Jesus' "Last Lecture"

Acts 10:44-48

While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

Word of God, Word of Life

thanks be to God.

Psalm 98 (link to musical setting of the Psalm)

1 John 5:1-6

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world: our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.

Word of God, Word of Life

thanks be to God.

John 15:9-17

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 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. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 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. 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. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

The Gospel of the Lord

Praise to you, O Christ.

*****

If you’ve been following along with the readings for the last couple of weeks, it seems like all through Easter we have had the same theme repeated over and over again: love one another. Do not fear. Jesus shows up despite our failures and even in them. As though this is important or something. As though we need to be reminded. As though Jesus knows how hard it is to be human and live in the world while marching to the beat of a different drummer.

Well, it is hard sometimes. Oftentimes. If we’re part of the ‘in’ crowd, we may feel like we’ve finally ‘made it’ and can take it easy and have earned some comfort. But even then, life around us is difficult. People get sick. Natural disasters destroy homes and lives. Neighbors argue and trespass on our property. Whether you’re living in community or living as a hermit, there will be pain and loss and suffering in life.

This whole section of the Gospel of John, for instance, is part of a multi-chapter sort of “Jesus’ Last Lecture” before he’s hauled off and crucified. We are reading it and telling it this side of the resurrection, but there was something very important to him about encouraging and directing his disciples in love before they were to be scattered in fear. This Gospel reading is part of that dinner Jesus had with his disciples when he washed their feet. When he took up the basin and the towel like a servant, like one of those people who just do the dirty work and get ignored until something’s not clean enough and we yell at the help for being lazy. Jesus the Rabbi, Jesus the teacher, Jesus the one who turned water into wine and brought Lazarus back from the dead and confounded the religious authorities with his understanding of Torah, Jesus who ought to have had the head place at the table while the others served him and washed his feet, turned the tables and got down in the dirt with his friends.

Have you ever had the chance to meet someone you idolized? Someone you’ve only known as a famous personality? Someone who’s way higher up on the totem pole? I’d like to meet Stephen Colbert, for example. So I’ll use him as an example. It would be as though Stephen Colbert and I went out for coffee and he asked my opinion and took me seriously despite how little I know about politics and current news events. Only bigger. It’s a relationship shift. It’s a move that takes us out of the great pyramid of power and levels it all. Like suddenly becoming friends with your mother after years of only knowing her as the woman who cleans the house and darns the socks and makes the dinner and buys the school clothes and breaks up fights between you and your brother. In those precious years between being parent-child and being parent-caregiver. Jesus has shifted our position in the divine-human relationship by getting down in the dirt with us before lifting us all up with himself in resurrection.

Which is a complicated and much more serious position to be in. I mean, if Jesus is the teacher and we are only the students, then it all falls to Jesus to love and teach and serve. If we admire somebody who’s a saint, what’s to give us the strength to act the same way they did since we’re not saints but only humans? That’s an argument that doesn’t hold water, though, because, as Luther reminds us, we are all saints in and through our baptism. ‘Priesthood of all believers’ means ALL believers. So now that Jesus has made us friends, has chosen us to bear fruit that will last, we’ve got some responsibility. We’re working hand-in-hand with God for the healing of the world. Which is the reasoning behind September’s “God’s Work, Our Hands” events seeking to serve the larger community. But it’s not a once a year thing, either. It’s an always thing.

And it starts with an always thing. The always thing, the real thing, the deeper thing, the thing that keeps us going and keeps us coming back is the thing we have been hearing about over and over every time we gather for worship: the love with which Jesus loves us always, ALWAYS, comes first. He spends his last hours with the disciples reminding them to love as they have been loved, telling them not to fear, promising the Holy Spirit to give them strength and guidance. If you had to choose your last words to your loved ones, if you got to write the script for your deathbed scene, wouldn’t you want to say the things that are most important, closest to your heart, to the people who are most important and closest to your heart? And if you knew those loved ones were afraid and confused, if you knew they would strike out and hurt each other in their fear and confusion, wouldn’t you want to remind them that your love for them, each and all, remains no matter what?

Jesus also knew that those nearest and dearest were about to abandon him. He could have likewise decided to abandon them, but it’s not in his character. Jesus the Christ doesn’t abandon us, not ever. That’s what makes him the Christ. It’s because he is God’s anointed, God in the flesh, God in the dirt with us, lifting us up and choosing us before we can think about choosing at all. Kindred in Christ, we are God’s chosen beloved friends. There is no greater love that can love us. And the love of the One who has laid down his life for us is a love which will never let us go.