Easter 6

Opening Verse of Scripture Psalm 51:17

The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart He will not despise.

Collect Prayer for the Day—Before we read we pray

God our redeemer, you have delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your Son: grant, that as by his death he has recalled us to life, so by his continual presence in us he may raise us to eternal joy; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Risen Christ, by the lakeside you renewed your call to your disciples: help your Church to obey your command and draw the nations to the fire of your love, to the glory of God the Father.

First Bible Reading Acts 10.44–48

 While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, ‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’ So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

Second Reading 1 John 5.1–6

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.

Gospel Reading  John 15.9–17

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 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. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

Post Communion Prayer

God our Father, whose Son Jesus Christ gives the water of eternal life: may we thirst for you, the spring of life and source of goodness, through him who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Commentary

The Mishnah, a book recording Jewish oral traditions records that Simon the Just, who was High Priest in Jerusalem around 140 BC, said that the world stood on three things, on Torah, on worship and on acts of kindness.  So we could read the words of the gospel reading as a reiteration of the Old Testament Jewish precepts with which the hearers would have been familiar.  Or is John trying to tell us something different, show us a radically different model of spirituality.  In the Jewish faith, students who were studying for the Rabbinate would choose a rabbinic teacher to be their mentor; they would decide who they believed had the greatest insight into their religion and would follow that person.  There was a very clear leader and follower model and hierarchical structure, and the followers were expected to have and maintain a high level of intellectual capacity.  But in the disciples Jesus chose a very odd bunch of people to be his friends and followers, no intellectual elite here but more of a disjointed group of fishermen and labourers, a very ordinary cross section of society by any measure.  God choose ordinary people, He still does - because for Jesus, it was love, and the expression of that love, rather than any esoteric knowledge, which was the acid test of knowing God.  Love expressed in deeds, not in an intellectual vigour and robustness of argument.  A spirituality which meant that the disciples were invited to practice the presence of God as they loved each other as Jesus had loved them, not just make some intellectual, academic or theoretical response.  To remain, or rest, in the love of God.  Jesus’ command was that the disciples should keep His commands and love one another as He as loved them, focus on the outward and others, not just the inward self, as Jesus had demonstrated by His own life.  Love those who were very unlike themselves and to extend the hand of friendship to those who were not like them.  For as Jesus says to them, just as they are His friends, a phrase loaded with meaning and history, so they were to be the friends to others.  They are His friends because He has kept nothing back from them, He has taken them into His confidence.  He reveals to His disciples all that the Father has revealed and made known to Him.  There still may be much for them to learn but all will be disclosed to them.  In the meantime, they are to obediently follow Him and love one another.

And the sign of this obedience to His command, to being Jesus’ friends, to loving one another, would be that they would bear fruit.  Jesus is very clear, we are chosen by Him, and appointed, set aside (tithed in Greek) to bear fruit.  Like Abraham, we go of our own accord, we go for ourselves but in Christ’s name.  The friends of Jesus are those who habitually obey Him and the result of our obedience to the command of Jesus is that the change that happens in us has an effect on the world in which we live.  It’s a practical outworking of our Christian lives that matters to God, rather than a detailed knowledge of the theology that underpins it.  A love that is expressed in deeds, like the shepherd, that is a sacrificial love for others and those in our care.  A love which is not just about words and interpretation, a love which is practical and living, a love, which bears fruit. 

The clue to bearing fruit is in the last verse of our reading, as we are chosen, as we are obedient to His command, as we love one another then Jesus says, ‘…the Father will give you anything you ask in my name’.  To Jesus, bearing fruit and prayer (asking is His name) are inextricably linked.  Just as living out our Christian lives and prayer are inextricably linked, bearing fruit and being in constant communication with the Father are inseparable.

Just as when we set off on a journey, going somewhere new, we need to spend time some understanding where we are going, even if that just means checking the train timetables or putting the post code in the sat nav, rather than just setting off for the station of getting into the car and heading in any direction.  If we are to be productive and bear fruit, we need to spend time listening to God in prayer.   It’s one of the ways in which we are nurtured by the gardener, a theme John introduced at the beginning of Chapter 15, ‘I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener’.  For underpinning all of today’s readings is the theme of God’s gifts, love and care for His people.  Sometimes to do that he works with and through His disciples, His friends. 

Sam Cappleman

Meditation

Earlier in John’s gospel, in response to Jesus’ proclamation that the truth will set them free, the Jews have responded that they are Abraham’s descendants and Abraham is their father and they are slaves to no one (Jn 8 v 31 – 39).  They were proud to proclaim that they had Abraham as their ancestor, he was the foundation of their identity, and one of the first names to appear in their genealogy and family tree.  Abraham, the founder and pattern of their faith and the first recipient of God’s covenant with His people, who sets out from Ur of the Chaldeans, gets a bit stuck in Haran, but ultimately arrives in Canaan where he receives God’s promise about the land and his descendants (Gen 12 v 1 - 7).  He is also uniquely described as God’s friend, both in the Old Testament, 2 Chron 20 v 7 and Is 41 v 8, ‘But you O Israel my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend’; and James 2 v 23, ‘Abraham believed in God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness and he was called a friend of God’.  So when Jesus calls His disciples His friends, He’s not just indicating an intimacy of companionship but echoing back, recalling, reconnecting and redeeming a friendship with God, with all its meaning, stemming back to the birth of the Jewish faith.  Just as Jesus is the true vine, the good shepherd and the gate to the new Kingdom, the disciples will be more than just Abraham’s descendants, like Abraham himself, they will hear and understand God’s call (‘I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father’) and be drawn on to new places where they too will be blessed and be a blessing to others around them. 

