Year C 2025

John 14:23-29

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Selfish/Unselfish Love of God

Author E. M. Forster wrote, “When human beings love they try to get something. They also try to give something, and this double aim makes love more complicated than food or sleep. It is selfish and yet at the same time shows an unselfish concern for the other, and no amount of focusing on one direction or the other decreases the other.” Jesus, in the gospel text today, is showing his selfish/unselfish love for his disciples by preparing them for his leaving them. He says to his loved ones, “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.” Talk about hard! How can the disciples rejoice that he is leaving them?What makes possible that robust unselfish love when all they want is to be selfish and keep Jesus with them. The key is to keep his word and the Holy Spirit.

This gospel story today may seem out of place for the Easter season, because technically in this text Jesus hasn’t died and been resurrected yet, but it is actually well suited for Easter as the day is quickly approaching when we celebrate Jesus’ ascending back to his Father. 40 days after the resurrection is Ascension Day, a feast day in the church which is this coming Thursday. We know the end of the story and so we can take the words of Jesus here today and understand them not only as parting words for his death, but actions to live by throughout the ages after his ascension as well. Jesus is not only preparing his disciples for what is to come, but also for their mission to the nations after he leaves, and John takes almost four chapters of unbroken speech to do it.

Very understandably, one of his disciples asks “Lord, how will we know you after you leave?” Jesus responds. “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” The word home in this passage is the same used in the passage where Jesus is preparing many rooms for his disciples in God’s house. This is good news, indeed, that just as Jesus prepares a place for us in God, he also prepares a place for God in us. This place for God in us is the Holy Spirit, who will stay with disciples and guide them after Jesus leaves.

The Holy Spirit is a helper to remind them what their experience of Jesus has been about for themselves and for the world. While the disciples cannot fully understand what is happening yet, Jesus leaves no doubt about how his disciples can demonstrate their love for him. “Keep my word,” Jesus says. His word is defined as a life of love. As we give love for one another, we who are the created beloved of God, reflect the love of Jesus for all and show his purpose for coming into the world. We see that we are asked to do and to give what has already been done and given to us by God. We are given love and asked to love, we are given God and asked to make him a home with him.  The selfish love is made unselfish.

We know that the disciples went straight from listening to this great promise about the continuing presence of God in Christ through the Spirit to total confusion and despair as Jesus did leave them by his death. And yet, this promised new life did come about after the risen Jesus ascended back to God. The disciples did rise to the task of sharing God’s life and love with the world around them, and whenever they did, they found that God was there already. For example, in the Acts story today of Lydia the first European convert to Christianity, we hear that ‘the Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.’ In one of the most memorable events in the life of the young church, we read today of the bringing of the gospel to Europe…to the ends of the earth.

Paul received a vision or a dream where he hears a gentile man of Macedonia pleading to him for help. The unknown man was successful in bringing Paul and Timothy to Greece. As recorded in Acts, this will be Paul’s first visit to Philippi, where he will make many fond relationships, ones that he will thank God with joy for every time he remembers them. Now in Philippi, as was his usual custom he goes to the temple on the Sabbath and discovers the devout Jews in the city which also included a group of women.  He introduces the gospel to them. Lydia a wealthy“dealer in purple cloth” hears his gospel message and becomes his first convert to Christianity and a humble servant of God.

Even more important than her station because of her wealth, is her vision of what God is doing. For her, God uses a foreigner, a stranger to Philippi, as the one who brings the good news. This story emphasizes what Paul would later write in his letter to the Galatians about how in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male or female. God so loved the world and all the peoples are to experience  God’s saving power.” It is clear that God intends to bless “all families of the earth.” We see this intention in Revelation. John of Revelation is privileged to glimpse the wonder of what is yet to be from the hand of God. In images from earth that recall the creation story, we get a view of the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

The garden that was the beginning home of humanity is again a shared dwelling place where God and God’s people live together in love. The river of life that nourishes trees, the leaves of which are “for the healing of the nations” flows out of the New Jerusalem. God’s purpose is realized in the healing of all the nations though the Lamb, Jesus Christ. This magnificent picture of the new city of Jerusalem has been captured in the hymns and prayers of generations of those who worship the Lamb. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads and they will reign with God for ever and ever. This is a story of hope, a picture of amazing love for the church.

As Paul stood on the Macedonian shores of one world and saw the invitation of the next, the church today stands on similar shores that invite us to envision the “healing of the nations” as Christ’s next world and to make every effort to embody this selfish/unselfish love. We have the charge and responsibility as the psalmist reminds us. The intention is for all people to revere God: “Let the people celebrate and shout with joy” Let the peoples praise you, O God let all the peoples praise you.” Knowing and praising God is to live the word of Jesus, which in turn will, with the help of the Holy Spirit lead to a life of love of God in Jesus and to action. It will lead one day to the healing of all the nations.