Sermon onJohn 15:9-17

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

This week’s Gospel reading picks up where last week’s left off. The night before Jesus died, he was reassuring his disciples that he would always be as connected to them as a vine is to its branches.

I got a little ahead of myself talking about joy last week, when it doesn’t show up until this week’s reading, but isn’t that the thing about joy? We can’t control it, and sometimes it shows up at unexpected times. Thank you, by the way, to those of you who have emailed me your moments of joy. It brings me joy to read them.

Joy is the fruit of abiding in Jesus and loving each other.

And Jesus continues to explain the connection between him and his disciples. They’re not just students or servants—they’re his friends. He says they’re his friends because he has explained everything to them and that they are to do what he has commanded them.

So, who are Jesus’ friends today?

The criteria Jesus names in our reading are that his friends:

·       Have been taught what the Father made known to Jesus

·       Do what Jesus commands

As far as the first goes, pretty much anyone today who wants them has access to Jesus’ teachings in the form of the Bible. There are about 2.4 billion people who call themselves Christians around the world today.

And as for the second, you might have noticed that we Christians sometimes have very different and even polar opposite ideas of what it means to follow Jesus’ commands.

I heard a joke once that I’m going to adapt for our context:

Sam was hiking one day when he heard cries for help. He ran toward the cries and found a man hanging off the side of a cliff. He was able to help him to safety, and the man, whose name was John, thanked him profusely.

John said, “Thank God for you! You’re such a blessing!”

Sam said, “Oh, so you’re a person of faith! Me, too!”

They hugged and said, “Oh, brother! I’m so glad to have met you!”

John said, “I’m a Christian.”

Sam said, “Me, too!”

They hugged and said, “Oh, brother! I’m so glad to have met you!”

John said, “I’m a Protestant.”

Sam said, “Me, too!”

They hugged and said, “Oh, brother! I’m so glad to have met you!”

John said, “I go to a Lutheran church.”

Sam said, “Me, too!”

They hugged and said, “Oh, brother! I’m so glad to have met you!”

John said, “I go to an LCMS church.”

Sam, an ELCA Lutheran, cried out in horror, “You heathen!” And pushed John back off the cliff.

Sometimes those closest to us are the hardest to get along with.

And yet, Jesus commands us to love one another. That’s the commandment he gives in this teaching: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

How do we do that with people who do and believe things that seem very un-Christ-like, when they would probably say the same about us?

The early Jesus followers in our Acts reading were dealing with questions of belonging and identity and who qualified to be a Jesus follower.

They had their own ideas of what a Jesus follower should look like.

And then the Holy Spirit sent them Cornelius.

He was a Gentile—not of Jewish heritage.

He was a centurion—part of the Roman Empire that had condemned Jesus to death and occupied their land.

And he wanted to hear what Peter had to say.

So, Peter went and told him and the friends and relatives who had gathered with him the story of Jesus, from his baptism to his resurrection.

And while Peter was speaking, “the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.”

The Jesus followers who had come with Peter were “astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the gentiles.” This was new. These Jewish Jesus followers weren’t quite sure what to do. These Gentiles didn’t fit the idea in their heads of what Jesus followers were like.

But Peter knew what to do. He had had a vision of the extent of the inclusion of the Beloved Community. He saw a sheet with “all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air,” and was instructed by a heavenly voice to “kill and eat.”

Peter protested, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anythingthat is profane or unclean.”

The voice replied, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

Right after this vision, Peter was approached by Cornelius’s messengers, asking him to come and talk to him.

So, when the Holy Spirit fell upon the Gentiles, Peter knew that God was calling them to join the Jesus followers. “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”So, he invited them to be baptized.

Between these people and the Ethiopian official we read about last week, the Beloved Community was stretching beyond what the earliest Jesus followers imagined.

God’s imagination is so much bigger than ours.

It’s easy to get caught up in judging who is the right type of Christian. I’m as guilty of this as anyone else.

Among the 2.4 billion people who call themselves Christians in the world today, there is infinite variety. I’ve met people of other faiths and agnostics and atheists who seem to me to act more Christlike than some Christians.

And still, it’s not my place to judge that.

I’m not saying you have to put up with harmful words or behavior. But so often the world perceives Christians by what we’re against instead of what we’re for.

What if instead we were known for being strong in our convictions, and also humble enough to know that we’re probably wrong about some things?

What if we approached disagreements firm in what we believe and willing to curiously listen to others’ views, not rising to the bait of others’ anger and defensiveness?

