A Wee Blether

Here’s the sermon from tonight’s service (spiffy audio above). I didn’t feel good giving it at all–completely my fault in not preparing well enough–but the audio turned out better than I had feared.

I accepted three edits via the wiki page, and though they didn’t change things substantively, they did improve the sermon, and give it an interesting community feeling for me when preaching (lots more to consider here, but when I have more energy.)

Ayr: St. Columba Church
Evening Communion, April 27, 2008

Like a Sonnet
John 14:19-25

My senior year at university, an honor society hosted a lecture series called “My Last Lecture.” I have to admit, the concept for the series did not originate with us, but it did bring highly entertaining and thought-provoking lectures. The idea was that a chosen professor each month would give a lecture as if it was the last lecture she or he would ever give. After thousands of lectures on specific subjects related to their fields, professors enjoyed the challenge of lecturing as if it were their last opportunity.

And so in their last lectures, a religion professor applied the lessons learned from the infamous Salem Witch Trials to contemporary religious life. An English professor spoke on the enduring nature of John Milton. A professor of American Studies–known as a strong critic of America–gave an inspiring lecture entitled, “Why I Love America.” By all accounts, the Last Lecture Series was a great success.

I said earlier those of us at my university didn’t come up with the idea for the Last Lecture series, and to tell you the truth, I’m not really sure where the concept originated–it’s been percolating in America for years. But a close reader of the gospel of John might just credit Jesus with the idea.

You see in John’s gospel, Jesus gives a long–almost lecture-like–talk right before he was betrayed and arrested. Tonight’s reading falls smack dab in the middle of Jesus’ last lecture. As Christians who repeat these same words with regularity, we can say his last lecture is a success.

Remain steadfast in love, and Jesus will support those loving endeavors with the advocate, Holy Spirit.

If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever….I will not leave you orphaned.

Like any good lecturer, Jesus knows exactly what he’s saying, and addresses his audience specifically. A bit earlier Jesus told his students, his followers do not let your hearts be troubled because Jesus knew how challenging the events of the next weekend would prove to be.

So Jesus emphasizes how the disciples would never be alone–Jesus will ask the Father, he says, and all will be taken care of. The Father will love them, and Jesus will later come to make his home with them. Comfort, support, love.

But Jesus’ lecture is not only support; it’s also a call to action. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. All this talk of Jesus’ love for the disciples calls for a response, Jesus says. It’s a love put into action, a love calling for devotion, a love of feelings–yes–but also of putting orders into practice.

Certainly, Jesus wants our feelings, but he wants so much more: our obedience.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Now the English translation here could be clearer. Jesus isn’t instituting a litmus test for commandment keeping, highlighting only those who enact perfect true love. Rather Jesus, in this context, is describing what he already knows. A better translation might be:

If you love me, and I know you do, you will keep my commandments.
If you love me, and I am sure you will, you will keep my commandments.

Authentic love is most truly demonstrated in how one acts. Followers of Christ show Christ’s love in how we live interacting with one another every day of our lives.

If there were an exam following Jesus’ last lecture, it would not be a fill-in-the-blank test or even include essay questions. The exam would not cover grammar, math, or physical education. Nor would the exam cover only a part of our life–did we go to church on Sunday, were we sometimes fair in our business dealings, did we treat others with respect, you get the picture. Jesus’ final exam would test us on our entire life. Did we live as Jesus commanded? Did every mirror in our life shine with obedience?

Responding to Jesus words, “keep my commandments” we might ask, “What commandments?”

For as Jaime Clark-Soles points out, “Unlike, say, Matthew, nowhere in John does Jesus command us to go the second mile, turn the other cheek, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Famously, Jesus gives only a single commandment in John and it occurs in the chapter just before ours: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (13.34-35).”

At the end of the lecture, Jesus reiterates the same commandment saying, “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.”

As Bill Coffin puts it of his fellow Christians, “If we fail in love, we fail in all things else.”

