Friends of Jesus

Today’s text develops many themes and we certainly don’t have time today to talk about all of them. But two things in particular grabbed my attention as I prepared this sermon. First, Jesus says that we do not choose him but he chooses us. Most of the time most of us think that our faith or religion is something we have decided and chosen. Jesus reminds us that all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, we follow him only because he first chose us. Not only does Jesus choose us but he calls us his friends. That’s the second amazement. Jesus says that you — and you and you and you, indeed all of us — are his friends. Amazing! Let’s read it in John 15.

“Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And 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. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

Last summer and fall, when we were working on a new design for our church’s logo and a catchphrase or tagline to go with it, we did not have John 15 in mind, at least not consciously. But John 15 very much expresses what we mean in the church’s tagline, which we sometimes abbreviate now as UO₂, that is, U–O–O — Upward–Outward–Onward.

We developed this to express the purpose and mission of the Presbyterian Church in Sudbury in as few words as possible and the three directions of Upward–Outward–Onward help us understand what this church is all about. The first direction in our church’s life is Upward. Both individually and collectively we have a spiritual, worshipful relationship with God through Jesus Christ — Upward. Our church’s second direction is Outward. To be a follower of Jesus and led by the Holy Spirit means that our attention is always drawn to serving others, whether the person in need sits next to us in the pew or lives in Maine or the Philippines or Louisiana or Darfur — Outward. Our church’s third direction is Onward. We are always on a journey with Christ. Where we are is less important than where we are going as we grow in faith, discipline, and commitment — Onward. That’s who we are and what we do. UO₂ — Upward–Outward–Onward.

In a certain sense, today’s text talks about this same threefold pattern. As I said a moment ago, John 15 was not consciously in mind last year when we developed the logo and tagline. But Jesus’ teaching about the vine, about his abiding in us and we in him, about loving others because he loves us, and about Jesus calling us his friends, all of that is very much what Upward, Outward, and Onward are trying to say.

I came to this insight a couple of weeks ago when I was reading a book called Lifesigns by the Dutch Catholic priest Henri Nouwen (1932-1996). Nouwen, who died some ten years ago, was the author of 40 books and at various times taught at universities like Notre Dame, Harvard, and Yale. He also traveled extensively throughout North America and Europe, leading retreats and giving lectures. A survey a couple of years ago indicated that Nouwen’s writings profoundly influenced both Protestant and Catholic readers.[1]

In the book I was reading Nouwen talks about how he came to know Jean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche communities. Worldwide there are now more than 130 L’Arche communities, the closest to us being just up I-495 in Haverhill. L’Arche brings together people, some with developmental disabilities and some without, who choose to share their lives by living together in faith-based communities.[2]

Nouwen eventually became the pastor at a L’Arche community called Daybreak near Toronto. But he and Vanier first met when Nouwen attended a silent retreat with Vanier. Nouwen says they hardly spoke at all during that time but that in passing Vanier commented: “Working with mentally handicapped people, I have come to recognize that all human beings, whatever their condition, are called to intimacy, fecundity, and ecstasy.” Fecundity is not a word we use frequently these days; it means “fertile and capable of producing abundant growth.” When he first heard what Vanier said, Nouwen thought all three words were nice, sweet-sounding, perhaps even a little trite, and maybe not always applicable to mentally handicapped persons.

But then Nouwen read John 15 and saw that intimacy, fecundity, and ecstasy were exactly what Jesus was talking about. Nouwen wrote: “Speaking of himself as the vine and of his disciples as the branches, Jesus says: ‘[Abide in me as I abide in you]’[3] (John 15.4). This is an invitation to intimacy. Then he adds: ‘[Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit]’ (John 15.5). This is a call to fecundity. Finally, when he says: ‘[I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete]’ (John 15.11), he promises ecstasy. The more I read and reflected on the Gospel of John, the more I became aware of the importance of these three themes.”[4]

And as I read Nouwen’s book, it struck me that this is exactly what we are trying to express in Upward–Outward–Onward. Upward has everything to do with intimacy. We want to grow in our relationship to God. We want to abide in the Spirit of God in ways that are ever deeper and more powerful and intimate.

Outward has everything to do with fecundity. We want our lives to be fertile and to bear much fruit for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Fundamentally, bearing fruit means offering our lives for the sake of others.

Onward has everything to do with ecstasy. Jesus wants his joy to be complete in us and that’s what we experience ever more powerfully as we journey day by day with the Lord and grow in faith, discipline, and commitment.

So whether we express these thoughts in the text’s terms of abiding in Jesus and he in us, or in Vanier’s terms of intimacy, fecundity, and ecstasy, or in terms of our own Upward–Outward–Onward, this is who we are and what we do as the friends of Jesus.

Having said all this, I want to do something now that is a little unusual for me and that is talk in a very particular way about the implications of being Jesus’ friends here at the Presbyterian Church in Sudbury. As a community of the friends of Jesus, we are clearly now in a season of transition. With Sid McCollum’s departure, we are for the first time in nearly seven years a congregation with just a single pastor. We are hard at work figuring out what that means.

