Jolts of joy
Commentary
It was a most pleasant and unexpected jolt. During his last year of teaching, Bob was privileged and honored to have Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a next door "office neighbor." This in itself was jolting enough. However, in the course of Bob's association with this legendary figure, the Archbishop graciously struck up a friendship with him. They joked together, teased one another, and generally enjoyed one another's presence. When Myrna's mother died and the Archbishop heard about it, he came to Bob's office to offer his condolences and a prayer. Archbishop Tutu regarding Bob as a friend! What a pleasant and unexpected surprise. What a jolt of joy!
Those occasions when we are pleasantly surprised, jolted by welcomed events, or receive an unexpected gift are moments of grace. Amid a world that never ceases to jolt us with the inhumanity of humans, we cherish those pleasing jolts, something as simple as finding a new friend. Actually, the Bible is filled with just such jolts of joy, and Christianity is built on the foundation of the surprisingly good news of Christ. Unfortunately, we tend to take it all for granted. The good news is no longer jolting, and the love and mercy of God become an ordinary reality. The bursts of praise in our Sunday worship services are dulled into an empty ritual. The trouble is that we think we know the Bible and fully understand Christian faith.
This is a good Sunday for preachers to revive the jolting quality of the biblical message. Each lesson offers its own peculiar surprise. They ambushed us from behind with good news!
Acts 10:44-48
We probably cannot imagine how jolting it was for Peter to experience these Gentiles' showing evidence of the gift of the Spirit. This passage is one of the several episodes in Acts tracing the church's discovery that the gospel was intended for Gentiles as well as Jews. The Gentiles' reception of Peter's message took him totally by surprise. He should have been prepared for it by his strange vision-dream of the sheet filled with unclean foods and God's enigmatic order to eat! But his dream utterly dumbfounded Peter (Acts 10:9-17). Then, however, guided by the Spirit, he went to Cornelius' house where he found the place packed with Gentiles. He hesitated, claiming that it was "unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile" (10:28). Finally, he gave in and preached to this assembly in Cornelius' house, beginning his sermon with a statement, the consequences of which he himself must not have fully comprehended: "God shows no partiality ..." (10:34). Peter's sermon stretches from 10:34 to 43, and our lesson depicts the results of the sermon.
The decisive feature of the Gentiles' response to the sermon is that (while the preacher was still speaking) "the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word" (v. 44). For Luke, the presence of the Spirit was a sure sign that God had done it again -- brought faith into human lives. Peter later appeals to the evidence of the gift of the Spirit when he is trying to convince his colleagues that the church should reach out to the Gentiles (11:15-18).
Like the story of Pentecost, when there was fire, wind, and speaking in other languages (2:2-4), we are told the Gentiles in Cornelius' house were "speaking in tongues and extolling God" (v. 45) as a result of becoming beneficiaries of the Spirit. Even the "circumcised believers" saw it and were "astounded" (v. 45), that is, the died-in-the-wool Jewish Christians were amazed. Luke may have understood speaking in tongues differently than the way it was practiced in the Corinthian church (see 1 Corinthians 14:1-25). The Corinthians spoke in an ecstatic language -- not a human language but a heavenly one -- that had to be interpreted and which Paul refers to as the language of angels (1 Corinthians 13:1). In the Pentecost story, on the other hand, those who received the Spirit spoke in the languages of other nations, not their own, so that all heard in their own native tongue. What the author of Acts intends by speaking in tongues in 10:45 is not clear, except for the fact that the speaking indicated the Spirit's presence in the Gentiles' lives. Peter is surprised that God has taken the initiative to pour out the Spirit on these Gentiles without their first becoming Jews. "Just as we have" suggests that God is treating these non-Jewish and uncircumcised people just as God treated the original apostles. A jolt even for some one who had just declared, "God shows no partiality."
Surprised though he is, Peter cannot resist the urge and responsibility to baptize these Gentiles and becomes the first of the early Christian missionaries to offer the water of baptism to any who were not affiliated in some way with Judaism (v. 47). Luke apparently separated the gift of the Spirit and baptism (see 8:15-16). Most often the gift of the Spirit followed baptism (for example, 2:37), but occasionally it comes before baptism (for example, 9:17-19).
