’s mind and how he perceived the world, the marketplace, and computers.  Jobs knew this.  As long as the company had its leader, it could stay on course.  However, when the day came when the company no longer had its leader, how would the mind of Steve live on through its employees?

Jobs thought he could solve this problem by hiring the dean of the Yale School of Management.  He gave him a large task:  help Apple’s leaders internalize the thoughts of its visionary founder in preparation for when the founder is no longer around.

With this as its charter, an executive training program dubbed “Apple University” was founded.  Its students are taught how to think and make decisions like the company’s founder.  Students are immersed in the core beliefs that Jobs taught as the key to Apple’s creative and innovative enterprise, and they are shown how those beliefs translate into business strategies that will bear more fruit in the marketplace.

This is the hope for all graduates:  That Jobs abides in them and they abide in Jobs and that the company bears much fruit. *

Did all this sound somewhat familiar?  As I read the article, I thought to myself, “Is this Jobs or Jesus, we are talking about here?”  The parallels are uncanny between the author’s interpretation of the strategy of Steve Jobs for when he was no longer leading Apple and the words of Jesus from our text, words for the church once Jesus was no longer physically present.  Both speak of the life and values their respective communities share, recognizing that it is this mutual indwelling, this faithful following of the visionary leader, these internalized and lived values that cause the community to bear fruit.  Granted Steve Jobs is not Jesus, nor is the profitability of Apple equivalent to the redemptive work of the church, but still the insights seem to speak each to the other.

Jesus’ words are part of his farewell discourse with the disciples.  He borrows a familiar image to describe the relationship that exists and will exist even in His absence between Himself and those who would be His disciples, the church. He says, “I am the vine, you are the branches,” a common enough image in the Palestinian countryside.  Just as the branches draw life form the vine, so disciples draw their life from their relationship with Jesus.  The point is connectedness.  Jesus emphasizes this connectedness by saying, “Abide in me as I abide in you.  Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you aide in me.” In other words, the church will continue as long as it abides in Christ Jesus, stays connected to the Vine and realizes the continuous power of His gracious love.  It is this mutual indwelling, this faithful abiding in the Risen Lord and His abiding in the disciples, that creates the faithful, fruitful life. And just as a branch cut off from the vine soon withers and dies, so a disciple separated from the Risen Christ and the nourishing, renewing power of His grace soon withers and dries up in terms of faith.  Here Jesus is telling His disciples Easter Matters.  It is our life together, our connectedness with the Vine, the Risen Lord, and with the other branches, sisters and brothers in Christ that allows us to live lives that are faithful and fruitful.

Jesus pushes the metaphor further by reminding the disciples that the Father is the Vinegrower.  As the Vinegrower, the Father cuts away the unproductive branches and prunes the productive branches that they may be even more productive.  Again the image is as common as it is painful.  Vinegrowers must tend to the vines, unproductive branches must be removed, and productive branches must be pruned if they are to bear fruit.  The image is of judgment in one case and growth through trial and suffering in the other. How do we know the difference?  When times of trial come and we retreat into our attempts at security or simply give in or give up, most likely that’s being removed.  If, on the other hand, we endure trials and suffering by trusting in God’s grace and find our faith deepened, that’s most likely a pruning.  The point is that we all experience pruning, not as punishment but to enable us to bear more fruit. It is about our connectedness, our life together, the life Easter makes possible.

Before he was a United States Senator from New Jersey, Bill Bradley was a basketball player, a very good basketball player.  He was an All-American at Princeton and an All-Pro with the New York Knicks.  In his wonderful book entitled, LIFE ON THE RUN, Bradley tells about what he calls those “magical nights.” These were those games when the plays were run flawlessly, the picks were set with precision, and the shots were made effortlessly, all as if each player was an extension of the others.  The five players acted and reacted as one; Each one instinctively moving to exactly the right place and doing exactly the right thing.  The team was one body in five parts.  As one body, it played and triumphed. As I read LIFE ON THE RUN, I recalled such nights I enjoyed both as a player and coach.  They were indeed magical.  And such experiences are not limited to sports.  They happen elsewhere:  a choir comes together on a cantata and it is indeed memorable; an orchestra moves to a higher level of performance and everyone experiences a special moment; a drama group offers a brilliant interpretive performance and the audience is moved. These special moments are moments when our connectedness is experience and our life together is celebrated.

We, the body of Christ, are called to live in such connectedness.  Our life together is to express our abiding in the Risen Christ and with one another.  In a world so filled with division, fractures, differences, we are called to reflect the Easter Realty:  “I am the vine, you are the branches.  Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.”  I believe this is one of the most powerful images of the church in the entire New Testament.  It both reminds us of and calls us to a life of connectedness.  This is a fundamental reality of the Christian faith.  We do not live alone, by ourselves, as individuals.  We live in relationship with Christ Jesus and all those who confess Him as Lord.  He is the Vine that empowers us, the branches, to bear fruit—the fruit of witnessing to the Good News, serving in His Name, walking faithfully after Him, imitating His love, knowing the joy and hope He offers.  This is our calling and our promise.

And such connectedness has consequences.  Kirk Hardaway is a veteran observer of the mainline church.  In a recent study done at the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, Hardaway discovered some interesting realities.  Key to the growth of a congregation for instance, is how well the  members get along; that is, is their life together healthy?  Serious conflict is a predictor of decline.  Other indicators of growth were:  a clear mission and purpose, a plan for recruitment, joyful worship, a growing number of men in worship.  Yesterday we had the first of two workshops seeking to set a direction for our future.  Such topics were a part of that discussion.  I am very excited about what happened yesterday and I anticipate happening tomorrow evening.  We are beginning our journey keeping open to where God is leading us and that is energizing.

I want each of you to hear Jesus’ words as a personal call.  Each of us must become engaged with how we will abide in Him who is the Vine and how He will abide in us, reshaping our faith.  Abiding is more than a peculiar word.  It is a way of being.  How will your abiding find expression?  How will you share in our life together in Christ Jesus and with one another in ways that bear fruit?  Abiding, after all, is not a call to rest; it is a call to engagement.  Thanks be to God!  Amen!

*Proclaim for May 6, 2012