Christ Church and St
Mary’s, May 2002
We return to Jesus’
final words, the words which tell us what it is to be human-the words he really
wants to pass on to us. If you remember
we are looking at the meaning of faith.
Last week we looked at the notion that faith is getting in the
wheelbarrow and trusting Jesus-the living person. The concept of a living person whom you can trust but not see is
a difficult one, but in these verses we again have the promise that Jesus is with
us through the presence of the Spirit.
Verse: 18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer
see me, but you will see me.” Here
Jesus is referring to his return to the disciples after his death-his post
resurrection appearances. But in a
deeper way he promises to be with us today.
Verse 16: “And I will ask the father, and he will give you another
advocate, to be with you forever.”
Jesus is going, he tells his fearful disciples, but when he returns
through his spirit he is with us for ever.
A living person, one whom we can trust.
But this week we look at
if you like the other side of the coin of faith: that it is shown through
obedience. Verse 15: "If you love
me, you will keep my commandments."
There is no getting around it.
There is no concept in the way Jesus talks about faith which allows for
a personal faith which is kept in a box and not shown in the way we live. Faith affects everything. “Show me your deeds and I will see your
faith,” said James. Faith is
obedience. When the master calls his
servant a “good and faithful” servant in the parable it is not because the
servant has managed to keep believing in the master throughout his life,
it is because his life and his deeds have demonstrated that belief.
We live in a time when individual freedom and the search for our own identity are the main preoccupations of people in our culture. In our climate, obedience to anyone or anything is seen as suspect - we no longer obey policemen, teachers, doctors, bishops. We don’t toe a party line. Non-commitment rules, in relationships, in political process - floating voters are the main constituent of our electorate. We don’t give our obedience away, because we fear giving something of ourselves away. In the sixties, the great quest for hippies was to go away, travel the world, and find yourself. They had the belief that somewhere in the core of who you are lies the answer to your meaning. But human beings are not like this. We are more like onions. If you keep peeling away the layers of an onion to find out what is at its centre you will eventually end up with nothing. The answer is not found in ourselves. The search of faith is not to find ourselves. Meaning in life is found in what we are committed to, what we are obedient to. Someone once said, "The first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom but its Master". What you serve shapes who you are - money, power, or Jesus Christ. The question is not who you or I are, it’s whose we are - who we give our obedience to.
Nietzsche, who
proclaimed the death of God at the beginning of the last century, nevertheless
saw that obedience is the only route to fruitful living. He wrote, "the essential thing in
heaven and earth is... That there
should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has
always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth
living." It is this long obedience
in the same direction which is the core of faith, and which makes our faith
worth having and our life worth living.
If you think about it, this “long obedience” makes sense in so many
ways-the value of commitment in relationships, the devotion needed for a cause
to really flourish, the discipline needed for our lives to really change. Long obedience in the same direction is not
a way to lose yourself, it is a way to find out what you have been really made
for.
But what are we obedient
to? Jesus said, “If you love me, you
will keep my commandments."
Jesus’ commandment was the commandment to love. To be told to love, to be commanded to love
is not to open a rule book which we can adhere to. It is to embrace a continuing attitude every day, every
hour. The commandment to love will call
on each of us differently every day. It
is the most wonderful, and the hardest commandment. But Jesus says “if you love me, you will keep my
commandments.” If you love me, you will
love. Where is God calling you to love
today? What are the areas of love he is
calling you to which demand greater obedience?
Which will test your faith? Is
he calling you to love him more? To
forgive? To approach your
neighbour?
But there is a problem
in all of this. When it comes to the
question of obeying God we can find ourselves in a bit of a chicken and egg
situation. “If you love me you will
keep my commandments” says Jesus. Does
this mean that if we don't keep his commandment then we don't love him? Or does it mean that if we learn to love him
we will keep his commandment? Which
comes first, the love all the obedience?
Our motive for obedience
is the key to unlock everything. And
what drives our willingness to obey God depends very much on the image we have
of him. In verse 21 Jesus tells us
“They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love
me.” How do we have his
commandments? It seems to me that this
is something about Jesus’ love being written not just in the effort of our
deeds but in our inner being, in our hearts.
We won't truly be able to obey God unless it comes from the heart.
Last Wednesday we had an
Alpha group and in this particular Alpha session the speaker gives an
opportunity for those who want to commit their lives to Christ to pray a simple
prayer-if you like, to put their trust and obedience in him. Afterwards I asked people how they had felt
when that prayer had been spoken. The
most common response was that people didn’t want to pray it because they just
knew they wouldn’t be able to live up to it.
Commitment to God becomes another impossible ideal at which we will
fail. So we had better not give our
whole heart, our whole trust, our whole obedience to him.
There is in this way of
thinking a fear in the heart. There is
the fear of letting God down. In this
way of thinking, the Holy spirit who draws alongside us to be our Advocate, the
Advocate who is promised in verse 16, the one whom Jesus promises abides with
us and in us, is in this way of thinking and feeling there simply to help us
not trip up. He is a lawyer who will
defend us against God. God is the angry
one, the demanding one, waiting for us to fail. The Spirit guides us away from that anger. It is no wonder our hearts run away from
him.
But this is obedience
without trust. In faith, trust and
obedience need each other. What happens
if we can trust that God is our side, that he is preparing a place for us, that
the Advocate is not there to defend us but to remind us over and over again of
Jesus’ last words: "No matter how bad it gets or how severely you mess up
remember, I will not abandon you."
What happens if the advocate stands by our sides, reassuring us that we
have a hearing before God, encouraging us to turn to God in trusting
prayer. What happens if when we are in
dire straits, either through our inability and fatigue in loving as Jesus
commanded; or when and guilt and fear make us feel unworthy to pray, the
Advocate is there to reassure, strengthen and assure us that our prayers are
heard. What happens if obedience
springs out of trust?
In the end it is only
love that can bring love out of us. To
live a life without obedience is not to live at all. But to obey without trust is a journey of fear. In following him through joy and sorrow
Jesus calls us to obey saying "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me." This is the journey of faith.