So Jesus isn’t calling for a highers exam in love, Jesus isn’t calling for a narrow check-list of love items one can tick off. In John’s gospel, the love for which Jesus calls is both open ended and intense. It’s a command–you will keep my commandments–but an affirming one all the same.

I studied English in university, and though I had a bit more emphasis in contemporary writing, my education would have been lacking if it hadn’t included the study of the sonnet form of poetry.

Sonnets, you may remember, are made up of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter.
To be recognized as a sonnet, a poem must have fourteen lines and a particular rhyme scheme.

Here’s a good example from a poet you may have heard of, Robert Burns:

A Sonnet upon Sonnets

Fourteen, a sonneteer thy praises sings;
What magic myst’ries in that number lie!
Your hen hath fourteen eggs beneath her wings
That fourteen chickens to the roost may fly.
Fourteen full pounds the jockey’s stone must be;
His age fourteen–a horse’s prime is past.
Fourteen long hours too oft the Bard must fast;
Fourteen bright bumpers–bliss he ne’er must see!
Before fourteen, a dozen yields the strife;
Before fourteen–e’en thirteen’s strength is vain.
Fourteen good years–a woman gives us life;
Fourteen good men–we lose that life again.
What lucubrations can be more upon it?
Fourteen good measur’d verses make a sonnet.

A sonnet with its fourteen lines of rhyming iambic pentameter has rules, within these rules, however, amazing possibilities for creativity, emotion, and expression present themselves.

When Jesus says, “keep (or obey) my commandments” he does so in the sense of a sonnet. If one obeys the lining and rhyme scheme, great freedom and beautiful possibilities result. If we always strive to follow the rule of love, glorious things will occur.

If we obey Jesus’ command to love, we will treat all others with respect and dignity.
If we obey Jesus’ command to love, we will forgive our neighbors even when it’s most difficult.
If we obey Jesus’ command to love–truly obey–we will find beauty in our relationships that a closed heart could never imagine.

Friends, our world is in sore need of glimpses of this love. As the genocide in Sudan gets worse and worse, as more British citizens struggle under the burden of rising petrol and food costs, as children grow up knowing only one parent, as politicians score points for the evening news but accomplish little, our world needs Christians to obey Christ’s command to love.

The word “revival” is not a popular one in American or Scottish Presbyterianism, but a Virigina poet, Michael Rew, writes a sonnet that gets it just right. It’s entitled “Revival of Love.”

Revival of Love
by Michael Rew

We set our hands to plowing, but looked back
and were not fit to work the Master’s field.
But when we prayed and turned, the land was healed.
Now we shall work again and not be slack,
and God shall bless us till we cannot stack
the sheaves we bring rejoicing from the yield
God pours from heaven once we have appealed
His mercy in our brokenness and lack.
It is a burden light, an easy yoke,
to go forth weeping, bearing precious seed,
and sow it in the fallow ground we broke
and watch with prayer so neither thorn nor weed
can spring up in a bitter root to choke
revival of the love we sorely need.

As the writer of the epistle of John puts it, we love because God first loved us. In Jesus Christ, we have the ultimate example of love, the knowledge that we are loved by God and the good news that nothing can separate us from that love. In responding to what God has already done for us, we live out Christ’s commandments of love. We must show-forth love in every aspect our lives.

Another poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, illustrates this love in her sonnets. One professor writes of Browning, “Students often find [Browning] confusing on the subject of God, Love, and [her husband].” The professor explains, though, that for Browning no confusion exists. For her, God is Love, and her love for others–particularly her husband–brings God’s love into concrete form. Love for people brings God’s love to form. She concludes that, in Browning’s understanding, the “flame of love is divine in origin; it burns through lovers; its fire distills all lesser metal out; what remains is the pure essence.”

In closing, Sonnet #43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

SONNET #43, FROM THE PORTUGUESE
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

May we all love Christ, and keep his commandments to love one another. Amen.

Credits (because footnotes are hard in wordpress)…

- “one professor” in the last paragraph is Virginia Radley as quoted here

- the Last Lecture idea came from The Rev. Barbara K. Lundblad in her sermon here
- the Jamie Clark-Sole quote may be found here