Easter 6

Easter 6 THE TRUE TEST OF LOVE 4/28&5/1/05

There is a commercial for underarm deodorant with the slogan: “Raise your hand if you’re sure!” Although not interested in your level of underarm perspiration----

1) Raise your hand if you love Jesus!

2) Raise your hand if you “obey” all that Jesus teaches and commands!

Our Gospel lesson clearly states that if we love Jesus we will be obedient to his peculiar and particular way of living. If we are obedient to Jesus, our love for Him will deepen and grow. Clearly stated in John 14, Jesus provides the only evidence for a person actually loving Jesus. In verse 15: “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” Again, in verse 21, we read: “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me” and in verse 23: “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.” Loving Jesus cannot be divorced nor separated nor extricated from keeping Jesus’ commandments.

In the Gospel of John, specifically in this week’s lesson, the author uses the term “commands” and “teaching” interchangeably. Both terms refer to the totality of what Jesus said and did. Christ’s teachings are not mere “suggestions.” To love Jesus is to do---imitate---duplicate His work in faithful obedience. Obeying Christ’s teaching demonstrates our love for Him and our love for Him calls us to obedience.

Have you seen the bumper sticker that reads: “Honk if you love Jesus”? Some 5 years ago, at a stop light, I pulled up behind a mini-van bearing this sticker on the rear bumper. I gave what I considered a polite little honk, tapping lightly upon the horn pad. The driver, I can only surmise, thought I was impatient with his slow movement at the red light turned green, so he reached his left hand out the driver’s side window and gave me the famous 1-finger “how do you do”! Needless to say, I was a bit surprised! (Perhaps he was driving his wife’s mini-van that afternoon.) If you were to create an “If you love Jesus” bumper sticker, what might you choosee to replace the word “honk.” According to our Gospel, the invitation should read: “Obey if you love Jesus!”

I find it thought provoking that one thing most humans don’t like to do is “obey” anyone or anything, yet “obedience” is precisely what Jesus calls for as evidence of our love for him. Adam and Eve didn’t like to obey, Jonah didn’t like to obey, I don’t like to obey, and---if you are honest---you don’t like to obey. By nature, we simply do not like having someone telling us what to do or not to do. We want to do our own thing, chart our own path, be our own person. Children don’t like curfews, students don’t like rules, drivers don’t like laws, and criminals don’t like punishments. We want all the freedoms, but none of the responsibility or accountability. This innate desire has led to such thought-provoking books as Whatever Became of Sin?, more recently The Death of Outrage, and just written The Deficit of Decency. We are daily hear the demand for tolerance to the extent that one might believe “tolerance” is the highest of all “virtues.” People demand the Church be silent and we oblige, even quoting “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” In the face of this snow-balling delusion, Jesus clearly tells his disciples of this generation: “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”

Jesus indicates there is only one test of love, and that test is obedience. It was by His obedience that Jesus showed His love of God; and it is by our obedience that we must show our love of Jesus. Theologian C.K. Barrett wrote: “John never allowed love to devolve into a sentiment or emotion. Love’s expression is always moral and is revealed in obedience.” How common for people to offer their love in words, while their actions bring pain and heartache to those they claim to love…disobedient children, negligent parents, adulterous spouses, immoral clergy. To Jesus, true love is not an easy thing and is shown most clearly in faithful obedience.

Aware of how difficult true love and faithful obedience actually are, Jesus sends us the Holy Spirit…called “Counselor” or “Helper” or “Advocate.” The Greek word is “parakletos” and literally means “someone who is called in” as (a) someone called into court to give witness in someone’s favor or (b) someone called in to plead someone’s cause or (c) someone called in to give advice in some difficult situation. “Parakletos” is always someone called in to help when the person calling is in trouble or distress or doubt. Jesus sets, before those who love him, the difficult task of obeying his teachings, and chooses to send us the Holy Spirit to guide us in how to live and to enable us to live in faithful obedience to the will of God shown in Jesus.

If you love Jesus, obey his teachings…leave the honking to cars, trucks, and geese. AMEN