"If You Really Loved Me, You Would..." – John 14:15-21

“If you really loved me, you would…”

Does hearing this phrase fill you with self-confidence and joy? Or, does it weigh you down with dread and shame?

That depends on how you define true love.

All too often we distort true love into a force that places rigid demands on the other. True love is a tool we employ to change someone else’s thoughts and actions so that our needs can be met. True love is the ability to make others feel so bad about their faults and failings that they become open to our desire to change them into better, more lovable, people. True love is reminding others know just how fortunate they are that they are recipients of our love; and that their slightest mistake or slip-up would result in a life without the blessing of our love, which, we assure them, would be a miserable life indeed.

Jesus, on the night in which he was betrayed, talked about love and said to his disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” The implications of this profound statement hinges on our understanding of true love – the love with which God loves us. If we define true love in the manner that I described a minute ago, then the statement “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” is Jesus’ final attempt to place rigid demands on us; Jesus’ final attempt to change our thoughts and actions so that we can meet his high standards; Jesus’ final attempt to shame us into becoming better, more lovable, people; Jesus’ final attempt to let us know how fortunate we are that we are loved, and that the slightest mistake or slip-up would result in a life without the blessing of his love.

Isn’t it good news that Jesus offers a different – a better – definition of true love? The true love that Jesus offers is evident in every aspect of his birth, life, teaching, miracle-working, truth-telling, suffering, and victory over death and destruction.

I found this explanation from Nancy Ramsay particularly poignant:

The love Jesus wants his hearers to embrace is not an abstract philosophical concept but the lived reality revealed in the life, relationships, and actions of a simple Nazarene who looks and talks like them and lives simply among them. He feeds the hungry, touches lepers, heals the sick, and speaks and acts toward women with care and regard. Love is seen in his life and service and compassion. It is also seen in his fierce protests against those who abuse this vision of an ethic of mutual regard and care. Instead of power as domination, Jesus invites those who meet him to imagine power that has as its goal the well-being of all persons regardless of social status”

(Nancy Ramsay, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 2, p. 492).

This is the type of love Jesus speaks about when he says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

Jesus’ desire is for his disciples to continue the work that he started – the work of healing the world from its self-inflicted pain and freeing the people from the bonds of political, religious, and social oppression.

The context in which Jesus utters these words is crucial to understanding what Jesus meant by this phrase. These are Jesus’ last words to his dear friends. These are Jesus’ last words after humbly stooping down to wash each of his friends’ feet. These are Jesus’ last words before turning himself over to the ridiculous civil trial and procedures of corrupt justice.

If the truth that Jesus embodied through his life, death, and resurrection were to impact the world in any meaningful way, it would be accomplished through the testimony of his disciples with whom he broke bread that night – disciples who would soon find themselves alone, disjointed, and paralyzed by fear. It may sound like Jesus is placing an unfair conditional commandment before them by saying, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” But what he’s really saying is, “You know that what I’ve shown you is true peace, joy, and love; so share it with others and change the world.” This is not an unfair conditional commandment; it’s an invitation to change the world. And perhaps the best news of all for the disciples was that this task was not theirs alone; rather, they would be supported, encouraged, and sustained by God’s presence through the Advocate – the Holy Spirit.

We, too, have been given this invitation to change the world. For when we experience God’s true love we are free to share that incredible love with others. True love, after all, is love that is life-giving. True love is a tool we employ to change our own thoughts and actions so that other peoples’ needs can be met. True love is the ability to make others feel so accepted in spite of their faults and failings that they realize they are more than the sum of their mistakes. True love is reminding others just how fortunate they are that they are loved by God; and that God will not allow their slightest mistake or slip-up to result in a life without the blessing of God’s love, which would be a miserable life indeed.

Let us pray,
Creator and redeemer of heaven and earth,
you have fallen madly in love with us – truly in love with us.
We have a very clear, yet often incredibly difficult, commandment before us:
To change the world by loving others just as Jesus loved the poor,
the oppressed, the sick, the dying, the spiritually dead, the physically dead,
the stressed, the addicted, the hungry.
If such true love would ever pour out of our bodies we must first be filled
with that true love ourselves.
Fill us, Lord. Thank you, Lord.
Amen.

