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The Sixth Sunday of Easter If you love me you will keep my commandments. When I was in seminary I became friends with several rabbinical students. We had great fun discussing God and theology and prayer and scripture, exploring one another’s perspectives, considering how we lived out our respective faiths in our daily lives. In our discussions the topic of keeping the law would almost inevitably come up because the law played such an important role in shaping my friends’ lives. It’s easy for us Christians to think of the law as something burdensome, perhaps even archaic, and to view obedience as being arduous and taxing, perhaps a way to earn God’s love. But my Jewish friends saw it differently—they obeyed the law because they loved God, and because being obedient to it was the best way they knew of expressing that love—joyfully and fully and in every aspect of their lives. And in their lives obedience to the law was not onerous, it was liberating. Far from restricting their freedom keeping the law provided the framework for it. If you love me you will keep my commandments. When Jesus directs these words to his disciples, he is talking to a scared bunch of guys. He’s preparing them for what is to come—his death and resurrection—and while they don’t fully understand the import of what Jesus is saying, they do get one part: He’s leaving them. He’s leaving them and everything will change. They’ve already changed their lives, left behind family and jobs and routine to follow him, and now everything is going to change again. So they are scared. Jesus, perhaps feeling the depth of their fears, says to them, “I will not leave you orphaned,” reassuring them of his very real presence with them even when he is physically gone. He assures them repeatedly of his love for them, a love that is not bounded by time or space, that does not need to be earned but that will be ever present. And he binds that promise of love with this statement: If you love me you will keep my commandments. For 21st century Christians, this statement may not have the same resonance that it would’ve for Jesus’ Jewish disciples. They were steeped in the notion of obedience to the law; like my rabbinical student friends, the law is what gave shape and structure to their lives, and their obedience flowed naturally out of their love for God. So when Jesus says to them, They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them, they are hearing something that is at least a bit familiar, an idea that should be comforting to them. Jesus promises his abiding love for them, and the way they are called to receive and respond to that love lies in keeping Jesus’ commandments. As Christians, especially Christians in the 21st century we lack that understanding of keeping commandments. Our tendency to use the word “obey” in some translations of this passage reflects this: Rather than seeing obedience as an outpouring, as a natural response to being loved and cared for, we have a rather legalistic and punitive sense of the word. We obey, we observe laws because if we don’t something bad will happen to us—a fine, a jail sentence, a loss of esteem or respect. More often than not we equate obedience with restrictions, with a lack of freedom. But when we keep Jesus’ commandments, when we obey them, our lives are not restricted. Rather they are opened up. There is a framework, yes, but it is a framework that allows us greater freedom and greater joy when we move within it. One of my all time favorite authors, Madeleine L’Engle has likened this framework to the structure of a sonnet. In perhaps L’Engle’s most well known work, A Wrinkle in Time, the ephemeral Mrs Whatsit explains this to the children she is guiding in a cosmic struggle between good and evil, "[A sonnet] is a very strict form of poetry is it not? There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That's a very strict rhythm or meter, yes? And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it? Calvin O’Keefe, one of her young charges says, You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it? And Mrs Whatsit answers, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you love me you will keep my commandments. Jesus understands that keeping his commandments is the outcome of loving him, not the way to win his love. If we truly love Jesus and if we keep his commandments not out of a legalistic sense of duty but rather as an outpouring of our love, then our lives are given a wonderful structure—a structure that like the structure of a sonnet gives us a framework but allows us freedom within that framework to live fully and freely. What is this structure, this framework? Jesus summarizes it when he says, “Love the Lord your God with all you heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.” That kind of says it all, but if we want details, the rhythm or meter as it were, we need only turn to the gospels and the example of Jesus’ ministry. Because the kind of love that Jesus is calling us to, the kind of love that overflows into living out the commandments is not just abstract warm fuzzy feeling, not just reassurance and comfort; no, it’s the ‘let’s get out in the world and change it’ kind of love that Jesus calls us to, and he provides ample examples of what this looks like in the gospels. Recently someone sent me this quote from a bumper sticker: If you love Jesus, tithe. Anyone can honk. I’m going to save that one and use it again during stewardship season, but the message works for today, too. If you love Jesus, keep his commandments, really keep them. Don’t just say you love Jesus—words, like horn beeps, come easy. It’s the follow-through that is more challenging. But when we love Jesus, when we embrace what he calls us to and take it as the structure, the framework for our lives, we will live more fully and freely than ever before. If you love me you will keep my commandments.
AMEN
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