What It’s All About
based on John 15:9-17
by Rev. Karen Goltz

            Over the years I’ve talked with a number of people who have abandoned their Christian heritage and chosen to live according to the standards and norms of our culture, instead.  Most of them were more or less good, honest, moral, upright people who simply didn’t want to be affiliated with Christianity anymore.  When I asked them why, most of them told me it was because Christianity is all about rules and judgment, do this or else, who’s in and who’s out, who’s a sinner and who’s saved, with too much of a focus on getting into heaven and not enough of a focus on making a difference in people’s lives.

            I can’t deny that that’s what Christianity often appears to be.  I myself was ostracized from two churches by the time I was seventeen.  The first time I was thirteen, and I missed the first day of CCD, which I understood as Catholic Sunday School taught on a weekday afternoon.  For missing that first class the teacher (who was not the priest) told the other students that I obviously didn’t care about God or the church, so I must be the spawn of the devil, and their souls would be in mortal danger if they associated with me in any way.  Most of these kids were in my junior high school, and promptly told me about it the next day.  (Fortunately they weren’t terribly concerned with the risk to their souls, and continued to associate with me at school.)

            The second time was when I was seventeen, and I was attending an Evangelical church with a friend and her family.  On a youth group ski trip the adult volunteer chaperone that was driving the car I was in was speeding and driving recklessly to try to make up for lost time, and caused a very serious accident.  Fortunately no one was killed, but I missed over a month of school, walked with crutches or a cane for several more months, and to this day I still don’t have the full use of my left leg.  My mother sued the church for negligence.  I was therefore deemed an unrepentant sinner beyond all hope of salvation.

            I’ve since come to realize that the people who ostracized me were not acting in an official capacity for either denomination, and neither the Catholic nor the Evangelical hierarchy would likely condone their actions.  But that doesn’t change the fact that by the tender age of seventeen, my experience with organized religion in general and Christianity in particular involved being judged, condemned, and cast out.  I was first comforted then appalled by how many other people are out there with similar experiences, with the perpetrators being not just Catholic or Evangelical, but also Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Episcopalian, or pretty much any other brand of Christianity you can think of.

            Why do we do that?  Are the people I’ve spoken with correct?  Is Christianity just a bunch of rules used to decide who’s in and who’s out, and to give us the moral justification to judge and condemn those we don’t think make the cut?

            We do seem to have a lot of rules.  The most obvious ones that come to mind are the Ten Commandments.  But what about everything else?  What about all that moral behavior that we expect good Christians to demonstrate?  Many do to a certain extent.  But no one can do it all the time, and let’s face it, many of us don’t even try very hard or very often.  I remember a joke the pastor of the church I used to attend told during one of his sermons.  A man was being tailgated by a stressed out woman on a busy boulevard.  Suddenly the light turned yellow, just in front of him.  He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.  The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection, dropping her cell phone and makeup.  As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer.  The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up.  He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell.  After a couple of hours, another police officer approached the cell and opened the door.  She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.  He said, “I’m very sorry for this mistake.  You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him.  I noticed the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bumper sticker, the ‘Follow Me to Sunday School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk.  Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.”

            If we’re honest with ourselves, most of us will admit that we’ve been like that woman.  We’ve not always abided by the moral code we use to identify good Christians.  We’ve cussed, we’ve acted in anger, we’ve said hurtful things to others.  Does that make us any less Christian?  No, it doesn’t, because we’re saved by grace and not by law.  But when we emphasize the obeying of the moral code as the telltale signs of Christianity, what do our acts say about our religion?

            I think part of our problem is that we need to get back to basics.  Our gospel reading from John today does just that.  At first blush though, it looks pretty legalistic.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love…You are my friends if you do what I command you.  It seems to be suggesting that God will only love us and care about us if we obey the rules.  It even seems like he’s turning the nice idea of loving one another into a rule.  This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Can love even be commanded?

            It depends on how you define love.  If love is an emotional state, that euphoric, giddy feeling you had when you got engaged or said “I do,” or even when you experienced your first kiss, then no, love can’t be commanded.  But that’s not the love that Jesus is talking about.  Jesus is talking about the self-giving, self-sacrificing kind of love that makes someone else’s happiness and well-being more important to you than your own.  It’s the love that the Father has for the Son, and that the Son has for us.

            Jesus issues the commandment to love one another, as he loved us.  By definition a commandment is a call to action, not a call to feeling, so the commandment to love is also a call to action.

            But we’re not really used to thinking of love as action.  What exactly does that love look like?

            Jesus tells us.  Our text today says: No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  Of course, we all know that Jesus lay down his life for us on the cross, so does that mean we’re supposed to be willing to die for our friends, too?  First of all, who are our friends?  I’ve got eighty-nine friends on Facebook, many of whom I haven’t seen since seminary or, in some cases, even since high school.  Do I have to be willing to die for all of them?  Where do you draw the line?  And even if you do know where to draw it, how many of us will literally be called upon to lay down our lives?  Aside from combat soldiers, and public safety officers, how many of us will be in a situation like that in our lives?  The truth is, very few of us.  So what are the rest of us supposed to do?  Another translation of that same verse that’s a little more accurate but somewhat less polished might give us some help.  There is no greater love than this, that one might give up his inmost being for the sake of his beloved.  Laying down one’s life isn’t just a matter of being willing to cease living; it’s about giving up a part of yourself, the very part of yourself that makes you you.  And we lose the impact of ‘friends’ in this day and age of casual acquaintances and online networking; a friend is someone you have a special interest in, someone who is beloved and dear to you, someone you’re devoted to.

            The person of Jesus lay down his life and ceased living for the sake of his disciples as well as for the world.  But that’s not all.  God the Father gave his only Son, gave a part of himself, for the sake of all creation.  The eternal and everlasting Triune God, who is creator of all and above all, lowered himself down to our level and gave himself over to humiliation, pain, and death, because he would rather face the consequence of our sins himself than make us face them.  And that love came before anything else.

            As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.  You’re already surrounded by and existing in a state of God’s infinite love.  All God wants is for you to continue in that state.  God’s love is not a condition of our behaving ourselves, but rather a statement of fact about love.  When we act in love, we’re aware of the love that God has for us, and that enables us to continue to act in love.  But when we act in fear, or anger, or judgment, then we’ve turned our backs on the love that God has shown us through his Son, and we crucify Christ all over again.

            There are expectations of how Christians are to act, and many of those expectations are quite reasonable, though they can be difficult to meet sometimes.  But if you remember that God looked at your life, saw all your sins, all your failings, all your shortcomings, and knew all the bad mistakes you’ve made and not-so-nice things you’ve done, and you remember that his response to that was to give up his inmost being for you, his beloved, then it’s much easier to take that same approach towards others.  And by doing that, you’re not meeting external expectations for the sake of meeting those expectations; you’re living in a state of grace, abiding in the love of God in Christ.

            Christianity has nothing to do with rules and judgment, do this or else, who’s in and who’s out, who’s a sinner and who’s saved, and its primary focus is not on getting into heaven.  Christianity is about living in a state of grace, abiding in the love of God in Christ, and I can’t think of anything else that would make a bigger difference in people’s lives.  Amen.