Stand By Me

John 15:9-17

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“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. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.

“You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

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One of my favorite movies ever is “Stand By Me.” I realize it’s not the best movie by the standards of a seasoned film critic or the Academy Awards. But I like it anyway. I like it because I liked the short story on which it is based which, a lot of people don’t realize was written by Stephen King. There are no pet cemeteries, clowns in the sewers, haunted hotels, “Children of the Corn,” or any of the other terrifying things for which Stephen King is known, so…

Anyway, “Stand By Me” is the story of four adolescent boys who, though they would call themselves friends at the beginning of it all, become the best of friends as the story moves along. It takes place in the 1950’s, when one of the boys learns there is a dead body somewhere near the railroad tracks in a neighboring town and the four pals make it their mission to find it and report it to police and the media in order to become famous.

The story – and their adventure – turn out to be less and less about the search for a dead body and more and more about the friendship that develops among the boys. As they hike and camp and get into and out of all kinds of trouble, they tell stories around the camp fire, get chased by dogs and trains, threatened by older brothers and bullies, they get into fights, they confess their fears, they save each others’ lives, and they “come of age,” whatever that means. The short of the long is that the boys become the very best of friends during that short season of their young lives and the movie ends with a line from the book that I think of often: "I never had any friends like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?"

“I never had any friends like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”

Which makes me think about Confirmation Sunday and this rite of passage for Lutherans like us, where we gather adolescents around the waters of their baptism and – this time around, anyway – hear this bit from Jesus about what it means to be friends with, instead of servants to or slaves of, the God of all creation – which was a new way to understand the God of the universe for those disciples who were hearing about it for the first time.

Jesus said, “…I have loved you; abide in my love. …so that your joy may be complete.

“You are my friends … I do not call you servants any longer … but I have called you friends.

“You did not choose me but I chose you. … And I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

And it’s easy to imagine that those first disciples might have been surprised to hear this from Jesus, who they were trying to understand as the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, because it’s just another way that the God we know in Jesus was different from the way they thought or believed or understood God could ever be. And the same might be true for us too much of the time, it seems to me. 

See, throughout Scripture – from the Hebrew Scriptures of those first disciples all the way through what we call the New Testament – the nature of God is revealed as something altogether different from what people expected or thought they were looking for.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob wasn’t a God who lived “up there” and “out there” in a galaxy far, far away, like the “gods” they were used to or had been told about or that some of their neighbors worshiped. No, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob was a God who dwelled among God’s people – who moved around in the Garden of Eden “at the time of the evening breeze”; who led the people through the wilderness by pillars of cloud and fire; who camped out in the tabernacle; who spoke through the prophets.

And the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was a God who centered grace, who was motivated by love. We’ve been tricked into believing that grace was hard to come by in those Old Testament days, but it’s there. It’s relative to the day and the age and the stories that surround it all, but there’s grace in the rainbow that follows the flood, for example. There’s grace in those 10 Commandments that promise life and blessing and abundance and justice if only we let those laws guide our life because we get to, not because we’ve got to. And there’s grace in the overarching theme of those Hebrew Scriptures, for a people being released from slavery, oppression, and suffering, and for a people promised freedom, abundance, and new life, simply because that was God’s desire for them. Again, this God was different that way.

And this is the same God who showed up in Jesus, of course – living and moving and breathing in and for and with the world. Like the evening breeze or the pillar of clouds, like the tabernacle and the prophets, Jesus showed up, this time as one of them; as one of us. And he showed up preaching and teaching and healing and forgiving – all expressions of and experiences with that same amazing grace God was working to share with the world.

And now, this Jesus was showing himself, yet again, to be a different kind of god than the world had ever seen or heard of or expected God could be. Jesus wanted to be friends with his people. Friends!

No longer were people to see God as a slave master or a slave driver. No longer was God to be seen as a master manipulator or as a purveyor of punishment. No longer were people to walk on egg shells through their lives in this world fearing the monsters beneath their bed or the demons in their closet or the grumpy old man in the sky holding their feet to the fire or holding their sins over their heads or holding an everlasting grudge for every sin and indiscretion they could count.