"We Are Not The Gate" – John 10:1-10

Three keys to the effective use of metaphors in language is to keep them simple, not read too much into them, and not layer metaphors on top of one another. Or else you end up with sayings like these:
“He’s not the sharpest bulb in the box”
“She’s a wolf in cheap clothing”
“You could have knocked me over with a fender”
“I can read him like the back of my book”
or my favorite, “These hemorrhoids are a real pain in the neck”

The metaphors found in the Gospel of John are not quite as funny as these, but they are every bit as confusing. In the span of just a few verses an elaborate picture is painted involving sheep, a shepherd, a gatekeeper, a gate, and thieves and bandits. Unfortunately, it’s not immediately clear just what exactly this illustration is trying to convey.

There are some epic metaphorical “I am” statements in John’s gospel, such as:
“I am the bread of life”
“I am the light of the world”
“I am the resurrection and the life”
“I am the way, the truth, and the life”
“I am the true vine”
and, “I am the good shepherd”

Most of us are probably familiar with the metaphor of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. The image of a shepherd was common to that time and its repeated use throughout the Hebrew Scriptures almost always referred to a king. We can wrap our minds around the idea of Jesus as a shepherd – someone who guides us, leads us, battles enemies on our behalf, keeps us from running off (or goes after us when we do run off, picking us up in his strong arms and carrying us back to the flock). A preacher can do a lot with the image of Jesus as a shepherd. Unfortunately, in the verses before us today, Jesus doesn’t identify himself as the shepherd (that comes a few verses later). Instead, we hear of one of Jesus’ lesser known “I am” statements – “I am the gate.”

At first glance, this metaphor is the least impressive of the other options. Surely Jesus would not have chosen to include this moniker on his business cards. Not only is it odd-sounding, but it’s confusing. Jesus identifies as both the shepherd and the gate. So we return to verse 2, which reads as follows, “The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.” So its apparent meaning is, “I enter by myself and I am me.” Or, in the immortal words of Popeye, “I yam who I yam.”

Clear as mud, right?

This metaphor only started making sense to me when I looked at it from a different angle. If Jesus is the gate, that means that we are not the gate. This, I think, is the heart of Jesus’ argument especially in light of the context of the story. His awkward metaphor is directed to the Pharisees, immediately after the episode where Jesus restored the sight of a blind man. Upholding the religious understanding of the time, the Pharisees had argued that the man was blind because of some great sin and that he did not deserve to be healed. If it were up to the Pharisees they would have shut the gate on the blind man. The Pharisees also argued that Jesus had no right to heal the blind man because it was a sabbath day. If it were up to the Pharisees they would have shut the gate on Jesus.

For the Pharisees, seeing a man born blind (which they believed was a punishment for some sin) have his sight restored was inconceivable and against every religious impulse in their body. For the Pharisees, seeing a miraculous event take place on a religiously-mandated day of rest was inconceivable and against every religious impulse in their body. But, as Jesus points out, the reason they thought such miracles inconceivable and against every religious impulse in their body was because they, in fact, were the ones who were blind. Jesus not only accuses them of being blind, but also refers to them as thieves and bandits.

I don’t mean to portray the Pharisees as irrational and unsympathetic villains. Their impulse to shut the gate when they felt threatened is a common impulse we share. If we were to witness an event that went against every religious impulse we had, we would close ranks, become hostile, make sharp distinctions between “us” and “them” and shut the gate in an effort for self-preservation. Unfortunately, this is not a hypothetical situation. In fact, many of you are here today because you experienced this closing of the ranks and gate-shutting in other churches when they felt that their religious or political sensibilities were being threatened. And, truth be told, many of us are the ones who have shut the gates on others.

Into such an environment as this, Jesus boldly declares, “I am the gate.”

We are not the gate. Remember this next time you are tempted to hold someone at arm’s length, next time you are tempted to label someone as unworthy, hopeless, lost, or sinful. We are not the gate. Remember this next time someone holds you at arm’s length, next time someone labels you as unworthy, hopeless, lost, or sinful. We are not the gate.

Is this an excuse to not take a stand on any issue? Are you going to go home and say that your new pastor is advocating for complete tolerance of all behavior, no matter how vile, and that there is never an appropriate time to keep someone or something out? Absolutely not. As the saying goes, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”

But the next time your religious or political or emotional sensibilities feel threatened, listen to the voices vying for your attention. The voice telling you to shut the gate will sound remarkably like your own because it will be the sound of your own fear echoing back at you. But if you manage to stay calm and keep listening you will hear a voice remarkably different from your own; a voice cutting through the clatter like a clarion call. It will be the voice of Jesus, a voice you will know because you are his sheep. And the voice of Jesus will invite you to participate in the abundant life Jesus alone can provide.

Amen.