May 9, 2021
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois
John 15:9-17[1]
This section of John’s gospel is known as the Farewell
Discourses. Jesus was preparing the disciples to carry on without him. They had
eaten what would be their last supper. Jesus had washed their feet, setting for
them the example of servanthood. Betrayal and denial had been foretold. And he
had given them a new commandment: love one another. It was a deeply contemplative
moment.
The lands of Israel and Judea are a crossroads, a hub for
the mixing of cultures. The Jewish people had been conquered again and again, by
the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and now the Romans. New ideas and
philosophies had been introduced from these and other cultures, and likely influenced
the thinking of many teachers. It is entirely possible that a metaphysical
conversation among the disciples of Jesus would have included the ideas of
Aristotle, philosopher of ancient Greece.
Aristotle’s writings had covered many subjects, from physics
and psychology to music and theatre. His discussion of ethics and virtues synthesized
the various philosophies existing prior to him. Aristotle took the virtues—such
as justice, courage, temperance, and so on—to be central to a well-lived life. He
regarded the ethical virtues as the skills for human well-being.
On that evening together with Jesus, the disciples would
have been connecting all that they had learned and experienced, forming the ethic
of love which would be the core of the new Christian faith. As one commentary
explains, love became for them a theological virtue, “an excellence of
character that God has by nature and in which we participate by grace. Such
love is primarily interested in the good of the other person, rather than one’s
own.”[2]
In response to the question of how humans should best live, Jesus distills the
virtues into the principle of divine love.
Love can be an ambiguous term, particularly since it is a
single English word used as the translation of several Greek words, each of
which has shades of meaning. In this passage, the word used is agapē, the
unselfish love of God. Agape love is kind and generous. It only desires good
things for the other.
The commandment of Jesus is that the disciples’
relationships to one another should be like their relationship to Jesus, which
in turn finds its ultimate expression in the relationship of Jesus and God. Their
love for one another should be like the wondrous love they have known from God
through Jesus.
This kind of love, agape love is truly concerned about the
well-being of others. It is not possessive or dominating, allowing space for
the other to be, just as they are. And, it is unending, not limited by time and
space, but abundant and always ready to be given.
We might think of this agape love as the love of a lifetime.
Like other virtues, love takes time and discipline to develop, to become a habit
of care and concern. Jesus describes this love as being so deeply woven into
our lives that we might lay down our lives for it.
As Aristotle described the method of gaining the virtues, he
suggested the best way to integrate a particular virtue is to emulate those who
already embody it. If you want to be of great courage, learn to live like one
who demonstrates courage. Follow them, watch what they do, how they interact
with the world. And the process of learning will be most successful when we become
friends with those whose lives we seek to emulate.
I am like my friends. You are too. We adopt certain characteristics—both
good and bad—from our friends. We are known by the company we keep. I learned
this informally, intuitively, as my friendships developed over the years. I
remember forming certain friendships because I wanted to become like that other
person. And I have let friendships die because they became destructive of who I
wanted to be.
Aristotle described three kinds of friendship. There are friendships
that are useful; they allow us to make business connections or get into
a particular social group. Other friendships are pleasurable; we enjoy hanging
out with one another. The third kind of friendship—the best kind—is for the
sake of friendship itself. This kind of friendship is formative: we become like
one another. In this way, a true friend who loves as God loves will, in time,
teach us how to love as God loves.
The disciples were following Jesus, learning from Jesus,
because they wanted to become like Jesus. They wanted to live lives of great
love, self-sacrificing love, agape love. They had been servants, followers, students.
Now, as Jesus prepared them for his departure, he brought them to another level.
No longer servants, but friends. No longer subordinates, but equal partners.
Jesus chose them, and brought them into his being, to abide in love.
When Jesus said, “You are my friends,” he was describing the
formative kind of friendship that Aristotle called the best kind. They had
learned to love Jesus as the best kind of friend. They had learned to love one
another as Jesus had loved them. They had become more than companions or fellow
students. They had become true friends, learning from one another how to embody
agape love.
We are called into this kind of relationship with one
another. We are invited into a friendship with Jesus and those who embody the
love of Jesus. And more than that: through our relationship with Christ, we enter
into the agape love of God. We may not be able to imagine being friends with
God. It is perhaps incomprehensible to think of becoming like God in the way
that we love. But in the person of Jesus, we can begin to understand this friendship.
In the course of a lifetime, we can take on God’s characteristics as our own—and
love one another as God loves us. My friends in Christ, love one another as Jesus
loves you. Amen.
[1] The
scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard
Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of
the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2]
David S Cunningham, Theological Perspective on John 15:9-17 in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised
Common Lectionary, Year B, Vol. 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown
Taylor, General Editors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p. 498.
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