David Orendorff · John 14:15-21

Today’s scripture is pretty much right after last weeks scripture and is a continuation of one of John’s narrative sermons. John preaches most of his Gospel in story form and leaves it to the reader to draw conclusions.

John 13 and 14 are one sermon for John and a lifetime of sermons for the rest of us. I will try and not keep you here for a lifetime, but it is going to be tough because I will have to skip a bunch of very good stuff. These chapters develop from Jesus washing the feet of the disciples just before their last meal together. In this Jesus teaches the men and women who have chosen to be his students that servant love is what he brings them by washing their feet; that God is servant love; and if they truly love him and the Father they will love each other and will wash each others feet.

Last Sunday we heard Jesus tell his disciples that because they trust God and they trust him (Jesus) they can trust him when he says that the Father’s house has many rooms; that he goes ahead of them to prepare for them a place in this mansion of mansions; that he will return to them and take them with him to the Father’s big, big house; and they do not need to fear his future death.

As a sort of extended footnote I pointed out that nowhere in this passage, not even verse 6, does Jesus say what will happen to those who do not trust him. The fate of those who are not Christian is God’s business and not ours and we are right to leave judging to God. Those of us who trust God and trust Jesus know that Jesus is indeed our road, truth and life to the Father.

I am ready for this week’s part of John’s sermon. In today’s scripture Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And later he says, “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love (remember agape here) me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” Keeping the commands of Jesus seems to be important for loving and being loved. So, what are the commandments of Jesus that we are to keep?

There is an old iambic pentameter that goes, “I don’t smoke and I don’t chew and I don’t go with girls that do.” I don’t think not smoking or chewing is the kind of commandment Jesus had in mind. I think he meant to show us a whole new way of keeping torah, keeping the laws or commandments of God; ways that were beyond tobacco, alcohol, circumcision and food laws. Again and again in John’s gospel and the letters of John the commandment which we are to keep is love, specifically servant love. John 13:24 says it about as clear as it can get said:

I give you a new commandment (a new torah) that you love one another. Just as I have loved you (washed your feet, will die for your salvation) you also should love one another.”

At the Tuesday men’s prayer breakfast this week I was again reminded of how we struggle to understand what agape or Christian love is meant to be.

Christian love is founded and lived in the life of Jesus whose love for us was and is not dependent on how well we love him. It is pure gift, given in hope for our salvation but without expectation of our reciprocity. It is God’s unselfish and unconditional saving acts for a world that betrays God and betrays itself.

You have heard me often speak of how there are multiple and conflicting meanings of love in English. I love ice cream, I love baseball, I love my wife and even I love my grandchildren do not all mean the same thing. By repeatedly using only one of several Greek words for love John has Jesus underline what he means by love. The word is, of course, agape (agape). Agape love is servant love. The servant loves the master by doing what needs to be done. The servant doesn’t have to like or respect the master. The servant doesn’t need to feel warm or cozy with the master. The servant doesn’t have to believe that the master treats him fairly. The servant may even hate the master, but still he serves for the good of the master.

We often equate Christian love with compassion. Compassion has feeling connotations of empathy and caring, of feeling inclined to try and help. But this is not what Jesus means either. Christian love is given even when we don’t feel compassionate or inclined to help. To love you as a Christian I don’t have to have compassion for you, or even like you. Christian love means serving the good of another, whether we feel like it or not, whether they respond in kind or not

It is a startling teaching. Christian love is washing the feet of those who will betray us. It is salving the infected sore of the one that may infect us. Christian love is cleansing the bloody wound of an enemy who when recovered will still want our death. Christian love is Jesus’ commandment to those who trust and love him, and so love and trust God; it is the road, the truth and the life.

I must tell you that over the years I have grown soul weary of debates over creeds and right theology while there is disaster, hunger, homelessness and war. Where is the agape in these battles over who is right and who is wrong, and who is in and who is out; battles that sometimes end in dying? More and more what matters to me are the acts of lovingkindness which witness the mind and heart of Christ! Less and less do I care what words I believe; more and more do I care about what I with the gifts God has given me to serve.

I end this didactic sermon preaching the way John preaches, with a story.

It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. We had not seen rain in almost a month. The crops were dying. Cows had stopped giving milk. The creeks and streams were long gone back into the earth. It was a dry season that would bankrupt several farmers before it was through.

Every day, my husband and his brothers would go about the arduous process of trying to get water to the fields. Lately this process had involved taking a truck to the local water rendering plant and filling it up with water. But severe rationing had cut everyone off. If we didn’t see some rain soon…we would lose everything.

It was on this day that I learned the true lesson of sharing and witnessed the only miracle I have seen with my own eyes. I was in the kitchen making lunch for my husband and his brothers when I saw my six-year-old son, Billy, walking toward the woods. He wasn’t walking with the usual carefree abandon of a youth but with a serious purpose. I could only see his back.

He was obviously walking with a great effort … trying to be as still as possible. Minutes after he disappeared into the woods, he came running out again, toward the house. I went back to making sandwiches; thinking that whatever task he had been doing was completed.

Moments later, however, he was once again walking in that slow purposeful stride toward the woods. This activity went on for an hour: walk carefully to the woods, run back to the house.

Finally I couldn’t take it any longer and I crept out of the house and followed him on his journey (being very careful not to be seen…as he was obviously doing important work and didn’t need his Mommy checking up on him). He was cupping both hands in front of him as he walked, being very careful not to spill the water he held in them … maybe two or three tablespoons were held in his tiny hands. I sneaked close as he went into the woods. Branches and thorns slapped his little face, but he did not try to avoid them. He had a much higher purpose..

As I leaned in to spy on him, I saw the most amazing site. Several large deer loomed in front of him. Billy walked right up to them. I almost screamed for him to get away. A huge buck with elaborate antlers was dangerously close. But the buck did not threaten him…he didn’t even move as Billy knelt down. And I saw a tiny fawn laying on the ground, obviously suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion, lift its head with great effort to lap up the water cupped in my beautiful boy’s hand. When the water was gone, Billy jumped up to run back to the house and I hid behind a tree. I followed him back to the house to a spigot to which we had shut off the water. Billy opened it all the way up and a small trickle began to creep out. He knelt there, letting the drip, drip slowly fill up his makeshift “cup,” as the sun beat down on his little back. And it came clear to me: The trouble he had gotten into for playing with the hose the week before. The lecture he had received about the importance of not wasting water. The reason he didn’t ask me to help him. It took almost twenty minutes for the drops to fill his hands. When he stood up and began the trek back, I was there in front of him. His little eyes just filled with tears. “I’m not wasting,” was all he said. As he began his walk, I joined him…with a small pot of water from the kitchen. I let him tend to the fawn. I stayed away. It was his job. I stood on the edge of the woods watching the most beautiful heart I have ever known working so hard to save another life. As the tears that rolled down my face began to hit the ground, they were suddenly joined by other drops…and more drops…and more. I looked up at the sky. It was as if God, himself, was weeping with pride. Some will probably say that this was all just a huge coincidence. That miracles don’t really exist. That it was bound to rain sometime. And I can’t argue with that… I’m not going to try. All I can say is that the rain that came that day saved our farm…just like the actions of one little boy saved another. I don’t know if anyone will read this…but I had to send it out. To honor the memory of my beautiful Billy, who was taken from me much too soon…

But not before showing me the true face of God, in a little, sunburned body.1 from Wayne Schaub, 2003”

To carry water in a drought to a fawn fulfills the commandments of Jesus. This is all we really need to know and do to be faithful.

[1] from Wayne Schaub, 2003

Shalom and Amen.