We have to use our imaginations to grasp what a jolt of joy it was for God to treat these Gentiles to the gift of faith and the Spirit. Most of us are Gentile Christians, so we take for granted that the church has always reached out to all people. Peter, however, was in another place. Even with the experience of following Jesus and seeing him associate with every kind of person, even with his revealing dream that smashed the whole concept of impurity, Peter was still not prepared for this. God was out in front of the church, stretching it out into new territory and redefining it as a universal community and not just a Jewish sect. What a jolt that must have been. What jolting surprise does God have in mind for the church's outreach today? Where will God pour out the Spirit, much to our surprise?
1 John 5:1-6
There is a jolt too in the message of this passage. In many ways, these verses are only a repetition of what we have read in other sections of 1 John beginning with the Second Sunday of Easter, and we recognize some of the same themes we have already discussed, such as, "born of God," "love," and "the world." Here again we read that love of God and love of the "children of God" are related, and loving is equated with obeying Christ's commandments (vv. 1-3). But these verses throw something more at us, including a jolt or two.
To start with the last of these jolts, and save the first for last, the author moves in verse 6 to a new subject, the discussion of which continues beyond the reading through verse 12. What catches our eye is how the author describes Christ and how the Spirit testifies to Christ (v. 6). What does it mean to say that Christ "came by water and the blood" and "not with water only"? Scholars have asked the same question, and no certainty can be expected. However, the statement evokes memories of John 19:31-37 in which blood and water flowed from Jesus' side as he hung on the cross. Water in the Gospel of John often represents the Spirit (for example, John 37-39), and in verse 6b the author of 1 John explicitly associates the Spirit with the "blood and water." The point seems to be that Jesus' death made it possible for the Spirit to come through Christ (see John 15:26).
Moreover, verse 6 may be another of the author's efforts to convince readers that they should believe Christ actually came among us in human form. Those who had separated themselves from the Johannine community (see vv. 18-19) apparently did not believe that Christ appeared in flesh and blood (for example, 2:22 and 4:2-5). "Water only" may refer to Jesus' baptism and omit any mention of the crucifixion. Water and the blood, however, represent the full ministry of the earthly Jesus who was a true physical embodiment of the Word (John 1:14). The Spirit gives witness to Jesus' fleshliness, and the Spirit is the "Spirit of Truth" -- that is, the meaning of the revelation of God in Christ (see John 14:16-17).
The reminder that Jesus was fully human is always a jolt, but the greatest jolt in this passage resides in the author's earlier claim that our faith "conquers the world" (vv. 4-5). The "world" in the Johannine literature often refers to the realm of evil or creation gone astray and alienated from its Creator. Actually these two verses make several assertions about who or what "conquers the world," each of which carries its own kind of surprise.
First, "whatever is born of God conquers the world." That which is "born of God" means anything that God originates, brings about, or initiates. So, Christians and love are both born of God (4:7), and that which originates with God has power to defeat the forces of evil. The author, however, goes on to claim, second, that "our faith ... is the victory that conquers the world" and, third, that those who believe "that Jesus is the Son of God" conquer the world. These three statements regarding who or what conquers the world are in parallelism with one another and are actually three ways of saying the same thing. Christians are "born of God," have "faith," and believe "that Jesus is the Son of God." We then are the ones who overcome the world through our rebirth as children of God, our faith, and our confident belief in Christ.
What a shock it is to hear that we conquer the world! Many of us often feel that the world is conquering us, not we the world. Furthermore, most of us would say that in Christ God conquers the world, and we are only recipients of the benefits of the divine victory. Yet this passage gives us a more important role than passive recipients. The joyful jolt is that God goes on conquering the world through us! We are agents of the divine victory. With our heritage as children of God and the faith it provokes, we are God's instruments for overcoming the forces that drive a wedge between all of creation and its Creator. What a jolt!
John 15:9-17
Still another jolting surprise awaits us. This lesson is a continuation of the one assigned for last Sunday (15:1-8), and the two lections ought to be read as a single unit. What is unique about these verses is the fact that the subject shifts rather quickly between verses 8 and 9. Throughout the first eight verses, Jesus speaks of the importance of abiding and then in verse 9 begins to describe this abiding in terms of love. The words of this lesson tumble out in ways that seem rather arbitrary and random, partly because they are actually poetic in nature. Notice how the various topics of the reading are interwoven with one another through common words. One word suggests another and that one suggests still another and so on. We propose that you take the time to read this passage out loud and hear how it sounds.
