"Joint Heirs" (Trinity Sunday)

Romans 8:12-17

12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

In this very room, not even 24 hours ago, two young people joined together in the bonds of matrimony. They stood about where this pulpit stands now, and they exchanged vows and rings and pledged their love and devotion to one another. It was really something: it made me think of the other times I’ve stood in sanctuaries, gardens, fields, chapels, and even an art gallery  to officiate such ceremonies, made me think of my own wedding nearly nine years ago.

I often tell couples that come to me about performing their wedding that it’s important not to confuse the wedding ceremony for your actual marriage. You see, at a wedding, everything (or most everything) is perfect: the decorations, your hair, makeup, dresses, shoes, tuxes, music, flowers, and you’re surrounded by friends and family who love you, support you, who paid to travel from out of town and bring you a toaster or a gift card to Target. There’s literally cake and dancing! It’s perfect. It’s no wonder some people call it the happiest day of your life, a day when it’s sort of culturally acceptable to be selfish, to have everything revolve around your wishes and your desires, a day when it’s even ok to get a little crazy. But as so many of us know, before long, the excitement of that day becomes a wonderful memory, and then work calls us back to reality, the bills start coming, the lawnmower breaks, the faucet leaks, the price of a gallon of gas and a gallon of milk goes up, and the perfection of that day gives way to the cramped reality of life together.

And it doesn’t matter how wonderfully perfect a couple is, how amazing the new family seems, there are always hardships waiting down the road. Whether it’s a dramatic sister-in-law whose antics drain energy and patience from the family, a pink slip and a severance check, a blown head gasket on your only car, or the dreaded diagnosis that leads to weeks of recovery, months of therapy, years of expensive medications, or one very difficult conversation about boxes, plots of dirt, and chiseled stone markers, no one travels through life on a gravy train with biscuit wheels; hardships will come. But for that one day, a couple can believe that everything is going to be perfect, that life is theirs to command, and the heavy clouds of despair will never darken their skies.

I suppose we could say that faith—the Christian faith—is often seen like that. The new believer can have lofty visions of what life with Jesus will be like: running through breezy meadows, laughing and carrying on with Jesus in his unusually light skin and perfectly quaffed hair, going through life smiling at everybody from the cashier at the grocery store to the stranger on the sidewalk, nearly skipping through the door to Sunday school, so overwhelmed with joy that they could hardly sleep Saturday night, never letting anything get them down, and always—always—humming the tune to their favorite hymn while they tell everyone they know about Jesus and how wonderful it is to be “saved.” I suppose many of us began this journey of faith that way, filled with glorious expectations of a life lived in utter joy and complete happiness, never worrying about a thing and always ready to say, “Praise the Lord!” to whatever might come our way. But when the clouds roll in, when times really do get hard, when it’s not so easy to say, “Praise the Lord,” and the tune to your favorite hymn sounds like the mocking noise of a playground bully, well…faith may not be so rose-colored after all.

I suppose if anyone knew that it was the Apostle Paul. In fact, when we’re first introduced to Paul (then called Saul) in Luke’s stories in the book of Acts, he’s one who saw to it that the Christian faith was not an easy one, as he sought out followers of the Way to arrest them or even execute them. Later, after his own conversion, Paul experiences his own hardships as he was often run out of town, arrested, beaten, ship-wrecked, and ridiculed (sometimes even by those who called themselves Christians). I think it’s safe to say that Paul didn’t view the Christian faith, a life with Jesus, as all cake and dancing, and it seems to me that he wanted to be sure that other believers didn’t fall into that fallacy as well.

In the text before us this morning, Paul sounds, well, he sounds like Paul, writing these sort of high, theological thoughts about God, Christ, the Holy Spirit. He talks about putting away the misdeeds of the body, of letting go of the ways of this world in order to take hold of our adoption as children of God, heirs with Christ, guided by the Spirit—it’s all really good stuff! In some ways, Paul is laying the foundation for what would become the doctrine of the Trinity, our understanding of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: one God in three persons. Paul’s words are encouraging too. Just listen again to what he says in verses 14, 15, and 16: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” He goes on to say that as children of God we are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” Now that ought to be comforting to us in many ways, right?

