FRIENDS AND LOVED ONES
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Text: John 15:9-17
Last week we talked about abiding as a kind of old-fashioned word for being rooted and grounded in God, who is both our consolation and our source of power. The phrase “friends and loved ones” is also a kind of old-fashioned expression, at least it is for me. It is a phrase I have often heard my mother use in prayer and I confess I have turned to it more than once. It is a way of gathering up people who are important to you, folk who matter to you – maybe your school buddies, your work associates, your social circle, your church family. Sometimes it is a way of including your own family of origin or extended family in prayer along with close friends. “Dear God, we pray your blessings, your care, your strength, your guidance for our friends and loved ones.” We really do something like that every week when we take the time to share and then prayer over our joys and concerns.
Jesus seems to move in that direction in this morning’s text when he says, “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.” This is complex teaching but it also rich. We will not try to unpack all of what Jesus might be saying here, but a couple of things are clear. First and foremost, there is an evolving relationship between Jesus and his disciples. As he shares more and more of the good news of God’s way with them, the more deeply and intimately they become related to one another and to God.
The word here translated in the New Revised Standard Version as “servant” can also be read as “slave.” In our contemporary context, we don’t much like that word, “slave.” Though the sort of servitude it describes may have been common in Jesus’ day, for us it is untenable. It sounds like a swear word. So, we miss the fine distinction that Jesus makes as he shifts the way in which he sees and names his followers. The particular Greek word for servant or slave he uses is one usually reserved for those with a high calling. Barclay says that “The title doulos, the slave, the servant of God was no title of shame; it was indeed a title of the highest honor” (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible, The Gospel of John, Volume 2, p. 207.) In various places, the Bible records that Moses, Joshua, David, Paul and James were all called or called themselves “the doulos or slave of God.”
It is no mean thing for Jesus to refer to his followers as servants or slaves of God in the first place, but now the relationship deepens, “I do not call you servants any longer…but I have called you friends.” Barclay again suggests that this new name would have had specialized meaning for those first hearers as well. Roman emperors and Eastern potentates did have very select groups who were known as “friends of the king.” He says, “The friends of the king were those who had the closest and the most intimate connection with him, and who had the right to come to him at any time” (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible, The Gospel of John, Volume 2, p. 208.) Talk about “changed from glory into glory,” Jesus reaches out to his followers then, and across the centuries to us today, offering deep and intimate friendship, with access at any time, 24/7.
What qualifies them, or us, to be friends of Jesus and, through him, friends of God? Well, there is this little condition of keeping his commandments. Is he saying that somehow grace is conditional, that friendship is only available to the obedient? Yes and no, I think. As we noted last week, the only way to be in relationship is to be in relationship, the only way to be friends is to be friends. It is not so much keeping his commandments that makes us friends as it is we keep his commandments because we are his friends. This is the catch. It is in the nature of the commandment itself. “This is my commandment,” he says, “that you love one another as I have loved you.” Simple; challenging. This is Great Commandment theology – love God with your whole being and love your neighbor as yourself. If we truly desire to be Jesus’ friends, we will eagerly embrace this commandment to immerse ourselves in love. “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”
In his book, In the House of the Lord, Henri Nouwen tells a story of his first personal encounter with Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche Community in Toronto, which ministers with and befriends mentally handicapped people. Nouwen says he learned from Vanier that “all human beings are called to intimacy, fecundity and ecstasy.” Writing about this 15th chapter of John’s gospel, Nouwen says that “Jesus himself describes life in the house of love as a life of intimacy, fecundity and ecstasy. Speaking of himself as the vine and his disciples as the branches, Jesus says: ‘Make your home [abide] in me as I make mine [abide] in you’ (John 15: 4). This is an invitation to intimacy. Then he adds: ‘Those who remain in me [abide] with me in them [abide], bear fruit in plenty’ (John 15:5). Finally, when he says, ‘I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy may be complete (John 15:11), he promises ecstasy” (Henri Nouwen, In the House of the Lord, p. 8.)