The reading begins with a declaration and a command (v. 9). Christ loves the believers in precisely the same way God loves him. Therefore, "abide in my love," for to relate to Christ's love is to become related to God's love. This verse is one example of how Christian relationships are modeled after Christ's relationship with God. The relatedness of the divine provides the pattern for our relationships with Christ, one another, the Spirit, and the world (see also 17:18 and 20:21). Christ's love for us invites us to abide in him, that is, to come into a positive relationship with him.
Verse 10 essentially repeats the same theme found in verse 9, except in the former the abiding relationship depends on keeping Christ's "commandments," the most explicit of which is stated in verse 12, the command to love one another. Actually, in the Gospel of John Jesus offers only two commandments -- to love and to believe in Jesus (for example, 14:1). "Joy" arises out of this obedient loving and believing and is the joy that comes from an intimate relationship of love with another person, a love that is "complete" (or "full") only in total commitment to one another. Christ himself will model that sort of commitment by surrendering his life for his "friends." (See 16:20-24 for more on the nature of joy in John.)
The final paragraph of the reading poetically explores the love that characterizes the relationship with Christ. It is the sort of love that goes the final mile for the other, namely, to voluntary death. Jesus' death is a totally free decision and not one forced on him, and this is the sense of "lay down one's life." He appeals to what humans know as the fullest expression of love for another person as a way of recognizing God's love for us. The fact that the most complete form of love is found in a relationship with a friend is, however, not accidental.
Here comes the jolt of joy. Of course, being "friendly" to Jesus is keeping those commandments to which he alludes earlier. However, now Jesus calls his believers "friends" (v. 15), and the relationship between humans and God/Christ is utterly transformed. Certainly we understand that we humans are God's "servants" (or "slaves" -- the Greek word can mean either), since we are created by and for our Creator. However, now things get turned around.
The reversal of roles began with the master's serving his servants by washing their feet (13:1-20), and now it is completed when Jesus renames us. Naming creates a relationship as well as identifies it (for example, 20:16), so by calling us his "friends" Christ brings something new into being. The only human example that approaches catching the meaning of verse 15 is perhaps when, in a relationship, one party says to the other, "You're my best friend." That's a weak comparison, but it suggests the way in which a human relation is changed by identifying it with the word "friend." The Greek word translated "friends" is one of the several words for love and has a grand tradition of human love in the Greco-Roman world.
While the substance of this friendship is love, it has another important feature. Christ has revealed God to his followers. Subordinates need not know what grand plan the executive has in mind. All they have to do is complete their specific responsibility, without knowing precisely how it might contribute to a larger purpose. On the assembly line, workers can spend their days attaching a nut to a bolt without ever comprehending the completed machine that comes off the assembly line. However, that is not the relationship between humans and God, for in Christ God has revealed the whole scheme -- revealed even the divine heart (John 1:18). Knowing who God really is, we no longer occupy a trivial station but now are intimate confidants. What a jolt that transformation is.
If we are liable to abuse our new relationship as Christ's friends and think too highly of ourselves, verses 16 and 17 set us straight. We are not in this relationship with Christ because we chose to be; it is not a result of our own willpower. Rather, "you did not choose me but I chose you" (see also 6:70 and 13:18). Lurking just below surface of the whole of the Gospel of John is a strong affirmation of divine sovereignty that deflates all false notions of pride and importance. Faith may require a decision on our part, but ultimately it is God who selects us to believe. The dangers of such an apparent determinism need to be kept in balance with the quality of relationship just described in verse 15. However, one of the positive conclusions to which this divine sovereignty leads us is the recognition that we cannot take pride in our faith! (For our discussions of bearing "fruit" and receiving whatever we ask, see the column for last Sunday's Gospel lesson.)
The final verse of the reading again declares the purpose of Christ's words, which is to nurture love among Christians. Note that the Johannine commandment to love other people is narrower than the ones we find in the Synoptic Gospels to "love your neighbor as yourself" (for example, Mark 12:31) and to "love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44). The reason for this more limited scope of love in John is probably due to the historical situation out of which the fourth Gospel was written. The Gospel of John seeks to nurture a solidarity within a Christian community more than to evoke love for those beyond the church. In this sense, John needs to be supplemented by the Synoptics.
Jesus jolts us by calling us friends! Never would we have thought of our relationship with the Ultimate Reality of the Universe in terms of friendship. However, in Christ God reveals a divine self who is personal and passionate, so that we are transported into an entirely different kind of association with our Creator. The category of friendship can be abused, especially when it is applied to our relationship with God. However, true friendship (which is to say true love) never abuses a relationship, never takes advantage of the other for its own benefit.
