Central Presbyterian Church (USA)

May 17, 2009 – Easter 6(Year B)

William H. “Billy” McLean

Sermon Title: “Love…Friends!”

Scripture: John 15:9-17

Last week’s passage from 1 John 4 and this week’s passage from John 15 rank along with 1 Corinthians 13 in being some of the finest statements in the New testament on the experience and nature of divine love and its capacity to be expressed within the human community.

There is a lot packed into today’s passage just as there was last week when we considered Abiding in Love…The love we know in Christ Jesus.

Listen (Read the passage from John 14:9-17)!

Today’s passage is set between the familiar allegory of Jesus when he affirmed those familiar words,

“I am the vine and you are the branches, cut off from me you can do nothing.”

AND

A reminder of the world’s hatred and how they dealt with Jesus and will deal with his followers.

Here Jesus builds on fruit-bearing being the sign of the relationship that links him to the father and him to us.

Our Love for one another is not dependent on us…In fact, we may not be able to bear fruit and love one another unless we live the love we receive and acknowledge comes from God.

Realizing how much is here and how many sermons could be preached from this one text, I relied on something I “heard.”

We are to abide in Him we were told last week.

Today, our love is totally dependent on the relationship Jesus establishes with us.

The growth of the Christian Life and our Love bearing fruit comes from what God has and is doing in Jesus Christ.

As his disciples, we share in his life and his love is passed on.

We are called to obedience and love…So Discipleship brings Joy we can associate with the saving work of Jesus.

There is a chain of love that began with the Father and is passed on to Jesus who in turn loves the Disciples.

We inherit the mantel of love AND such love is so deep and empowering that we too may give up our life for one another.

This is powerful love! Certainly, not the love bantered about today!

You have seen sermons preached from selected verses where the passage might begin, then there would be a skip, and then more would become the focus.

This practice came to my mind as I thought about what I heard in this passage.

Obviously, we hear of a special LOVE…one that emanates from the Divine Love of God.

Second, I heard Jesus speak to those who are to love as his Friends.

We know, the love of which Jesus speaks emanates from God rather than from the emotions and confusing moods we know of and call “love” today.

While not writing about a love that emanates with God, Dr. Roberta Gilbert, a psychiatrist, wrote a book, Extraordinary Relationships. In her book, she addresses how difficult the concept of love is.

I think this is especially true in the context of family and marriage and maybe to do what Jesus call us as the church to do.

Dr. Gilbert goes on to lift up Friendship as a model that can be more helpful in establishing relationships that are extraordinary with our spouse, our family, and our closest associates.

Dr. Gilbert got me to thinking about 3 of my closest friends. It was powerful…They are all Christian ministers or devoted Christian lay people. As I reflected on the character of these friendships, I began to “see” a love that I think is close to what John is speaking.

For 30 years, I have asked couples to share with me characteristics of three close friendships. I always do this in pre-marital sessions.

I also did it in one of the worst marital counseling situations I can remember. To my surprise, when I was able to reconnect these two estranged people to the “Friendship” they had once enjoyed, they were able to re-build a marriage.

What I hear from couples again and again is of characteristics presented in I Corinthians 13:4-8.

Love is patient and kind: it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up: and its faith, hope and patience never fail. Love never ends.

The reason I have lifted up “friendship” is to help people who are getting married or who are trying to make it in a difficult marriage is to see how helpful and promising love becomes when we treat and think of one another first as Friends.

You can understand how I was hearing Jesus when he says,

“You are my friends…I have told you everything…You did not choose me, I chose you!”

What a different way to think of our relationship to Jesus and to think of how the love he commands emanates from the love of God he expresses.

If He is commanding us to love one another, we can be assured he knows the difficulty of the task and he knows how much help we will need.

If we can see Jesus considering us as Friends, then we may be helped to think of one another as Friends.

I don’t know what Jesus had in mind and if the suggestions of Dr. Gilbert are even relevant to what we are hearing from Jesus.

Yet, I trust what I hear and accept the challenge to love you and yours and to do so even when it is not easy to do so.

In closing, this leads me to think of some of the ways I have benefitted in my years from pondering the deeper meaning of the Love of God and the love God enables as we meet the day to day challenge as spouses, parents, and even loving our fellow church members.

I don’t always see spouses loving spouses much less treating one another and thinking of one another as friends.

I have heard church people overlook and fail to understand someone who just can’t seem to get over their grief.

I have encouraged an older session when receiving a new and younger pastor to treat him or her as a friends. I have told them how it has helped me in receiving a son-in-law. On occasions, I have been disappointed when I heard how the officers and members were quickly lifting up the pastor’s faults and flaws and were limited in their patience and kindness.

I have seen church members do the same in Session meetings and in congregational meetings…. Issues in churches can be as serious as what shade of green to paint the stalls in a bathroom in the church.

On the other hand,

In churches I have served, I have seen spouses treat one another as friends and seen love grow beautifully and to such an extent they lived out to the fullest their vow to love in sickness and in health.

I have seen people reach out in love to a grieving person knowing that losing a child or a loved one in a tragic accident is something that hurts for life.

I have seen people cross-the-aisle when “Passing the Peace” to reach out to someone quite different from themselves and to put aside racial separations passed down for generations.

ONLY LOVE THAT COMES FROM GOD COULD BE AT WORK!

While I may never know what Jesus had in mind when He thought of his followers as Friends, I do know, we who are his followers need a lot of help in loving one another!

May, Jesus our Friend, bless us and give us the capacity to love as he loves us!