Love Is Expensive.

John 15:18-16:4a

February 14, 2016

I.

Having just instructed his disciples about how he is the vine and they are the branches, and that to abide in him is to share together in his love, and that indeed love is the summary of all his commandments, and this love is the one sure indication of discipleship, the Lord Jesus proceeds to inform them of the downside:  “Oh, by the way, you will also be hated by the world.  Just so we’re clear on that and you are not surprised.  The world is going to hate you.”  

In verse 17 he says to the disciples, “Love one another,” and then immediately in verse 18 he says, “If the world hates you…”,  as if the world’s hate is a direct consequence of the love the disciples share and embody.  Just as he is hated by the world, so will Jesus’ disciples also be hated by the world.  Get used to it.

So there is this inherent hostility of the world that the disciples will have to endure because they share in the love of Jesus.  Jesus is so adamant and certain about this that we may even conclude that enduring the world’s hatred is another touchstone and indicator of true discipleship.  The disciple of Jesus, who has become a friend of Jesus by participating in his love, will necessarily become an enemy of the world, and have to endure the hatred, hostility, and possibly even violence of the world, as he does.  We could even wonder that if the world doesn’t hate us, are we maybe not doing discipleship right?  If the world doesn’t hate us, are we participating adequately or fully in the love of God revealed in Jesus?

Now, the first thing we have to realize here is who or what Jesus means when he talks about “the world.”  The world is a big place and it includes a lot of different people, some of whom could love us or hate us.  When he says “the world” here, he means the socially-constructed world-order and its leaders, what we might call “the establishment.”  He means the bullies; the rulers and decision-makers, the powerful, the wealthy, the privileged, the connected, and the authorities who run the-world-as-we-know it.  He means the world of society, economics, politics, and religion: the world as configured by humans, and its ideologies, systems, structures, institutions, habits, rules, and assumptions.

In other words, Jesus is telling the disciples that the same people who have been harassing him for three years, will continue to bother them.  And if we look at who those people are, we find that they are the leaders of his society: the Pharisees, the scribes, the Judean authorities (whom this gospel often refers to as “the Jews”), the police.  Later we will meet their bosses: the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas, and the representative of the Emperor, Pontius Pilate, who will have Jesus killed, and his soldiers.  These are the bullies, the people who hate Jesus.  And these are the kinds of people who will hate and persecute his disciples going forward. 

There are no instances of Jesus being hassled by poor people, women, or the sick, or foreigners, or any of the people that the world dismisses and punishes as sinners.  In this gospel it’s not even the ordinary people who will later call for Jesus to be crucified, but “the chief priests and the police,” the Judean authorities, as we will see in chapter 19.

For Jesus, “the world,” means the elites, the ruling classes the leaders of human society, the ones who prop up and profit the most from the way things are.  They are the ones most allergic to Jesus’ message of love; they are the ones who will do their best to eradicate it and those who practice it.

II.

But why?  I mean, what is so offensive about love that the world would hate it so much?  Today is Valentine’s Day, which presents love as all about hearts and cherubs and roses and chocolate.  Seems pretty harmless.  Clearly the love that Jesus is talking about is something very different from the domesticated, air brushed, popularized, sentimental, commodified Hallmark rendition of love that the world encourages us to believe in, and which is most visible all around us every February 14. 

Jesus must be talking about another kind of love when he suggests that it is what draws the world’s hatred.  Which begs the question: Why would the world hate love?  What is so offensive and threatening about the love that Jesus is talking about that the authorities and leaders in the world will crucify him and persecute his followers in an attempt to stamp it out?

Well, Jesus tells us why.  He says that the problem is that he and his love expose the sin of the world.  That is, it shines a bright light on the world’s violence, corruption, injustice, and falsehood.  Had he not come and shown them God’s love, they would not realize how far from that love they are.  “But now,” he says, because he has come and revealed the truth to them, “they have no excuse” for their continuing in lives that directly contradict God’s love.  They have no excuse for their violence and greed.  They can’t use religion or God as a cover for their need to be in control.  And they’re not happy about that.  His love shames them.    

For God’s love is powerful.  It is the fundamental truth and substance of the universe.  God’s love is creative and transformative.  It is like a fire that burns away impurities and falsehoods.  God’s love overcomes, and unites, and restores, and delivers, and sets free.  God’s love is inexorable and real and ultimate.  Gods love holds everything together.  