Jesus calls us friends. The author of 1 John claims that our love and faith conquer the world. Acts tells us that the scope of divine compassion is endless and not limited by our own human boundaries. Surprising jolts of joy that awaken us to the meaning of the Easter faith for life today.
FIRST LESSON FOCUSBy Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 10:44-48
This text forms the tag-end of Acts 10:34-43 which was the stated Old Testament lesson for Easter Sunday in all three cycles of the lectionary. As a result, it forms a kind of inclusio for the six Sundays of the Easter season.
The text tells us the effect that Peter's preaching had on the crowd of Jews and Gentiles who were gathered together in the house of Cornelius in Caesarea in order to listen to the Apostle Peter. Peter proclaims the good new of Jesus Christ, telling how "he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil" (10:38); how he was crucified and raised from the dead and seen alive by many witnesses; how he commanded his disciples to preach and to testify that he is Judge of the living and of the dead; and how every one who believes in Jesus Christ receives forgiveness of sins through his name (10:34-43).
Our text, then, begins, "While Peter was still saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word." "Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ" (Romans 10:17). Through the preaching of the Apostle Peter, who tells the crowd of Jesus Christ, God in the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, enters into the hearts and lives of the hearers. The Holy Spirit inspires in them faith, which is the ground of all Christian belief.
In other words, conversion to the Christian faith comes not by the skill of the preacher, not by eloquent rhetoric, not by persuasive arguments or inspiring performance on the preacher's part. Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians that he was with them "in weakness and in much fear and trembling," and that his message was not in great words of wisdom, but in "the demonstration of the Spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:3-4). And so it is here with Peter in our text. The fact that his audience comes to faith is not the result of his words, but the result of God's working through his Holy Spirit. The preacher, telling of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, is but the channel of God's activity, who works among his gathered people to transform their hearts. The test of all true Christian preaching, therefore, concerns not the expertise of the preachers, but their openness to God working through them. The preacher may have a disagreeable voice, disturbing gestures, awkwardness of presentation, and those certainly can be overcome by practice -- preachers should try to be as skillful in the pulpit as possible. But most important of all is what the preacher knows of the Lord and his word, and how ready the preacher is to surrender self to God and to let God in the Holy Spirit work through him or her.
In our text, the Jews in the crowd who came with Peter to Caesarea are amazed that the Holy Spirit falls on the Gentiles present. Heretofore the gospel has been delivered only to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (cf. Matthew 15:24). But it is evident that the Gentiles too have received the Holy Spirit unto faith, because they speak in tongues and praise God (v. 46).
That gives us pause in most of our churches, because we are very wary of anyone speaking in tongues, in that strange jibberish that no one else can understand. Somehow that does not belong in a decent worship service, we think. In our opinion, the phenomenon belongs to the charismatics and other over-zealous sects, and most of us want nothing to do with it.
The interesting fact is that in the New Testament, speaking in tongues is considered to be a valid manifestation of the Holy Spirit, not only here in our text in Acts, but also in the writings of Paul. Paul tells us that he himself had the gift of tongues (1 Corinthians 14:18), and in 1 Corinthians 12:10, he lists the ability to speak thusly among the gifts of the Spirit apportioned to various members of the church. We therefore should be very cautious about condemning anyone as an undesirable fanatic or as someone whom we do not want in our church because the person has the gift of tongues.
Neverthless, Paul's instructions about tongues are very informative. He writes to the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 14:1-25) that tongues should not be employed in worship unless there is someone in the congregation who can interpret what is being said or unless the speaker himself or herself can interpret the language. "In church," writes Paul, "I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue" (1 Corinthians 14:19). The ability to speak in tongues is without worth in the church unless a translation is given that edifies the congregation.
In our text, however, the assumption is that the Gentiles who have heard Peter have received the Holy Spirit because they speak ecstatically and praise God. There therefore follows an event unprecedented in the life of the early New Testament church. The gathered Gentiles, converted by the work of God in his Spirit, are baptized into the Christian Church. They receive the forgiveness of their sins (cf. v. 43), are made members of the Body of Christ, and become participants in Christ's saving work unto eternal salvation.
