A while back, I met a woman who had Multiple Myeloma and a teenage daughter. Cherie went through many exploratory treatments for her cancer, but each time, the cancer came back. Facing the end of her life with grace and courage, she shared on facebook some things she was doing to help her daughter remember her after she was gone. One of those things was signing greeting cards for her daughter’s upcoming milestones that she will miss: 16th birthday, graduation, 21st birthday and so on. She was then going to give the cards to a friend to give to her daughter on those milestones, so that her daughter could have these love letters from her mother after she died. So her daughter could remember her mother’s love even after her mother died.
I imagine the scene in today’s Gospel is much like those letters from my friend to her daughter. Jesus knows that he will no longer be with his dear friends and disciples much longer. He says, “in a little while the world will no longer see me.” In the previous chapter of John, he had just celebrated Passover with them and washed the disciples’ feet. He knows he won’t be with them much longer. He knows he’s going to be with his own Father, and he wants to give them love and advice and support for after he’s gone. And so, in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus gives the disciples – and us – two main love letters to cherish after his death:
- Words of Comfort
- The Comforter – the Advocate – the Holy Spirit
So let’s look into these two things that Jesus gives as love letters from someone who knows he will die to us. First, let’s start with Jesus’ words of comfort. He begins,
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
John 14:15
At first glance, this might seem like Jesus is bringing back legalism or a zero-sum game or is some kind of authoritarian father telling us that the only way we’ll love him is that we will be coerced into obeying his commandments. “If you love me, you WILL keep my commandments. OR ELSE.” Like when a parent tells a kid that they better follow the rules or else and gives them the side eye. But I don’t imagine that is how Jesus means these words to be interpreted. Instead, I imagine Jesus is describing how love works. Jesus is saying that if you love me, if you are so filled with love for me and my Father, then out of that overflowing of love, you will naturally keep my commandments. Sure, maybe you’ll mess up now and again, but when you love me, Jesus is saying, you can’t help but keep my commandments. They are simply two sides of the same coin. Not because you’re coerced to love, but because you can’t help but love. Love is something that is freely given, not forced. If you love someone, you will do the things that are important to them.
When my two kids who are now teenagers were both under the age of 3 and I was a stay at home mom, I would tell my then-husband that the sexiest thing he could do was to wash the dishes for me. If he loved me, he would wash the dishes. Not because I was forcing him to, but because I was exhausted from two babies and if he could just help me out with the dishes, then I would be forever grateful. This is the kind of love that Jesus is talking about – if we love him, we will keep his commandments because it’s an extension of our love. And this is our calling always, but especially in this time.
If we love Jesus, we will keep his commandments begs the question: What exactly are Jesus’ commandments? You all are wonderful saints, and I’m sure you know these two commandments by heart:
- Love God.
- Love your neighbor as yourself.
Let’s be real. As simple as those two commandments are, they are hard to practice. And they’re really hard right now.
Loving God is hard right now.
We’re separated for worship. Which is makes it hard to worship God and show God our love like we’re used to.
Plus, it’s hard to make sense of the world when it’s uncertain. It never fails that when something bad happens in the world, there is some fool out there that says that God brought this bad thing upon the world because God is punishing us for xyz. I’m here as someone with a fancy seminary degree to say that’s hogwash. God did not create the coronavirus to punish us. God did not create the coronavirus to force us to think about God more or pray more. God did not even create the coronavirus to get us to stay home with our families or help global warming or any of these things that are fortunate byproducts of this time we’re in. No, the coronavirus is simply a fact of the world that we live in that is not fully the Kingdom of Heaven on earth yet. It’s made worse by sin and greed and racism and income inequality, and perhaps the coronavirus is exposing these things, but God did not create the coronavirus to punish us. God might use these things for God’s own glory, but it’s not a punishment, even if it feels like it might be. And it’s hard to love God when it feels like God might be punishing us and we don’t know what the future holds on this side of heaven.
