Scripture 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.
Sermon
Let’s set the scene.
It is the night of the Last Supper. Imagine with me, just for a few moments: We are there. We are the disciples. We are in an upstairs room in a building somewhere in Jerusalem. It is night, so the room is lit by oil lamps. Supper was over some time ago, but we’re lingering at the table, which still has remnants of bread, pitchers of wine, the smell of the delicious food still in the air. A while ago, we were all talking. First, Judas left, abruptly; it seemed to be something between him and Jesus. The word, “betray” was hanging in the air. It caused a stir. Then Jesus told us, he would only be with us a little while longer, which caused an even louder stir. But we quieted down when Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, so also, you should love one another.”
Peter broke the silence. “Where are you going?” he asked. Then, Jesus said a strange thing. “Where I am going, you cannot follow me. Not now. But you’ll follow me later.” Then Peter got up and asked, “Why can’t I follow you? I’ll lay down my life for you.” But Jesus shook his head. Not only won’t you follow me, he told Peter, before this night is over, you will deny me three times. Peter sat down again, hard. He looked like he’d been punched.
Then everyone was quiet. Jesus began to speak. The first thing he said was, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Don’t be afraid.”
This part of John’s gospel is called the “Farewell Discourse” by scripture scholars, but that doesn’t begin to capture the emotional content of what is happening right now, in this short passage. Jesus is talking to a roomful of people who are confused. Frightened. They don’t know what’s coming, and they don’t know what to do.
Jesus talks to them. He gives them a kind of oral last will and testament. Just before our passage begins, Jesus has been making the case to the disciples that they are connected, as a vine is connected to its branches. But then, he reminds them of the commandment he gave them, only a little while ago. I’ve loved you as the Father has loved me, he says. He is making that case for connection—a connection as intimate as the connection he has with his father, as close as that between a vine and its branches. The Father’s love has flowed into Jesus and it has flowed through him, as he has loved these followers. Abide in my love, he says, just as I abide in the Father’s love. If you keep my commandments—the commandment to love one another—you will abide in my love, just as I have abided in my Father’s love. It has given me so much joy to be with you. I want you to have that joy, too. I want your joy to be complete.
Once we place these words of Jesus in their context—the context of that frightening night—we can almost hear the pleading in his voice. He hasn’t brought his disciples all this way to abandon them. Far from it. He’s brought them all this way so that they will be prepared to continue to share the love he was given, the love he has given them. He wants them to share his joy.
How odd, to be talking about joy on the night before he will die a terrible death on a cross. But that’s the thing about joy. You know that song, about that joy, joy, joy, joy down in your heart? That song is onto something. Joy isn’t happiness. Happiness is fleeting. Joy is deep-rooted. Joy knows things that we may forget in our day-to-day life. Joy is something that remains, like a precious memory. Even in sorrow, we can still have joy—the joy of love, the joy of memories, the joy of our faith as the rock we stand on when all other ground feels like slipping sand.
Then Jesus says it again, the new commandment. Love one another, as I have loved you. There is no greater love than this, Jesus says: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. He goes on to say, You are my friends, if you obey my commandment—that is, if you love one another. Then he explains: I call you friends now. This is not a servant-Lord relationship any longer. The servants don’t know everything the Lord is thinking and planning. But his friends do. You are my friends. Everything my Father has told me, I’ve told you. You know it all. You are my friends.
I guess I’ve told everyone who will listen about the Diana Butler Bass book I’ve just recently finished. It’s called, “Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence.” This book has had a profound impact on me, and that impact began with the very first chapter, Jesus as Friend. She writes,
Miss Jean, my favorite Sunday school teacher, held up a picture of Jesus surrounded by children. He seemed to be laughing, and the boys and girls were sitting next to him or on his lap and hanging around his neck. A girl, whom I imagined to be me, leaned her head upon his arm. “Jesus loves little children,” Miss Jean said reassuringly. “He will always be your friend.” She put the poster down and read from the Bible. “Jesus said, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven’” (Matthew 19:14, RSV).[i]
As I reflect on my childhood, remembering the little books of Saints my mother gave me even before I went to school, I remember being amazed at their willingness to lay down their lives for Jesus. Who is this Jesus, I remember thinking. He has such loyal friends.
The idea of Jesus as our friend hasn’t been universally accepted or validated. In fact, some preachers will tell you it’s immature; infantile. But, as Bass points out, that’s not how scripture sees friendship with God. She lifts up God’s friendships, in particular, with Abraham and Moses. In the book of the prophet Isaiah, God refers to Abraham as “my friend” (Isaiah 41:8). In Exodus, we read, “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Exodus 33:11).[ii]
Holy writings don’t see friendship with God as a sign of immaturity either-quite the opposite. In Wisdom of Solomon, we read, “…in every generation [Wisdom] passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God and prophets” (Wisdom 7:27b).[iii]
Friends spend time together. Friends confide in one another. Friends gather around the table together, break bread together. In fact, the word “companion”—another way of saying friend—literally means, one we break bread with. Friends are the ones with whom we share our deepest joys, and our deepest sorrows. Friends lay down their lives for one another.
Now, this doesn’t always mean “dying for one another,” though it certainly can mean that. Laying down my life for a friend, though, does mean that I hope that am their first call when they need something. Everyone in the choir knows that I locked myself out of my house as I was leaving for church on Wednesday. They also know I called my friend Kimberly, to drive me to Sherry’s, to get her spare key. (I know. I need to fix the no-hidden-key thing, ASAP.) Kimberly was there in a flash, not only willing, but happy to help. That’s one way of laying down your life—or, in Kimberly’s case, your dinner—for your friend.
If the disciples are Jesus’ friends, and we hope to be disciples, we, too, are friends of Jesus. For all the years I’ve considered myself a Christian, loved God, loved scripture, loved worship … I admit, this is all new to me. It is changing how I pray. It is changing how I think.
Jesus tells his disciples, You are my friends, and he tells us that, too. I chose you, he says, and I know you will bear good fruit. I’m telling you all this so that you will love one another. That is how you will get through what’s to come. That is how the first disciples were able to bear the shock of Jesus’s death, and the further shock of his resurrection. They had one another because they loved one another. As for us, as friends of Jesus, we will bear one another’s burdens, and we will share one another’s joys. We will love one another. We will bring each other home.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Diana Butler Bass, Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2021), 1.
[ii] Bass, op. cit., 3.
[iii] Ibid.