I suppose that’s often seen as the other side of the Christian coin: happiness and joy in this life, and after we’ve been put in the ground we’ll really get the good stuff—big ole mansions on gold streets and a stadium seat to watch all those poor fools in hell who wouldn’t listen to us. We’ll get all that God left to us in his will (maybe that’s what some of really mean when we talk about being “in God’s will!”). For a lot of folks, that’s where they put their hope, in the notion that they’ll get all kinds of glorious things when this life is over, that at the entrance of the pearly gates they’ll be given a blank check to get all the great things they always wanted on earth, that they’ll get to see momma and daddy, grandma and grandpa again, they’ll all visit with one another at their own mansions, and if Jesus just happens to be there, that’ll be alright too. The notion that we’re children of God, heirs with Christ, serves as hope for some of us in that we’re hopeful that we’ll get all the things we want in the “sweet by and by.” And maybe we do, but I don’t think that’s what Paul’s getting at.

I don’t think Paul’s implying that the point of faith, our existence as children of God, heirs with Christ, followers of the Holy Spirit, is to hang on until we’re either dead or Christ returns. No, I think for Paul, faith in Christ has a much more immediate effect. Look again at verses 16 and 17: “it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…” we’re children of God, joint heirs with Christ—IF! If!? If!?! If what? I don’t know about you, but I was always told there were no conditions to faith, no conditions to being a Christian, that all I’d have to do is say a so-called “sinner’s prayer” and I’d be “once saved, always saved,” and then, when I died—no matter what kind of life I lived in the meantime—I’d get to go to heaven and have ice cream on gold plates. If!? Surely Paul means something like, “we are children of God if we go to church regularly, live a good life, and stay out of trouble,” or “we are joint heirs with Christ if we say the right things, belong to the right church, read the right Bible, like the right people,” or maybe Paul meant to say “if you say a little prayer, get baptized (all the way under), and have your name on the church roll,” or maybe some of us would like to think Paul meant to say “if you live in the right country, vote for the right candidate, and always take the conservative (or liberal) side on social issues…” But that’s not what Paul says. In fact, if I’m honest with you, I don’t really like what Paul says after that great big IF.

“…[W]e are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” Suffer? That’s not what I signed up for. In fact, I was kind of hoping to get out of that whole deal altogether. I mean, sure, others will suffer, but I expected to be the one there telling them that “everything happens for a reason” and “God’s in control,” but suffer myself…? I don’t know about all that. Surely Paul’s being specific here, right? I mean, he’s got to be talking about those who suffer for the sake of the gospel, those whose lives are in actual danger because they live in places where their faith is outlawed. Surely that’s what Paul means isn’t it? At least then I can be off the hook; then I can ignore that word “if” and say it actually applies to someone else, right? Then again, I suppose I could do what so many Christians do in this country and call even the slightest annoyance “persecution,” that every time a person of another opinion gets the same rights that I have already I can shout out with the rest of those on Facebook and cable TV and say that I’m having to “suffer” for my faith, all the while enjoying the comfort of my home, the love of my family, and all of that cognitive dissonance. Do you suppose that’s what Paul meant when he said “if, in fact we suffer with him...”? I don’t think so either. And I’ll tell you why.

This week I attended the funeral of a young man I knew when he was a member of the youth group of a church I pastored. He was twenty years old, a smart, handsome kid, well-liked, served his country in the Marine Corps, and had a loving, supportive, faithful family. One afternoon, for reasons no one will ever understand, he took his own life. Seeing his parents, his brother, his grandmother as they wept, as they questioned, as they suffered…I think I caught a glimpse of what it means to be a child of God, to be joint heirs with Christ, to suffer with God.

You see, I’m convinced we grow closest to God—not in the midst of all the great things in life—but when the pain seems almost unbearable, when the grief is sharp and cuts deep. It’s like…well, it’s like the death of an only Son. I’m convinced that the best way to understand the nature of the Triune God is by way of suffering. For it was on the cross that suffering was truly put on display before the universe: the suffering of God the Father as the Son of God gasped for breath, as he cried out in agony, as he died. It was there that the suffering of God the Son, in Christ Jesus, was made so gruesomely plain, and it was there that even the Spirit suffered as all of creation witnessed the death of the Creator.

To know God, to be a child of God and an heir with Christ, is to know suffering—real suffering. To be led by the Spirit is to be led through suffering—not away from it. To be joint heirs with Christ means that we will suffer, that we will endure heartbreak, tragedy, and pain—not be blissfully unaware of its existence. To be joint heirs with Christ means we share in all of what God is, all of who Christ is, not just the glory, but the suffering too, and in that—in that heavy reality—we will find ourselves more deeply in love with God than if we simply choose to sit on the side and avoid the suffering altogether, for it we do not suffer the sorrow, agony, and darkness of this life alone. God is not some removed being to whom we pray when the way is dark, hoping he will shed light on the path. No, when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, when sorrows like sea billows roll, when all else seems lost, we are not alone, for the cross tells us that God is with us, that we suffer with Christ, and if —IF!—in fact, we suffer with him, we will also be glorified with him. Amen.