Clearly it means that I’m going to have to work a little harder and shift some of my time and energy to things for which Sid was largely responsible, particularly in areas of Christian education. Also, we are beginning conversations about finding part-time help in certain areas and we’ll need to move ahead here within our current budget constraints. But the opportunity for ministry in this transitional time is not just for me as your pastor or for the members of the Session or Deacons or Trustees. The opportunity is for all of us.

You see, when Jesus calls us friends, he changes the shape of our community.[5] The church is not a pyramid with Jesus on top, then the pastor, then the Session, and so on. There is no hierarchy anymore. The church is a circle, a circle of friendship where we work together and delight in each other’s company because we are all friends of Jesus and he abides in us.

So as a circle of Jesus’ friends we need to hear again what he says to us as his friends. Jesus says to us, “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” (15.16). It’s all there in that one verse. “I chose you” — Upward. “Go and bear fruit” — Outward. “Fruit that will last” — Onward. And this is the opportunity for all of us, not just some, but all.

So I want you to take out now that bulletin insert that I mentioned at the beginning of the service. You will see listed there some of the opportunities we have as friends of Jesus.

I don’t know exactly what this will look like. But becoming a part of Syzygy might mean doing a children’s message once or twice a year, or writing and praying the prayers of the people one Sunday. I’ve heard many of you pray. It blesses me. It would bless others and Jesus too. It might mean just planning a call to worship or an offertory prayer. I would love it if some, a few, even one would say “I’ll give that a try.”

Now sometimes we ask you to fill out things like this bulletin insert and put it in the offering plate or leave it in the office. But I don’t want you to turn it in. I want you to take it home and I want you to pray about it. You may be thinking that I’m just using this sermon to get you to sign up for things or to make you feel guilty. I’m not really concerned to get people to sign up and guilt is a lousy motivator. I have no interest in making you or anyone feel guilty. I am burdened that we all listen to Jesus when he says, “I chose you and you are my friend.”

I am burdened that together we move ahead in this season of transition. So take that insert home. Pray about it. Then be in touch in some of the ways indicated.

If we need to have the refrigerator in the church kitchen repaired, we will probably need to hire that out to an expert in repairing refrigerators. But to teach our children about Jesus is not something we hire out. We can’t hire out serving as a Deacon or helping plan and lead worship. We don’t hire out these things to experts because Jesus wants his friends to do them. He wants you and me to do them. Because we are his friends, he wants us to reach Upward, move Outward, and journey Onward in his name. May it be so with us.

[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Nouwen, Internet, 17 May 2006. Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen authored 40 books on the spiritual life. Among the most appreciated titles were The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming and The Wounded Healer. At the invitation of Jean Vanier he visited L’Arche in France, the first of over 130 communities around the world where people with developmental disabilities live and share life together with those who care for them. In 1986 Nouwen accepted the position of pastor for a L’Arche community called “Daybreak” near Toronto. The results of a Christian Century magazine survey conducted in 2003 indicate that Nouwen’s work was a first choice for Catholic and mainline Protestant clergy. Nouwen put his stamp on Christian spirituality by conveying his understanding that we are the beloved sons and daughters of God. One of his major ongoing themes involved the struggle to reconcile his longstanding clinical depression with his Christian faith. Nouwen also wrote about his struggles reconciling his priestly vows of celibacy with his human desire for physical and emotional intimacy. Nouwen was gay, although this was not general knowledge until Michael Ford published the biography Wounded Prophet after Nouwen’s death. Ford wrote that Nouwen only became fully comfortable with his sexual orientation in the last few years of his life. Ford theorized that Nouwen’s depression was caused in part by the conflict between his priestly vows of celibacy and the sense of loneliness and longing for intimacy that he experienced. It should be noted that there is no evidence that Nouwen ever broke his vow of celibacy. In Wounded Prophet, Ford wrote that Nouwen was considering writing a book about reconciling gay and lesbian people with the Christian faith when he died.

[2] The first L’Arche community began in 1964 and the first one in the United States was founded in 1972. There are now 15 communities nationwide.

[3] Nouwen quoted from a translation for which I substituted wording from the NRSV to correspond less confusingly with the text read at the beginning of the sermon.

[4] Henri J. M. Nouwen, Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective (New York: Doubleday, 1986) 23.

[5] Bill Wylie-Kellermann, “The Politics of Friendship,” online, www.sojo.net, Internet, 21 May 2006. “Apart from the Society of Friends, who have made it an emblem and a practice, friendship is too little honored in the church. When Jesus names the disciples his friends he changes the shape of things — the community is not to be a pyramid but a circle. The notion of friendship supplants hierarchy with a certain mutuality and equality. Above all friendship implies freedom. Not to mention delight in one another’s presence, that love which is ‘joy complete.’”