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.

I have previously mentioned several of issues that make the car I drive unique. One of the quirks I haven’t mentioned is that only one of the four speakers works; which means when I listen to the radio or the one CD that’s been stuck in there for seven years, I only hear what comes out of the right channel.

For anyone who isn’t sure what that means: an audio recording typically has two separate channels of sound: the right and left; when you listen to both channels it’s called “stereo.” Often these channels contain the same information, so you can listen to the right or left by itself and hear the entire song. But some songs have distinct right and left channels (which you’ve probably noticed if you’ve listened to headphones and heard a sound that was entering from one ear but not the other).

Any sound that comes out of my lonely car speaker carries only the right channel information. It makes for an interesting experience because even songs I know well sound completely different in my car...particularly anything by the Beatles, who loved to record different channels. Here’s an example:

The first time I heard this song in my car I thought I had accidentally stumbled a previously-unreleased acoustic version of the Beatles performing “Hey Bulldog.” It sounded incomplete; and it wasn’t until the song progressed that I actually realized what song it was. When the right and left channels are played together, it sounds like this:

You may not be a fan of the Beatles, but I think we can agree that it is much more interesting to hear this song in stereo. That distinctive guitar track certainly adds a necessary element to the song.

I see many similarities between the state of my car stereo system and the state of our world. Too often we go through life engaging only with one side of the story, one half of the picture, one ear full of sound.

Just ten years ago it was thought that we were entering an age of the flattening of the world, which had the power for free us from our isolated existences, break down cultural and economic walls of separation, and expose all people to diversity that would positively influence our behavior. But then came along social media platforms and political-leaning 24-hour “news” channels that allowed us to narrow and customize the news and opinions with which we actually wanted to engage.

In a recent study that examined how news passes through social media, “[Researchers] confirmed that as a bit of ‘news’… was passed from person to person, [the message became shorter and] the facts became distorted in large part due to biases of the people passing along the information"
(http://phys.org/news/2015-04-social-networks-exaggerating-news-events.html)

Anyone who has ever played the telephone game as a child already recognizes the truth of that statement.

And now that we find ourselves saturated with news sources on radio, 24-hour cable news, and social media feeds tailored to our biases, our understanding of the facts is as distorted as ever.

We create micro-cultures around ourselves; insulating our particular understanding of the world by choosing to only pay attention to the voices that reinforce our understanding of the world. Our opinions and biases go unchecked and we pass along filtered news and opinion that bears little actual resemblance to the complex issues of our world.

For example, if you get all your news from Fox News you heard the 2013 government shutdown described casually as a necessary “government slim-down;” whereas MSNBC was using language such as “needless and destructive” to describe the same event. Similarly, depending on how you’ve customized your news consumption, the recent events in Baltimore have either been reported to you as “riots” or a “revolution”
(http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/12/business/media/when-our-news-is-gerrymandered-too.html?_r=0)

The task before us is to admit our own biases and prejudice and listen to the voices we would otherwise ignore; which will allow for a more nuanced, more complete, and more beautiful understanding of our world.

The point of my message today is not to get Fox News fans to tune into MSNBC for an hour a day (or vice-versa). For many of us, the most important voice that is missing from our newsfeed isn’t the voice of the political right or political left; rather, what’s missing from our newsfeed is the truth of God’s love for us and for all of God’s good creation.

Prior to his betrayal and execution, Jesus gathered his disciples together one last time and gave them commands that they were to follow to ensure that they would love one another. These commands, as listed in the 15th chapter of John include:

have joy
love as Christ loved
lay down one’s life for one’s friends
see the “other” as an “equal”
go and bear fruit

Each of these commands is impossible to live out without the understanding that we are first and foremost loved by God with a love that makes all these commands possible. Jesus prefaces all these commands with the primary plea to “abide in my love.” Recognizing that God loves us is the truth that makes it possible for us to have joy, love as Christ loved, lay down our lives for our friends, see the “other” as an “equal” and to go and bear fruit.

So many people simply can’t hear this truth coming out of the speakers in their lives. Maybe they’ve had damaging experiences in church, or maybe they feel as though God has abandoned them in a time of personal need, or maybe they’ve been erroneously taught that faith cannot co-exist with science.

Others have deliberately eliminated any trace of the truth of God’s love from their newsfeed, perhaps by blindly following the talking points of political parties, unfriending those who challenge their prejudices, or filling their lives with commercial pursuits designed to make consumers feel like they are inadequate and unloveable unless they buy the next best thing.

The most powerful force on earth or in heaven is for you to believe that God loves you just as you are and to let that love propel you into a world full of people who either can’t hear or choose not to listen to this truth.

My prayer for you is that you listen to the voices in the world that challenge you; that you take time to immerse yourself in scripture and prayer and acts of selfless generosity, where God’s truth is revealed; and that you fall in love with the God who loves you more than life itself. That’s a song the world needs to hear from the right and the left.

Amen.

John 15:1-8

[Jesus said,] “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch from in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.