"Breath to Live" (Pentecost)

Ezekiel 37:1-14

1 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "O Lord God, you know." 4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord." 7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11 Then he said to me, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.' 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord."

In his ancient epic, Works and Days, the Greek poet Hesiod tells of the creation of the first woman. She was formed from the earth by the gods on Mount Olympus as a punishment to men…I’ll give you a moment to process that notion…and she was endowed with gifts from each of the gods: Athena clothed her in a silvery gown; Aphrodite gave her grace and desires; Hermes gave her a deceitful disposition and the power of speech, and he gave her a name, Pandora, which means “all-gifted,” since she had been gifted by all the gods of Olympus.[1]

When Pandora was sent to Epimetheus as a bride, Zeus gave her a jar as a wedding present. She didn’t know what was in the jar, so when her curiosity overtook her, she opened the jar, and from it sprang all manner of cruel spirits, plagues, and demons into the world—this was the gods’ true punishment for the insubordination of men. Pandora sealed the jar just in time to capture one final spirit, elpis, which is hope. Hope was what Pandora held in the box; hope remained as the singular comfort for the now evil-plagued world. Hope remained, yet while it may have been kept quietly in Pandora’s jar I can’t help but notice how elusive hope can be for the rest of us, how hard it can be to find hope when we need it.

When the doctor says malignant, aggressive, six months left…how do you find hope after that? When you hear rumors about downsizing, budget cuts, pink slips, and start thinking about the unemployment line…how do you find hope after that? When the arguing seems constant, when the distance grows, there’s separation, and pretty soon you have to sign the papers with the word “divorce” typed so clearly…how do you find hope after that? When the attacks start, the bombs blast, war and all of its evils rage, and the title terrorist is tossed about…how do you find hope after that?

Of course, hope doesn’t seem to be absent only after the great tragedies of life. Think about it: you get the promotion, win the award, graduate at the top of the class, secure the victory, make it to a comfortable retirement, but then the shine wears off the apple, and the desire for more—more meaning, more purpose, more life—takes hold, but it seems there’s nothing left for you to do, not higher rung on the ladder…how do you find hope after that? After the battle is over, after the destruction, the bondage, the exile and death, after settling in to the ruts determined to be fate…how do you find hope? Where do you find hope?

We find the prophet Ezekiel faced with that heavy question in the story before us this morning—perhaps the most well-known story from Ezekiel. He has a vision, a vision much like others the prophet has had, in which the hand of the Lord takes him out to a valley, a plain, and shows him something. In this case, God shows Ezekiel a valley filled with bones, dry, bleached-by-the-sun bones. Ezekiel is led all around them, back-and-forth over the pile of bones, as if he’s to inspect them, to make sure there’s nothing stirring in the great, dry pile. Then, God asks him, "Mortal, can these bones live?" What kind of question is that? It’d be like asking the one sitting across from you at Cooter Brown’s after eating a full slab of dry-rubbed ribs, “Hey, do you think that pig can oink?” “Can these bones live?" Then again, if we consider the one who’s asking the question, maybe it isn’t so crazy a thought, but it seems outside the realm of possibility, like it wouldn’t make sense for the bones to live again. After all, resuscitation is not unheard of in the Hebrew Scriptures; dead bodies have come back to life. But bones, very dry bones…?

It’s one thing to know that bones left to dry and dissolve in the desert can live, and it’s one thing to know that God is God and has brought life from the dust at least once before, but to really believe that bones can live, to really believe that the expiration date has yet to pass on a body’s ability to be resuscitated…I don’t know…I can understand why Ezekiel (wise prophet he was) responded to God’s question the way he did: "O Lord God, you know." It’s as if Ezekiel didn’t want to own up to his own doubts, his own certainties about the metaphysical universe and the laws which governed it, so one can almost see him shrug his shoulders, look down at the dry, parched earth as he shuffles his feet, as he says, "O Lord God, you know."

We do that too, don’t we? God asks us, “Do you think this can happen? Do you think it’s possible? How can it happen?” And we look at ourselves, at the world around us, at the knowledge we have and resources we possess, and with a mumble we say "O Lord God, you know." We don’t want out doubts to show, our doubts that what seems impossible is just that—impossible. We don’t want our certainties about the ways of the world, the ways of our comfort, to be subject to the mystery and uncertainty of God. So we just sort of hand it off to God: “You know I suppose Lord, so why don’t you show me.” We put it on God to prove God’s self to us, to show us whether or not the impossible really is possible, that way our anxiety can stay at a minimum, and if God should prove to do the impossible, then we’ll really have a story to tell. But that’s not the way God seems to operate, especially when it comes to those us called prophets.

