NewCreation

Homily for Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this the homily for the sixth Sunday of Easter. And this Sunday the Gospel is this direct continuation of last Sunday's Gospel, the Gospel of the true vine. And it's difficult and complicated because of a number of key words which are used in mysterious ways. But luckily we have John's comment on John, for this Gospel we have the first epistle of John, chapter 4, given as our second reading, and that is a marvelous commentary on exactly this passage of the Gospel. So let's look at that first before turning to John's Gospel and some of the key words and insights which that gives us. So in the epistle we have: "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." So love is the criterion here. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. "Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way." So here is the protagonism. This is, if you like, the first movement of love, that which enables us to know what love is. "God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him." That's what love looked like — so that we might live through him, so we can become alive through God's Son. "And this is love, not that we love God" — so it's not some sort of loyalty test to some paternal Zeus figure — "this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins." So Jesus coming in, occupying the place of the cross out of love for us — that's what love looks like, and our reception of that is what it's all about. That's where it starts. As we receive that, so we become capable of imitating. "Love it" — since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. So that's absolutely clear, exactly, if you like, the order in which things flow. The Father, God, loves us. The shape that this love takes is coming into our world, occupying the place of shame and death on our behalf, living into it for us, being glorified, being shown to be who he is through it, so that we can start to live without being run by any of those things. And as we become aware of this, as we become aware, if you like, of the world as being a place suffused with love because of what has happened, so we start to be able to love. That, at least, it seems to me, is the way in which the epistle handles it. And of course the Gospel as well, but with slightly more complicated language, because in the Gospel it refers to commandments, and that adds complication. Because what are these commandments? Is it referring to the ten commandments? No, I suspect not. I suspect that in John's case: "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." So we have to look at John's Gospel and see what it was that Jesus's obedience looked like. Well, it looked like, for instance, carrying on doing the Father's work on the Sabbath, opening up creation when creation seems to have been paused for the Sabbath. Which is to say, his commandment was to carry on working creation: healing the blind, healing various people, bringing people to life. These were the ways in which Jesus fulfilled God's commands, and he's saying that was how he showed his love — by doing those things. That was how God's love was shown through him, that he was obeying his Father and doing those things. And to the degree to which you do those things as well, the same sort of things, you will be following his commands. "Just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love, I've said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete." Now here's something which I think is very difficult — difficult is the wrong word, strange. It's interesting that in the epistle we have God loving the world by sending his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. That was how God's love was revealed. But curiously, it doesn't talk about the Father's love for Jesus. What's really interesting is that in John's Gospel, the Father's love for Jesus is revealed in Jesus's coming into the world and going up to die on the cross, being glorified, being taken to this place of glory. In other words, this whole venture for him is an exercise in being loved. "The Father has loved me, so I have loved you." In other words, for him this whole progress — coming in, preaching, choosing the disciples, facing down different people, arguing, discussing, healing, and so forth, and leading up to the moment when he would glorify his Father and be glorified by his Father in his death — all of that was understood to be the sign of being loved. That's what being loved looked like. No sense of this is a ghastly business which I have to go through in order to pay some price. But this is what it looks like to be loved. And it fills me with joy to do this. I'm actually filled with joy at the possibility of being able to be glorified and to glorify my Father's name, and I'm filled with joy at the thought that you could also share in all this. It's the same as is brought out in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, he held up nothing but shame, and is seated at God's right hand." So it's something which perhaps we skip over — it's the sense of this whole mission… This whole presence of Jesus was not a task, if you like. It was how it looked to be loved. He actually felt and knew himself loved. This was a loving thing to do that he was doing, and he was glad to do it, that he gave him a joy that he was doing this so that it would bring things about for other people. "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete." In other words, I haven't come to open up a series of tasks for you to do. I've come to open up for you the possibility of being glorified with creation, entering into the new creation and actually loving and being on the inside of something utterly wonderful that's not run by death and to which you will be able to give yourselves with joy. That is how you know that I am present, how it is that the Father is present — because of joy. And then he gives the commandment: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." In other words, the commandment, before it's actually a moralistic instruction, is the gift. I have done this, so what I'm doing is making something available for you. Now imitate it, get on the inside of it. "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" — by doing what I command you. In other words, as you see what I have done for you, as you understand that this is about love, so abide in it. Find yourselves on the inside of it, wanting to do this for other people so as to open up creation for more and more people by forgiveness, by self-giving. All of this you will learn to do. Then there's this great freedom with which he moves. "I do not call you servants any longer." Actually, that's probably a slight mistranslation. It's probably, "I haven't called you servants all along." In other words, I've never treated you as servants, 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." In other words, I've shared with you the whole adventure, and the whole adventure was so that you could be part of it. In as far as I am your master, it was only so as to enable you to become my friends, and therefore for there to be no longer any distinction between us. You're going to be my friends at the same level. You are going to be those who make decisions, work out together how we're to take projects forward — because that's what friends do, not servants. Servants have to wait for their master, who has a plan, and they just have to follow along with it. No, you are those who are going to work out what's to be done. My Father will approve you, but you're going to work it out. I have made known to you everything that I've heard from my Father. All of that is going to be opened up for you. And then these particular words about friendship, words that we could sit in for days and days: "You did not choose me, but I chose you." To be chosen as a friend — that is what is extraordinary. I can remember how difficult it was when I was a little eight-year-old, nine-year-old boy at school to be able to choose a friend. Would the person who I chose as a friend want to be my friend? But the extraordinary privilege of finding yourself chosen to be a friend by Jesus — and that's what this is about. Sitting in the sense of: this is all been set up by someone else, this is all for us, this is not a task, this is not a duty, this is much more like an invitation, as someone who has actually chosen us, who thinks we're worth something, who wants us to bear fruit. And it says, "I appointed you to go and bear fruit." Hmm. This word "appointed" — strangely, it's the same word as laying down one's life. It's to its place… I have placed. And "no one has greater love than to place one's life for one's friends." And "I placed you to go and bear fruit." I think there's a very delicate sense here, which rather becomes rather official with the word "appointed." I've placed you, I've put you in the place where you will be able to go and bear fruit. In other words, not only have I chosen you as a friend, but I've placed you — you're going to be in the right place. You'll be pruned and up. But there is a place for you, and that place will enable you, sharing in the joy, to be able to achieve and fulfill all the things that my Father has planned for you. "I appointed you to go and bear fruit" — placed you to bear fruit, fruit that will last — "so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name." And here he goes back to the sense of the vine, that he is the one in whose name, in whose person, we are going to be able to desire and want and be fulfilled. "I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another." Remember that the command is — before it's an instruction, it's the gift, it's the illustration, it's the whole life that is being lived out of love knowingly and joyfully, knowing that he was love, so that we can get on the inside of that, reproduce it for others, and find ourselves on the inside of the life of God. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.