Karen Karpow
United
Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 17, 2009
John 15.9-17
Graduation Day
I’ve
been spending a lot of time in graduations recently. Last Saturday was my son Andrew’s graduation
from
Graduations can be kind of scary, especially if you’re the one graduating. You’re leaving an environment you know, with tasks you know how to do, and familiar people to do them with. And then all of a sudden, you line up with those familiar people, and walk in a dignified manner into a big space filled with your families and friends. A bunch of dignitaries make a bunch of speeches, some inspiring, some funny, some really, really boring. (Trust me, after two college graduations in eight days, I know.) And then they read your name and shake your hand and say, “Good luck with the rest of your life!”
But what if you don’t know what that life is going to look like? Maybe you’ve prepared an acceptable answer to the persistent question, “So, what are you doing after graduation?” but you only have a vague notion of what you might want to do. Or maybe you think you know, but the entry-level jobs are going to people with 15 years of experience.
It’s hard enough to watch someone you love—your child, for instance—go through this. But in fact, we’ve all done it. We’ve all finished up with one part of our life and moved on into the next part. Whether it’s kindergarten graduation or graduate school, moves or marriages, maybe divorces or job changes, we’ve all had to leave the familiar behind and step somehow into the future.
Our scripture reading today is part of a very long speech that Jesus makes as the disciples are about to “graduate.” They are having a meal together, celebrating the Passover. (Celebrations often include meals—by the time we finished our two graduation weekends, we were all feeling as if we hardly ever do anything any more except eat and drive.) In a few short hours the disciples will have to leave behind what they know—following Jesus around, listening to him, misunderstanding him, trying to do what he says—and enter a new world, a world where the responsibility for living out “Thy kingdom come” rests squarely on them. They are quite certain that they are not ready for this. But who is ever ready, really?
The “graduation speech” is five whole chapters of John. In chapter 13, Jesus greets the disciples at the Last Supper by washing their feet and predicting that the disciples will betray and deny him. Then he spends three chapters telling them everything he wants them to know, including this passage, and then another whole chapter praying for them.
But this is not just a transcript of a long-ago speech. Jesus spoke to the disciples at their Passover dinner, certainly, but the speech wasn’t even written down for decades. The first people to hear the gospel according to John, as we have it today, were of a group of Jewish Christians in the late first century, who were undergoing a painful separation from Jewish society. And then the scripture comes down through the centuries, and lands in our laps. What meaning can we find in it now?
The meaning shifts with the setting. I heard all the things said to the graduates these last two Saturdays from a different perspective than our children did. “Do something meaningful with your life!” means something different when you’re in your 50’s instead of your 20’s. And so it is with the scripture. Things originally said by Jesus to the disciples on their last night together, were written down by John for the benefit of his persecuted community, and now are being read and interpreted for and by us. The Word is a living Word, and it’s up to us to figure out what it means to us today.
These words of instruction and encouragement from Jesus might be just what we need right now. I’d like to take a closer look at several of them.
1. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
a. Read in the context of the Last Supper, this is a heartbreaking interpretation of Jesus’ impending sacrifice. Jesus has told the disciples that he is going to suffer and die and rise again, but they do not understand—and will not understand until long after it is all over. Jesus is telling them, again, that what he is doing, he does for them. And he does it voluntarily—nobody is making him do it.
b. In the context of the community of John, these words can give meaning to the sacrifices made by members who are being persecuted. Some suffer so that all do not have to suffer.
c. But what about us? It is hard to imagine, in our current circumstances, some of us needing to actually die to save others of us. So does this saying of Jesus have any meaning for us? Jesus is saying that when we love, we do not necessarily get what we want. Our society encourages us to think that love means getting our needs and desires satisfied, but that it not the case with the love Jesus is talking about. Many of you may know that “love” in English translates at least 4 different Greek words, which describe different aspects of what we call “love.” In this passage, however, it’s all agape all the time. (Appears 9 times in 9 verses.) Agape is a selfless love, a love whose concern is for the welfare of the other, not for our own. Jesus is prepared to lay down his very life for the benefit of his friends. As we contemplate this scripture today, we ask, how are we called to sacrifice for each other?
2. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
a. This statement by Jesus is really puzzling, if you pay attention to it. By the next afternoon, as Jesus hung on the cross, the disciples must have wondered how Jesus could possibly speak of joy at a time like this. Jesus claims that even in this circumstance, he has joy, and expects his disciples’ joy to be as great as his own. I expect that made no sense to them.
b. The community of John might also wonder. Where is the joy in being persecuted? It makes a person think. There might be some joy, if Jesus said so.
c. And what does joy mean for us, if Jesus had some that night? If Jesus could experience joy on his way to the cross, what might we be capable of?
3. You did not choose me but I chose you.
a. What this says to the first disciples is this: though things are about to unravel, they are part of a larger plan, God’s plan, embraced by God’s power.
b. For the first audience of this gospel, this statement provides assurance that the embattled community can stand fast. They are there because God appointed them to be.
c. And for us, in our culture that celebrates autonomy and choice, this serves as a reminder that it is God who takes the initiative. It’s not all about us.
We’ve found several instructions from Jesus here:
· Sacrifice for each other
· Have joy in all circumstances
· Know that we are part of God’s larger plan
They can really all be summed up in another one of his statements, verse 12:
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I
have loved you.
People often quote the “Golden Rule”—do unto other as your would have them do unto you. But this is harder still. This command of Jesus is different from “love your neighbor as yourself.” This is “love as Jesus loves”: full of joy, yet willing to sacrifice for the good of others, knowing that we are part of something much larger than our little selves. How do we ever learn to “do” this kind of love?
A little bit at a time, I think. This love is not a feeling—it is a disciplined habit of care and concern to be developed over a lifetime. In each moment, we can choose to do the loving thing. We mess up, and then we try again.
The writer of the gospel according to John was a scholar, well-educated in Greek. He would have been very familiar with the thinking of Aristotle, who said that one of the best ways to gain a particular virtue is to imitate those who already have it. And the best way to imitate someone is by being friends. In a very real way, we become the company we keep.
And listen to what Jesus says to us!
4. I do not call you servants any longer…but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
a. From the point of view of the disciples, what a shocking statement! At the very time when the disciples are about to abandon him, Jesus grants them dignity and purpose. He knows what they are going to do; and nonetheless, he bestows a new understanding of their relationship.
b. John’s community may have experienced this as a call to remain faithful to their friend, Jesus, even in the face of all the difficulty they were experiencing.
c. But this is not just a long-ago story. Jesus has also called us friends. What does it mean to us to be Christ’s friends? If we see ourselves as his servants (the Greek actually means slaves), we concentrate only on understanding and executing our orders. But Jesus offers so much more. Think of this: Jesus is inviting us to the mutuality, the give-and-take of friends!
Aristotle defined three kinds of friendship. Some friendships are useful to us—they help us get ahead, or provide contacts, or are ways of accomplishing things that we want to do. Other friendships are pleasurable to us—we like being with certain people because they are fun, or we like doing the same things, or because they like us back. But the best kind of friendship is for the sake of friendship itself. These friendships are demanding of us—they require that we set aside our own interests, for the sake of our friend. We really can’t manage too many friendships like this, because they are really challenging—but incredibly rewarding. This is the kind of friendship that changes us, that helps us become better people.
Jesus says (verse 14),
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
He’s not offering useful or pleasurable friendship to those who have pleased him. He is describing this deep, formative friendship, the best kind. He is inviting us to imitate him, and telling us that the relationship is mutual. We can be his friend, and he will be ours. Even if all other friends should fail us, Jesus will remain our friend. He will show us, one day and one task at a time, how to fulfill his promise:
And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last…
Our lives can be so much more than just making and spending, coming and going, wanting and getting. As friends of Jesus, we are part of God’s plan for everything! We have access to joy, lasting joy. And we learn that this joy comes, not from getting what we want, but from giving what we have been given.
It’s time to graduate—no matter how old or young we are. It’s exciting and scary at the same time, but we can walk with confidence, even though we don’t know what’s going to happen next. We know all that we need: that our friend Jesus walks with us. I’m imagining him in a cap and gown, “Pomp and Circumstance” playing, walking calmly right in front of me. He turns and smiles. Everything is going to be all right.
It’s time to graduate.