Did you notice that, after God asks Ezekiel if the bones could live and after Ezekiel responds, God doesn’t react with any kind of “Well, stand back and watch this!”? Did you notice that? God doesn’t strike the sands with a bolt of lightning from the sky; there’s no divine utterance as in the book of Genesis; God doesn’t say, “let there be life in them there bones!” and the bones spring to life like dancing skeletons from some old black and white cartoon. There’s none of that. No, God doesn’t command the bones to do anything—he commands the prophet to prophesy. God tells Ezekiel, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord." Then there was a strange sound, the sound of bones shaking from the ground and coming together, “a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone…and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.”

It appears that the dry bones can live again as they come together and now lie on the valley floor as cluttered corpses rather than a pile of bones. But something isn’t quite right; something is still missing. God commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the wind, to pray to the Spirit, to enter into these corpses, and after the prophet does so, breath comes into the bodies. They rise to stand on their feet as a great multitude—an army. What was once dead, decomposed, dry, now stands alive, breathing, on its feet. A pile of bones, bleached by the sun, once hopeless, again inhales and exhales as a great multitude. This is isn’t the reviving of a once-sick child; this isn’t the resuscitation of a recently departed brother; this is the impossible made possible! This is hope where there once was only death! And though it is only a vision, a vision explained to the prophet as what God will do for the entire house of Israel, it is a powerful vision of what God can do.

Now, don’t misunderstand me: I’m not saying that Ezekiel’s vision is a point-for-point testimony of God’s ability to slap muscle, tendons, and skin on an old skeleton and make it a living, breathing person again. No. What I’m saying is this, nothing is impossible with God. That’s nothing new to most of us, but what might startle us, what might strike fear into the deepest parts of our being, what will test the simple one-liners of our faith is this: God doesn’t have to prove to us that nothing is impossible, but faith, our faith, means proving to ourselves that we actually believe what we say we believe. It’s one thing to say that nothing is impossible with God, but to then look out on the valley of very dry bones and believe they can live again, to live among an exiled people and believe they’ll be freed, to witness a divided nation and trust it can be put back together and made whole, to sit in an upper room and wait for something to happen after the resurrected Lord has ascended to the Father, to stare into the empty cupboard as your child’s stomach growls louder and believe you’ll have dinner on the table, see someone you disagree with as a friend, to behold a sinner as a saint, to look in the mirror and actually believe God loves you…that’s another thing altogether isn’t it? That’s when hope becomes palpable, when it’s fleshed out and filled with the breath of the Holy Spirit.

It’s easy to say we believe “nothing is impossible with God,” or “God so loved the world,” or “I can do all things through Christ,” or “God does not show partiality,” or “Jesus loves me this I know…” But to prove it, to prove it to ourselves, that requires bold action, selfless trust, and above all else, it requires we do something besides shrugging our shoulders and saying, “O Lord God, you know." It means our faith isn’t simply a list of things with which we either agree or disagree. It means if we really believe all the things we say we believe about God, about Jesus, about salvation, about life, about the Church, about love—if we really believe those things, then we ought to prove it! And let me tell you something, saying it over and over, louder and louder, that doesn’t prove anything.

To say we trust God, that we have hope, and yet cross our fingers, hedge our bets, and store away enough to survive World War III…that’s not trust. To say our works don’t save us, that our deeds and “clean living” won’t earn God’s love, and then try to find every way we are better than someone else…that’s not faith, that’s not hope. To say we believe that nothing can separate us from the love of God, that God loves everybody, and then shut the door in the faces of those whom a religious society has pushed to the margins…that’s not love, that’s not God. Like Ezekiel, you and I are commanded to prove our faith to ourselves—God doesn’t need to prove God’s self to us, and God doesn’t need proof from us, but we need to prove it to ourselves and to others, so that they might have that same faith. Like Ezekiel, we aren’t called to just believe dry bones can live again; we’re called to take part in the power that revives them!

So I ask you today, as we’ve gathered by the waters of baptism, as we gather around the Lord’s table, as we proclaim together our belief in the love of Jesus, as we remember the power of God to breathe life back into dry bones and raise up a crucified Christ, as we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church, as we collectively claim our faith in God, do you really believe all that you say you believe? Well…prove it. Amen.