That event, good Christians, that took place in Cornelius' house there in Caesarea on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the first century A.D. was the beginning of the Christian mission that has finally resulted in our presence here in this church this morning. God opened his mercy wide to receive not only Jews but also Gentiles into his "one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth." God sought out us all. And now we too are given the forgiveness, the love, the newness of life, and the eternal life that comes to us through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Those occasions when we are pleasantly surprised, jolted by welcomed events, or receive an unexpected gift are moments of grace. Amid a world that never ceases to jolt us with the inhumanity of humans, we cherish those pleasing jolts, something as simple as finding a new friend. Actually, the Bible is filled with just such jolts of joy, and Christianity is built on the foundation of the surprisingly good news of Christ. Unfortunately, we tend to take it all for granted. The good news is no longer jolting, and the love and mercy of God become an ordinary reality. The bursts of praise in our Sunday worship services are dulled into an empty ritual. The trouble is that we think we know the Bible and fully understand Christian faith.
This is a good Sunday for preachers to revive the jolting quality of the biblical message. Each lesson offers its own peculiar surprise. They ambushed us from behind with good news!
Acts 10:44-48
We probably cannot imagine how jolting it was for Peter to experience these Gentiles' showing evidence of the gift of the Spirit. This passage is one of the several episodes in Acts tracing the church's discovery that the gospel was intended for Gentiles as well as Jews. The Gentiles' reception of Peter's message took him totally by surprise. He should have been prepared for it by his strange vision-dream of the sheet filled with unclean foods and God's enigmatic order to eat! But his dream utterly dumbfounded Peter (Acts 10:9-17). Then, however, guided by the Spirit, he went to Cornelius' house where he found the place packed with Gentiles. He hesitated, claiming that it was "unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile" (10:28). Finally, he gave in and preached to this assembly in Cornelius' house, beginning his sermon with a statement, the consequences of which he himself must not have fully comprehended: "God shows no partiality ..." (10:34). Peter's sermon stretches from 10:34 to 43, and our lesson depicts the results of the sermon.
The decisive feature of the Gentiles' response to the sermon is that (while the preacher was still speaking) "the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word" (v. 44). For Luke, the presence of the Spirit was a sure sign that God had done it again -- brought faith into human lives. Peter later appeals to the evidence of the gift of the Spirit when he is trying to convince his colleagues that the church should reach out to the Gentiles (11:15-18).
Like the story of Pentecost, when there was fire, wind, and speaking in other languages (2:2-4), we are told the Gentiles in Cornelius' house were "speaking in tongues and extolling God" (v. 45) as a result of becoming beneficiaries of the Spirit. Even the "circumcised believers" saw it and were "astounded" (v. 45), that is, the died-in-the-wool Jewish Christians were amazed. Luke may have understood speaking in tongues differently than the way it was practiced in the Corinthian church (see 1 Corinthians 14:1-25). The Corinthians spoke in an ecstatic language -- not a human language but a heavenly one -- that had to be interpreted and which Paul refers to as the language of angels (1 Corinthians 13:1). In the Pentecost story, on the other hand, those who received the Spirit spoke in the languages of other nations, not their own, so that all heard in their own native tongue. What the author of Acts intends by speaking in tongues in 10:45 is not clear, except for the fact that the speaking indicated the Spirit's presence in the Gentiles' lives. Peter is surprised that God has taken the initiative to pour out the Spirit on these Gentiles without their first becoming Jews. "Just as we have" suggests that God is treating these non-Jewish and uncircumcised people just as God treated the original apostles. A jolt even for some one who had just declared, "God shows no partiality."
Surprised though he is, Peter cannot resist the urge and responsibility to baptize these Gentiles and becomes the first of the early Christian missionaries to offer the water of baptism to any who were not affiliated in some way with Judaism (v. 47). Luke apparently separated the gift of the Spirit and baptism (see 8:15-16). Most often the gift of the Spirit followed baptism (for example, 2:37), but occasionally it comes before baptism (for example, 9:17-19).
We have to use our imaginations to grasp what a jolt of joy it was for God to treat these Gentiles to the gift of faith and the Spirit. Most of us are Gentile Christians, so we take for granted that the church has always reached out to all people. Peter, however, was in another place. Even with the experience of following Jesus and seeing him associate with every kind of person, even with his revealing dream that smashed the whole concept of impurity, Peter was still not prepared for this. God was out in front of the church, stretching it out into new territory and redefining it as a universal community and not just a Jewish sect. What a jolt that must have been. What jolting surprise does God have in mind for the church's outreach today? Where will God pour out the Spirit, much to our surprise?
