Sermon
Second
Presbyterian
Church
460 East Main Street Lexington, Kentucky 40507
“How Will They Know?”
Scripture Readings: John 13:1-18 & 31-35
April 28, 2013 (5th Sunday of Easter)
Rev. Barrett C. Milner
Despite the fact that we hadn’t been dating for very long, I’m really not sure if I’ll ever live it down. You see somewhere in the midst of our early courtship, Carrie must have mentioned that her birthday was December 9th and not the 19th; however, it would prove to be a minute detail that was lost for yours truly when that first birthday rolled around. And let me just say that there’s rarely been a December since that we haven’t celebrated her birthday twice. Yes, as they say, “timing is everything.” And isn’t funny how easily and how often we confuse the timing of things?
A few weeks ago, we gathered to celebrate the joy of another Easter morning. Again we remembered the wonder of the resurrection. Again we marveled over the miracle of an empty tomb. And again, we offered thanks for God’s gift of a life-giving grace that holds the power to overcome even death itself.
But this morning, we take a step back to a moment prior to the crucifixion. We gather with Jesus and his disciples around the table to break bread and drink wine. And it might be said that we’ve intentionally confused the timing of things so that we might hear again Jesus’ parting words to his disciples.
Jesus knew that the hour had come. There was no turning back. You see the betrayal had been set in motion and couldn’t be stopped. The truth is, when Jesus sat down to eat with a handful of his closest friends, he knew full well that it was the last time. And he didn’t have to be the Messiah to know it—they all did. After all, the Romans were out to get him. The religious authorities were out to get him. For reasons we can only speculate, one of his own friends was out to get him. He knew that his time had all but run out and that they’d never be together again. And this was Jesus’ last chance to teach his disciples.
It’s an unforgettable scene there in that upper room—the stillness, the tension, the shadows. You can almost hear the hushed voices of people speaking very carefully, intently. Because they wanted to say all that needed to be said while there was still time. We can only imagine the way it must have haunted Jesus’ disciples for the rest of their lives as they looked back on the time they’d sat there with him, eating and drinking and talking. And through all of their various accounts of it, including this morning’s passage from John, and through all the paintings of it, like that famous da Vinci fresco in Milan, and through two thousand years of the church’s reenactment of it in the Eucharist, it’s come to haunt us too.[i]
Yes, it is an unforgettable scene—Jesus alone with his best friends in the world, all of them, huddled together in the stillness and the shadows. Jesus had just done the unthinkable—he’d stooped to the floor to do what only the lowliest of servants would do and had washed the dirty feet of his disciples. And after Judas had left the room, Jesus offered his parting words. It was his final plea before all hell would break loose.
But instead of addressing the disciples as students, he addresses them with an intimacy that I believe conveys the poignancy of this distinctive moment of his life. To these grown men he says, “Little children, please listen to me now. I’m getting ready to go to a place where you can’t come, so it’s important that we have this time together now. Little children, listen…”
Then Jesus decided to get right to the point. Laying aside his usual way of speaking in parables and paradoxes, he simply decides to give an order. Without beating around the bush, Jesus simply says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”[ii] Love one another.
As one New Testament scholar has observed: “[This] new command is simple enough for a toddler to memorize and appreciate, and it is profound enough that the most mature believers are repeatedly embarrassed at how poorly they comprehend it and put it into practice.”[iii]
“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another…by this everyone will know that you are my disciples…”[iv] How will they know? Without mincing his words, Jesus says, “They will know by the way you love.” It’s as simple as that.
Well how embarrassing it is for so many of us who call ourselves Christian to recall that Jesus wanted to make it so easy for us by having us focus on this one thing, yet we’ve found so many other ways to identify the “true” believers. And we need only to look to the pettiness and thoughtlessness of so many of our squabbles in the church to know that it’s a challenge to put this commandment into practice.
We perceive any alteration to an existing church program or the introduction of a new Sunday school class as a threat to business as usual and as unwelcome competition, and we so callously demonize those individuals who share ideas for enhancement and growth. We boldly tout our commitment to progress and service, yet time and time again display our incapacity to work with and to compromise with those whose opinions differ from our own as we seek sensible solutions to complex problems. We question the motives, the sincerity and the abilities of those who’ve shown they have a heart to serve simply because their “style” doesn’t match our own. And it seems that all too often we value right thinking over right acting. But the question for us and for all Christians is this: does the church—does our church—truly reflect the priorities of Jesus?
This question has divided the church for centuries. In fact, it’s been estimated that there are roughly 39,000 Christian denominations, every one with a slightly different take on the priorities of Jesus.[v] But rest assured, that all denominations, whether liberal or conservative, share the conviction that they most faithfully follow Jesus. And they earnestly believe that Jesus imagined the church as looking just like them.[vi] Interpret the Bible the right way, and you’re in! Profess the right creed, no problems! Fall in line with my personal agenda, and it’s “Welcome to the family!”
