When I was a boy, our family lived near Grant Park in the heart of Atlanta. We didn't have little league ball back then. We youngsters would simply gather at the ball field in the park and play whatever game was in season. Two of the bigger boys would always be captains and choose sides. I was younger and smaller than most of them and would stand on the edge of the gang hoping to be selected. More than once, the captains would complete their choices, then look over at me--all forlorn and about to cry--and one of them would say, "You can have Jones." Now, that didn't do much to build my confidence, as you can imagine, but at least I got in the game.
The key to the Scripture of the day is that Christ has chosen us, asked that we be on his side, a member of his team. We didn't pick him. He sought us out, recruited us as it were--not by coercion, nor by conscription, but out of loving care, out of belief in us, out of concern that we get to know him, enjoy fellowship together, and become all we are capable of being. This is the key to understanding the message of the Bible. All we are and do as people of faith is in response--get that word, in response to our Creator's gracious overtures and actions in our behalf. We are called, chosen, and cherished by the One who created us. What an honor and privilege!
When I was serving as Bishop of the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, I stopped by one day in Greensboro to visit with Dr. John A. Redhead. He has since died. "Jack" Redhead, as his friends called him, was then 85 years old and minister emeritus of First Presbyterian Church there in Greensboro, where he had been senior pastor for many, many years. He was one of the most popular preachers ever to appear on this program. As we wound up an intimate, lengthy chat, I leaned forward and asked, "Dr. Redhead, what is the summation, the bottom line of your long life of over 60 years of ministry?" He paused thoughtfully and then said, "The satisfaction of doing God's will and enjoying fellowship with Jesus Christ in doing it." That's powerful!
Can you imagine any greater fulfillment than that? You don't have to be an ordained minister to experience it. That's God's gracious offer to every one of us. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the revered German martyr who was killed resisting Hitler's Third Reich in 1945, described the church as "Christ taking form in a body of believers." Did you get that? "Christ taking form in a body of believers." Scientists are realizing more surely each day that this world in which we exist is not a gigantic machine. It is a vital, dynamic, creative, ecological network of life--producing and sustaining energy, pulsating among interrelating systems throughout the universe. Even so, the church is not so much an institution with rules, regulations, and rituals as it is an intricate body of relationships. More than an organization, it's an organism--people who love God, seek to do God's will, love and cherish each other, treat others with dignity and honesty, gladly caring for each other's needs, and building bridges of understanding and peace.
There's a word for it. Mark Twain said the difference between a word and the right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. That word is covenant. The concept goes back to antiquity, to Noah, in fact. By the way, you may have heard about the grandfather who was telling this story of Noah and the flood to his four-year-old grandson. The kid looked up at his granddad and asked, "Papa, were you in the ark?" "Why, no, Son, I certainly wasn't," said the grandfather. "Then why didn't you drown?" said the boy. God's covenant with Noah was renewed periodically, with Abraham, Moses, the prophets, and then, alas, with Jesus in the new covenant.
You see, a covenant is not the same as a contract. A contract is a binding legal agreement between two or more parties for the doing or not doing of something specified. A covenant, on the other hand, is very personal, an act of faith and trust between individuals. It's a spiritual bond, a moral commitment. The words of our text are a last will and testament between Jesus and his disciples. The Lord bares his soul in his last hours on earth. These are famous last words, you see. He makes it clear to his followers that they are not servants--but friends. What a distinction! A servant does not know what his master is doing, as Jesus pointed out. Friends, on the other hand, are absolutely open and honest with each other. Said Jesus to his disciples, "I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. We have shared fully and freely." And most important of all, friends value each other's lives as much as they value their own. They are willing to lay their lives down for each other.
My dentist was drilling away on my teeth one day, and he thought Novocain was not needed. He struck a nerve that went all the way to my big toe, and I would have yelled but for the stuff in my mouth. And the dentist simply said, "That's getting down to where you live, isn't it?" It certainly was. And so it is with the Scripture of today.
Pursue with me at this point a dimension of friendship we sometimes overlook--mutual friendship. How often have you met up with a stranger and in the conversation discovered that you both knew another individual? Immediately your words became more animated, your interest was heightened, the vibes were stronger. You were prepared to get to know each other better, perhaps even arrange to get the three of you together. So it is in the community of faith.
Dr. Peter Storey, a great spiritual leader in South Africa who worked along with Archbishop Tutu and President Nelson Mandela in dismantling apartheid, says that when we invite Christ into our lives, he insists that we let him bring his friends with him. Jesus made it unmistakable that we cannot truly love him and not also love those he loves and those for whom he died. We must love even those we do not or cannot like, for Christ's sake.
Look ahead in John's Gospel to chapter 17--the high priestly prayer of our Lord. He intercedes earnestly with his Father that his followers may be one, even as he and the Father are one. He prays that we will love each other as He and his father love one another and us. This love is eminently important today as conflict across the earth mounts politically, ideologically, militarily, and religiously. Times such as these call for mature faith and reconciling love--indeed for open minds, open hearts, and open doors.
One more aspect of our text is necessary for the message to be complete, and that is Jesus' urgent appeal that our lives make a difference by being fruitful. The late Dr. Paul Sherer quickens the conscience and heightens the imagination with this insight and I quote:
The fundamental joy of being a Christian consists not in being good. I get tired of that. But in standing with God against some darkness or some void and watching the light come. The joy of religion is in having your fling by the mercies of God, at shaping where you are, as a potter shapes a vase, one corner of God's eternal Kingdom.
This can happen when we get it right, that is, when we catch on to Jesus' analogy of himself as the vine, you and I as the branches, and God as the vinedresser. That system works: The vine drawing its energy from the sun, the soil, and rain; you and I drawing strength from the vine; and God controlling and cultivating the whole process. God, after all, has chosen us. God is with and in us, and God is in charge empowering us. You see, as committed Christians we are not doing our work. We're not even doing God's work. God is doing God's work through us!
That's why Jesus makes the astounding statement that the Father will give us whatever we ask in his name--not anything we want, not anything that we might try to do, but what God wants and wills to do through us. And let us never forget: The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, and that's the main thing. And what is the main thing? To love one another.
Let us pray.
Our hearts overflow with gratitude, O God, that you honor us as your friends. What a privilege to be partners with you in establishing your reign of reconciliation and righteousness. You have blended our lives into a succession of pilgrims of faith through the ages and with millions across the earth today, may we rise above doctrinal, racial, cultural differences and be one in faith, love, and devotion. We ask not for tasks equal to our powers but for power equal to the tasks you would have us do. To the end that your kingdom may come and your will be done through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.