"Jesus Calls Us Friends" - John 15:9-18 (5-17-09)

I would like to talk to you as among friends. When we talk as friends, we can use frank and open speech. So let me be frank and open. I’m glad I’m among friends today after a funeral yesterday and a funeral tomorrow for my wife’s aunt. It’s good to be among friends when death comes a knocking. This society of friends, like the Quakers, is a place where community is renewed.

We were created to be friends right from the start! Friendship began at the start in the Garden of Eden, When God created us, it was His intent to maintain intimate fellowship. God walked with them and God talked with them. But then the friendship was broken! Something or someone got in the way as we chose a new best friend that deceived us. But God wanted to restore that relationship.

It's what God sought in Abraham & Moses who was a friend of God. It wasn’t’ a monologue but a dialogue that God was after – a holy conversation in community and friendship. Lest we sentimentalize God into a friend, Martin Marty said, we are reminded that this is a dialogue and not a monologue. God may be omnipotent, impassible and transcendent; wholly other; beyond Knowing; the I AM THAT I AM. But God seems to value friendship of sorts. We can even look to the Trinity as an experience of relationship and interdependence.

When Jesus called the discipleship into a relationship, he was called “rabonai” or rabbi or master. He was their rabbi; their teacher; their leader and they were the students, servants or slaves to the master. But slaves and servants have no rights! We don’t follow just because we have to! We teach our children emotional intelligence and the relationships skills of negotiating. They are not called servants but children, little people who will become mature. This relationship with the disciples near the end of Jesus’ life in John’s gospel seems to become very intimate! Now he will become their FRIEND! Not slaves but companions. “I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you! No one has greater love than to lay down their life for their friends. “You did not choose me, but I chose you” and “I have called you friends”. Today we rarely use “friendship” to describe our relationship with God!

Yet it is friendship that Jesus invited the disciple to experience. The word that Jesus used was “philos” which is the word we get for Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. This philos is a friendship love. When Jesus tested his friendship with Peter after Peter had denied him, Jesus asked Peter three times after the resurrection if Peter loved him. Some say it’s a mirror of the three times Peter denied Jesus. Yet when Jesus asked Peter this question, he asked Peter if he loved him with the word “agape’. Do you agape me and Peter said you know I “philos” you; do you “agape” me he asked a second time and Peter said, said you know I “philos” you. Then Jesus asked, “Do you philos me?” and Peter said you know I “philos” you. It’s as if Jesus were taking Peter at Peter’s level of friendship. Jesus invited him to learn agape by starting with philos.

Like Peter and the disciples, we are being invited to go deeper in our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. So let us see how this friendship will develop and be tested. Immediately after this section of Jesus will be betrayed and denied. There is great risk in becoming friends. We remember this risk in the words of institution: the night in which he was betrayed. All the disciples will deny him this night – friends like that, who needs enemies. I’ve heard some pastors change it to “the night before his crucifixion” and this removes our betrayal and denial of our friend.

Yet Jesus will trust these disciples as he is investing into this relationship that will bear fruit even in the midst of failure. Jesus will demonstrate that to be a friend of Jesus means to love in a sacrificial way. Jesus will lay down his life for his friends, and that meant a painful physical sacrifice. Yet there are lots of ways of laying down our lives: giving up time; giving up personal ambitions; or donate money to a friend. Jesus has set example. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (v. 12). Friend to one Native American tribe was “one-who-carries-my-sorrows-on-his-back.” That is literally what Christ did on Calvary: He carried our sorrows on his back.

But being friends in faith also means “being” a friend. Martin Marty cites the philosopher Gabriel Marcel who views a friend "as a way of being more than doing," one who is "being at the disposal of someone else." Being a friend means "being available"-a sharing of life, knowledge, and self. Being available "involves an attitude, a posture, a signaling that draws on the deepest elements of the self."

