John 15:9-17

⁹ As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

¹² “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³ No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ I do not call you servants^[d] any longer, because the servant^[e] 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. ¹⁶ 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. ¹⁷ I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

Who here listens to Smooth 95.3? It’s a radio station of easy listening music, with the likes of Michael Buble, Elvis Presley, Abba and Josh Groban featuring quite a lot. A favourite song that is played often on the station is the song Everything I Do (I Do For You) by Canadian singer Bryan Adams. At the end of this rock ballad, presumably to his paramour, Mr Adams sings: “Yeah, I’d fight for you, I’d lie for you, walk the wire for you, yeah I’d die for you…”… he’d die for her? Really? Creepy much? He’s not the only artist who sings about dying for love – Bon Jovi had a song called I’d Die For You, as did the late Prince, the band Garbage, and the rapper Nelly – though perhaps “artist” is a little bit of a stretch. And for me, when I hear those songs or generally hear sentiment like that, I get the sense that they say it like the apostle Peter said it – all well and good in the romance of the moment, but not quite as passionate if and when the necessity arose. If it came down to it, would you lay down your life as an act of love?

This week is week 4 of Discipleship Month, looking at the fourth of 5 practices of fruitful congregations. We have talked about welcoming the stranger (and in doing so, welcoming Christ); we have talked about worship that warms the heart, we have talked about a lifelong devotion to learning and growth as a disciple, and today we think about risk-taking mission. There is perhaps nothing riskier than putting yourself in the line of death – which is perhaps why I found this week’s sermon a difficult one to prepare for. I chose this passage because I believe laying one’s life down for friends is pretty risky behaviour, but the rest of this passage is a bit like the Smooth 95.3 of the gospels – pretty easy-reading. I imagine we all agree that we should love one another. Sunday school teachers affirm it; countless pillows and needle works are embroidered with it; and most other religions share the same message. Is there anything new I can say? So I’d like to tell you two anecdotes that will hopefully help us hear and understand more deeply the words of Jesus that we heard today, particularly the part where he elevates the love we are to hold for others to the place of actually laying down our lives for our friends.

So in my field placement last year at St Matthews Baulkham Hills, I was called to make a visit to someone in a nursing home. My role here at West Epping doesn’t take me to nursing home visits as much, but I find visiting people in nursing homes to be a surprisingly uplifting experience. It always blows me away to see the care and sacrificial love offered by the patients’ staff and family. My experience however, wasn’t between a resident and a carer, but between 2 residents. So one of the congregation members had spent a couple of weeks in hospital, and had recently returned home to the nursing home, so I was called to pay him a visit. When I got to his room, I found this kindly old man sitting in his wheelchair in the hallway. I asked him what he was doing there, and he told me that it’s “his happy place”, because from there he can see who is coming and going.

I should name though, that at that point, he couldn’t see anything much anymore, or hear much either. Indeed, most of his entire physical being had been diminished by various illnesses and age. This was not always the case, of course. I heard from a number of his friends that he was quite the galvanising force in the early days of the church, he was a very successful high school teacher and principal, he enjoyed reading theological books, and his nursing home room was filled with various plaques and awards he received for service to the community, alongside photos of his children and grandchildren. In any case, on that day, we spent the next 20 minutes or so discussing various matters – his health, of course; his children and grandchildren; the state of the congregation that he helped to build. And all through our conversation, his failing eyes kept scanning the people walking past, nodding, smiling, and calling many by name. After a while though, since we were approaching dinner time, he asked if I would wheel him down the hall to the dining room.

As we rolled along, we kept chatting, and he told me that usually at this time of day, he plays cards with his friends. I began to wonder how he could even hold cards, since he was nearly blind and his hands were so riddled with arthritis. And as though he could read my mind, this man informed me that a friend always sat next to him and helped him play his hand. “We win some, and we lose some,” he mused, “but it really doesn’t matter.” And interestingly, his tone was not one of resignation or bitterness. Instead, he spoke with a kind of bemused contentment. It seemed that, for him, the point was no longer the game itself, but the friends he played with.

I had only known him a couple of months, and he passed away not too long after that, so perhaps he had always been this way, but I have to wonder. Surely at some parts of his life, winning and losing must have mattered to him, at least a little. But at that point, for that man, it didn’t. Time, age, experience, and yes, disease, had whittled his world down to what is really essential.

