"Named" (John 15:12-17)
Sunday, May 6, 2018
“This is my commandment, that you
love one another as I have loved you.”
How, exactly, did Jesus show
love? John’s gospel tells us.
In chapter 2, Jesus is at a
wedding. The wine runs out, a potential
social embarrassment for the groom. At
his mother’s prompting, Jesus works his first miracle, turning water into wine
– superior wine. Not only does he keep
the party going; he steps outside of convention. Typically, the good wine is served first, but
when they taste Jesus’ wine, they are shocked that what came last was the best
of all. God in human skin, Jesus, lived
in everyday human life – the simple joy of a wedding. Turning water into wine, Jesus said “no” to
joylessness.
How, exactly, did Jesus show
love?
Flip
to John chapter 4. There he met a
rejected woman in her lonely, daily labor.
Set outside the social group of village women, she trekked to the well
alone. Jesus began with this woman,
asking for her offering. “Give me a
drink of water.” This solitary Samaritan
woman was astounded and appalled that this Jewish man would talk to her in a
public place. No one made room for her,
she five times dumped by heartless husbands and now living with a man who would
not even afford her the protection of marriage.
Jesus saw her and spoke with kindness.
Getting over her shock, she talked with this strange Jew who gently led
her to the moment in which she realized she was talking to her Savior. Jesus made space for the outcast and in doing
so, said “no” to the dehumanizing effects of prejudice, sexism, and
chauvinism.
How,
exactly did Jesus show love?
In
John 5, he healed an invalid man who lay by the pool near the sheep gate in
Jerusalem. Temple denizens supposed the
water possessed mystical powers.
Nonsense! Jesus showed that
healing comes from God. In his act of
healing the man, we hear Heaven’s resounding “no” to the dehumanizing effects
of illness.”
In
John 6, with a crowd gathered to feed on the words of Jesus, he would not send
them away. Instead, he accepted an
offering, a boy’s simple lunch of fish and bread. With that food, he fed 5000, with 12 baskets
of leftovers to spare. Jesus shouted
“no” to hunger.
How,
exactly did Jesus show love?
John
8: a woman caught in adultery is thrown down in the dust at Jesus’ feet by a
blood-thirsty crowd demanding a condemning verdict. From their vantage point, this is a contest
with law and order and tradition on one side and Jesus, agent of chaos, on the
other. They show no regard for the woman
they’re preparing to stone to death.
Jesus won’t have it. He sees
her. “Whoever among you has not sinned
may cast the first stone,” he says. That woman, adulteress though she may be, is
a child of God. Every human language
offers a score of scornful terms for this woman, derogatory names by which she
will henceforth be known. Jesus has a
name for her too. He calls her daughter,
and he gives her peace. Jesus closes the
case with his deafening “no” to the isolating effects of sin.
In
the healing of the blind man in John 9, Jesus says “no” to us when we push
certain people to the margins. In John
11, the raising of Lazarus is a foreshadowing of God’s “no” to death that will
come in full force in the resurrection.
In John 13, Jesus says to “no” to the hierarchies we so willingly
accept, when He, the Lord and master, drops to his knees to wash his disciples’
feet.
How
did Jesus love?
He
redefined life when he said “no” to all the ways we destroy each other.
He
also loved sacrificially. “No one has
greater love than this,” he said, “than to lay down one’s life for one’s
friends. In John 10, when Jesus said, “I
am the good shepherd,” he three times promised to lay down his life for the
sheep. Now, he makes the same point as
he tries to help us see what he means when he talks about love. Godly love is the readiness to give
everything, life itself.
When
Jesus tells us to love each other as he loved us, we know that love is seen in
his rejection of the things that destroy us and his willingness to sacrifice
his own life for us by taking on himself the death sin brings. There’s a third way Jesus loves us. He names
us.
“I
do not call you servants any longer, … but I have called you friends, because I
have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father”
(v.15). Nope, that woman caught in
adultery is not a “slut.” She is a
beloved daughter of God. Nope, that
blind man is not to be blamed for being blind.[i] In him, the glory of God will be seen. He, the recipient of God’s healing, is a son
of God.
What
names have been heaped on you so often you’ve begun to accept them? Jerk?
Loser? Failure? Reject?
Outsider? Stranger? Foreigner?
Uninvited? Bum? Idiot?
I won’t say the more hideous derogatory epithets, but I bet you’ve heard
them. I bet you’ve heard hateful words
from an overzealous relative, a racist classmate, an overbearing boss, a
loudmouth on the street, or a judgmental, shortsighted pastor. Have you heard the damning names so often,
you think they might be true?