Friendship is also not conditional. This friendship with Jesus will go from “you are my friends if you do what I command you” to an assertion (“I have called you friends”), O’Day notes, does not depend on something the disciples do, “because their enactment of Jesus’ commandments still remains in the future. No, it is something that Jesus has done: ‘I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father’ (John 15:15)

When I was in college, I had a friend named Thad. After graduation, he went to Garrett while I went to the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He took a call to the Milwaukee area while I served in the Rockford area. We would get together about three out of four Tuesdays in Elkhorn, WI at a bar called “Someplace Else” and talk about ministry stuff. We both got married in 1997 and were in each other’s wedding party. He then moved to Detroit, West Virginia, Tennessee and then Minnesota. We only kept in touch at the most through Christmas cards. But now he has been serving a couple years now in Dakota, IL and we’ve gotten together about six times now at Mary’s Market on East State street in Rockford for lunch. The best thing about our friendship is that we have pick up where we left off! You see what is more powerful than philos is agape. Friendships that are built upon the grace of Christ that calls us back into a relationship that might bear fruit for the kingdom of God.

Let us pray: Gracious God, even when we have denied or betrayed our friendship with you, you invite us back and pick up where we left off by showing us more than just friendship but unconditional love. Strengthen our friendship today that we may tell others about this friendship you have established with us, we pray in Jesus name, Amen.

"Branches of the Church Vine" - John 15:1-8 (5-10-09)

Jesus said in John 15:5: “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus is reminding the disciples to remain or stay in this relationship. They may experience persecution and struggles, but stay in this community and I was entwine you together. It’s really the difference between being a team player and a loner. Stay, remain and be held together by these branches of Christ.
There were many vineyards in the time of Christ. God assumed the quality of the people of Israel. This reminded to encourage disciples to stay intimately connected to the vine. When a branch gets the idea it can bear fruit on its own it will dry up and died. This place is a one house of worship and this is our abiding place. We gather as a family or branch of the faith. Yet this building is not the church, it is a place where we worship God and we are trained in the Christian faith as disciples of Jesus Christ. We have been wove into this branch through Baptism. We have become connected to the vine and we affirm our faith in Christ Jesus as DA-VINE! Our community is a branch of the Christian faith where we love and care for one another.
I see many such branches here together with arms and hearts open to reaching out to others with the message of Christ.You are the church and the branch of the Christian family here. The church is the people. We Christian-Lutherans have a unique place in the faith where we reach out to the Orthodox and Catholics; where we branch out and work with Presbyterians and Methodist and other mainline denominations. There are so many braches of the Church vine – for there is just one vine and we are the branches. There is just one Church with many denominations: My mother grew up Russian Orthodox and married Methodist. We have various denominational experiences. When I attended the funeral for Mary Ann’s mother, I received Holy Communion. There is just one church and I am a member of it.
Some church denominations may think that they have the faith figured out and are not connected to other branches of the church. Like difference siblings who don’t get along and don’t want to acknowledge one another, the churches today find themselves all over the place. Jesus said, John 15:5 says “I am the vine, you are the branches”. I remember the song that we sang in Sunday school. The vine is the main focus; the branches start out as little buds that are nice and green and shoot off in many directions. After a season the small green branch gets woody and eventually hardens and can endure winter. Yet we must be weary when branches of the Christian faith become so hardened and stubborn that we refuse to grow in a different direction.
Jesus grafted these disciples into community just like the way the Ethiopian (God fearing man) was when in Acts 8:26-40 Phillip started where the Ethiopian Eunuch was in answering his questions. God provides the perfect time for us to be woven back into community. God will prompt us to the waters and to conversations with others.
Yet we need training, like the Adult VBS program this summer. Vines sometimes have a natural tendency to trail down and grow low to the ground. They don’t bear fruit down there. They need to be taken care of or they will get dusty and muddy if it rains. Mildew can grow on them then and they will cause the branch to become sick. My new white lace vine is starting to grow. My Master Gardener neighbor gave me a clipping last fall when I built my Russ Ruzanski hammock holder. This white lace is starting to grow and I have to keep weaving these new shoots back into the trellis so it grows up.
We are intimately connected to God and others through this vine. 1 John 4:7-21: “Beloved, let us love one another. Perfect loves casts out all fear, for there is no fear in love.” We can’t give away what we have not been given. That is why this week we gave away a few crosses and wrapped a few people in prayer shawls during times where life’s unfortunate pruning has taken place. Where there is no more growth that will take place on the vine at death’s cutting leaves a bear spot on the branch of community.
This training also requires some pruning. I have a trumpet vine that is about ten feet tall. After last year I need to prune it. I climbed up on a ladder and cut back a bunch in order to TRAIN it to go in a different direction. That is what PRUNING is like – it’s training! So they don’t grow wild and out of control the vine needs to be harnessed. Might be painful at times but more growth will happen. Those parts that don’t bear fruit are tossed. It’s when we are growing and branching out into life that we find ourselves being pruned in order to grow more fruitful.
There are times where we experience such pruning. My aunt passed away yesterday at age 80 and I’ll be doing the funeral on Saturday. There are many people in this community and world who are spiritually homeless. They have no place to worship God outside of creation.
Today is Mother’s day and it is a reminder that we are all connected in the creation. We have all been given life from the creator. The umbilical chord of life that held us to the vine fed us until we were grafted into the human family. There is just one vine – that is Christ. There is one Christ – who is the head of this household of faith and Jesus binds us together.
Let us pray: Gracious God, we thank you for grafting us into the vine and we pray that we would be trained in your ways, we pray in Jesus name, Amen.