1 John 5:1-6
There is a jolt too in the message of this passage. In many ways, these verses are only a repetition of what we have read in other sections of 1 John beginning with the Second Sunday of Easter, and we recognize some of the same themes we have already discussed, such as, "born of God," "love," and "the world." Here again we read that love of God and love of the "children of God" are related, and loving is equated with obeying Christ's commandments (vv. 1-3). But these verses throw something more at us, including a jolt or two.
To start with the last of these jolts, and save the first for last, the author moves in verse 6 to a new subject, the discussion of which continues beyond the reading through verse 12. What catches our eye is how the author describes Christ and how the Spirit testifies to Christ (v. 6). What does it mean to say that Christ "came by water and the blood" and "not with water only"? Scholars have asked the same question, and no certainty can be expected. However, the statement evokes memories of John 19:31-37 in which blood and water flowed from Jesus' side as he hung on the cross. Water in the Gospel of John often represents the Spirit (for example, John 37-39), and in verse 6b the author of 1 John explicitly associates the Spirit with the "blood and water." The point seems to be that Jesus' death made it possible for the Spirit to come through Christ (see John 15:26).
Moreover, verse 6 may be another of the author's efforts to convince readers that they should believe Christ actually came among us in human form. Those who had separated themselves from the Johannine community (see vv. 18-19) apparently did not believe that Christ appeared in flesh and blood (for example, 2:22 and 4:2-5). "Water only" may refer to Jesus' baptism and omit any mention of the crucifixion. Water and the blood, however, represent the full ministry of the earthly Jesus who was a true physical embodiment of the Word (John 1:14). The Spirit gives witness to Jesus' fleshliness, and the Spirit is the "Spirit of Truth" -- that is, the meaning of the revelation of God in Christ (see John 14:16-17).
The reminder that Jesus was fully human is always a jolt, but the greatest jolt in this passage resides in the author's earlier claim that our faith "conquers the world" (vv. 4-5). The "world" in the Johannine literature often refers to the realm of evil or creation gone astray and alienated from its Creator. Actually these two verses make several assertions about who or what "conquers the world," each of which carries its own kind of surprise.
First, "whatever is born of God conquers the world." That which is "born of God" means anything that God originates, brings about, or initiates. So, Christians and love are both born of God (4:7), and that which originates with God has power to defeat the forces of evil. The author, however, goes on to claim, second, that "our faith ... is the victory that conquers the world" and, third, that those who believe "that Jesus is the Son of God" conquer the world. These three statements regarding who or what conquers the world are in parallelism with one another and are actually three ways of saying the same thing. Christians are "born of God," have "faith," and believe "that Jesus is the Son of God." We then are the ones who overcome the world through our rebirth as children of God, our faith, and our confident belief in Christ.
What a shock it is to hear that we conquer the world! Many of us often feel that the world is conquering us, not we the world. Furthermore, most of us would say that in Christ God conquers the world, and we are only recipients of the benefits of the divine victory. Yet this passage gives us a more important role than passive recipients. The joyful jolt is that God goes on conquering the world through us! We are agents of the divine victory. With our heritage as children of God and the faith it provokes, we are God's instruments for overcoming the forces that drive a wedge between all of creation and its Creator. What a jolt!
John 15:9-17
Still another jolting surprise awaits us. This lesson is a continuation of the one assigned for last Sunday (15:1-8), and the two lections ought to be read as a single unit. What is unique about these verses is the fact that the subject shifts rather quickly between verses 8 and 9. Throughout the first eight verses, Jesus speaks of the importance of abiding and then in verse 9 begins to describe this abiding in terms of love. The words of this lesson tumble out in ways that seem rather arbitrary and random, partly because they are actually poetic in nature. Notice how the various topics of the reading are interwoven with one another through common words. One word suggests another and that one suggests still another and so on. We propose that you take the time to read this passage out loud and hear how it sounds.
The reading begins with a declaration and a command (v. 9). Christ loves the believers in precisely the same way God loves him. Therefore, "abide in my love," for to relate to Christ's love is to become related to God's love. This verse is one example of how Christian relationships are modeled after Christ's relationship with God. The relatedness of the divine provides the pattern for our relationships with Christ, one another, the Spirit, and the world (see also 17:18 and 20:21). Christ's love for us invites us to abide in him, that is, to come into a positive relationship with him.