What if we as Christians were known for our joy and love—which is what Jesus calls us to in our Gospel reading—instead of fear and anger?

It’s not easy: to be true to ourselves and open to people we think are wrong and even harmful. It involves a lot of self-reflection, time in prayer, and discernment of our boundaries. It might involve putting our reputations on the line or even being willing to lay down our lives for our friends.

But if the earliest Jesus followers were willing to admit that the Beloved Community included people they didn’t immediately see as part of the in-crowd, then maybe we can admit that God’s vision of the Beloved Community is far beyond what we imagine.

Jesuit priest Rick Ganz sent out a meditation this week on the hymn “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” that speaks to this.

He writes,

“When mercy is something that we have, which is very often how we speak about it, then mercy will always be about how much we have, or ought to have. We imagine that “mercy” is a kind of thing - an amount of it - which we can distribute if we choose, which having used it (obviously on someone not deserving it) we can feel that we have given enough of it.

And now that we think about it, we begin to perceive that how much mercy we extend to a person is a calculation about how badly, or to what degree, he or she needs it. There is, then, hidden behind our understanding of mercy a confident judgment as to the degree of badness or wrongness of that person. Suddenly we are faced with a mercy – our amount of mercy – that is anything but wide. And suddenly the words of Jesus sting us; we feel their bite –

Matthew 7:  For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.

In God mercy is Who God is; it is not something that God has. It is something essential to the personality of the Triune God, a mode by which we experience God’s love as unconditional.”

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus teaches us to mirror God’s love: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” Let’s also, to the limits of our finite, imperfect ability, try to mirror the wideness of God’s mercy also.

Our joy in God is complete when we love who God loves, and that’s everyone.

Sermon onJohn 15:1-8

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

At first, our Gospel reading sounds nice: an idyllic metaphor of a vine and branches, a vine grower and fruit.

But as the reading goes on, Jesus starts talking about pruning and cleansing and withering and fire. The metaphor turns ominous, and the message seems to become threatening: “bear fruit or else.”

I didn’t grow up in a “fire and brimstone” tradition where the threat of hell was dangled over my head to keep me on my best behavior, but still, I have a hard time not reading this fearfully.

When I read“Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned,” it’s easy to read it as being about individuals who either make the cut to get into heaven or are sent to a fiery afterlife. That concept is so steeped in our culture, from Medieval and Renaissance writers and artists who tried to map out hell to the Puritans who tried to live a strict way of life to please an angry God to many today who stir up zeal for evangelism by teaching people how to “save the souls” of their neighbors, as if it were our work and not God’s.

But if this passage is about heaven and hell, then it sounds like we have to do things to earn our salvation: we have to bear fruit or we can expect to wither and be burned.

But that goes against God’s grace. Ephesians reminds us “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”[1]

We don’t have to do anything to be saved—that’s God’s doing. If we’re worrying that we’ve done something wrong or haven’t been bearing enough fruit to get into heaven (or judging our neighbor’s fruit or lack thereof), then we’re making ourselves into God.

We celebrate during Easter that Jesus broke the power of death. So, we can rest in God’s grace, safe in the knowledge that we can’t do anything to make God love us any more or any less.

This Gospel reading is not about earning our way into heaven or finding a way to avoid hell.

It’s about our relationship with Jesus and what follows naturally from that.

Jesus spoke these words the night before he died. He knew what was about to happen, and he was trying to reassure his disciples that he would always be with them.

This wasn’t about warning them to “bear fruit or else.” This was about reminding them of their deep connection with him and how much they had grown by following him for the past three years.

The vineyard isn’t so much a metaphor for heaven as a description of the Beloved Community here and now.

God is the vine grower, who lovingly tends them for abundance and their health. Pruning helps plants become fuller and grow in the right direction. The words “prune” and “cleanse” are related in Greek, so when Jesus said that the disciples had been “cleansed” by the word Jesus had said to them, it means pruned.

While Jesus did say that he is the vine and his disciples are the branches, what if it wasn’t such a precise metaphor? (Peter’s branch is over here, Andrew’s is over here.) What if instead, the community of Jesus followers was represented by all the branches together?

Then, pruning a twig over here isn’t cutting off an individual, but perhaps a part of the ministry of the community that isn’t working. Or something that worked for a while but needs to be let go of to make room for something new to grow.

This congregation has looked very different over the years and has impacted our surrounding community in many different ways at different times. If we insist that everything stays exactly the same, then the vine suffers, because it isn’t allowed to change or grow.