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[1] You can find an overview of the Pandora myth here: http://www.theoi.com/Heroine/Pandora.html

"Sent" (Seventh Sunday of Easter)

John 17:6-19

6 "I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

Her name was Ora May Wallace, but everybody just called her Mee Maw. They called her that because she was practically everyone in the community’s grandma, great-grandma, momma, great-aunt, or some relation or another. She was a sweat lady, but the kind of sweat that certain Southern women of that generation are—the kind that will kiss you on the cheek right after she smacked you across the face. When I first met Mee Maw she was old. In fact, I think Mee Maw may have been born old, and in her advanced years, as so many of us do, Mee Maw started to slip a bit. She’d forget where she put her car keys or her Bible; she’d forget someone’s name or confuse them with someone else. I can even remember one Sunday evening, when Mee Maw drove her new (used) car to church: she pulled in to her usual spot in the church yard, got out of the car, shut the door, and then the car commenced to rolling down the slight incline, on to the paved parking lot, and right on into the brick church sign. She forgot to put it in “Park” before getting out.

Mee Maw also had a habit of interrupting the benediction on Sunday mornings. She didn’t do it every Sunday, but once in a while, right after the last stanza of the invitational hymn and just before the pastor would call on someone to pray, Ora May would raise one wrinkled hand and say, “Preacher, I want to say something!” Now, I have to tell you, nothing can unnerve a pastor like someone interrupting the flow of the service, especially in such a loud and obvious way, and most especially when the end is in sight. Not to mention, it can make a pastor awful nervous when someone volunteers themselves to say something and you’re not sure what they might say. Well, Mee Maw always put the pastor in a rough spot, so he’d yield the floor to her. Then, she’d commence to running down every ailment she had and how she was so grateful that the church had prayed for her while she was getting the cancers burned off her face, the prescription readjusted for her glasses, the colonoscopy she had last Thursday…it didn’t matter how seemingly private or sensitive the subject, she wanted to express how thankful she was that somebody, her church family, had been praying for her. Because, after all, it is wonderful to know that someone is praying for you, isn’t it?

There’s something about knowing that there’s someone out there in the world who’s taking the time to pray for you. Even if you don’t necessarily believe that prayer is some kind of mystical method of long-distance healing, even if you hold to the notion that God’s will is set and cannot be swayed by our feeble prayers and attempts to change God’s mind, knowing someone is praying for you can calm your nerves, ease your mind, and remind you that you’re not in this thing called life all by yourself. It’s wonderful to know that someone is praying for you, that when we gather in this room during our mid-week prayer meetings we gather to pray for those we love, those who mean something to us. We pray for you, for each other, and when we pray, we bring our concerns, our broken-hearts, our pains, and our fears to God. When we pray for each other, when others pray for us, it means we are trusting God with the outcome. If it is wonderful, comforting, and encouraging to know that others are praying for us, how much more then to know that Christ has prayed for us? To know that Jesus has brought us before the Almighty God and entrusted the outcome of our decisions, our predicaments, to the God of the universe?

We’ve heard a portion of Jesus’ prayer for his disciples—for us—this morning in the seventeenth chapter of John’s gospel. These are some of the final words in what is called the “farewell discourse” of the fourth gospel. Jesus is preparing to depart from his disciples. The signs of wonder and power are in the past, the wonderfully mystical parables have all been told, the last of the water-turned-wine has been drunk, the stink has worn off the once-dead Lazarus, and the last of the money changers have been driven out of the temple. All that looms before him now is Calvary, the Roman execution stake, the pain and agony of the cross. Beyond that, beyond the grave is resurrection and ascension. Jesus’ time with his disciples, the time he has with his friends, has grown short. So as he bids them farewell, after he tells them about the coming of the Holy Spirit, after he tells them of the need for unity in the midst of the world’s hatred, after Jesus has instructed them about the necessity of peace…he prays for them in chapter seventeen. Can you imagine…Jesus…praying for his disciples…praying for us…praying for you?

In this prayer of Christ’s before us, Jesus prays to God for three things for his disciples. Twice he prays for protection: in verse 11 Jesus prays for his disciples to be protected, so they may be one as he and the Father are one; in verse 15 he prays for his disciples to be protected from evil—he doesn’t pray for them to be removed from evil or from the world in which evil dwells, he prays for their protection. The third thing Jesus prays for his disciples is in verse 17, that they be sanctified, that is that God would make Christ’s followers as Christ himself—hallowed and wholly committed to the kingdom and love of God. Jesus prays for God’s protection over his followers (both his disciples then and now) so that they may be one, united in the gospel we share, in the love of God we experience together and show to a world haunted by the evil of its faults and sins.

