Each Month we mail a Church Newsletter entitled "First Features" to all members of the church.  It has been a tradition for many years that the Pastors have expressed their laments, hopes, guidance, well wishes, and prayers in a cover letter. Some of us save these letters, and some of us displace them.  It is hoped that those who displace theirs we will be able to find it here on the web at. (First Features -The  Pastor's Letter) 

Full and Fruitful --- Sermon by Rev. Judy Fisher

May 17, 2009                   John 15: 9-17

We insist on having a lot of choices. (Do you remember the last time you went shopping for shampoos, skin lotions, cold remedies, laundry detergents, prepared soups…. Didn’t you stand in the isle of the store looking at literally  dozens of choices?)

In addition to having lots of choices, we claim the right to make our own choices, and we want to make them with some degree of certainty about where they will lead, so that we can be in control of our own future (true for everything from controlling my hair color and style for a Saturday night date, to controlling the monthly yield of my retirement fund when I reach 65, to controlling the location of my eternal residence.)  Are there choices we can make with any degree of certainty that they will reserve a place for us in heaven?

It would be handy to know exactly what to do or say so that God would do whatever we want.  Maybe that’s why books on prayer sell so well; everyone is looking for the magic incantations to use to manipulate God.  (By the way, many books about prayer don’t even attempt to offer any such formula.  Those authors seem to understand prayer in a completely different way.)

When we read the Gospel according to John, we might get pretty frustrated, if we are looking for some magic way to make prayer

successful.  Jesus  seems to be talking in a circle a good bit of the time.

For pages, he keeps talking about abiding, loving, obeying.. he says that if we will just do what he  tells us to, our Heavenly Father will give us whatever we ask him in Jesus’ name.  That’s a pretty good incentive.  Most of us would like to figure out the exact formula for getting God to give us whatever we ask.  But trying to distill that formula out of the scripture lesson can get us into deep water.

Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love.”

Does that mean: do what I tell you and you will earn my love?

You choose to obey me, and then I’ll choose to love you?

No, that is not what it means.  Jesus made it pretty clear that when it comes to loving we never take the first step.

He said, “You did not choose me – I chose you.”

God loves first.

God chooses to love us before we’re even born – God loves us into being.  Not just us – but all humans.  John 3:16  God so loved the world first, and sent Jesus to communicate and offer  that love.

Nothing we can do or say will make God love us.  God already does love us.

Then there is this thing about abiding  -- being with someone in the deepest sense, sharing life together.

Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in me and I’ll abide in you, just as I abide in our Heavenly Father and He abides in me.”

Does that mean, if we are good enough, if we follow all the rules, God will hang out with us and be like a guardian angel to protect us and keep our feet on the right path?  If we are good enough….

No, that Is not what it means.  Nothing we do or say or are – no matter how good -- can be a magnet to attract God’s presence with us.  God is already present, closer than breath. 

So, since we are creatures who like to have a choice, it might help to figure out what choice we really do have in all of this.

We can’t choose whether or not God will love us; God does love us, and  we can’t escape God’s love.  We are the object of God’s love, and there’s nothing we can do about that. 

We can’t decide whether to keep God close by us.  God has already decided to hang with us. Like the Psalmist said, If we run to the end of the earth, God is still there with us. 

Furthermore, we can’t decide whether to let God work for our good.

God is already determined to do that, already busy doing that

 –working in us and all around us to bring us to the full life God created us for.

--trying to help us be wise as we make the one choice we can’t escape making:

That is the choice of whether or not to live in God’s love – to believe in it, to accept it with thanksgiving, to depend on it for everything, just to entrust ourselves to it – to God’s love for us.

If and when we do decide to trust – then we obey.  Because if you trust that God loves you completely and wants the very best for you – like Jesus said, he wants your joy to be full – then you try to do everything God encourages you to do, so you can move in the direction of that fullness. 

If this sounds too mystical, too spiritual, too unrealistic, too nebulous –

Let me remind you that it is absolutely concrete –

It’s all about the real things that make up our daily lives --

It’s all about whether we lie or tell the truth

Whether we conduct business honestly or fraudulently

Whether we respect other people’s ownership of property

   or we decide to shop-lift or steal or vandalize

It’s about whether we speak respectfully and kindly to others

  or  criticize and belittle them

Whether we do an honest days work for a day’s pay or

  choose to be a slacker

Whether we share with others who are in need or

    just keep accumulating and consuming more and more  ourselves.

This stuff about abiding in God’s love in not other-worldly – it’s  everyday practical. If we believe that God loves us, that God teaches us through Jesus, that God is with us, in us even, as the Holy Spirit  -- it affects what we think, what we say, what we do, how we feel about and how we treat other people.  If we are abiding in God’s love, then we will be genuinely trying to obey what God commands, which is basically that we love one another. And that will make a real, noticeable difference every minute of every day of our real lives.

So the chronology – the  cause effect  -- is not

We obey so God will love us and be with us.

It is rather, God loves us and is with us, so we strive to obey.

It’s all about having a full life and being fruitful in it.

Remember how Jesus said, I’m the vine and you are the branches.

Abide in me – draw your life from me – and you will bear much fruit.

The fruit of Christ’s abiding in us is listed by Paul in his letter to the church in Galatia – the fruit of the Spirit’s work in us:

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

So, there we have it.  It’s not about getting God to do what we want, bribing God to give us what we ask for,  impressing God with our compliance so God will comply with our plans for our lives. 

So why did Jesus hold out that carrot –

“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.”

You probably know of people, I do, who tried Christianity out for a while to see if it would really work for them – you know, whether their going to church and tithing and witnessing for Jesus and all that would get their prayers answered for them – get them the job promotion or the successful marriage or the model children or whatever they wanted.  And when things didn’t go their way they felt like the church had done a bait and switch because it really didn’t pay to be a good Christian.  So they gave up on Jesus.

The good news is, Jesus hasn’t given up on them; Jesus has not stopped loving them, Jesus has not stopped being with them, Jesus has not stopped working for their good.  They have just decided not to believe it or count on it or cooperate with it, and their joy is not full.  Doesn’t your heart ache for them?  Don’t you pray that somehow they will learn to trust God’s love even in the most tragic parts of life?

So what does the promise mean – that if we are abiding in Christ (and in God), obeying the teaching and following the example of Jesus, cooperating with the Spirit’s work in us as much as we possibly can – whatever we ask for in Jesus’ name, our Heavenly Father will give it to us.  Was Jesus exaggerating, mistaken, misled or misleading?

Or is it possible that as we abide more and more, longer and longer, in God’s love, we gradually get to the place where we couldn’t possibly want  anything but the best God is offering us in any given situation.

Could it be that we eventually grow to the place where we don’t really want anything but to be loved by God, to be filled by God, and to serve God, mostly by loving each other?  And then what could we possibly pray for but what Jesus is already willing and waiting to give us?  What could we want more than we want complete joy?

It is all a mystery, isn’t it

 – but that doesn’t make it any less real, does it? 

 Judy

 Weekly Activities

SUNDAY  

 9:45 am    Sunday School

11:00 am    Worship

WEDNESDAY

6:30 pm Alleluia Ringers Rehearsal

7:30 pm  Adult Choir  Rehearsal