The Beloved Community is full of fruit because of the careful tending of the vine grower, and it is grounded in Jesus the vine. The vine nourishes the branches and draws nutrients from the soil of creation. You can’t have the vine without the branches or the branches without the vine. And while, yes, things can grow in the wild without someone to tend them, the vine is more fruitful with the vine grower who shapes it and cares for it.

Instead of a fire and brimstone threat, this metaphor becomes a picture of a healthy, abundant community that bears fruit for the sake of others.

And we get to be a part of that. Safe and secure in God’s love for us, we as part of the Beloved Community bear fruit. It’s what a plant does—it’s part of how God created our beautiful world.

And yes, the vine grower is working to make the vine bear more fruit, but it’s not the type of productivity our society values. It’s not the grind culture that leads to burnout.

Instead, it’s the abundance that comes from community. Its fruits are love and peace and justice and joy. That fruit doesn’t come from working ourselves to the bone. It comes from depending on each other, having honest conversations, looking out for each other’s well-being.

It is Jubilee. It is the way of Sabbath.It is God’s shalom.

These, like any good fruit, take time and patience.

So, what’s a small way we can bear fruit this week?

Not out of fear and not even really by our own power, because God fosters abundance in us.

Let’s share our joy.

We started out our Sabbath theme of 2024 with learning about Sabbath, then we tried on some restful Sabbath practices during Lent. Now, in the season of Easter, we can share some of the joy ripening in us from letting our bodies, minds, spirits, and communities rest.

Hopefully by slowing down a little, you’re noticing more things that bring you joy.

Joy is different from happiness.Brene Brown defines joy as “an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation.”[2] She admits that a research-based consensus on what defines happiness is harder to find, but she defines happiness as “feeling pleasure often related to the immediate environment or current circumstances.”[3]

We could, and probably will at some point, delve deeper into joy vs. happiness, but for now, let me just say that joy is something deeper than happiness that can be experienced even during very difficult times in our lives.

We can experience joy apart from being happy. It’s worth noting that “joy” is listed as one of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians, but “happiness” is not.[4] That’s not to say that happiness is bad—on the contrary—but there’s something deeper about joy.

So, when I say we are focusing on sharing our joy in this season, I am not saying we have to paste on a happy face for the sake of convincing our neighbors that once we start following Jesus we don’t have problems anymore.

Considering what Jesus went through the day after our Gospel reading, he would be the first to admit that the way of the Beloved Community is not easy and may not bring happiness. But there is still joy in God to be experienced even amid the hard things of this life.

So, in the spirit of sharing our joy, I want to start including a section at the bottom of our weekly announcement email all about joy. I’ll start us off for the first week or two, and then I’ll start inviting you to share what’s bringing you joy.

It doesn’t need to be long—just a sentence or two.

It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering—perhaps an everyday moment that made you pause with gratitude.

Here are a few of mine this week:

1.    Seeing some sunflower sprouts pop up in my garden

2.    Watching my cat chase a bug while I was writing this sermon

3.    Listening to the great discussion during last week’s book study

Like I said, I’ll start us off this week, but start noticing what’s bringing you joy. I’ll be in contact with you soon enough.

But let’s not stop at the newsletter. Let’s share our joy with each other and those we encounter in our daily lives. The more attentive we are to joy, the more we’ll experience it. And the more we share it with others, the more they can notice joy in their lives. That is a way the fruit of the Beloved Community grows.

So, rest assured that Jesus our vine abides in us and us in him.

Let the joy of that relationship bear fruit.

And be sure to share that joy with those around you.

[1]Ephesians 2:8-9

[2] Brown, Brene. Atlas of the Heart,p. 205.

[3] Brown, 207.

[4]Galatians 5:22-23

Sermon on Luke 24:36b-48

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Today, we’re going to do a little bit of a time warp back to Easter Sunday.Some women disciples went to Jesus’ tomb to care for his body but found instead two dazzling divine messengers.

They told the men disciples, who didn’t believe them, except for Peter, who went to see the empty tomb for himself.

Two other disciples started traveling to the nearby village of Emmaus, when they encountered a stranger on the road. As the sun set, they invited him to eat with them, and as he gave thanks for the bread and broke it, they realized it had been Jesus all along! He disappeared from their sight, and they ran back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples.

They were just finishing their tale, when Jesus appeared in their midst, and that is where our Gospel story begins today.

With the whole having been dead and the random disappearing and reappearing thing, it’s no wonder the disciples thought they were seeing a ghost. If we weren’t so familiar with the Easter stories, this would have the makings of a good ghost tale.

