The Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 16, 2021
Madison Bishop
It’s pretty amazing to me how the lectionary texts always seem to have something pertinent to say to our present moment. To me, this is further proof that the Holy Spirit never misses an opportunity to stir our imaginations and enliven the biblical texts in a way that speaks to us even thousands of years later.
We are on the cusp of a massive turning point, we are moving into a weird and weird and murky period of transition as a country, as smaller communities, as individuals, and even for some of us, as new graduates! It’s a weird time: people getting vaccinated, finally seeing some people in your life you haven’t seen in a while, public safety restrictions loosening, and getting to worship in our church building again. We are all responding in different ways, some of us more ready to return to a sense of normalcy and some of us going at a slower pace. Regardless of where you personally fall on that spectrum, we are ALL in a time of deep transition. We are all thinking about “how to be” in this “new normal” as we navigate our relationships to one another.
It seems fitting that in one of the biggest transition moments of his life, Jesus stops to pray for himself and the disciples. Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet, had his last supper with them, given them his commandment to “love one another as I have loved you,” and now in the very next chapter he will be betrayed and arrested. And Jesus chooses to pray for his followers. Jesus knows that he is going to be leaving the disciples and in this final prayer before his arrest, he prays for protection over them as he commissions them to go into the world as messengers of the Truth.
This is a big transition for the disciples, too. Their leader is about to be killed by the authorities, and they will have to live on without him (they don’t know yet about the Holy Spirit). Jesus knows that his teachings are not easy and that the disciples will be tempted to turn away from him and give into the desire for wealth, power, and prestige. He knows that his teachings won’t make them popular with the people in power.
We are in a time somewhat similar to the disciples: on the brink of huge change and without Jesus standing next to us to tell us how to go on. But before Jesus leaves the disciples he prays that they might be sanctified in the truth and that God’s word is that truth. We are to lean into God, to commune with him, and to study the living word that is Jesus. “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” We heard these words last Sunday and they resound through this prayer. As Jesus’ disciples, we are to “hang in there” with God, to abide in him, to meditate on scripture, and to be in communication with God through prayer.
“I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.” As we spend time with Christ, we slowly become more and more like him, being made holy as he himself is holy, being sanctified in him as he himself has been sanctified.
As we abide in his love, we grow in our love for one another. Jesus says that it is by our love for one another that people will know that we are followers of him. The commandment that God gave to us is that we love one another as he loved us. That is what we are being sent into the world to do, to love boldly and courageously. The love that Jesus calls us to is not just a gushy emotion, but the kind of love that leads you to lay down your life for another. Jesus asked the disciples to make hard decisions about how they were to live their lives and Jesus’ love invites us to that same type of transformation. To love others will mean to turn away from temptation, to turn away from enticing offers of more power and more money, and to live in a way that seems to mock the status quo. Jesus is no fool, and knows that this kind of love-filled life will lead to tough choices and perhaps even public scrutiny. For Jesus it looked like taking up his cross and laying down his life for the sake of others.
Much has been revealed to us in the past 14/15 months and for some, not a revelation but only further proof of the brokenness of our institutions and our deep disconnect with the suffering of another: We have seen and experienced the ways white supremacy infects our institutions and our own hearts. We have seen and experienced the ways wealthier areas were prioritized and received better access to the vaccines. And we looked at empty shelves for weeks as people hoarded toilet paper or even just last week, as people hoarded gas out of fear of not having enough. And maybe for some of us, maybe we realized just how much we prioritized our own comfort over the needs of others.
So how will we live differently? As followers of Jesus, how is God calling us to live into Christ-like love in this post-yet still present-pandemic world? How are we being sanctified in the truth and living out that truth in the world?
There is much for us to think about…but the hope is this: that God is with us through it all. Next week is Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descends upon the disciples. And we have God’s spirit with us, picking us up when we fall, loving us when we mess up, and transforming us more and more into the likeness of Christ, the One who showed us a new way of living. AMEN.