John 15.15 – 16.4

15 I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. 16 You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

18 “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. 19 The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. 20 Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you. 21 They will do all this to you because of me, for they have rejected the one who sent me. 22 They would not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Anyone who hates me also hates my Father. 24 If I hadn’t done such miraculous signs among them that no one else could do, they would not be guilty. But as it is, they have seen everything I did, yet they still hate me and my Father. 25 This fulfills what is written in their Scriptures: ‘They hated me without cause.’

26 “But I will send you the Advocate — the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me. 27 And you must also testify about me because you have been with me from the beginning of my ministry. 16.1 I have told you these things so that you won’t abandon your faith. 2 For you will be expelled from the synagogues, and the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God. 3 This is because they have never known the Father or me. 4 Yes, I’m telling you these things now, so that when they happen, you will remember my warning. I didn’t tell you earlier because I was going to be with you for a while longer.”

Comments

There are only two things I want to point out today. First, Jesus uses stark language here: love and hate. Not much room for nuance. Jesus encourages his followers. We have not chosen him, he has chosen us. Chosen us to produce fruit – fruit that is produced when we love each other and invite others into our community of love. But our loving community will also draw the ire of some who will not hesitate to show their hatred for Jesus and for us. Throughout the four Gospels, we have seen people respond positively to Jesus and we have seen people respond negatively. Some receive and reciprocate his love. Others reject his love and return it with hate. We should expect to receive some of both responses if we are living out his command to love each other.

But I suspect that you are familiar with this, that you’ve heard this sort of thing before. For as long as I can remember, Christians (the ones I’ve been around in the USA at least) have busied themselves with creating and maintaining a subculture, the purpose and maintenance of which is an ongoing culture war. It might seem that what Jesus says here plays right into the Christian culture war narrative. It certainly gets used that way by the self-chosen culture warriors. But we can only read this passage as supporting the culture war approach if we completely ignore everything we’ve read all year.

Think about it, Jesus says the people who accepted him will accept us and the people who rejected him will reject us. Who accepted Jesus? Traitors, thieves, prostitutes, homeless, diseased, degenerate, drunk, possessed, destitute, powerless, social deviants. Who rejected Jesus? People with a stake in protecting the dominant culture, those with an interest in maintaining the status quo, the hyper-religious, the privileged, the socially and economically favored, those in power. Now look at those two lists and tell me, which group would today’s Christian culture warriors belong in?

What happens when the love and hate are backwards? When the people who should love us hate us and the people who should hate us love us? It is clear from this passage that followers of Jesus should be loved by some and hated by others. It is equally clear from all we’ve read this year that we have this reversed. The people Jesus said would accept us don’t want anything to do with us because they haven’t seen love from us. The people Jesus said would hate us have become our self-appointed spokespeople and have hijacked our faith for a culture war Jesus never commissioned.

That’s what this passage is about. It is a virtue both to be loved and hated by the proper people. Jesus excelled at this. His followers should do the same.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale HousePublishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

John 15.1-14

 15 “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. 3 You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

5 Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. 7 But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! 8 When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.

9 I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. 10 When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. 11 I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! 12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command.”

Comments

If you have been a Christian for a while, you are probably familiar with the three words for love in the Greek NT: eros, philia, and agape. The first is where we get the word ‘erotic’ and refers to physical, pleasure-based love. The second refers to friendship, the reciprocal love between friends. These two forms of love (eros and philia) have some things in common. They are both based on preference, on the lover choosing who to love based on desire, inclination, attraction, etc. In sexual love, the lover seeks his or her own pleasure, in friendship love, we are interested in what benefit we derive from the friendship. In other words, both eros and philia have to some degree a self-focus on the part of the lover, some measure of selfishness, where the object of the love is not so much the other person as what the lover sees of/for himself or herself in the other (a desire to change the object of these loves to conform closer to the lover is common as these loves embrace sameness, not difference). In its basest forms, where the focus is fully on the self, the lover may be nearly or entirely oblivious to the other person, but even in nobler expressions, there remains an essential self-focus, a self-interest that marks all eros and philia love. These loves are temporary, they do not bear lasting fruit.

Agape is very different. It is pure love, divine love, eternal love, love that includes no focus on the self at all, but sole focus on the beloved. Agape is a renunciation of the self. Agape loves the other as they are, as particular persons, celebrating differences. It is not motivated by desire or self-interest, its sole motivation comes as obedience to the command of Jesus: love one another as I have loved you. Jesus did not love out of self-interest, Jesus loved selflessly. Because agape is not dependent on desires or inclinations (which change regularly), it is not temporary. Agape is eternal – it is a love we can remain in. It is a love that bears lasting fruit because the fruit is not immediately consumed by the one loving. Agape creates fruit for others.

So what does agape look like? Jesus tells us is looks like obedience (the opposite of preference). It looks like loving your neighbor – the one near to you, i.e., not the one you have chosen. But this kind of love is quite beyond us. Agape sounds nice, but we are fundamentally self-interested creatures. Jesus addresses this by making clear that the power to grow into agape love only comes from Jesus. Like a vine giving life to branches that give their lives producing fruit, so Jesus empowers us – gives us everything we need – to love neighbors selflessly, to produce lasting fruit. Producing fruit is a requirement for remaining grafted into the vine; disciples are people who produce fruit by remaining in Jesus’ agape love.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale HousePublishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.