Br. John Forbis, OHC
The Sixth Sunday of Easter - May 17, 2020
Acts 17:22-31
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21
Oh no, he said it! He really said it! How many times in my growing up and even into adulthood have I heard these words: “If you love me, you would do what I want?!?!” For me, punishment is almost easier to swallow than such a manipulation. But is Jesus really saying the same thing, with the same coercion? Well … yes and no.
First of all, to get technical, there is a subtle change in verb tenses here. Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And later in this passage he comes full circle to say, “Those who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me.” Yes, he expects his disciples to back up their declaration of love with action, but he uses the future tense, not the conditional. He makes this statement almost as a foregone conclusion; a fact, or a promise.
What if Jesus’ promise of having and keeping his commandments is less about “toeing the line” as a burden and more about devoting one’s attention and energy toward them? Jesus’ commandments are so much more than commands.
Toeing the line is a product of a very different mindset. In a world of “if you love me, you would do what I want,” where someone has to be guilty, everyone is the accused and accuser. Satan is judge, and we’re all condemned.
Jesus doesn’t want victims or accusers, but followers, followers who freely and actively participate in and commit to Jesus’ commandments, to enter into God’s heart. There’s no expectation that we have to toe the line as if to earn God’s love or prove our love for God. Perhaps that’s the kind of “unknown god” to which the Athenians built a shrine and whom we worship so easily, groping for perfection, our idol of gold, silver or stone. God’s love is unconditional. We put conditions on love.
God does not need to live in our shrines made by human hands. All God needs is to give – “to all mortals life and breath and all things” and most of all His living Grace. If we have to have proof of this, we only need to look to Jesus, his life and ministry and his Commandments, which are all summarized in one commandment: To love one another as Christ loves us. He’s asking us to commit to a new Creation in which love is the driving agent, not power or domination. This Creation is abundant life, immersed in loving God because God first loved us. The God in whom we live, move and have our being is the source of our love. This love is God’s gift to us.
Leave it to me to fixate on the opening sentence and hear it as Jesus is sending me on a guilt trip. Maybe I hear it that way because it distracts me from the responsibility and challenge of love. I’m engaged where I fail, not who I can and am called to be. It’s easier to feel I am either a convicted criminal or an accuser.
As we learned last week, the disciples are listening to this man whom God has appointed and not really understanding a word he’s saying. Thomas needs to know the way to where Jesus is going. Jesus points to himself. Philip needs to see the Father. Again, Jesus responds, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip and you still don’t know the Father?”
When Jesus is arrested later that night, one disciple betrays him, another denies him three times and the rest scatter. So Jesus’ promise hardly seems possible, that they will keep his commandments.
But, Jesus talks about another Advocate, which suggests that he is the first Advocate. This man who will judge the world in righteousness is also a Defense Attorney. He judges by defending others, but not himself. His silence at his trial frustrates and baffles Pilate to the point where all he can do to make peace is to turn him over to the crowds who crucify this innocent victim. This Judge, Defense Attorney becomes the accused so that the world order of accuser and accused is rendered indefensible. His death on the Cross is the defense for us when we’re put on trial and against us when we put others on trial. This is Christ’s courtroom. He can do anything he wants here. He is judge and the defense. In this courtroom, mercy prevails.
Then, he offers more promises. He will ask the Father, and the Father will give you another Advocate. A defense lawyer even when we’ve fallen short of Jesus’ commandments to love one another as he has loved us. We’re neither accuser nor accused. We are just an unknown God’s offspring, a God who loves us, whom we search for and perhaps grope for him and find him.
How do we find him? The Second Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, that the world doesn’t know or see and can’t receive. We know him. “He abides with you and he will be in you.” We have the Spirit with us right now before as well as after Pentecost. This Spirit shows God “who is not far from each one of us”, even now in our isolation, fear and confusion.
With the Spirit of Truth with us and in us, we are not left orphaned. We see Jesus. Jesus is alive. He still even now enters through our locked doors, our lockdown. We are in union with God. “I am in my Father, and you in me and I in you.” All the promises are assured because of this fusion. Jesus is raised from the dead. Truth does not end with death.
Another promise is that we will know this. Thus, we can be assured of the first promise: If you love me, you will keep my commandments … Those who love me will keep my commandments, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, I will love them and reveal myself to them.” Being alive in Christ, how could we not keep Jesus’ commandments? We know from where they come. We know to where they go. Besides, the Spirit of Truth, the Defense Attorney, can teach us how to be Defense Attorneys to each other when we fall short of loving as Jesus loves.
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