Sam Cappleman

Additional Material

I invite you to focus on just a small part of the passage from the Gospel according to John. After Jesus has given his Great Command “love one another as I have loved you”, he goes on to exhort his followers that they should “bear much fruit”. The words continue the metaphor, begun at the start of chapter fifteen, of Jesus as the True Vine. In this imagery, Jesus was drawing upon the writings of the prophet Ezekiel (15:1-8). The language of the vine and the useless branches would thus have been familiar to Jesus’ listeners, but what is new is that Jesus identifies himself as the Vine, from which all life and fruitfulness stems. Scholars argue a great deal as to what that word “fruit” means. I have chosen to consider only one aspect of being fruitful Christians: of living out the Gospel in loving practical service to God and to our sister and brother humans. But we must note that we serve, not because it makes us feel good or to impress others, but because we are branches of the True Vine and because we depend on that Vine, our thoughts and actions do not glorify ourselves but Him. Being fruitful Christians is entirely rooted in being prayerfully dependent on the inspiration of God, in every aspect of our lives and work.
Coming as it does, straight after Jesus’ injunction to love one another, I take the phrase to mean that Jesus is warning us that love is not just about feeling, but acting upon that feeling. It is no good loving your child, if you don’t also feed it, clean it or relate to it. Love is what you do, not merely an emotional state. Jesus’ own ministry was a combination of healing, praying, teaching and serving. We must strive for a similar balance in our service to God. Joan Crossley 

Meditation

Julian of Norwich had a lot to say about love. Her book “Revelations of Divine Love” was based on her mystical experiences which began with a grave illness in 1373. She experienced a series of mystical “showings”, visions, which were later written down by her admirers. Her visions are of God’s surpassing love for us, and present a tender, intimate portrait of Jesus that many find profoundly moving. She lived in an anchorites cell, but seekers after spiritual guidance could come and consult her through a window. Her advice was always practical and pithy as well as deeply rooted in God’s word. In our time Julian’s words resonate with us, perhaps far better than they did in her own time, when the Church taught that God was prone to anger and inclined to punish. This is what she wrote: 'There is no wrath in God….It is the most impossible thing that can be that God would be angry, for wrath and friendship are two opposites.' Does it change your perception of God, if you view Him as a friend? Not as Lord, Master, Teacher, Saviour (although of course God is all these things too!) but seeing God as a friend brings Him very close to us indeed. Real friends are interested in the details of our lives, they do not mind sharing our darkest thoughts and are companions in our worst times. God wants to be that kind of friend to us, but we often distance God, by pushing him on to a throne far away. Joan Crossley

Hymns

• Mine eyes have seen the glory
• Give me joy in my heart
• There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
• Lo, he comes with clouds descending

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

“O Fountain of Love, love Thou our friends and teach them to love thee with all their hearts, that they may think and speak and do only such things as are pleasing to thee. Though Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen   St Anselm

From Prayers from the Ark, the Ox’s prayer.
“Dear God, give me time. Men are always so driven! Make them understand that I can never hurry. Give me time to eat, Give me time to plod. Give me time to sleep. Give me time to think. Amen  Carmen Bernos de Gasztold

“O Saviour Christ, we beseech you, when the wind is boisterous and our faith weak, and we begin to sink although we wish to come to You. Stretch out Your hands, Lord, as you did to Your fearful disciple and say to the sea of our difficulties, “peace, be still”. Amen Dean Vaughan

O Beauty, so ancient and so new! Late have I loved you though you were always with me. You call to my heart. You burst through my deafness. You scatter my blindness. I draw breath at your fragrance. My heart pants for you. My soul hungers for you. You touch me and I am consumed at the thought of your peace. St Augustine, 354-430

Loving God, when we grow weary, undisciplined or unexpectant and cease to pray, help us to see that prayer is not a burden or demand but your precious gift. Remind us of all who pray with us on earth and in heaven and of Jesus Christ our great High Priest, who ever lives to make intercession for us. Then with faith reawakened, hope restored and love renewed, turn us again to share in the ministry of prayer for the salvation of all people, for this is both our calling and your longing. Amen. Leo Osborn

God of power, may the boldness of your Spirit transform us, may the gentleness of your Spirit lead us, and may the gifts of your Holy Spirit equip us to serve and worship you, now and always. Amen

I am no longer mine but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will: put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing; I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen

Govern all by your wisdom, O Lord, so that my soul may always be serving you as you will, and not as I may choose. Do not punish me, I beg you, by granting what I wish or ask if it offends your love which should always live in me. Let me die to myself, so that I may serve you; let me live for you, who in yourself are the true life. St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)