Reading, Sermon and Prayers for the 6th Sunday of Easter

READING: John 15:9-17

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit —fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you This is my command: Love each other.

SERMON

If you were going on a long trip, what would you say to your family and friends before you left? If you knew that you were going to see someone for the last time knowing that it may be a long time before you saw them again what would you say to them? When your children moved away from home, what did you say to them? In each case you probably gave them some instructions and words of advice.

Well, in the Gospel passage from John 15:9-17, Jesus gave us and his disciples some final instructions or words of advice. This passage is part of the final instructions that Jesus gave to the disciples the night before he was crucified.

It follows the passage about the vine and the branches which we heard last week, but it goes even further. Instead of talking about abiding in each other or loving each other, it talks about serving each other, which goes hand in hand with loving each other.

Jesus knew that the disciples would not find love in the world. He knew that the world would largely hate them and his message. In fact, the world still hates his message today. Nevertheless, we, like the disciples, are called to love each other and our fellow man in spite of opposition.

When we love each other, we will experience the joy of obeying God. When we love one another, we also allow the Holy Spirit to dwell in us and grow in us. How it grows will depend on our connection to each other, to God and to his church. The stronger our faith, the more we will do, and it is the things that we do for God and for others that bring glory to God and strengthen the Holy Spirit within us.

Jesus showed his love for us by dying on the cross for our sins. Jesus showed how far that type of love can take someone when he died for us. If Jesus could lay down his own life for us, what part of our lives can we give up for others – prejudice, others unwillingness to help, others envy, others hatred, others unwillingness to forgive, or even something else?

God wants us to have relationships that are more than mediocre. Relationship-building takes time and requires compassion, wisdom, empathy, kindness, courtesy and forgiveness. We can’t overlook what taking real action can mean.

We can be active in love for one another. It is a lot of work, and that’s fine because God knows that we can do this work, and he knows that what we do will enrich both our lives and the lives of those whom we serve.

When we love one another, we act as God’s hands and feet to those that he puts in our lives. It does take time, effort and money to be an active friend, but the blessings outweigh the costs.

Loving others as God loved us is the heart of Christian discipleship. Christian life can only exist through human relationships, especially when they are based on mutual respect and human values-including love.

The apostle Peter showed the same type of love in Acts 10:44-48. His love for others, combined with the visions he and the Roman centurion Cornelius had led Peter to minister to Cornelius and his family.

When Peter proclaimed the Good News, the Holy Spirit moved within his audience, and it marked both a second Pentecost and the spreading of the Good News to all people (not just the Jews). If the Holy Spirit could move in the hearts of Peter’s audience, it can move in the hearts of people in our world today.

People who do not love God will be lost to God until they allow him to be the centre of their lives. When they do, they will be in their appropriate places as obedient friends of God, and God will be in his appropriate place at the centre of their lives.

This will happen in our lives at a time when we will surrender our personal desires and obey the will of God. If we are to be fruitful for Christ, we must seek his will for our lives and let him lead us to what he wants us to do for others and for him.

When we love one another, we fulfill the second of Jesus’ two Great Commandments. When we love Jesus, he becomes our true best friend. Friends have our best interests in mind, just like Jesus does. Friends will be with us in good times and bad times just like Jesus is. They help us to expand our world, expose us to new and creative possibilities, and sustain us when we are in need.

God has chosen all of us for the purpose of bearing much eternal fruit in such personal characteristics as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These characteristics will grow within us and help us when we tell others about Jesus and lead them into a fruitful relationship with him and learning more about him through the gospels.

A priest and a soap maker went for a walk together one day. As they walked along the soap maker said to the priest, “What good is religion? Look at all the trouble and misery of the world after thousands of years of teaching about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Then there is all the prayers, sermons, and teachings. If religion is good and true, why should this be?”

What an excellent question this is, the question that so many of us have asked when we encounter suffering. What good is God, what good is religion, if all this misery and suffering exist?

Well, anyway, the priest said nothing. He just simply listened and chewed things over in his mind what was being said by the soap maker. They continued walking until the priest noticed a child playing in the gutter. Then the priest said to the soap maker: “Look at that child. You say that soap makes people clean, but see the dirt on that youngster. Of what good is soap? With all the soap in the world, the child is still filthy. I wonder how effective soap is after all.”

The soap maker protested, “But, soap can’t do any good unless it is used.” “Exactly”, replied the priest. “And so it is with religion. It is ineffective unless it is applied.”

Jesus said: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.”

We can say that Jesus is our friend, but can we say that we are his friends?

Do we listen to him when he speaks to us, or do we only want him to listen to us?

Do we want to know what’s on his heart and mind, or do we only want to tell him what’s on ours?

Being a true friend of Jesus means listening to what he wants to tell us and then using that information to do his work in our world and in our lives and lead others into a fruitful relationship with him and learn more about him through the gospels?
Amen

PRAYERS

Let us pray to God in the love that he has shown and commanded.

Grant that your faithful people, chosen by your grace and sealed in baptism, may always proclaim your greatness by their deeds of love. Bless and guide all your people who are working for the spread of the Gospel throughout the world and within our communities.