The Shepherd’s Voice

Readings for Sunday, May 17th
Acts 8:26-40
Ps 22:25-31
1Jn 5:1-6
Jn 15:9-17

The Shepherd’s Voice – Sermon Audio

Why are you here? Why are you here today? Why are you here, at Good Shepherd Lutheran, on Sunday May 17, 2009? What does God want you to hear, to absorb this morning in this service? Could this be an appointment with God for a purpose?

When Isaiah the prophet was giving encouragement to God’s people about leaving Babylon and returning to their homeland he told them they must first repent, but he also told them of a promise God makes to all of us, “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

In other words, My Word will not return void, it will accomplish its intended purpose in our hearts, our lives, and God’s church. Remember this promise. This is a backdrop not only for today’s message, but it’s a backdrop anytime we read or encounter the gospel.

Our Gospel text today (John 15:9-17) is sort of a flashback for us. It should be familiar territory. During Lent John, Scott, and I went to the other churches in our cluster group with a message and a drama. It was a fun excursion and the message we delivered was the same each evening. God called the disciples, God calls us. We are all sinners and in response to God’s Word, God’s invitation to us, we must learn to accept, love, and forgive. These are elements of what it means to love one another.

First, Jesus provides a little history for his disciples – “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” As a parent loves a child, our Father, our mother, our caretakers demonstrate that love for us.

When I was growing up my father used to rock me in his favorite chair. I have some very fond memories of sitting on my fathers lap. These are very early memories, tender memories. I can picture the chair, the living room, the surroundings where we would often sit. I remember it as a very peaceful time. I would sit there and my father would stroke me and I would love to fall asleep in his arms.

If you never experienced this kind of love from a parent as a child perhaps it’s hard to relate to this passage. If we haven’t experienced loving parents, a loving spouse, or loving someone to whom you looked up to and respected, some other person in your life who has shown great love for you, it’s likely hard to relate to this passage.

Are you getting a sense of why it’s so important to show love to people around us, to our children, to people we work with, to people we go to church with. Jesus wanted his disciples to connect with this metaphor of a loving father. Scripture is full of similar kinds of word pictures analogies that convey a loving caretaker, father, mother.

Jesus’ message to us today, is not so much in the form of an invitation, but it comes to us in the form of a command, we are to love one another. Last week we talked about law and gospel, and how as Lutherans we often look at scripture through this lens. (not a bad thing) Again we have a command and promise in this text, we see law and gospel.

Jesus said if you keep my commandments (the law), you will abide in my love (the promise). Then He goes on to say “This is my commandment that you love one another.”

Here is where some of us get fouled up, confused, frustrated and perhaps we say to ourselves that ain’t ever goin’ to happen.

Some years back I worked as a consultant in a company and I was hired in at a fairly senior position. I was under the impression at the time I could work with anyone. I could like them, like their actions and as a result they would always like me in return. One year, just prior to the summer season I was given a fairly large project, several project managers, many business analysts, many programmers, and a few support people.

Being close to summer I was preparing for people to be out on vacation, including myself. I was giving assignments, developing the team, working on developing good relationships with the large team by using team building and it seemed like things were going along pretty well. I did have a sense that one of the project mangers wasn’t real happy with the way things were going so I paid particular attention to him and his needs.

I went on vacation for about two weeks, went back to Minnesota and thought all was well. When I returned I was called into a meeting with the owner of the company and a few other senior members of the company. I found out while I was gone that this project manager had undercut the estimate and now as the project was about to begin we were going to have great difficulty in completing the project on time and in budget.

In consulting you have three legs or elements that you work with all the time to control a project. You have scope, time and money. Al three need to be managed because changing one leg can dramatically influence one of the other elements. In our case time and money were fixed so the only variable that could change was scope, but from the clients perspective that could really change either.

To make a long story short, all the effort, energy, time, relationship building I had done with this one project manger, who was a key person in this project was for naught. The guy didn’t like me (I think he wanted my job) and as a result this major project was in jeopardy. Millions of dollars were at stake. I learned to eat a lot of crow during this project and I discovered that like and love are two different animals.

Sometimes we find it hard, if not impossible to like someone and I don’t know why that is at times, but Jesus’ command is not about like it’s about love. Loving one another forces us beyond the feeling if liking someone or some thing. Liking usually stems from having things in common, we are both from Minnesota, so we both talk funny.

Love is more about God giving us a willingness to accept another person no matter what. Love is more about God giving us a heart to care for a person who is unlikable, maybe unlovable in a general sense, a person who may be very different from us, have different political views, like different foods, have different ideas about entertainment, have different values.

How many people have heard of or ever gone to Marriage Encounter? If you have you have heard or been told over and over again that love is not a feeling it’s an action. Love is what we do for someone because we believe it’s the best thing for someone else’s benefit.

Love is not a feeling, it’s not lust, it’s not infatuation, it’s not liking – it’s an action, a verb!

Jesus said there is no greater love then this that we are willing to lay down our life for a friend. Does that sound like a feeling, like sentiment – NO, it’s an action. Jesus said to his disciples you are my friends, implying that he was going to lay down his life for them.

Today you have an appointment with God. If your wondering about that Jesus said “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” What is fruit that will last?

In 1946, Czeslaw Godlewski was a member of a young gang that roamed and sacked the German countryside. On an isolated farm they gunned down ten members of the Wilhelm Hamelmann family. Nine of the victims died, (it was tragic) but Wilhelm Hamelmann himself survived his four bullet wounds.
Godlewski recently completed a twenty-year prison term for his crimes, but the state would not release him because he had nowhere to go. When Wilhelm Hamelmann learned of the situation, he asked the authorities to release Godlewski to his custody. He wrote in his request, “Christ died for my sins and forgave me. Should I not then forgive this man?”

When you break love down as I said it’s a verb, an action word. It’s all about acceptance, forgiveness, a willingness to lay down our life for a friend. Respecting a person we may not like or even know very well.

What is fruit that will last as we learn how to love one another? Is life all about good works? No!

In our second reading (1 John 5:4) it says, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith.

Martin Luther had this revelation. In his lecture on Galatians he said, “Christian faith is not an idle quality or an empty husk in the heart, which may exist in a state of mortal sin until love comes along to make it alive……True faith takes hold of Christ….. it possesses this treasure, the present Christ.” True faith bears one anothers burdens.

Good works do not drive faith or salvation, but faith releases us for good works of love. When we have an appointment with the Holy One, the Creator of all we become new creatures in Christ set apart to love one another, set apart for good works of love.

We must examine our motives, take an inventory of our hearts and allow our faith, along with God’s grace, Christ’s love and ultimately our hands to do the work for which God created us.

Our appointment with God today is to love one another, amen.

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