But God is still God, and we still love God because God is God (and we aren’t) during these times. Not only that, we worship a God who understands what it’s like to suffer. Jesus understood suffering. Our God suffered on a cross. And Jesus tells us that despite that suffering that he fully understands – if we love him, we’ll keep his commandment to love God the Father.
So we still love God because we know that the suffering is not the end. We know that while we worship a God who suffered on the cross, that’s not the end of the story. Jesus conquered death and suffering, and we live into that resurrection hope – especially into that resurrection hope during this season of Easter that we are still in until the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost. Which Jesus promised too – but we’ll get to the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised us in a minute. Loving God can be hard right now because people are hurting and it’s hard to think about God allowing that. But loving God is knowing that the suffering isn’t the end and holding on to our Resurrection Easter hope despite that.
Which brings us to the other commandment that’s also hard right now: loving our neighbor as ourselves. This is the one I’m really having a hard time with, y’all. I live down in Brazoria County, and every time I go to HEB or even worse apparently has been going to Lowe’s, I am surrounded by people that get in my six foot bubble of space or go the wrong way down the one way aisles in the store or refuse to wear masks despite the fact that every expert says it’s for both our good and the good of the most vulnerable around us. I would love for just one day that I didn’t have to ask the question, “what is wrong with these people?” by the time I got home from the store. Loving my neighbor is hard right now. I am full of resentment and anger. It’s even harder to be on social media than it is to go to the store it seems. My feed is full of people who I am friends with that are sharing conspiracy theories right and left. Even worse is when I dare to read the comments section on the facebook page of my local newspaper. I try not to do that because I lose faith in humanity every time I read those comments. I recently read that conspiracy theorists aren’t actually looking for truth – they’re looking for a feeling. I’ve been thinking about that a lot when I scroll through my feed. Perhaps that is true – perhaps these conspiracy theorist friends are looking for hope and certainty in the midst of randomness and fear. And that has helped me love my neighbor a little better and extend them a little bit of grace imagining that these people sharing fake news are searching for certainty and order in the midst of a disease that strikes seemingly at random. It hasn’t been easy to love my neighbors, and it’s only by the grace of God that I could get that far, but I’m trying. I’m trying to love my neighbor because I know that I can still have hope in the resurrected Jesus. And I can love my neighbor because we aren’t alone in this. Jesus gives us not just the love letter of keeping his commandments, but he promises us the Advocate. The Comforter. The Holy Spirit.
So the second love letter that Jesus leaves us is Jesus promising that the Father “will give us another Advocate, to be with us forever. This is the Spirit of Truth” that we will know and we will have the Spirit with us because God abides in us and we abide in God. Jesus tells us that he will not leave us orphaned, and that he will give us life. These are the promises of hope we live into even when loving God and loving neighbor is hard. And it’s the same Holy Spirit that came to the early church like when Paul was preaching to the Athenians as he was in the first reading. And it’s the same Holy Spirit that comes upon us in baptism like Peter wrote about in the second reading. And the Holy Spirit continues to be with us.
The Holy Spirit continues to be with us and not leave orphaned. Or as the Psalm says today, God’s steadfast love will not be removed from us. Even when, as the Psalm also says, God has tested us and tried us and laid burdens on our backs, “truly God has listened.” “God has given heed to the words of our prayers.” This is our hope in unsteady times. God is with us. God will not leave us orphaned. Not when we’re quarantined for 2 months. Not when there’s a global pandemic raging outside. Not when everyone acts a fool in Lowe’s and Kroger and HEB. God will not leave us orphaned. The Advocate will be with us forever. Because Christ lives, we also will live. Christ abides in us, and Christ will be in us.
And on that thought, I will close us in a portion of a prayer from Saint Patrick:
“Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in the eye that sees me, Christ in the ear that hears me.
I arise today Through the mighty strength Of the Lord of creation. Amen.”
A sermon given to St. Francis of Assisi Episcopal Church in Prairie View, TX on May 17, 2020.