I want you to take a moment and let that soak in. Close your eyes if that helps. Imagine: in the midst of all of your troubles, with all of your doubts, fears, anxieties, and uncertainties Jesus is praying for you. Even when you don’t have the words, even when you do but they’re too painful or frightening to speak, Jesus is praying for you. Even when you’re terrified of the uncertainties of a fast-approaching future, Jesus is praying for you. Even when others around you whisper threats in your ear, Jesus is praying for you. Even when your horizons are stretched, your comfort zone breached, and your ways in which you were so firmly set have been broken down and swept away by the ever-widening circle of the gospel, Jesus is praying for you. And I know all of us could sure use him praying for us these days!

We need the protection of God for which Jesus prayed, protection that we may be one, especially in the midst of more news that suggests that the way we’ve tried to do faith, the way we’ve been trying to do the work of God’s kingdom is only pushing people away and burning others out. A new study released this week by the Pew Research Center shows that since 2007, Christianity has declined in America: in 2007, 78.4% if Americans claimed to be Christians; in 2014 that number fell to 70.6% (still an overwhelming majority). Most of that decline came from a drop in the number of those who claimed to be Catholic (a 3.1% decrease) or mainline Protestant (a 3.4% decrease), while those claiming to be evangelical Protestants declined by 0.9%. The most telling statistic, however, is that the so-called “nones,” the religiously unaffiliated, increased by 6.7%, making them the second-largest group in the country (just 2.6% behind Evangelical Protestants).[1]

This news makes a lot of people nervous—a lot of Christians and Church leaders nervous. It makes us anxious about the future, and it causes us to stress about things like numbers and competing with the lure of the world. It causes us to question our motives, and some of us double-down on the old, antiquated ways of doing things, ways that excluded others, those on the margins, and some of us look to practices that too-closely resemble the ways of consumerism or popular politics in order to draw a crowd and keep the numbers up (at least for now). Our anxiety leads to division, yet Christ prays for us to be one as he and the Father are one, so that that world may see the love we have for Jesus and each other, so that the world may be transformed by that love.

Then there are all of those news stories, those conjured crises, created to scare us. Those ramped-up rhetorical devices of false fear and trumped-up trivial matters pushed down our throats through the cable box or our newsfeed. I was recently sitting in the lobby of a hotel reading and drinking a cup of coffee. There were televisions all throughout the lobby and all of them tuned to the same news channel. I had been fairly successful in tuning out the endless coverage of the beating of a dead horse, when (for whatever reason) a commercial came on that caught my attention. It was a long-time politician, and he was pronouncing the impending economic doom that is sure to hit our country in the very near future. He threatened the loss of wealth and comfort; he spoke of collapse and catastrophe. His tone was urgent, threatening, fearful. He wanted to warn all of those who were listening about the coming calamity and how to avoid it—but of course you’d have to visit his website and buy something before he’d tell you!

We’re fed a constant narrative of fear. As the world changes, as the old ways are fading, as the world gets smaller and the safe harbors of hegemony we once occupied are being decreased or deconstructed, many of us cannot help but be afraid. We’re worried we’ll lose what we think we’ve worked so hard to get. We’re scared that we won’t have the power, the influence, the comfort we once had. We’re wholly terrified of the other, and it’s mostly because there are those who have exploited and ballooned that fear in order to take advantage of us. Perhaps what scares us most is the possibility that we may be wrong—wrong about life, faith, God, each other. That fear comes from the world, but Jesus prays for our protection from the evil of this world. He doesn’t pray for our removal, or our cloistered isolation; Jesus prays for our protection from such evil, so that that world may see the love we have for Jesus and each other, so that the world may be transformed by that love.

We are sanctified, hallowed, made holy by God in our protection. We are freed from the fabricated fears of this world by the prayer of Christ. We are sent boldly by the assurance that Jesus is praying for us, that God has already written the ending, that whatever anxiety, fears, frustrations, and uncertainties may keep us from the full love of Christ—from sharing that love with all of God’s people—have been defeated already by the power of prayer.

Jesus is praying for you. So why be afraid? Why fear the unknown? Why limit yourself and the calling Christ has given you? Why withhold God’s love from anyone? Why be anxious about whether you are right or wrong? I tell you the truth, in the end, the only one who is right is God, the only one who gets it all right is Jesus. And he’s praying for you. So may you be sent forth together with all the saints in boldness, knowing that the prayers of Jesus go before you. May you go forth in freedom from the manufactured fears and evils of this world. May you go forth as the blessed ones of God, those for whom Christ has prayed, is praying, and will pray. May you be sent out into the world—the hurting, hungry, dying, love-starved world—as those protected, empowered, and sanctified by the prayers of the one whose love is eternal. Be sent in the love of Christ. Amen.

