Sermon for 5th Sunday of Easter
God’s Banner Over Us Is Love
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
One of the principal tenants of the Protestant Reformation, of Martin Luther’s break with what we now know as the Roman Catholic Church, was the issue of salvation.
Justification by grace through faith, God’s love and salvation for us as a free gift through Jesus Christ, is the heart of our Lutheran faith. We do not earn God’s love. We do not earn our salvation. That was assured once and for all times by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
There is no God up in heaven with a big book, writing down what we have done right or wrong. We do not earn our salvation by good works. Our salvation has already been guaranteed through Jesus Christ. Our good works, Luther taught, spring from, follow God’s love for us. Because God first loves us, and has saved us all, we are free to love others.
However, surveys still show that most Lutherans really do not believe this. Most Lutherans have what is a more traditional Roman Catholic view, very close to a traditional Muslim view, that our salvation is earned through good works. Most Lutherans still believe that what we do, and do not do, helps earn or prevent our salvation. Martin Luther may have rebelled against it, but, today, most Lutherans wrongly still believe that we must do good works to earn our place in the heavenly kingdom. Despite my preaching regularly that this is not so, I hear this often from Mt. Olive members.
And this is not a new problem.
At the time that our second lesson from 1 John was written, around 100AD, this issue was already common in the small but growing Christian community. So, late in life, John wrote what we call 1 John. And nowhere are John’s words clearer about salvation than in the text we heard today.
“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” This love, expressed in good works to and with others, is the result of God’s love, not the way of receiving God’s love. Christians, John writes, can be bold on the day of judgement because of God’s love for us and because, as John also writes, “as God is, so are we in this world.” “Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.”
If this second lesson seems repetitious, that is because it is. Somehow early Christians needed to hear it again and again, just as we do. “God’s banner over us is love” is the song Jeremy and I sing with our preschool children. God’s love for us is assured. We love others because God first loved us.
I suspect you are the same as me – I need to hear these words again and again. We need to hear this again and again. “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
And that leads us to Jesus’ words from today’s Gospel, also from John, this time from John’s Gospel, “Abide in me as I abide in you.”
These are helpful words because, without them, much of what Jesus says in this text can feel like a threat. Abide in me or else – be pruned, wither, be thrown into the fire, and die! All appearing to be voiced as a threat to bully people into staying loyal and faithful.
But Jesus doesn’t just say “Abide in me.” Rather, he says, “Abide in me, as I abide in you.” And that changes everything. The other statements about pruning and withering and the rest are not threats of intimidation but rather are statements of fact, descriptions of what happens when we do not abide in Jesus, when we are separated from Jesus’ love and acceptance, when we run or hide or think we can do it on our own or decide to stand alone or whatever.
Branches do not do that well when they are separated from the vine. At best they, like cut flowers, have a burst of color and bloom but then fade and wither.
Consider the context of this passage. First, at this time in Jesus’ life and teaching, Jesus is preparing his disciples for his departure and wants to assure them of his presence, even when life gets hard and, as we know well, it is about to get very hard for Jesus and his disciples. Second, at the time this text was written down, the early Christian community for which John writes has likely been thrown out, rejected by friends and family, and feels pretty alone and orphaned. They are, quite literally, feeling like they are being cut down.
John, through his retelling of Jesus’ words of farewell and comfort, is offering a different frame of reference by which to reinterpret their experience. It is not being cut down but pruned. At the same time, John is making a promise: Jesus is with you, for you, abiding in you, and will not let you go. Important words for people who feel cut down by circumstances.
People who feel cut down by circumstances. That group, of course, is not limited to Jesus’ disciples two thousand years ago but aptly describes the feelings harbored by many of Jesus’ disciples today, people like you and me. The mom just trying to keep it together after more than a year of having to be both teacher and mom, and, for many, trying also to hold down a job. The kid who’s been cyber bullied for so long just for being different that he or she is beginning to believe what the haters are saying. The professional whose employment was terminated and, despite the headlines saying the economy is recovering quickly, has no decent job prospects. The recently and unexpectedly bereaved and devastated parent. The caretaker who is losing a beloved spouse day by day, little by little to cancer or Alzheimer’s.
There are, of course, countless of other examples you and I could list of persons who feel cut down – maybe mowed down – by life and by circumstances, and John offers them, too, a different frame. Jesus is with you, abiding in you, holding onto you, loving you, and will not let you go. Which means that what may feel like a death cut is mere pruning, that growth is ahead, that new life will come.
Jesus’ words of comfort and presence are for you and me. Jesus is with you and for you and will not let you go.
“Abide in me.” Alone, these words are, at best, good advice, or encouragement and, at worst, a threat. But “Abide in me, as I abide in you,” these words are pure promise, gracious words of presence and providence. Words that need to be shared, whether shouted from the rooftops or whispered in a moment of tender and vulnerable stillness.
“Abide in me, as I abide in you.” Abide in me, as I abide in you.
The God whose banner over us is love, this same God loves us and abides in us. Today and always.
Amen.
(With thanks to the Rev. Dr. David Lose)
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sermon for:
May 2, 2021