Even as Jesus invited them to touch him, they still weren’t completely convinced that he wasn’t a ghost.

So, he asked them for a snack and ate some broiled fish in front of them. Surely a ghost doesn’t need to eat.

Only then did the disciples seem convinced and calmed down enough for Jesus to get down to business, explaining to them everything that had happened.

It matters that Jesus had a body, and not just because ghosts are spooky.

It matters for Christmas, and it matters for Easter.

At Christmas, we remember that God became one of us—a fragile, human being who needed milk and diaper changes, who skinned his knees as he learned to walk, who laughed and played and grew and questioned.

At Easter, we remember that even though Jesus died an excruciating, humiliating human death, the power of death didn’t stop him. It wasn’t that his spirit transcended bodily form—he was resurrected with a body. He wasn’t a ghost or a spirit or a hologram. He was the incarnated God, God in the flesh, just as he had always been.

That matters because it tells us that the physical world matters to God.

That might not actually sound like good news, considering climate change and ecological disasters and shrinking animal habitats and extinction and all the plastic we use that doesn’t break down for hundreds of years.

If the physical world didn’t matter to God, we could just use up Earth’s resources and spend our time having good theological conversations without worrying about how humanity’s actions affect the world we live in.

But the physical world does matter to God, so it’s important that we don’t get stuck in our heads.

Lutherans have a strong tradition of education and careful thought, and that’s a beautiful thing.

But it also means we sometimes get a little head-oriented. We tend to ignore our bodies or even think of them as bad, sinful, or selfish. We tend to mistrust what our bodies tell us—things like “I need food” or “I need rest” or “The air quality is making me sick.”

In our highly-educated, Enlightenment-informed tradition, we tend to be suspicious of our spirituality or anything that comes across as too “woo-woo.” Because of that, we tend to ignore our intuition, we tend to focus on heady Bible studies and ignore spiritual practices. We can miss out on what the Holy Spirit is saying to us.

There are many gifts that deep thought and critical thinking bring us. But if we remain solely in our heads, we miss out on what our spirits and bodies are telling us. They have wisdom, too, and we’re not getting the whole picture unless we engage our heads, our spirits, and our bodies.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he replied, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.’”[1]We can love God, and therefore our neighbors, our selves, and our world, with our whole selves.

When we become disconnected from our whole selves, we become disconnected from the Earth on which we live.

Our world which God created is suffering for our lack of connection to it. When humanity ignores creation for the sake of the bottom line or our convenience or our comfort, we are also ignoring our call to be stewards of the Earth.

This problem is way bigger than any of us individually, but without the actions of individuals, nothing will change.

In our Gospel story, we see Jesus reassuring his disciples that he is flesh and blood like they are, made of the organic material God created with such loving care. And once they’re calmer, he uses scripture to explain to them what happened.

But the story doesn’t end there. Jesus settled their spirits, opened their minds, and then sent them out to be his witnesses to the world.

It wasn’t enough to sigh in relief that Jesus wasn’t a ghost or revel in their newfound understanding. They had a mission to connect people with this story. It would take all of their heart, soul, strength, and mind, because sharing their story was borne of their love for God.

What form of loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind is God be calling you to?

On this day before Earth Day, might loving God and loving your neighbor take the form of loving our Earth a little better?

Just as Jesus equipped his disciples to love God and neighbor by sharing their stories of Jesus, God equips us to speak and act in support of creation.

Easter is a “no” to death and a big “yes” to life.

Jesus came back in a body, because material things matter to God, and if we only think people’s souls matter, then we’re forgetting that God delights in creation and calls it good.

We’re forgetting that God instituted the Sabbath, sabbatical years, and the year of Jubilee to provide rest and enjoyment of creation.

We’re forgetting that we are beings created in love by God out of the mud of the Earth, and that God chose to become a mud creature too—the very Jesus who ate fish with the disciples in today’s story.

God instituted water for baptism and bread and wine for communion—material things to help us feel connected to the spiritual.

What do polluted waters mean for baptism?

What do pesticides and unfair agricultural labor practices mean for communion?

What does that have to do with us?

Everything.

Humanity’s disconnection from the Earth is bigger than any one of us, but change is often made by small actions that add up.

James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

What is one small thing you can do today to care for the Earth?

Take some time this week to ground yourself in your body—stand on some dirt, feel your feet press into the Earth—and ask God to guide you.

Jesus equipped his disciples to share their Easter stories.

God will equip you to share your stories of new life, too.

[1]Luke 10:27