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[1] One can find the Pew Research Forum’s complete report here: http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

"Not Servants, but Friends" (Sixth Sunday of Easter)

John 15:9-17

9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. 12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

            Let me tell you about Vanessa. Vanessa loved her job. She had a career which allowed her to help people with their basic, physical needs. Every day, Vanessa would wake up, put on her uniform, and go to work, where she had great relationships with co-workers and patients—she especially loved her patients. There were some days when Vanessa would just sit across the table from one of them and talk for most of the morning. Other things could wait; they could be rescheduled, because Vanessa cherished the relationships she had at work. She thought of those she worked with and those she worked for as friends. She found a great deal of joy in what she did.

            Then, one day, Vanessa was told by her supervisor that the “higher-ups” were going over the books, looking for ways to increase profit, decrease spending, and increase productivity—they called it “growth.” Vanessa was given quotas to meet, a schedule to keep, and a clear list of dos and don’ts. At first it was easy: the quotas were close to what she did anyway, and the schedule was flexible enough. But once she met those marks, a new, higher quota was assigned, a stricter schedule was handed down, and the list of rules got longer. Before long, Vanessa realized she was spending less time with her patients, less time with her co-workers, and more time watching the clock, pushing a pen—more time worrying about the quotas, schedules, and rules. Before long, it all became about numbers: the friendships came dead last (if at all), and the joy was gone. She had two choices: she could quit and hope to find that joy again somewhere else, or she could grind on, chasing the next highest number, driven on by the threat of a boss who held her livelihood in his hands…

            Now let me tell you about Brad. Brad loved his church. It was a place where Brad felt close to God as he worshipped with people he knew, people he grew to love. It was a place where he felt he had a purpose as he helped those in his church and community through service projects and visits just to say “hi.” Every Sunday morning, Brad got up excited about seeing his friends in Sunday school, to pray with them and talk about the deep things of faith together. He looked forward to singing praises and conversing in prayer with the Christ he loved, and he listened for the words of God in the readings of Scripture and sermons. Sometimes he worshipped with a few hundred others, while other Sundays it may have been just a few dozen, but he gathered to worship with his friends, and in that he found joy.

            Then, one Sunday morning, the leadership of his church made an announcement. They had been looking over the accounts, watching the attendance numbers, and they were looking for ways to increase giving, increase activity, and—most importantly—increase numbers. They decided to issue grand statements about who they were and (of course) who they were NOT, new dos and don’ts about what it meant to belong to their church, so visitors would be sure to know what they were walking into. They called it “growth.” So the church started having more services, more meetings, more Bible studies, more rules. At first, it was easy for Brad because he was there anyway, but there was always something else he was asked to do: serve on another committee, volunteer to chaperone the youth lock-in, drive the church van every other week, usher once a month, sing in the choir, and there was always one more service to attend.

Brad started to get tired, and when he couldn’t make it to a meeting, when he was missing in a service, when he was missing at Bible study, when it was rumored he might be running around with the kind of people the church didn’t want him to associate with, it always seemed like the church folks were more concerned about his absence than his presence, his tally mark on the role. He noticed people talking about numbers, about dollars, about so-called “growth.” Before long, Brad noticed he didn’t have time to visit and pray with friends, Bible study groups became gossip sessions about those who weren’t there, and worship became a time when he was either busy helping with the logistics of the service, distracted about how empty or full his pew was, or overwhelmed with the thoughts of all the other times he would have to be in that room with these people he thought he once knew, people who were once his friends. Numbers, growth, rules—those things came first. Friendships, joy, those were just simply words now, words that once had meaning. Brad had two choices: he could quit coming and hope to find that joy again (maybe in another church, or maybe without a church at all), or he could grind on, trying his hardest to attend more services, more meetings, to give more money, more time, in order to watch the numbers go up, driven on by the false notion that bigger is better and higher numbers are the only way to measure growth…

How do we wind up in places like that, places where joy once was found, but now is absent? How do we so easily lose sight of what really matters in this world? Perhaps it’s because it’s easier to claim success as the goal of life, to see quantity as the measure of such success. Isn’t that what we do? We literally rank people by how much money they have; we measure how successful a business is by how many locations it has; and (whether we admit it or not) we judge a church—even our own—by how many people fill the pews on any given Sunday. It doesn’t matter how those people got their money; it doesn’t matter the quality of a business’s product; it doesn’t matter the life-changing influence of a congregation. The formula is the same: more is always better.