When we think about laying down our lives for others, I imagine we all think about grand romantic gestures, or jumping in front of a bus – dramatic, profound, selfless acts of unceasing love… but I suggest, maybe it is also as simple as helping an old man to play a hand of cards when his senses don’t allow him to do what he once would have done without thinking. And not just once, but evening after evening after evening. Maybe acts like that don’t bear the sort of fruit the world might measure. But it is fruit, all the same. The kind of fruit that builds up someone that many would rather ignore or avoid. The kind that loves in simple but profound ways someone whom the world would hardly count anymore. The kind that offers Christ-like friendship. The kind that treats the other as equal to us, not a charity case to be pitied. And this is an important point: charity and mission and dramatically different things. Charity keeps power with the rich. Mission treats all people – all of us – as equally dependant on God.

If we go back to the Greek, the life the Jesus referred to being laid down is the word ψυχή, so the phrase could be translated not just as laying down one’s life, but also as laying down one’s psyche, or heart, or mind, or self. So maybe Jesus wasn’t talking so much about ceasing to live, but instead something like, “there is no greater unconditional love than when someone gets their ego out of the way for the sake of someone else.”

And now my second anecdote, which is really more of a confession and a display of what not to do. In another congregation I have been part of, there was this woman. This woman was extremely poor, lived in very poor housing, and did not take good care of herself. However, I always got the sense with her that she felt entitled not just to help from the church, but for the best of the best of things – she was the kind of person that just kind of jarred with me. Anyway, one time, she came to the church as I was setting up for a service, asking for/demanding groceries. I told her about a food pantry close by, but she said she didn’t have a car, and couldn’t someone just drive some food to where she lives, and she had had nothing to eat in four days. Reluctantly, I agreed, only to be handed a long grocery list that I had to provide for her.

So, I bought some, not all, of the things she requested, and drove out to her place, a fair way away. The apartment, as you can imagine, was awful and rotting and overgrown. I got out and lugged the heavy groceries up three flights of stairs to her place. She beamed when she answered the door, but before a conversation could begin, I just said, “here you go, I’ve gotta run”, and I left, without asking anything about her or what more she might need. I really am ashamed of that day. I did however feel lighter. In spite of myself, I was glad to have been of some help. But on my way back home, I came to an uncomfortable realisation: when the time comes for me to be judged by God, I imagine it will be by what I do for women like her.

It is natural and easy to love those who love you. Anyone with the good taste and good sense to treat you well is the kind of person you find easy to treat well in return, right?! We instinctually love our families and friends, those who think and live like we do, those with whom they naturally intermingle and congregate. And this is not just true of the church; the social cohesion of countless political organisations, civic clubs, neighbourhood cliques, trade unions and golf clubs prove the point. But God calls for more. The stretch of real Christian discipleship is to love those who don’t think or live like us, and to express radical, risky compassion and mercy to those we don’t know, and who may never be able to repay us.

Love one another. Here’s the thing: the readings for today don’t just advise us; they command us. Jesus calls us to love whether or not we feel love. Jesus calls us to serve each other, serve the local community, and serve the world even when it feels like we have nothing to give. Sometimes the feeling comes first, so the work is easy. Sometimes that is not the case. In any event, says the 1^st John reading, “his commandments are not burdensome”. And surely the hope of God is that our love for God and for neighbour will join our actions towards God and towards neighbour, so that our ministry in God’s name will happen spontaneously, naturally, and joyfully, in both awesome and in simple ways.

Jesus did both kinds of laying down one’s life. Whether it was the haemorrhaging woman or the man born blind or the group of lepers excommunicated from the world – over and over again, Jesus’ gifts were known in amazing and humble ways in the most unlikely of places, among the greatest sinner and the finest saint alike. And even at the end, we read of him making astounding promises to the thief who hung dying next to him. Jesus, who calls us his friends, would have us do the same, it seems to me.

Let me close with the words of the great Michael Leunig: “Love one another, and you will be happy. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.” Maybe love is the lightest of responsibilities – but the difficulty is when we take up the labour before the love. Maybe, when we get it right, the work of love is hardly work at all. And maybe my nursing home story seems like a small thing, and maybe my poverty-stricken woman story is merely proof that I have a lot of learning to do about loving my neighbour. But those two images, and this one (point to cross), teach me the most about risk-taking mission and love, far beyond the romantic and easy. Amen.