But the fact is, Jesus doesn’t talk about the importance of the Bible. And he’s not particularly concerned about a carefully constructed creed. After all, the New Testament wouldn’t even be written until two generations after Jesus’ death, and it would take combative theologians the next 350 years to hammer out the Nicene Creed. But if our history tells us anything, it’s that the Bible and the creed would become remarkably important to people of faith over the years. And it would seem that, as Christians have continued to wrestle with power and orthodoxy, the very thing that was most important to Jesus has so tragically gotten lost in the fray.
What Jesus wanted us to know was that, although people would fight wars over who held correct beliefs, this was not his primary concern. Instead, Jesus’ way was the way of little children, not the way of learned theologians, savvy politicians, and intelligent preachers. “Little children,” he said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”
Folks, whether we like it or not, Jesus’ commandment to his disciples and to you and me is not that we say the right words. It’s not about what we profess to believe. And it’s not about persuading folks to simply seeing and doing things our way. Instead, it’s about the way we choose to live. It’s about the way we love.
*****
In her autobiographical work, The Spiral Staircase, Karen Armstrong notes that, in most religious traditions, faith is not about belief, but about practice. Religion is not about having to believe or accept certain difficult propositions; instead, religion is “about doing things that change you.”[vii] You see the chief aim of religion is not simply to be a system of belief, of doctrine and dogma; instead, the religious life and the journey of faith is a process. It’s about people acting in ways that change them forever.[viii] What Jesus so perfectly modeled and what Jesus calls us all to see for ourselves is that the point is not right-belief. The point is right-practice—repeated actions of love and grace that lead to personal and communal transformation.
As Quaker pastor and writer, Philip Gulley, notes “…the joy of the Christian faith is not to be found in the rote recitation of dogmas about Jesus, but in modeling his mercy and love, which alone have the power to transform us and our world.”[ix] Jesus didn’t say, “They’ll know you are my disciples if you believe the right things.”
In his book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig told about a clever way that’s used in southern India to capture monkeys. A hole is drilled into a coconut, then the insides are hollowed out and filled with rice. The coconut is then chained to a stake that’s driven deep into the ground. The hole in the coconut is just large enough for a monkey to insert its paw but is too small for it to remove its paw once it’s filled with rice. The monkey, unwilling to let go of the rice, is effectively trapped. It needs only to let go of the rice to gain its freedom but doesn’t understand that. So it remains ensnared, ironically, by the very thing it believed would sustain its life.
Well I’m struck by the broader implications of that illustration. And once again I’ll refer to Philip Gulley who said the following: “The church, it seems to me, is now captured by the very things it believed would nourish it. The inevitable accumulation of myths, creeds, traditions, and structures (both physical and institutional) have rendered the church immovable. Just when the church needs most to be nimble, it is inflexible, holding fast to customs and beliefs that more and more people are finding unhelpful and unintelligible.” Gulley goes on to question, “Is it any wonder that while an increasing number of people are defining themselves as spiritual, fewer and fewer of them look to the church as a community that can assist their journey?”
Well perhaps it’s time for the church to “let go of the rice.”[x] To let go of all the things that have distracted us from hearing Jesus’ call to simply love one another and to offer that love to a world that waits.
*****
There’s a story that the Hasidic masters tell of a rabbi who disappeared every Shabbat Eve, “to commune with God in the forest,” or so his congregation thought. So one Sabbath night they enlisted one of their cantors to follow the rabbi into the forest and to observe the holy encounter. Deeper and deeper into the woods the rabbi went until he came to the small cottage of a Gentile woman. She was sick and was crippled into a painful posture. Once there, the rabbi cooked for her and carried her firewood and swept her floor. Then when the chores were finished, he returned immediately to his little house next to the synagogue.
Back in the village, the people demanded of the one they’d sent to follow him, “Did our rabbi go up to heaven as we thought?”
“Oh, no,” the cantor answered after a thoughtful pause, “our rabbi went much, much higher than that.”
*****
Friends, what matters most is not that we say the right words. What matters most is not what we profess to believe. Instead, what matters most is the way we choose to live. It’s about the way we love.
In our world that cries for hope and for light amid the darkness of our time, may it become our chief aim and our vocation, to simply and genuinely love one another. May we, as a people of faith and light, live into the fullness and grace of our calling and recognize—once and for all—that same reality that a sixteenth century Catholic mystic realized when he said “God has no hands or feet or voice except ours and through these he works.” And with Christ as our guide and hope, may we, as John Wesley once challenged, “Do all that we can, by all the means we can, in all the ways we can, in all the places we can, at all the times we can, to all the people we can, as long as ever we can.”
So how will they know? They will know by the way we choose to live. They will know by the way we love. Amen.
2
[i] Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark. (HarperCollins, 2006), 266.
[ii] See John 13:34
[iii] D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John. (Leicester, England: APOLLOS, 1991), 484.
[iv] See John 13:35
[v] According to Gordon-Cromwell Theological Seminary’s “Status of Global Mission, 2008” report, there are now over 39,000 Christian denominations in the world.
[vi] Philip Gulley, If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus. (HarperCollins, 2010), 4.
[vii] Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 270.
[viii] Ibid., 281.
[ix] Gulley , 28.
[x] Ibid., 187-188.