5-17-2020 If You Love Me

Thomas J Parlette

“If You Love Me”

John 14: 15-21

5/17/20

          Here are two statements about the world – see if they ring true for you. The first is this – “The World is a beautiful place.” And here’s the second – “The World is a terrible and dangerous place.”

          Both statements are true, don’t you think. It’s too bad that most of us are spending more of our time and energy lately thinking of the world as a terrible, dangerous and highly contagious place – but there is still beauty to be found. Both statements are true. And yet they seem to say the exact opposite thing.

          The world is a beautiful place – most of us can say that with no difficulty at all. The miracle of a baby’s birth, the splendor of a spectacular sunset, the wonder of music, poetry, art and drama – all of these affirm the beauty of the world in which we live.

          For years, Joseph Sittler taught theology at the University of Chicago. Late in his life, he slowly began to lose his eyesight. One of his friends asked him, “Joe, if you had your full sight back for just one afternoon, what would you go and see?” Without a moment’s hesitation he said, “The Chartres Cathedral in France. The glories of the blues in the Cathedral windows are so beautiful.”

          If you have ever beheld the beauty of the trees when they are ablaze in their fall foliage, then you can identify with Edna St. Vincent Millay when she wrote:

          “Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

          And but cry with color!

          …Lord, I do fear

          Thou hast made the world too beautiful this year.”

          If you have ever looked into the nighttime sky at the moon and the planets and the shimmering stars which hang down like lovely lanterns in God’s cosmic cathedral, then you know firsthand that the world is a beautiful place.

          But the world is also a terrible and dangerous place as well. Every earthquake, every tornado, every hurricane, every deadly virus, every bomb, every gunshot, every random act of violence, every life that is lost – all remind us that the world can be a terrible and dangerous place.

          If only we could choose one over the other, then we’d know how to live. If the world is beautiful, then we could embrace it. But if the world is terrible and dangerous, then we’d better fear it and guard ourselves against it.

          Like us, the Gospel of John struggles to make sense of the world. On the one hand, John affirms that the world is good and worthy of God’s love. After all, way back at the time of creation, God pronounced the world “good.” And in the fullness of time, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it.” John wants us to know that the world is deeply loved by God.

          But the world is also a dangerous place. For one thing, the world is a dark place, which needs the light of Christ to shine in it. “The light shines in the darkness,” wrote John, “and the darkness did not overcome it.” For another thing, the world has rejected Christ. “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.” Can you see John’s struggle to make sense of the world? The world is not just a beautiful place, deeply loved by God; it is also a “God-less world” which has turned it’s back on Christ.

          You might say that John had a lover’s quarrel with the world. Robert Frost, the American poet, once said that about himself. One day Frost was walking through a cemetery looking at the tombstones. He grew interested in the words inscribed on each stone, which attempted to sum up the person’s life. Frost found himself wondering, “What epitaph would I choose for my own tombstone?” I don’t know how long he thought about it, but he came up with a good one. Written on his tombstone are the words – “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.”

          And so it was for the author of the Gospel of John. He too had a lover’s quarrel with the world. He knew that the early Christians should be engaged in the world through mission because, after all, this is God’s world, the world God loves, the world God sent Christ to save. But John also feared the corrupting influence of the world. He must have wondered, as many have wondered since – how can we Christians be IN the world without being OF the world? How can we live in the world without being swallowed up by the world? How can we live in different realms at once – the beautiful and the terrible – the godly and the ungodly.

          Of course, the early Christians were not the first ever to face such a problem. Hundreds of years before, the people of ancient Israel faced a similar struggle during what we’ve come to call the Babylonian Captivity, or Babylonian Exile. They had been dragged away from their homeland and forced to live as prisoners of war in far off Babylon. A beautiful poem from the Psalms recalls their ordeal:

          “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

          And I’m pretty sure you remember how they responded. “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” Indeed, how can anyone sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? How can we live in this beautiful but terrible world and still hold on to what is spiritual and sacred?

          Jesus knew that his disciples would face this very struggle in the world. So he gathered them in the Upper Room to prepare them. He knew that his time with them was winding down. Soon, he would go to the cross. Soon he would be put to death. Soon he would leave them all alone, alone in a terrible and dangerous world that would swallow them alive unless they could define themselves in terms that were distinct from the world around them. So there, in the Upper Room, he spoke to them tenderly, like they were children. He put before them both a challenge and a promise. The challenge was both simple and demanding. He stated the whole thing in just nine words: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

          Of course, not everybody likes the idea of commandments, or rules and regulations. Ever since Adam and Eve, we have struggled to decide – should we live by what God tells us to do, by the commandments God set before us? Or should we do our own thing and hope nobody is watching?

          Yet, as we mature, most of us begin to realize that the commandments are not just rigid rules to obey. They are also good and gracious gifts from God to order and regulate our lives and which help to shape our identity and define who we are and how we might live. Someone once said to Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment is the greatest? And Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest commandment, it comes first. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On another occasion, Jesus said to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should love one another.”

          Don’t you find it interesting that when Jesus spoke about obeying the commandments, he almost always spoke in terms of love. “If you love me, he said, “you will keep my commandments” – not out of obligation, not out of guilt, not out of fear, not even out of a desire to get to heaven – but out of love. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” That’s the challenge Jesus puts before – a demanding challenge to be sure.

          But the challenge is made easier because of the promise that comes with it. Listen closely, because it’s easy to miss. Jesus says, “You will not be left alone.” That’s the promise! Jesus doesn’t just leave us to our own devices to try to meet this outrageous challenge. No – “You are part of my family,” says Jesus. “I will ask the Father and he will give you another Helper, who will stay with you forever.” 

          There was once a young man who was asked to speak at his grandfather’s funeral. He told the congregation that even though he was adopted, he had always sensed that his grandfather loved him as much as the other grandkids, none of whom were adopted. To illustrate, the young man told of a time that he, his grandfather and his father all went to a baseball game together. Between innings, they bumped into a man who had been the grandfather’s business associate some years before. The man, not knowing that the grandson was adopted, looked at the three generations and said, “Wow, I can sure see the family resemblance. All of you look so much alike.” With that, the grandfather put his arm on his grandson’s shoulder and said simply, “Yes, we all do look alike, don’t we?”

          “At that moment,” recalled the young man, “I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my grandfather loved me unconditionally and that I was a part of the family.”

          As disciples, we are part of the family of Jesus Christ. He has adopted us into his family. He has given us the promise of his presence to guide us and sustain us as we venture out into the world – which we know is a beautiful yet dangerous place. He challenges us to live lives that give glory to the family name, the name of Christ, not by defining ourselves according to the world’s standards, but according to the standards of Christ. He challenges us to stand apart from the world and try to transform it.

          “If you love me,” says Jesus, “you will show that love by keeping my commandments.”

          May God be praised. Amen.