JN 15: 9-17 

Jottings on John…Easter 6…Revised 2018 

Jesus is making a last pitch to His disciples. Not to ‘the’ disciples. They’re His disciples. So important to Him! And to His mission! He’s only hours away from His Passion & death. What does He feel He still needs to get through to those still with Him? What’s vital to Jesus here is helping His disciples grasp what’re discipleship’s all about; how deep & personal it is. (Is there such a person as a ‘theoretical disciple’?  So He expands on last week’s true vine & branches imagery; with its imagery of discipleship being a matter of remaining in Himself as the True Vine; living in Him & through Him. Using ‘imagery’ recalls to heart & mind that we’re made in the image of God. As basic a theology as one can get! Here are three thrusts I see that stem (!) from today’s passage. Perhaps you can see more? The ones I see are: a) Loving one another; b) Being called Jesus’ friends; &, c) Being chosen so we may bear fruit. They’re all a matter of relationship with God & each other, & each relies on the other!

Let’s start with c) : Being chosen so we may bear fruit. To live in Jesus. The initiative is taken by God. This, & our response of choosing to live in Him - are gifts of Grace. As we bear the fruits of right living, the effect of this is to bring Grace to others, too. This gift of Grace to us (& through us, to others) hangs on (!) our continuing in that relationship with God that living in Jesus by His Spirit makes possible. As we hang in there on the Vine & bear fruit. In every-day life at ground level. On earth as it is in Heaven. This Way Holy Spirit keeps Jesus’ imagery alive & well & ongoing. In us & for others. 

To take a), now: Loving one another, like living in God, is a further re-statement of the Two Great Commandments Jesus has already distilled from the Ten YHWH has given Moses long before. It’s the ongoing response to the question ‘But what does God want me to do?’ 

With regard to b): Being called Jesus’ friends, somewhere I once came across mention of a person who felt so honoured to have been counted a friend by a certain noted & godly person that they directed that when they them-self died, all that was to appear on their grave-stone was, ‘Here lies a friend of ……’ . Let’s respond to the honour Jesus bestows on us in calling us His friends by letting that show in our lives, rather than one day on our gravestones.

Societies of all stripes are becoming more & more unstuck & unstable. ‘Commandments’ of any kind are being more & more poorly observed except by extremists who bring neither their God nor themselves credit. For a good society, a God society, is what we need not so much cutting God’s commandments down to our size, but instead, letting God stretch us up to His size? There’s nothing bigger or better than Love as God sees it & practises it.

In a recent book, Bp. Tom Wright¹ says, ^‘our present challenge is to see the world with different eyes. To see God with different eyes. To see our neighbour with different eyes. To see ourself with different eyes. This is the challenge of the good news for today & tomorrow.’ A good summing up of today’s passage is that not?

¹ N.T.Wright, Simply Good News, HarperOne, NY, 2015, pp.4-5, 150-151.