Abiding in God’s Love—Lectionary Reflection for Easter 6B (John 15)

John 15:9-17 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

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.

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                If we abide in God—remembering the word Jesus shared earlier in John 15 about the connection of the branches and the vine—then we abide in love, for God is love. As the Gospel of John puts it, Jesus connects the love of God with the love of others, and it all starts with God who loves Jesus, who in turn loves us. To love is to fulfill all God’s commands. It’s as simple as that. Of course, figuring out what it means to love is not as easy as it might seem at first.

It’s easy to love a person who is attractive, compassionate, responsive, and fun to be with. But what about the person who isn’t quite as attractive, compassionate, or fun to be around? Indeed, what about those whom we might consider enemies? We’re living in a time when the divide between people is seemingly at an all-time high. We’ve always had “enemies” to love, but lately, it seems that the list of potential enemies has grown much longer, such that the potential to divide up has reached a critical stage. Now, I’m a historian by training, so I know and understand that we’ve had similar seasons as this one, but that doesn’t make the present any less challenging. So, even as we “gird our loins” for battle, with the spirit of fear and hatred running rampant through our society, we hear this call to love one another as Christ has loved us.   

So, the word we hear on the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year B) from the Gospel of John, is to abide in God, which means abiding in Christ, and to abide in Christ is to abide in love. That love revealed in Christ has been poured out on us so we can love others. While not mentioned here, that includes our enemies. As recorded in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells his audience: “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Lk 6:27). He continues a few verses later, telling the audience: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them” (Lk 6:32).

Contextually, this conversation is a rather intimate one. In what is known as the “Farewell Discourse,” having shared a final meal and washed his disciples' feet (Jn 13), Jesus is giving final instructions (Jn. 14-17). He will conclude the discourse in John 17 with what is known as Jesus’ high priestly prayer, which centers on the unity of his followers. What he shares here helps set up that prayer.  If there is to be unity in this community of followers, it will be rooted in love. As for the nature of this love that will cement the community of believers, it is a sacrificial form (as we’ll see). That doesn’t mean that one must allow others to walk over you. I don’t believe Jesus is encouraging us to pursue martyrdom, but if it comes our way, then we can welcome it. At least that appears to be the message here.

But before we get to the question of laying down our lives for others, we must first define love.  Tom Oord has spoken of love being noncoercive and uncontrolling; that includes God’s love. Thus, Oord’s definition of love fits well here: “To love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic/empathetic response to God and others, to promote overall well-being” [The Nature of Love, p. 17]. There is much to like about that definition. It speaks of mutuality and relationship. It is also an intentional act that responds to God and others to promote well-being, such that the other might flourish. To act in love, as defined here, involves keeping Jesus’ commandments. The only commandment that Jesus stipulates is to love others. He doesn’t point us (here in John 15) to the commandment to love God with heart, soul, and might (Deut. 6:5), or one’s neighbor as oneself (Lev.19:18). That word is found in the Synoptic Gospels, such that in Matthew we read: “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Mt. 22:37-40).

While John doesn’t appeal to these two great commandments, since they are part of the gospel story, I think we can incorporate them into the larger message. To love is to love God and neighbor. This is the command of God. Not only that but as Matthew records, all that the Law and the prophets reveal hangs on these two commandments. You do this and you don’t have to worry about the minutiae, though sometimes it’s important to know what the minutiae entails so you can be about the business of loving God and others. So, with this in mind, we hear Jesus tell us to love one another as he loved them. That suggests that love starts with God.

The next question has to do with how one demonstrates the kind of love Jesus speaks of here. In answering that question Jesus suggests that “there is no love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn. 15:13). Now contextually, this statement is made in the hours before he will be arrested, tried, and executed by the Roman government, with collusion from certain Jewish leaders. At one level Jesus is pointing to his own destiny, such that in dying on the cross he offers his life up for the good of the many. When we think of what John has shared here, we might think about that scene in Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, where Spock gives his life to save his friends. While Spock, like Jesus, will be resurrected (in the next movie). He tells Jim Kirk that it is “logical” because “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few—or the one.” Then he tells him: “I have been, and always shall be, your friend.” Is that not what Jesus is saying to his friends, those who keep his commandments? That command is simply to love.

To abide in Christ is to experience true friendship, a sense of connection that seeks the good of the other so that they might flourish. When it comes to relationships, by this point in the story, Jesus has been with his disciples for quite a while. They’ve had many experiences, and with his imminent death, the relationship is about to change. So, Jesus tells them that where once they were servants, they are now friends. In this context, when he speaks of friends here, he’s speaking of an intimate set of friends (not your list of Facebook Friends). Why is this? Servants don’t know what the master is going to do, but friends do know. Such is now the case. They are ready to take on a new identity of a friend. That is, Jesus has shared with them everything he had heard from the Father, so they are ready for what comes next.

The final word serves as a reminder as to who initiated this relationship. They didn’t choose Jesus. Jesus chose them. So, just as God called Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, God had called them to share in Jesus’ ministry. While John doesn’t mention them, they illustrate what it means to be chosen by God. Consider that God called Abraham, Sarah, and their household, to pick up their household belongings and head out on a journey to an as yet undisclosed destination. As for Moses, he was out tending sheep when God called him to liberate the people of God. Then David was anointed king though he was but a youth. None of them had any outward signs of greatness, and yet God called them to service. The same is true here. There was nothing all that special about these persons that God would choose them, and yet God made the choice. The same would be true of this crew of disciples whom Jesus gathered together, a crew that looks on the surface to be nothing special. Yet, Jesus chose them to be his companions, and he invested himself in their lives.  As he does so, he shares with them what the father had shared with him. Therefore, they have been brought into the circle.

Not only did Jesus choose them, but he commissioned them. He tells them (and us as his followers), that he has chosen them so that they would bear fruit. Here we return to the imagery of the vine and branches we explored the prior week. In that passage from John 15:1-8, Jesus reminds us that the branches cannot bear fruit unless they are connected (abide in) to the vine, which is Jesus. The fruit they/we are to bear is to last. It is meant to endure. So, when you abide in Christ, who abides in the Father, he will give to you what you ask. The key here is abiding in Christ.

We conclude our reading by returning to the commandment to love one another. We love, it is stated in 1 John 4 because Christ first loved us (1 John 4:19). While this message was delivered to Jesus’ most intimate set of friends, the call to bear fruit reminds us that the love of God we experience in Christ is not meant to be insular. But, if we are to effectively bear fruit, we will need to be part of this community of friends of God. That would be the church.  

Image Attribution: Swanson, John August. Celebration, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56538 [retrieved May 1, 2024]. Original source: Estate of John August Swanson, https://www.johnaugustswanson.com/.