When Jesus appears, doing the things that he does — like giving sight to the blind, making the lame walk, and even raising the dead — he reveals and applies God’s love in people’s lives.  He restores them to their true and blessed nature.  He empowers them and gives them freedom.

And in so doing he shows up the powers of the world that like to imagine that they are in charge.  He reveals the fact that not only do the world’s rulers not really care about people’s blindness, immobility, and slavery to death, they actually benefit and thrive from these disabilities.  In fact, the more people think of themselves as blind, crippled, and dead, the better the world’s rulers do.  They have no use for people who can see the truth, because people who see the truth do not have to depend on them.  They are threatened when people gain power over their own lives, and they are fearful when dead souls are liberated and come alive in the Spirit.

III.

And maybe the thing that horrifies the world the most about God’s love is that it is the antidote to fear.  “There is no fear in love,” says the author of this gospel in a letter.  “Perfect love casts out fear.”  And fear is what keeps the world locked down in sin and hopelessness.  If love is the basic energy of God’s activity in the creation, fear is what makes the world — the human world — go ‘round.  Love unites; fear divides.  Love reconciles; fear separates, which is why it is the essence of sin.  

Jesus brings his followers together into the unifying embrace of God’s love.  When they gather in his name, they form communities of love, supporting, forgiving, welcoming, accepting, healing, and praying with and for each other, rejecting the ideologies of fear according to the world.  

The world wants us to fear people who are not like us; but Jesus would have us embrace all kinds of people.  The world would have us perpetuate and reinforce social classes, and roles, and pecking orders; but Jesus turns all that upside down, bringing women and poor people to central positions.  The world wants us to fight violence with threats and more violence; Jesus teaches forgiveness and blessing of enemies.  The world wants us to save and protect ourselves at others’ expense; the early church becomes famous for ministering to plague victims without fear, even at risk of getting infected themselves.  The world wants us to hate and fear people who threaten the status quo; yet Christians worship and follow someone whom Rome had executed for sedition, showing that they aren’t afraid of offending the powers in the world.

We who follow Christ are not afraid; because we know by the power of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, that Jesus Christ is still with us, still alive, still at work, and that to abide together in him and in his love is to abide in God.  And to abide in God is to participate in God’s life and nature, and it is to live forever, beyond the power of death and hell and sin that pervades the world.  We aren’t afraid because we know that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love in Jesus Christ.

V.

I am reminded of that great quote from Billy Graham: “If Christianity were illegal would there be enough evidence to convict you?”  In light of this passage, I wonder if we could also ask ourselves: Is enough of God’s love shining through us to get us into trouble?  Or is our witness so tame and safe and inoffensive that the world barely even knows about us, let alone hates us?  

If we’re not visibly with the ones the world rejects, victimizes, and fears, are we really loving with the love of Jesus?  If we’re not laying down our lives to get in the way of the world’s exploitation and consumption of the weak, can we say we know God’s love at all?  If we’re not standing up with the bullied — the excluded, the persecuted, the scapegoats, and the victimized — are we standing with the crucified Christ?  If we’re not standing up to the bullies, the Caiaphases and the Pilates, who stoke people’s fears and hatreds, build walls, depend on weapons, employ torture, and degrade God’s creation, are we standing in the love of Jesus?

Sometimes I read a passage like this and I wonder if, at the gates of the Kingdom, Jesus doesn’t want to see our resume but our rap-sheet.

“An hour is coming,” says Jesus to his disciples, “When those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God.”  It’s Jesus’ warning.  Remember that this is all part of the Lord’s last words to his disciples; he’ll be nailed to a cross within 12 hours.  He needs them to know that this is part of a larger plan. 

And it is a good and sobering thing to hear, as we move into the season of Lent.  Because it reminds us of the cost of waking up.  Love is expensive.  It cost the Lord Jesus his life.  It costs all of us our old, ego-centric, personality-driven selves.  But the benefits are immense, because what we gain in loving is nothing less than participation in the very life and nature of God.  What we gain after what Paul calls this brief momentary affliction, is an eternal treasure of life, and joy, and glory. +++++++