Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. But when we are connected to Jesus, the Holy Spirit works through us to build God’s kingdom. We as the church are called to work for both the spiritual and physical good of our neighbors, because loving God means loving our sisters and brothers also.
Here’s my sermon for the fifth Sunday of Easter, April 18, 2021. Today’s Scripture readings are 1 John 4:7-21 & John 15:1-8. I found helpful this week a passage from John Ortberg’s book God is Closer Than You Think quoted in the Sound Bites Ministry email on April 25, 2021, and this week’s ELCA World Hunger Sermon Starters email.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen
Several times in the last few weeks, I’ve run into debates about where our focus as church ought to be.
Sometimes it’s framed as evangelism versus social justice, sometimes it’s helping people versus saving souls, sometimes it’s physical versus spiritual needs, but I keep running into conversations with these questions of what the purpose of the church is and what we ought to be doing.
Now, I understand that encountering these kinds of debates is a bit of a pastoral occupational hazard. But you’ve heard these questions too, right? Ever heard someone say, “I don’t think church should be so political”?
Or “Why doesn’t the church do more to help people?” “Can’t we just follow Jesus and not worry about x, y, or z?” Those kind of questions.
And when you hear those questions—or when you’re the one asking them—remember, the church is not just some abstract institution; the church is the people of God, you and me, so these questions are really about what we should be focusing on as followers of Jesus.
So, which should it be? Should we be focusing on spiritual needs or physical? Temporal or eternal? Sacred or secular?
Well, I believe according to our readings today the correct answer is yes. God cares about both our spiritual and our physical well-being, not just one or the other. And so as the Body of Christ, we are called to care about both as well.
Setting physical concerns against spiritual concerns, or social justice against saving souls—those are false dichotomies, even if sometimes there are tensions between them.
Today, I want to look with you at two lines from our readings. From First John chapter 4: “Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”
And from John 15, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.”
So which one’s more tempting for you? Focusing so much on the day to day problems and needs in this world that you lose sight of God’s involvement and ignore the promise of God’s eternal kingdom?
Or focusing just on the spiritual and trying to love God without getting caught up in the social and political implications of loving your neighbors?
Sometimes I swing between both extremes. Especially as a professional church person, it’s easy for me to sit in my nice office and talk about spiritual things in worship services and week after week tell you “Remember Jesus loves you and you are a child of God. And of course, it’d be nice to do some good things too, but if you don’t, that’s fine, Jesus loves you anyway.”
And that’s true. But is that faithful, or is it softening God’s commands?
There are some tough verses this week: “Those who say ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”
Are we speaking up against hate? There’s plenty going on in our world right now we could be protesting. Are we loving people who don’t have enough food?
Are we doing anything to help people who’ve lost their jobs? Are we caring for farmers who worry about a way of life disappearing?
First John continues, “The commandment we have from him is this: Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”
In another letter, James puts it even more bluntly: “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
And I’m quite confident James and John are talking about more than just giving someone clothing or food. That’s where we have to start, but the social justice work of the church is about making a difference in the world, which includes addressing the sources of problems, not only obvious symptoms.
Feed people…and also question why they’re hungry in the first place. Visit people in prison…and also break cycles that lead people to break the law, and discriminatory systems where the law is applied differently to different groups of people.
One of the devotions I read this week talked about how when we pray for God’s will to be done in the Lord’s Prayer, we are praying for earth to become more like heaven, how “Jesus told us to pray, ‘Bring heaven down here.’ We begin with our body, our mind, our appetites. Then it spreads to the office, our family, our neighborhood, our church, our country.”
We pray trusting that God answers prayer, that God’s kingdom is coming, and that we get to be a part of the work God is doing in bringing about God’s kingdom.
Being concerned about the spiritual requires us to be concerned about the earthly as well. You cannot love God without loving people.
Jesus says “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.” Bearing fruit—doing good works, loving your neighbors—does not make God love you.
That’s crucial: God does not love you because you do good things. God loves you no matter what you do. And because God loves you, you can’t help bearing fruit. Good works are the inevitable result of being connected to God.
As the church, we have to work for justice. I love the way Dr. Cornel West defines justice. He says, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”
And yet at the same time, we are a church, not a social services agency. There are problems we as church can solve, and others where we do better to take a supporting role, advocating, donating, and praying.
Some of us in this congregation are called to do the hands-on work as social workers, as teachers, as police officers, ambulance crew. You all have vocations outside of church where you are called to serve your neighbors through your job, whatever it is: Accountants, farmers, florists, lawyers, caregivers, grocery clerks, whatever.
But we as the church have a unique calling. Our job is to help people connect with Jesus, to share the good news. I think letting the community use our space for baby showers is wonderful, but we’re not just a rental hall. We’re not just a quilting club. We’re not just childcare, or a food bank.
We’re a church, the body of Christ, and our mission is to help people abide in Jesus, to worship, to pray. We’re called to proclaim the good news of God’s amazing grace, not just for this world, but for all eternity.
Most of you have seen the big bush outside the front window of the parsonage. Well, this week it’s flowering. Lots of green leaves, white flowers, insects flying around it, great signs of life and spring.
But if you look at it closely, you’ll notice that underneath, there are some dead sticks lying on the ground. I’m not much of a gardener, but I’ve discovered it’s a lot of fun to use an electric hedge trimmer, and those sticks are the result. When the branches are cut off from the bush (or the vine), they die. They don’t bear fruit or leaves any more. They stop being any good for anyone.
Everything we do as a church and as individual Christians comes out of our connection with Jesus. 1 John 4:19 is one of my favorite verses in the Bible: “We love because he first loved us.”
Abiding in Jesus means staying connected to the vine, getting our nourishment, our sustenance from God. We can’t grow without being connected to Jesus. We can’t bear good fruit without being connected to Jesus. We can’t lose our unique calling as Christ’s body.
So at the same time that we work to care for our neighbors and to make a difference in the world, at the same time as we seek justice and live into God’s kingdom, what does it look like to stay connected to Jesus? What does it look like for you to abide in Christ?
I don’t have a complete answer, but I will suggest part of it is what you’re doing right now, participating in worship.
Reading God’s word. Praying. Loving one another, because if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us.
Let God fertilize you. Let God even prune parts of your life that need to go, that pull you away from the vine.
Most importantly, remember God loves you, first, before you do anything in response.
Beloved of God, may you find life by abiding in God. May you know God’s love made visible in Jesus.
And may God’s love for you inspire you to love your neighbors and change the world.
Amen