“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 abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them will bear much fruit because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

I’m a little worried about this seeming a bit cliché, because I suspect many of you have seen this, or other videos like it, before. And even if you haven’t, I suspect you’ve at least heard the message or the sentiment, right? That we’re too tied to our phones and our devices… That the connections we pretend are real, aren’t all they’re cracked up to be… That we’re missing out on so much and so many real relationships because we’re bound, in too many ways, to the phones and tablets and social media technologies that have changed the way we experience one another even and the world, itself.

Well, I’ve heard all of that stuff before, too. And, while I think it’s true in too many ways, the last thing I want to do is sound like that crotchety old-fogey, yelling at “the kids these days” to put down their phones and “get off of my lawn.” I’m not that old, yet. And I’m a big fan of my phone and Facebook and my Kindle and all the rest, for lots of reasons.

But I couldn’t read this Gospel this time around without thinking about what it means to “be connected” in our day and age – and about how dramatically that has changed since Jesus was around. And I kind of think Jesus was hip to all of this, in his own way back in the day, when he was talking about what it means for us to be branches, connected to the vine; and about how, apart from that vine – apart from each other, really – we can do nothing.

My point is, I think we kid ourselves about the value of our “connections” to one another and to the world around us, because we are easily tricked and manipulated – intentionally or not – by experiences that take place from the distance we put between ourselves. And technology is only one of the more obvious ways we create that distance it seems to me. I think we put distance between ourselves and others when we pick our political parties; when we refuse to forgive someone we love; when we ignore or deny the needs of others in the world; and even when we choose our churches, or stake a claim with our theology, some of the time.

There are all kinds of ways – known and unknown to us – that we build walls and that create distance and that keep us further apart from our brothers and sisters in this world than God ever intended for us to be.

And I think what Jesus is calling us to – just like he was calling those first disciples, back in the day – is a way of living and moving and being in the world that is counter-culturally different; that is diametrically opposed to; that is profoundly distinct from the way so much of the world finds itself living. And I think it’s one of the highest callings of the Church, in our day and age.

Because Jesus is calling us to abide. That’s the word he uses today, anyway. And if abide means (as my dictionary tells me it does) “to endure without yielding” or “to bear patiently,” or to “remain in a place,” that’s stuff that is really hard to do. And it’s something so many are missing in the world as they know it – the sense that anything or anyone can or will or does abide with them, in any real, meaningful, lasting way.

As cool as it is to carry around 12,000 songs in your pocket, nothing beats a live performance by your favorite musician. (Especially, if that means KISS, or the Indigo Girls, or Mumford and Sons, or Bruce Springsteen.) As convenient as it is to SKYPE your way through a business meeting, there’s nothing like a handshake to close the deal. As lovely as it is to FACE TIME with the grandkids, it will never compare to sitting on Grandpa’s lap or holding Grandma’s hand at the dinner table. As easy as it is to text or tweet our opinion about something, we never get the full story without looking into each others' eyes and hearing the voice of another.

And I hope we see the Church – that we experience Cross of Grace – as an antidote to all of this disconnection and distance. Here is a place where we are called to be connected, one to another, and all of us to the vine of God’s love and grace and mercy through Jesus Christ. We gather here to be fed and nourished and even pruned, from time to time – challenged and changed, I mean, even when that’s hard – by the worship and fellowship and teaching that finds us here.

This place means to be the root system from which the body of Christ that is you and me – grows and goes into the world. And I hope we all realize what a special blessing we have here. …

This place isn’t perfect – no church ever can be, being made up of people, such as they are. But Cross of Grace, as a church in this community, is a place of uncommon welcome and grace and acceptance and openness and hospitality that is unique and needed in our neck of the woods.

So, I realize that for too many of us, especially those of us who’ve been around Cross of Grace for awhile, another round of General Fund commitments and another pile of Time and Talent Sheets to be completed can feel like another way of going through the motions; another way of taking care of business; another way of being asked to “give this” or “do that” or add “one more thing” to our already busy, stretched-thin lives and wallets. But it really is about more than that.

I hope, as we make our commitments to the General Fund, as we make our offerings to worship and learn and serve around here, we see all of that as a commitment to abide in as many ways as this congregation does that in the world. Our presence here is a counter-cultural way of living and moving and breathing, every time we gather to do what we do:

to confess our sins, in community, and to receive our forgiveness;

to share the peace, in worship, with a handshake or a hug;

to touch the waters of baptism and to cross ourselves in celebration of what those promises mean for us;

to break and take the bread, to sip and swallow the wine of holy communion and receive, weekly, our fullness of our salvation;

and even to drop our commitment cards and our offerings into the offering plate, too.

All of that is the holy stuff of what it means to be the Church in the world; to make deliberate, faithful choices to be connected as the body of Christ; to be the abiding, real presence of God’s grace for the sake of a world – a world that may only receive and experience it, when we become like so many branches, reaching out – extending ourselves – to share what has first been shared with us in more ways than we can count.

Amen