No, we have a friend in Jesus. A friend who wants to hold our hand through it all – nothing more and certainly nothing less: a companion for the journey; a humble servant, himself; one who suffers for our sake; one who lays down his life for those that he loves.

We have a friend in Jesus who abides in a kind of love that is everlasting and generous, abundant and without limit.

In Jesus, we have a friend who always, always, always chooses us, even when we forget or neglect or lack the courage, ability, wisdom, or faith to choose him back.

Like I said, my love for “Stand By Me,” the movie (and the Stephen King story that inspired it) is wrapped up in that rhetorical question that ends it all: “I never had any friends like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”

There has always been some measure of truth to that for me, to be honest. I’m lucky to still have some of those friends in my life – ones who knew me and loved me and grew up with me during the formative “coming of age” adventures of my childhood. I had dinner with a couple of them two weeks ago. I just spent time with two more of them last weekend. My son Maxwell David, who’s affirming his baptism this morning, is named after another.

And my hope for him and for each of these young people making their Confirmation today – Bethany, Charlie, Kylee, Max, Ella, Ally, Alex, Evelyn, Natalie, and Nate – is that they will know and hold onto and have reason to celebrate those kind of friends now and in the years to come.

And my hope for them, even more – and for all of us, just the same – is that those kinds of friends, the ones who abide, the ones who sacrifice for our sake and compel us to do likewise, the ones who choose us when others don’t, who make our joy complete, and who inspire us to love well and deeply and without shame… I hope those are the friends who remind us of the God – of the friend – we have in Jesus, who does all of those things, to perfection, for us and for the sake of the world.

Amen

Witnessing with Our Wounds

Luke 24:36b-48

Jesus himself came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

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It’s been awhile, but I’ve had stitches three times in my life. Every incident and accident happened by the time I was in 3rd grade. The first was right smack-dab in the middle of my forehead. I think I was three or four years old, and jumping on the bed with the neighbor kids, when I bounced off and cracked my head on the corner of the desk in my room. The second time was in the driveway of the church parsonage sometime after that. Alan Heinz, who was older than me by a few years, pushed me, I slipped on the ice, and split my chin open. The third time was on a road trip with my grandmother, without my parents, when I fell down the steps on some rickety, rusty old metal swing-set. I sliced the skin near my eye enough that they had to sew me up.

As a kid those stories were fun to tell, once the healing had come. After the doctor visits and the stitches and the healing and what not, the scars were little badges of honor, I guess, with funny stories behind them. They don’t amount to much now – the scars or the stories – but at the time, there weren’t many 3rd graders who’d been stitched so prolifically as far as I knew. And my friends, my brother, my parents, my grandmother, and Alan Heinz, were all witnesses to my wounds.

Jesus was big on showing off his wounds, too. “Look at my hands and my feet.” “See that it is I, myself.”

And he said, “…the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

“You are witnesses of these things.”

Ugh. “Witnesses.” Haven’t we heard enough from and about “witnesses” these days. “Witnesses” in that courtroom. “Witnesses” in the streets. “Witnesses” inside that school in Knoxville, or near that alley in Chicago, or outside in the parking lot, or inside of that FedEx building, right here in Indianapolis – eye-witnesses, expert witnesses, character witnesses to all sorts of sadness and struggle and death and despair.

So, even though this world does its best to make it so hard, I want to wonder with all of you, with whatever of Easter’s joy we can still muster, what it means that Jesus would call us to be witnesses on this side of his empty tomb: witnesses to a Messiah that suffered and was raised from the dead on the third day: witnesses to the fact that Jesus got up from the grave, showed up for his friends – ate some broiled fish in their presence, just to prove it was true – and reminded them about their call to be “witnesses.”

What does that mean, exactly? To be “witnesses?”

