Year B
 Acts 10:44-48
 Psalm 98
 1 John 5:1-6
 John 15:9-17

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

How well do we know ourselves…  are we aware of the underlying motivations for every choice we make…  have we ever discovered something about ourselves which surprised us…  are there walls which keep others from knowing us…  or have they come down…  have all of them come down…

On the Meyer Briggs personality inventory… I’m an INFJ… as are many clergy… though among the general population… this particular combination is in the minority… INFJ means introverted… intuitive… feeling… and judging… it means that I need quiet time more than I need noisy parties…  that I can trust my gut along with external information…  that I lean more towards feelings instead of thoughts…  and that I can make a decision without plowing through piles of information… 

But knowing more about how I am… about how I tick… makes it easier for me to let go of outcomes… of letting what others want…  seize the day…  so for example…   if I want to see movie A… and Joel wants to see movie B… it can be easier for me… sometimes… to go with B… after all… it’s still seeing a movie… if I want to go to restaurant A… and Joel wants to go to restaurant B… it can be easier for me… sometimes… to go with B… after all… it’s still eating out… and it’s because my sense of identity… my sense of self-worth… doesn’t come from movie A or restaurant A… my sense of self-worth comes from the inside… from being a beloved child of God…

In today’s Gospel… Jesus says… No one has greater love than this… to lay down one’s life for one’s friends… but are we really meant to take this only literally… does Jesus expect this only of himself… or of others… does he refer to nothing more than a willingness to die… the way soldiers might sacrifice themselves to protect their fellow service men and women… or the way a parent would sacrifice him or herself to save their child… ]  or does Jesus also mean something more than that… something deeper than that…

In John 10:18… Jesus says… No one takes my life from me… I have power to lay it down… and I have power to take it up again… again… are we meant to take this only at face value… or does Jesus mean something more than that… something deeper than that… perhaps we can also understand that his self-emptying…  allows him to die to his ego… perhaps his servanthood allows him to put others first… that he can let his own human needs die… so that the needs of others come first… that he can let his wants die so that the wants of others come first…  and that he understands our selfishness… after all… it says in Hebrews 4:15 that we have a high priest who can not only sympathize with our weaknesses… but who has been tempted in all things as we are… ]  so Jesus knows the kinds of struggles each one of us faces… he knows every variable that feeds into our choices… ]  he too asked…  that if possible… the cup be taken from him…

But maybe he can let go more easily… of the things to which we are attached… because all things came into being through him… because all of creation is his… ]  and he is so rooted in the Ground of Being… he is so at One with the Godhead in every way that that matters… that what rises to the top for him each and every time… the only things that rise to the top for him… are God’s needs… God’s preferences… and God’s will…

And Jesus said to his disciples… As the Father has loved me… so I have loved you… abide in my love… ]  for many of us… we take this at face value without going very deep… or we project our own limited understanding… make our own meaning out of these words… and we may conclude something different than what Jesus meant… so I have to ask… just exactly how did… the Father love Jesus… and just exactly how did… he love the disciples… and the one word… the only word really… that rises to the top for me… is unconditionally… he loved them whether they understood what he said or not… he loved them whether they did what he wanted or not… he loved them whether they betrayed him or not… he loved them whether they denied him or not… he just loved them…

He first showed his love when he incarnates… the Word made the choice to dwell among us and became flesh… taking on all that it means to be human… the stark reality of the human condition… he weeps over Lazarus… he heals the sick… he washes feet…  he comes out of the Garden and hands his life over… and he died and rose again… and all of these things are expressions of love…

Again… Jesus said… If you keep my commandments… you will abide in my love… just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love… and this is my commandment… that you love one another… as I have loved you… the Greek verb that’s translated as abide… means… to remain in a state of being… Jesus then… commands us to love one another unconditionally… and to remain in that state of being which allows love to flow out from us unconditionally… unrestricted…

We learned last week in 1John… that those who say… I love God… but hate their brothers or sisters… are liars… because those who do not love a brother or sister who they can see… cannot love God who they cannot see…  and Ch. 5 in today’s Epistle… continues that theme… when we love God and obey God’s commandments… then we also love God’s children… that is… all of our neighbors… because without a doubt… what we believe about Jesus… determines our understanding of love… and our understanding of love…  determines our behavior…

Sometimes I wonder if we’re so focused on the Divine… that we’ve forgotten how to be fully human… ] sometimes I wonder if making ourselves as human… as vulnerable as we can… would cause us to feel the world’s pain… the way Jesus did… and we’d be moved to do as much as we can to heal it… to heal it…  as a way of honoring the love we’ve witnessed… ] sometimes I wonder if the physical walls we want to build out in the world… are really extensions of the walls that first existed in our hearts… and which we want to project out into the world… or onto others… but maybe what we need to do is use the faith referred to in 1 John… to outworld the world… to shift our focus from the world… to God… who loves us unconditionally… ] and there’s an idea I heard years ago… about unconditional love… I think it’s deceptively simple yet unfathomably profound… and it says… I love you… and it’s no concern of yours… and if we can imagine God saying this to us… if we can imagine God expecting nothing from us in exchange for this love… if we are simply the recipients of God’s grace and forgiveness and reconciliation without price…  then it must become a bit easier each time… for us to relinquish our lives… our desires… our preferences… our selves…  in favor of the Other… or in my case…  movie B…