Luke 24:36-48 "The Clean Plate Club" (4-26-09)

These disciples were hungry on that first Easter. The passage from Luke shows that fish was on their menu but I don’t think they cleaned off their plates. They were not a part of the clean plate club. I was a part of the clean plate club! I grew up always finishing what was on my plate but back then we just didn’t have much on our plates in the first place so it wasn’t a problem. There were no “seconds” because we didn’t have tons of first. The helpings were smaller. Today, the helpings at restaurants are hug. The Current fast-food servings are two to five times larger than in the 1950s. In 2007, Americans spent half yearly food budget eating out. In 1978, less than 20% of the calories we consumed were eaten outside the home. In 2003, that number had climbed to 50%.[1] When McDonald’s first opened, a soda was 7 ounces; now the child size is 12 ounces, a small is 16 ounces, and the large 32 ounces and French Fries were 2.4 ounces and now 6.2 ounces. Last year Wendy's dropped the Biggie sodas and Great Biggie french fries. They went back to small, medium, and large. What were medium fries is now a small; the Biggie became a medium, and the Great Biggie became a large. The Biggie soda no longer exists but now a large drink is now 42 ounces, 10 ounces larger than the year before when it was the Biggie.[2]

We do have a natural way of saying that we are full. That’s when you know you are not hungry and need be leery of forcing food down just to finish what is on the plate. But the reality is, we come before God very hungry! There is so much that we consume that doesn’t fill us up! Today, the disciples remind us that we should eat less fast food and perhaps eat more fish.

What was on that plate the actual first Easter dinner? What did you have on Easter (Ask for responses)? Some of you had traditional Easter ham! That is what we had at my in-laws. However, this year we had fish for lunch on Easter for the first time. We tried to return to the actual and most traditional Easter meal, FISH! You might think ham or a leg of lamb is the traditional Easter meal. But I would like to suggest that we renew the traditional meal for Easter dinner and have fish next year. We had Salmon this year. The disciples had fish. Most of the disciples were fisherman when Jesus called them. They grew up around the Sea of Galilee and made their living fishing. These guys probably smelled like fish most of their lives until they started following Jesus. The miracle of feeding five thousand with fish and loaves of bread is a reminder of the unbelievable new life that Christ was bringing these fishermen.