Christ’s relationship with us, his disciples, his friends, is characterized by intimacy, fecundity or abundance and ecstasy or joy. Shouldn’t our relationships with one another carry the same characteristics? In fact, he says, “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” This word of Nouwen’s made me think of a recent piece in the Mercury News featuring Grace Baptist, our sister church in San Jose and their interim pastor, Wally Bryen. As you may know, Grace is situated amidst a number of half-way houses that serve those with mental and emotional challenges and some of the residents attend Grace. A couple who attend the church, one with Down’s Syndrome, the other with a mental handicap, decided they wanted to be married. Wally reports he had some reservations about performing a legal marriage for the couple but offered to do a blessing of their relationship. The pictures in the paper surely looked like a lovely wedding ceremony, with all the trimmings, and Wally reported that it was among the most moving experiences of his life. Intimacy, abundance, joy were the order of the day and, in the “house of love,” Christ’s friends and loved ones were blessed and celebrated in their faith community. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you,” says Jesus and so it was.
A young woman named Jennica Jardine writes movingly of serving in Brazil, in the slums of Rio, as part of a mission program called The Word Made Flesh. She’s been working with the poorest kids on the street and she writes: “It is almost certain that when I leave…, these kids will still be roaming the streets of Rio, sleeping on the sidewalks, running from the police. Does that mean that my presence here is irrelevant? I believe the answer is no. I hold on to hope that even though I may not see these kids leave the streets, perhaps just for a few months these kids can escape the sting of poverty. How, you ask? The opposite of poverty is community, being present with one another, even when there is nothing to say or do – especially when there is nothing to say or do. Community, friendships, being present in another’s life is the greatest gift that we have to give one another. It is why God sent Jesus – to be with us, in the flesh” (Jennica Jardine, “Brazil Journal: Doing ‘Evangelism’ by Being Present,” Sojourners, sojo.net.) Even in the slums of Rio one may experience the “house of love” and a measure of intimacy, abundance and joy if only in a passing moment.
It is not that, as Christ’s friends and loved ones, we fail to fight for justice for all, but as Tom Wright says “One of the reasons human civilization has struggled to promote justice is the recognition that things aren’t that easy. And,” he goes on,” justice, at its best, knows it has only a negative function: to clear the decks and leave the world open for people to love one another” (Tom Wright, John for Everyone, Volume 2, p. 73.) Of course we will work for justice and righteousness, for peace and equality, for love is active and passionately concerned to turn the world right side up. But in the meantime, and in that work, there is no reason not to treat others as friends and loved ones, Christ’s and ours, as well.
The challenge is to love like Christ loves. It is a love that does indeed run the risk of laying down one’s life for one’s friends. It may ask us to give, not until hurts, but until it brings real intimacy, fecundity and ecstasy into our lives and into the world. There is nothing self-abasing in giving like this, for we are friends of the king, Christ’s loved ones, and that is how he gives. It is giving centered in the Easter story. It is a self-giving love grounded in the joy of human relationship. And it is self-giving love that knows that nothing in all creation can separate us from the God in whom we abide.
Friends and loved ones…who are yours? Who are mine? Who would it be most challenging to claim as your friend or loved one? Are they gathered here in this sanctuary on this morning? I hope so. Because most assuredly if we cannot be friends and loved ones to one another, gathered here as the body of Christ, then there is little hope that we can be friends and loved ones, at least the kind that Christ wants and needs, for a world that is desperately searching for such friendship and such love.
Friends, loved ones, gathered here this morning, I urge us all to create a legacy of intimacy – deep caring for and sharing with one another; a legacy of fecundity – an abundance of resource and heart; and a legacy of ecstasy – the profound joy that enlivens and empowers. May ours be a legacy worthy of our friendship with Christ, fulfilling the promise of the realm of God. Amen.