We even measure our spiritual lives, our faith, that way: if I go to one more church service, one more Bible study, give one more dollar than someone else, then I must be a better Christian than them. That’s the path that leads to legalism, as we begin to find ways we can be better than the next person, better than the people we don’t like. That’s the path that leads to constant disappointment, as we find that we can’t live up to the expectations we’ve placed on ourselves. That’s the path that leads away from joy, away from friendship with one another. That’s the path that leads away from friendship with Jesus as we begin to see God in Christ as the harsh judge, waiting to condemn us for our failures, one handing out laws we had better follow or else face the eternal consequences. That’s the path that leads away from friendship with Christ towards a distorted understanding of Christ as the cosmic taskmaster, commanding us to do his bidding, forcing us by the threat of hellfire to partake in the pious parade of religion—even if we have to do it with a faked smile. But that’s not the Jesus I know, that’s not the Jesus we praise when we sing, “What a friend we have in Jesus…” That’s not the Christ of our text this morning.

The Christ before us this morning is one who longs for genuine friendship with us, the Christ who fulfills our joy and calls us to love one another. This is the Christ who shows us that the measure of life, the measure of faith is not quantity; it isn’t measured by numbers. This is the Christ who shows us that the measure of our eternal existence is not measured by dos and don’ts. This is the Christ who shows us that the worth of all things is found in the eternal, boundless love of God. Our joy—our full joy—is found only in the love of God as we experience it in friendship with Christ and each other—and that is hard to measure with numbers. So we continue to grind on, trying to quantify our faith, attempting to find ways to rank our sins and our virtuous works, especially in light of the sins and works of others. We have to be legalists to live in such a world. Otherwise, we risk being too loose, don’t we? We run the risk of being (heaven help us!) wrong. After all, what if we were wrong about who’s in and who’s out? What if we’re messed up in our understanding of what’s right and what’s wrong? What if our understanding about some of the teachings of Scripture is off? We can’t simply abide in the love of God, not without some kind of fine print. There has to be more to it; there has to be at least a few, important rules.

Well, as we’ve seen time and time again, for Jesus, there seems to just be one “rule” (if we even want to call it that): "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus goes on to flesh that commandment out: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” Jesus makes it plain: this divine relationship to which we are called is not simply one of an all-powerful God uses the threats of such power to toy with his human creations—this is a relationship of love and friendship. Can you see the difference? Can you see it perhaps in your own life?

How many of us say we “serve God,” but what we do we do out of a sense of obligation or even fear of punishment? You come to church, volunteer, put money in the plate all because you believe that is what you are supposed to do, that you are required to do those sorts of things if you’re going to be a so-called “good Christian”?  How many of us say we serve the Lord, yet we are motivated by what it will get us, what benefit it will bring us? That’s not the kind of relationship Christ desires with us. He no longer calls us servants. He calls us friends, and friendship isn’t formed out of a sense of obligation or benefit. Friendship is founded in love, and a friend—a true friend—does not seek what best for himself or herself, but they seek what is best for their friends. Friends serve one another—not out of obligation, fear, or in seeking benefit, but friends serve one another with joy and love.

That is how we “go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” The kingdom of God, a congregation, a community of faith, doesn’t grow, it doesn’t bear fruit, because it found the right gimmick to get more people in the door and more butts in the pews. The kingdom of God doesn’t flourish as budgets swell and offering plates get heavy with “folding money.” The kingdom of God grows as those of us who call ourselves Christians—followers of Christ—realize that we are called to a deep, real friendship with the living God in Christ Jesus, when we realize that the work we are called to is not an obligation thrust upon us by a God who seeks to watch us work, nor does it come laden with the threats of wrath and anger. The kingdom of God grows when we realize that the way we bear fruit, fruit that will last for the God’s kingdom is by embracing our friendship with God and seeing our joy in that friendship. We bear fruit as we move away from thinking of our relationship with Christ as a religion of obligation and towards an understanding of God’s great love for us. After all, in these words to his disciples, these words to us, Jesus clearly says why he gives us these commandments, why he has given us the responsibility of seeing his kingdom grow: “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

So let us love one another as we seek to do the will of God together. Let us bear fruit, fruit that will last, as we serve God—not as servants bound by obligation, fear, or benefit—but as friends, friends who love God and each other, willing to put ourselves last in love and service to God’s kingdom. Amen.