Those first disciples sure had a lot to tell – not unlike some of the “witnesses” I just referred to. The disciples had witnessed a murder. A friend had died. A son had been executed. An injustice had been done. So much pain and fear and frustration and anger and despair were a part of all they had seen, heard, shared, and “witnessed.” So they had a story to tell, for sure.

And I think it’s so meaningful and deliberate that Jesus starts with his hands and his feet. Jesus uses the wounds from his crucified body – following the resurrection – differently than I did as a kid. I don’t get the impression he was proud of them or wore them as a badge of honor, I mean. Or that he enjoyed the story they told, necessarily.

But, remember last week, when he showed up for most of the disciples and then to Thomas? The holes in his hands and the wounds on his sides were evidence of his identity. Today, the same is true, for the disciples who saw him – the holes in his hands and the ones in his feet were proof that he was, indeed, Jesus – their friend, their rabbi, their Messiah, who had been crucified, had died, and had been buried. And who now ate some broiled fish just to prove he wasn’t a ghost.

But I got to thinking that Jesus’ wounds were more than just evidence of his identity or proof of life, even.

I think, in showing his wounds – in revealing where he had been hurt and suffered and struggled so mightily – Jesus was showing his disciples – and us – what it means to be witnesses, ourselves.

“…the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations … You are witnesses of these things.”

See, we are witnesses, you and I, not just to the resurrection and the forgiveness, the good news and the joy of it all. But we are witnesses to the suffering and the hard work of repentance and the struggle of it all, just the same. And I wonder if being a witness like Jesus invites us to be means showing off our own scars, revealing our own wounds, and not hiding the broken pieces of ourselves from each other or from the world.

And that’s hard. And terrifying. And takes courage and vulnerability and faith. And I don’t know that means for you. I’m not always sure what it means for myself – because the wounds that hurt now are deeper and harder to show off than the stitches that scarred me when I was a kid. Broken bones are like sticks and stones, as they say, compared to the broken hearts that burden us these days, don’t you think?

Our grief is a wound that is hard to lay bare.

The fears that keep us up at night are not always something we want to give voice to.

The sins we confess and long to have forgiven are not easily proclaimed.

The scars of whatever shame we carry are not readily revealed.

But I think that might be precisely why Jesus leads with his wounds. I think maybe Jesus leads with his wounds – boldly, bravely, and by example, so that we might, too, as we try to bear witness to just what God is up to in our lives and for the sake of the world.

I pray those families still reeling from what was lost at FedEx on Thursday will settle into some measure of hope when any of the thousands of families in this country who know their pain reach out to them with their own broken hearts.

 I’ve seen how the family of Daunte Wright has already been buoyed by the broken, but common ground they share with the family of George Floyd.

Parents who’ve survived the loss of a child are a beacon for those who are new to that grief.

Those who’ve endured a divorce and loved well again are a light for those stumbling down that road.

When someone comes out of the closet, finds their self, and thrives – someone still hiding is encouraged that maybe they can do the same.

Those who have been hurt by the Church or doubted their faith to the point of desperation, but have managed to keep it, have a gift to offer others in that same boat.

We have – each of us – suffered or are suffering. We have been frightened or are afraid, now. We have grieved mightily, many of us, or are grieving, still, in ways that someone out there in the world would be blessed to know about.

“See these wounds?” “You are witnesses to these things.” “I’ll show you mine,” Jesus seems to say, “so that you might show someone yours.” Because, Jesus knew what he wants us to share: that God does God’s best work with the wounded, broken, hurting, fearful, desperate parts of our lives in this world.

God takes all of that and redeems it. God takes all of that and forgives it. God takes all of it and breathes new life into it. God takes all of it and heals, comforts and loves it all into wholeness and justice and hope and peace.

And so he calls us to be witnesses, you and me – brave and bold and faithful and persistent, like Jesus. Witnesses – leading with our own wounds to show that what is broken, can be made whole; bearing witness to what is hurting but that can be comforted; bearing witness to what is sinful, but will be forgiven; bearing witness to what is dead, even, but will be raised to new life in his name.

Amen