Verse 10 essentially repeats the same theme found in verse 9, except in the former the abiding relationship depends on keeping Christ's "commandments," the most explicit of which is stated in verse 12, the command to love one another. Actually, in the Gospel of John Jesus offers only two commandments -- to love and to believe in Jesus (for example, 14:1). "Joy" arises out of this obedient loving and believing and is the joy that comes from an intimate relationship of love with another person, a love that is "complete" (or "full") only in total commitment to one another. Christ himself will model that sort of commitment by surrendering his life for his "friends." (See 16:20-24 for more on the nature of joy in John.)
The final paragraph of the reading poetically explores the love that characterizes the relationship with Christ. It is the sort of love that goes the final mile for the other, namely, to voluntary death. Jesus' death is a totally free decision and not one forced on him, and this is the sense of "lay down one's life." He appeals to what humans know as the fullest expression of love for another person as a way of recognizing God's love for us. The fact that the most complete form of love is found in a relationship with a friend is, however, not accidental.
Here comes the jolt of joy. Of course, being "friendly" to Jesus is keeping those commandments to which he alludes earlier. However, now Jesus calls his believers "friends" (v. 15), and the relationship between humans and God/Christ is utterly transformed. Certainly we understand that we humans are God's "servants" (or "slaves" -- the Greek word can mean either), since we are created by and for our Creator. However, now things get turned around.
The reversal of roles began with the master's serving his servants by washing their feet (13:1-20), and now it is completed when Jesus renames us. Naming creates a relationship as well as identifies it (for example, 20:16), so by calling us his "friends" Christ brings something new into being. The only human example that approaches catching the meaning of verse 15 is perhaps when, in a relationship, one party says to the other, "You're my best friend." That's a weak comparison, but it suggests the way in which a human relation is changed by identifying it with the word "friend." The Greek word translated "friends" is one of the several words for love and has a grand tradition of human love in the Greco-Roman world.
While the substance of this friendship is love, it has another important feature. Christ has revealed God to his followers. Subordinates need not know what grand plan the executive has in mind. All they have to do is complete their specific responsibility, without knowing precisely how it might contribute to a larger purpose. On the assembly line, workers can spend their days attaching a nut to a bolt without ever comprehending the completed machine that comes off the assembly line. However, that is not the relationship between humans and God, for in Christ God has revealed the whole scheme -- revealed even the divine heart (John 1:18). Knowing who God really is, we no longer occupy a trivial station but now are intimate confidants. What a jolt that transformation is.
If we are liable to abuse our new relationship as Christ's friends and think too highly of ourselves, verses 16 and 17 set us straight. We are not in this relationship with Christ because we chose to be; it is not a result of our own willpower. Rather, "you did not choose me but I chose you" (see also 6:70 and 13:18). Lurking just below surface of the whole of the Gospel of John is a strong affirmation of divine sovereignty that deflates all false notions of pride and importance. Faith may require a decision on our part, but ultimately it is God who selects us to believe. The dangers of such an apparent determinism need to be kept in balance with the quality of relationship just described in verse 15. However, one of the positive conclusions to which this divine sovereignty leads us is the recognition that we cannot take pride in our faith! (For our discussions of bearing "fruit" and receiving whatever we ask, see the column for last Sunday's Gospel lesson.)
The final verse of the reading again declares the purpose of Christ's words, which is to nurture love among Christians. Note that the Johannine commandment to love other people is narrower than the ones we find in the Synoptic Gospels to "love your neighbor as yourself" (for example, Mark 12:31) and to "love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44). The reason for this more limited scope of love in John is probably due to the historical situation out of which the fourth Gospel was written. The Gospel of John seeks to nurture a solidarity within a Christian community more than to evoke love for those beyond the church. In this sense, John needs to be supplemented by the Synoptics.
Jesus jolts us by calling us friends! Never would we have thought of our relationship with the Ultimate Reality of the Universe in terms of friendship. However, in Christ God reveals a divine self who is personal and passionate, so that we are transported into an entirely different kind of association with our Creator. The category of friendship can be abused, especially when it is applied to our relationship with God. However, true friendship (which is to say true love) never abuses a relationship, never takes advantage of the other for its own benefit.
