Easter 6, Year A | John 14:15-21
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
May 14, 2023
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch the full service, please visit this page.
What would you say if I told you the Bible isn’t really about you? All those verses that we read: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”[1] “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.”[2] “If you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed.”[3] “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” None of those apply directly to you, at least, not to you as an individual. To you collectively? Yes. To us as followers of Christ as a whole? Yes. But the way most of us think about what the Bible says, taking it to emphasize and boost our own personal power, authority, or self-esteem—no, not at all.
Nearly every time we see “you” in the New Testament, it’s a plural “you.” Although we used to have the distinction, using “ye” and “you,” English is an unusual language in that it no longer carries a difference between “you” in the singular and “you” as a group, particularly in formal writing. Conversational English is a little different, where various regions of the country have overcome this difficulty by developing their own distinct phrases when talking to a group—“you guys,” “youz,” “you’ens,” “y’all,” or—in those regions where “y’all” has also drifted into singular use—“all y’all.”
Thinking of ourselves primarily in the sense of being a collection of individuals is a fairly recent innovation that arose primarily within Western Culture. With our relatively late founding and our unusual opportunities for development, our country has taken that personal emphasis further than most, with “Rugged Individualism” being largely held as a virtue throughout our land. But that self-focus is extremely unusual in the greater context of recorded history. While we tend to emphasize the uniqueness of each individual who makes up a group, most of the planet’s population has, historically, thought primarily in terms of the group, with the person receiving individual identity only through their specific role or function within that group.
As the inverse of how we approach life, it can be tricky to get our minds around this. Probably the easiest example would be to compare an American and a Japanese method of introduction at an industry event. We would say something like, “Hi, I’m Jonathan Hanneman, VP of Marketing at Industrial Light and Magic, a part of the Disney family of companies.” In Japan it would be opposite. You would start with the company, state the branch within the company, move on to the department, specify your role within the department, add your family name, and finally state your given name. To structure it equivalently in English it would be something like “Disney Corporation’s Industrial Light and Magic Marketing department Vice President, member of the Hanneman family who have specified me as Jonathan is who I am.” Certainly doesn’t roll off the tongue for us. But, again, that second introduction is how most people on our planet have understood themselves. The group is the important body. The individual finds expression and purpose through their role within that group.
So when we approach the Bible, particularly the New Testament, we should come, not with the assumption that what I’m reading simply applies to me, but with the understanding that the statements, promises, and warnings apply primarily to us—the Church as a whole. I benefit from them as an individual only within the context of us—all of us together. The Bible has no conception of the “just me and Jesus,” go-it-alone Christian. God’s Word applies to me only because I’m included as part of us, the Church past and present.
Our Gospel reading this morning is a portion of John’s account of the Last Supper, the last opportunity Jesus has to emphasize his most important teachings. While what we read sounds pretty individualized, what he actually said was, “If [all of] you [together] love me, [all of] you [together] will keep my commandments.” Of course, like the Rich Young Ruler, we instinctively respond, “Which ones?”[4] But it’s almost as if Jesus has been anticipating that question, because not too long after this statement he presents the primary reason we celebrate Maundy Thursday each Holy Week, Jesus’ great injunction: “This is my commandment, that [all of] you [together] love one another as I have loved [all of] you [together].”
We’ve spoken before about the different words for “love” the New Testament uses. This one happens to be agape—“love as action,” the living out of usefulness and goodness, the kind of love that proves its existence only by making a tangible difference in the world. This love is a choice: the choice to set aside differences, the commitment to work toward unity, to give each other the benefit of the doubt. It’s the kind of love that, during times of conflict, questions and communicates and wrestles in an effort to find common ground. This is the love that’s “patient [and] kind; [that] is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, [is faithful in] all things, hopes all things, [and] endures all things.”[5]
This is the love to which we—together—are called.
Do we really want to follow Christ? Do we really want to express our love to and for him? Then we—together—need to keep his commandment: to love one another as he has loved us.
I have no illusion how difficult it can be to put this simple statement into action. The truth is, it too is an inversion of how we’ve been taught to think. We live within a world that celebrates pride over service, domination over conversation, and uniformity in the stead of unity. It’s just the way things are. People will hurt one another, intentionally or not. They do something we don’t like or fail to do something we want, intentionally or not. They make presumptions that spawn lies and rumors, again, intentionally or not. They may even actively threaten us—or worse. They—we all, really—constantly make it hard to love one another with the kindness agape demands we choose to embrace.
Yet it is a choice: the choice to set aside self. The choice to work together. The choice to take up our cross—both individually and as a whole. The choice to walk with and among one another. The choice to set aside Original Sin—that constant drive toward blame and accusation that we all share. The choice to do what is right, what is good, and what our Savior has done, not simply for me, but for us.
“If you[—all, together—]love me, you[—all, together—]will keep my commandments.”
“This is my commandment, that you[—all, together—]love one another as I have loved you[—all, together].”
[1] John 14:15 | All Bible quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.
[2] I Corinthians 6:19
[3] I Peter 3:14
[4] Matthew 19:18
[5] I Corinthians 13:4-7