John’s
gospel tells us that Jesus has something for you. You are named. Jesus looks into your eyes and says, “I call
you friend.” The woman from Magdala
recognized Jesus when he said, “Mary.”
The risen one knows your name. On
his lips your name becomes new – Cathy, John, Nooshin, I__, Lucio, Siqing,
Alan, David, Laura. My daughter is the only
M___ in our church, but my flights back from Ethiopia a few years ago, four
the flight attendants were named M__.
Maybe there are 100,000 people in the world that have the same name as
you, but when Jesus looks in your eyes and speaks your name, and calls you
friend, no one on earth can claim what you have with Jesus in that moment. You are named. You are His.
You are adopted as a child of God.
OK,
that which would destroy us is rejected by Jesus. He says “No” to death. He lays down his life for us. And, he names us. Now what?
Now, what?
“I
appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” If one of the new names Jesus gives us is
“producer of new life,” or, “fruit bearer,” how do we understand that and live
into it?
We
have to grow. Fruit is a living thing
and living things grow. Where do we grow
in our relationship with God in Christ?
Generally speaking, we grow in worship, in prayer, in time alone with
God, in Bible reading, study, and meditation, and in ministry and mission. Where and when do you specifically grow in
Christ, or where do I experience growth?
I think it varies from person to person. Everyone who follows Jesus, must
be intentional about. It doesn’t happen
by accident.
After
that woman caught in adultery received forgiveness, the only way she would then
grow close to God is to stay in the community of followers of Jesus. If she just turned around and went back to
the life in which she rejected God’s ways, then the forgiveness Jesus gave
would not take root. She moves from
adulteress to daughter, from outsider to family member, from lost to
saved. We have to live into the new name
Jesus gives.
Also,
fruit reproduces. Fruit is a seed and
from that seed comes more fruit. There’s
no such thing as non-evangelistic Christ follower. To be in
Christ is to invite others to Christ.
We know people who have accepted the cruel names society has foisted
upon them. We have friends, neighbors, family members who live into the names –
idiot, loser, no-good. To love as Jesus
loved, we must help people come to meet Jesus so they can learn their new
names. We grow and we name just as we
are named.
We
are named. Now what?
Just
as Jesus laid down his life on the cross for us, following his lead, we learn
to live sacrificially. The only way to
give ourselves for the blessing of others is to be intentional about it, but we
can only live this way in the grace of Jesus.
Sponsoring a child, volunteering with the mentally disabled, visiting
the jail as part of a prison ministry, mentoring troubled teens, speaking out
for racial justice, advocating for the rural poor – numerous opportunities for
us to give of ourselves at the prompting of the Holy Spirit. We step into those opportunities because of
who Christ has created us to be – new creations. The disciple who does great thing on behalf
of others is no super saint. She’s
simply living out of the work Jesus has done in her.
We
bear fruit. We live sacrificially.
Finally,
remember the times John’s Gospel Jesus says, “No.” We inhabit that space created by the “no” of
Jesus. No, Jesus said, the party does
not end. More wine! Thus, we live lives of joy; abundant, abiding
joy. No, Jesus says, the Samaritan woman
will not be outcast. We live lives of
welcome – even welcoming people we previously would have rejected.
No,
Jesus says, the man will not be blamed for his blindness, the invalid will not
spend his life longingly staring into waters that cannot heal, the hungry will
not leave with empty hearts or empty bellies, and the sinner will not stay in
sin. Thus, in our lives, as an
expression of the Gospel, we help people be healthy. We help all people eat their fill. We spread the word that in Christ there is
forgiveness and in forgiveness, we stand before God clean, every one of
us.
No,
Jesus says, humanity will not be divided into the pampered rich and the downtrodden
poor who do all the dirty work. It won’t
be that way in the Kingdom of God. In
the Kingdom, the King himself will joyfully wash the servants’ feet. And, death is the not end because death has been
defeated. Like our king, we kneel to
wash others’ feet so they can know they are honored, loved, and named. And we never stop insisting that in the
coming of Jesus, the Kingdom of God has come near and all who repent of sin can
have life in His name.
Jesus
came to invite us into a specific life – the life of Christ. In that life, we are named and we are
called. Have your received the name He
has for you – friend of God? As we sing
our final song, listen. With your voice,
sing praise to God. With your heart,
listen for God’s voice. He loves
you. He wants you to know it. He wants you to know He’s with you as you go
through life.
Jesus
has named you. Live into your name.
AMEN
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