Jesus calls us friends. The author of 1 John claims that our love and faith conquer the world. Acts tells us that the scope of divine compassion is endless and not limited by our own human boundaries. Surprising jolts of joy that awaken us to the meaning of the Easter faith for life today.
FIRST LESSON FOCUSBy Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 10:44-48
This text forms the tag-end of Acts 10:34-43 which was the stated Old Testament lesson for Easter Sunday in all three cycles of the lectionary. As a result, it forms a kind of inclusio for the six Sundays of the Easter season.
The text tells us the effect that Peter's preaching had on the crowd of Jews and Gentiles who were gathered together in the house of Cornelius in Caesarea in order to listen to the Apostle Peter. Peter proclaims the good new of Jesus Christ, telling how "he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil" (10:38); how he was crucified and raised from the dead and seen alive by many witnesses; how he commanded his disciples to preach and to testify that he is Judge of the living and of the dead; and how every one who believes in Jesus Christ receives forgiveness of sins through his name (10:34-43).
Our text, then, begins, "While Peter was still saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word." "Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ" (Romans 10:17). Through the preaching of the Apostle Peter, who tells the crowd of Jesus Christ, God in the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, enters into the hearts and lives of the hearers. The Holy Spirit inspires in them faith, which is the ground of all Christian belief.
In other words, conversion to the Christian faith comes not by the skill of the preacher, not by eloquent rhetoric, not by persuasive arguments or inspiring performance on the preacher's part. Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians that he was with them "in weakness and in much fear and trembling," and that his message was not in great words of wisdom, but in "the demonstration of the Spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:3-4). And so it is here with Peter in our text. The fact that his audience comes to faith is not the result of his words, but the result of God's working through his Holy Spirit. The preacher, telling of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, is but the channel of God's activity, who works among his gathered people to transform their hearts. The test of all true Christian preaching, therefore, concerns not the expertise of the preachers, but their openness to God working through them. The preacher may have a disagreeable voice, disturbing gestures, awkwardness of presentation, and those certainly can be overcome by practice -- preachers should try to be as skillful in the pulpit as possible. But most important of all is what the preacher knows of the Lord and his word, and how ready the preacher is to surrender self to God and to let God in the Holy Spirit work through him or her.
In our text, the Jews in the crowd who came with Peter to Caesarea are amazed that the Holy Spirit falls on the Gentiles present. Heretofore the gospel has been delivered only to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (cf. Matthew 15:24). But it is evident that the Gentiles too have received the Holy Spirit unto faith, because they speak in tongues and praise God (v. 46).
That gives us pause in most of our churches, because we are very wary of anyone speaking in tongues, in that strange jibberish that no one else can understand. Somehow that does not belong in a decent worship service, we think. In our opinion, the phenomenon belongs to the charismatics and other over-zealous sects, and most of us want nothing to do with it.
The interesting fact is that in the New Testament, speaking in tongues is considered to be a valid manifestation of the Holy Spirit, not only here in our text in Acts, but also in the writings of Paul. Paul tells us that he himself had the gift of tongues (1 Corinthians 14:18), and in 1 Corinthians 12:10, he lists the ability to speak thusly among the gifts of the Spirit apportioned to various members of the church. We therefore should be very cautious about condemning anyone as an undesirable fanatic or as someone whom we do not want in our church because the person has the gift of tongues.
Neverthless, Paul's instructions about tongues are very informative. He writes to the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 14:1-25) that tongues should not be employed in worship unless there is someone in the congregation who can interpret what is being said or unless the speaker himself or herself can interpret the language. "In church," writes Paul, "I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue" (1 Corinthians 14:19). The ability to speak in tongues is without worth in the church unless a translation is given that edifies the congregation.
In our text, however, the assumption is that the Gentiles who have heard Peter have received the Holy Spirit because they speak ecstatically and praise God. There therefore follows an event unprecedented in the life of the early New Testament church. The gathered Gentiles, converted by the work of God in his Spirit, are baptized into the Christian Church. They receive the forgiveness of their sins (cf. v. 43), are made members of the Body of Christ, and become participants in Christ's saving work unto eternal salvation.
That event, good Christians, that took place in Cornelius' house there in Caesarea on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the first century A.D. was the beginning of the Christian mission that has finally resulted in our presence here in this church this morning. God opened his mercy wide to receive not only Jews but also Gentiles into his "one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth." God sought out us all. And now we too are given the forgiveness, the love, the newness of life, and the eternal life that comes to us through Jesus Christ our Lord.