The first Easter Meal was broiled fish to be exact. The disciples were called by Jesus and told that they would fish for people. The fish became the prominent symbol of the Christian faith for the next three hundred years. The fish was the primary symbol for the Christian faith until the cross was banned by the Romans as a form of execution in the third century. Bishops had fishes engraved on their seals and carved into gravestones and tiles the floor. It adorned fonts in the early church. During those first three hundred years, Christians were persecuted. Some suggest that a person could mark an arch with their foot in the dirt to find out if the other person they were talking to was a Christian. The other could then make an arch as well and make the shape of a fish.

The fish can be seen on the back of cars, though I don’t have one so people don’t view my driving as a sign of my faith. I use the fish symbol on my email signature with the greater than, less than, greater than characters ><>.

Last winter I led a funeral for a good friend of mine’s brother-in-law who died of a sudden heart attack. Jim was in his late 50’s and I knew him since the 1980’s whenever I would see Julius or be at family party for one of his kids. I was asked to do the funeral which was held at a funeral home on Central Avenue and Addison Avenue in Chicago. When I arrived at the funeral home that night in Chicago I entered the area where the service was going to be and discovered something to my surprise. There was a huge fish mounted over the casket. It wasn’t a cross or another main religious symbol, but a large northern pike. You have to understand that Jim was a fisherman! I wasn’t sure how I was going to tie this in until it hit me that we are called to be fishers of people and the use of the fish in the early church as a prominent symbol before the cross was used to represent Christianity. They brought a fish into the funeral home and also grief and sorrow.

The fish had already been cleaned, broiled and eaten. The disciples had already eaten! The fish has already been cooked and it is just sitting there. They probably had lamb for dinner on the Passover on Thursday and now they are eating some broiled fish for Sunday dinner. It was Sunday evening and they were uncertain about what to do. The disciples had heard that Jesus had risen but still were disbelieving. They had shared a fish meal and were discussing the new about Jesus appearing to two men on the road to Emmaus. They were discussing this among themselves.

There was so much on their plates, including perhaps guilt, fear, doubt and grief. Their heads were spinning like plates on the end of the stick when his crucifixion came crashing down! Then Jesus appeared! Was it a ghost? They were frightened and feeling doubt about who this was and what this was that was before them.

Then Jesus stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” He just mysteriously appeared to them through the door. They were startled and terrified. They thought Jesus was a ghost. They all were doubting and not just Thomas in Luke’s gospel. Then Jesus said, “Why are you frightened, & have doubts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones.”

Then Jesus said, “Have you anything here to eat?” I don’t think he was really hungry as he hadn’t eaten since Thursday. I don’t think he was just dying for fish. It wasn’t that he was physically hungry but he wanted to prove something to them. So they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. I’d like to suggest that Jesus started the clean plate club. When Jesus ate the fish, it demonstrated that this was no ghost or a spiritual form because ghosts or spirit didn’t eat anything. Jesus was alive and the resurrected body ate in some manner. This was a sign that Jesus in this spiritual body was alive.

When the disciples gave Jesus a piece of fish on a plate, I think they also brought their doubt, sin, fears, grief and struggles as well. We all bring so much to this plate and to this table and at the end of this meal, we see that Jesus has consumed sin, death and the grave once and for all. Just like the empty tomb, the plate is empty too.[3]

Jesus offered them to a clean slate to start all over again. They were able to receive forgiveness because they repented, turned around and went out to lead this ministry of reconciliation for the sake of others!

Let us pray: Gracious God, we bring so much to this plate today. We have tried to fill our hunger in ways that do not satisfy. But you have been consumed our sin, death and grave once and for all. You have consumed our fears and doubts again and again; forever and ever and ever. Amen.

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[1] http://ezinearticles.com/?Eating-Out--Can-Be-Hazardous-To-Your-Waistline&id=135755

[2] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20825325/

[3] Living Lent, Creative Communications Lenten Program, 2008