The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Doctor Durrell Watkins at the
Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, May 10, 2009.
Let’s get it out of the way.
In the gospel reading today, verse 6 sounds harsh.
The bible is so diverse, covering so many years, ideas, places, attitudes,
circumstances… we can find almost everything in there. We see people being
kind, and people being cruel. We see people with a generous view of God, and
others who think God isn’t all that nice.
In the bible we see people who are very simple, and others who are very
sophisticated. Some who are fiercely loyal, and others who seem to have feet
of clay. Scripture is as diverse as the human family, and that is one reason
that I find it so fascinating and so relevant.
But to get the most out of the bible, we need to learn to approach the
scriptures through a critical lens. Let me hasten to add that “critical” in
the sense I’m using it isn’t dismissive nor is it pejorative. A film critic
might judge a film to be brilliant… she isn’t out to trash a good piece of
art, but to analyze it and discern if it is good and if so why it is good.
Critics often love a film or a play or book, but only after they have dared to
examine it fearlessly, asking questions of it. Such critical analysis often
brings praise. So, let’s not be afraid of biblical criticism… it might just be
the thing that brings the scripture to life for us and proves it to be useful
after all.
It was biblical criticism that led us to question homophobic assumptions
and interpretations that have been used in emotionally violent ways against
same-gender loving people. Such criticism brought freedom and hope and joy and
gave the bible back to people who had been abused by it. The skills we learned
from questioning religious homophobia can serve us well in every area of
scripture study.
Chapter 15, verse six of John’s gospel puts these words into Jesus’ mouth:
“Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such
branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” And that passage,
with others from John’s gospel, has been used very abusively against
non-Christians. But let’s set the scene:
John’s community lives in a time of great turmoil. The writer is writing
almost 70 years after Jesus’ execution, and almost 30 years after Jerusalem
and its Temple have been destroyed. Decades of hatred and fear have plagued
his community. His people may need to be reminded of their sacred value, and
then they may need to be reminded that only Love can overcome hatred… only
Love can heal the wounds that hatred has inflicted. But how can a person love
when they have been treated so hatefully?
The writer knows people who have been arrested, beaten, incarcerated,
impaled, beheaded, crucified, torn to shreds by lions. That’s the reality of
his world. That’s the reality of his experience. A couple of centuries later,
the Emperor Constantine will change the scene for Christians. Christianity
becomes the state religion — no longer underground or on the margins — but
that isn’t the way of the world in John’s time. It’s a dangerous place for his
people, and if he is going to move them past fear and regret and despair, he’s
going to have to be pretty creative.
John is being creative. He is imagining that Jesus would champion his
cause. He is writing decades after Jesus said anything. He isn’t recording
words as they are spoken; he is reimagining the Jesus story and applying it to
his audience.
We’ve seen that with the new Star Trek movie. J.J. Abrams has reimagined
the Star Trek myth, has creatively constructed a new beginning for it, has
adapted it for a new audience in a new day, but all in the spirit of the Star
Trek tradition. John is doing something similar.
John has woven seven I AM statements throughout his gospel and has
attributed these statements to Jesus. Today’s I AM statement is I Am the true
vine. And using Jesus as a symbol for the community that continues to follow
in his way, John imagines Jesus saying good branches produce fruit on the
vine, useless branches need to go. But as so much of John’s writing is
allegorical, metaphorical, symbolic… what if he’s using symbolism when he
says, “whoever does not abide in me is thrown away… into a fire and burned.”
What if the whoever, is the whatever that exists in all of us?
John’s message is that God dwells in Jesus, and through ritual and story,
Jesus dwells in John’s community. Jesus symbolizes a god-filled life, and then
to use the vine metaphor, the branches flow out of the vine. Jesus is filled
with God, we are filled with Jesus as we share rituals and stories about him
and reflect on his message and mission, so we, too, are filled with God. And
what is God? Love!
John’s bigger message is that we should abide in love and allow love to
abide in us because that’s what Jesus did. Jesus came to realize, or at least
his followers came to realize, that Jesus was one with his divine Source —
Jesus abided in love, and love abided in him — love was his divine power.
John then holds Jesus up as the supreme example… be so filled with the
image of Jesus that you follow in his path. Identity with love (like he did),
and when you do, love fills you and expresses as you. God is love, and whoever
lives in love lives in God and God lives in them… or so we heard in 1 John
4.16.
That’s the message. We are a community learning to live in the power of
love. Now, John may have been thinking… a lot of people hate us, so this kind
of love is radical and even dangerous. Get out of our way… love like this is
hard enough without people who aren’t taking it seriously. But maybe
subconsciously, he was onto something even deeper.
You see, we don’t all love all the time. We don’t forgive our enemies
easily… or maybe it’s just me.
We don’t see the good in everyone, especially when their behavior is unkind…
or maybe it’s just me.
We don’t see the sacred value of every person sometimes… or maybe it’s just
me.
So you know what… if I want to live in the power of God, that is, in the
power of unconditional and all-inclusive love, then all that is unlike love
needs to be cast out of my consciousness. Prejudice, fear, resentment, rage,
vengeance, arrogance… those things need to be submitted to the cleansing fire
of the spirit, to be purged, or healed, so that only my best and truest self,
that which is made in Love’s image, remains. I don’t always make it… but John
believes Jesus at least came close… so until I get better at it, I can
identify with one who did better than I usually do. And that brings me closer
to my goal, and that brings me hope.
Whatever is keeping us from living in the healing power of love needs to
go. And suddenly, John doesn’t sound so reactive, so unkind, so territorial,
but is instead speaking metaphorically of the issues that we all have. He is
giving us hope that we can confront those issues within us, to emerge as the
loving children of God we really are. To abide in the love that Christ
symbolizes isn’t to find something new; it’s to connect with what we really
are and to live in unity with the divine love that is already at the core of
our being.
If we aren’t living in love (and we’ll know, because love is usually
accompanied by peace and joy and fulfillment and gratitude)… if we aren’t
living in love, we are disconnected from the love vine. So, we start to get
rid of what is hindering our growth, our healing, our ability to live in love,
and as those obstacles are removed, we find ourselves united again with the
Source, the vine, and blessings like joy and strength and comfort and hope and
peace start flowing again.
John isn’t scolding his community; he’s reminding them of their divine
potential. They are part of the true vine, the source of life, the flow of
never-ending love. That’s who his people are… in or out of jail cells, in or
out of lions dens, in or out of court rooms, in or out trouble… they are
children of God, and God is love and whoever loves has experienced God…
regardless of their religious affiliation, regardless of what they call God,
regardless of their sexual orientation, economic status, or nationality.
Whoever loves has expressed the very nature and power of God. The true vine is
the vine that produces love, and all that is unlike love isn’t part of the
true vine… so we confront our fears and our prejudices, and we return to love.
That’s the peace, the hope, the comfort John is offering. And this is the good
news. Amen.