Church of the Holy City

If You Abide in Me

If You Abide in Me
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
May 6, 2012

Deuteronomy 7:7-15 John 15:1-8 Psalm 98

Both of our Bible readings this morning connect love of God, love for God, and bearing fruit. Both of our readings are very clear about God’s boundless love for us. In Deuteronomy, God says,
Know therefore that Yahweh your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations (7:9).
This beautiful statement shows the circle of love between God and humanity. It talks about God loving us and we loving God. This is the nature of love, that it wants to be loved back. There are also moving passages about God’s forgiveness that accompanies His love. For their sheer beauty and comfort, I would like to share just a few of the many passages in the Old Testament about God’s love and the forgiveness that accompanies it. When God passes in front of Moses, He says,
Yahweh, Yahweh, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin (Exodus 34:6-7).
And David, too, sings of God’s love and forgiveness,
Yahweh is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:8-12).
Likewise the Prophet Micah praises God for His forgiveness and mercy,
Who is a God like you,
who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
of the remnant of his inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy (7:18).
And the Psalmist comforts us, telling us that with God is unfailing love,
If you, Yahweh, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption (Psalm 130:3, 4, 7).
Some think that the God of the Old Testament is an angry, punishing God. Indeed there are passages that make Him look so. But that is far from the whole story. The Bible is a huge book. And we have just seen only a few of the many passages that show the Old Testament God to be loving and forgiving.
It is this loving, forgiving God that we encounter in our reading from John. In Jesus, we have the loving God of the Old Testament personified. Through Jesus we have the complete union between God the Father and humanity. For it is the Old Testament God the Father who is living in Jesus. And through Jesus, God comes to us and we come to God. So Jesus says,
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love (John 15:9-10).
Love wants to shine forth divine rays into the world around it. God’s love and our love for God show themselves in bearing fruit. When we have God in our hearts, we want goodness to flow forth from us in loving deeds of kindness. Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (15:5). We all have a sense of calling, and we all have our own special ways of doing the good that is uniquely our own. There are grand ways of showing God’s love. I think of the words of Beethoven. He said on one occasion, “O it is wonderful to approach the divine more closely than most and to shower the world with His divine rays.” Listening to his music, I don’t think Beethoven was being conceited when he claimed to approach the divine closer than most. He did have the leisure to do so, as his life wasn’t consumed with the worldly concerns so many of us have to contend with. Then there are modest and humble ways of letting God’s love shine forth. I knew a man whose career was waste disposal–a humble garbage man. He was proud of his calling and said, “That’s being useful!” Where would we be without our garbage men? In fact, I knew a man who made a good living at waste disposal. He took me and a group of friends out to breakfast one morning. When we all wanted to pitch in and pay our own portion of breakfast, he insisted on paying for us all with the words, “The waste industry has been good to me.” God’s love will, God’s love must shine forth in good works, good deeds of kindness.
Our passage from Deuteronomy connects love of God with bearing fruit, also. Hearkening to God’s ordinances will multiply good things.
And because you hearken to these ordinances, and keep and do them, Yahweh your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love which he swore to your fathers to keep; he will love you, bless you, and multiply you; he will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock (7:12-13).
For an agrarian community, children, grain, and cattle were extremely important. Such a culture struggled to maintain its numbers alone. And their prosperity depended on fruitful harvests and multiplied cattle and flocks. We see in this reading the belief that honoring God would have power over the forces of nature.
We find many today, too, who believe that good things will come to them if they are faithful in their religious practice. Some even think that wealth and prosperity will come to them if they believe and pray correctly. This church looks at these matters differently. We see the fruitful harvest that God promises the Israelites in symbolic terms. The frutful of crops from the land symbolize truths multiplying in our consciousness. The increase of livestock we see as symbols of healthy and loving emotions arising in our hearts. So we understand the blessings that God promises the Israelites as all spiritual. These are the blessings that God gives to the faithful. I was very interested in talking with a rabbi about this. He said the most interesting thing. He told me that modern Judaism has a way of spiritualizing the agrarian imagery in the Bible. I didn’t have time in my interview to go into details about this, but that short statement of his really caught my attention. Perhaps I can pursue this discussion with some of the rabbis I am getting to know at the Interfaith Centre.
Spiritual gifts are what John has in mind as well. Jesus’ words are sometimes taken to refer to material things when we ask for them in prayer. Jesus says,
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you (John 15:7).
Sometimes this statement is abbreviated to mean only, “ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.” But that isn’t the whole statement. I think that the preceding line is very important. Jesus doesn’t say we’ll get anything we ask for. He will give us what we ask for if we abide in Him and His words abide in us. We need to have Jesus in our hearts when we ask for things. We need to ask from a Christ-centered heart. This means that we need to ask for Godly things, Christian things, things that are of Christ and His words. These will surely come if we ask for them.
Wherever we are in our spiritual journey, we can always ask Jesus to show us where and how to let our light shine. We can start our day by asking God to show us what His will for us is. We can always call out for direction if we feel we are lost. We can always ask for patience and love when we are inclined toward judgment or resentment. We can always ask for a more loving, a more caring disposition. These are prayers with Christ’s words abiding in us and we abiding in Jesus. These prayers will be granted. These are the blessings which will be multiplied in us as grain, oil, wine, and flocks. These are the blessings that a loving God will hear, remain faithful to His covenant of love with us, and fulfill, in His own way, in His own holy time.

PRAYER

Lord, you have told us that you are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. We trust in your promise of forgiveness and compassion. If you, dear Lord, kept a record of sins, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness. We put our hope in you and in your unfailing love. Lord, as we are filled with your Holy Spirit, we wish to shine in the world in which we live. We wish to flow forth in good fruit and kindly deeds. Give us the awareness of how and upon which occasions we can bring forth the love we have in our hearts for all those around us. Give us insight into where we can let our light brighten the lives of those we touch, and the world we know. For our love for you will, must bear good fruit in the society in which you have placed us.

Lord, we ask for your peace to descend upon this troubled world. Where there is conflict and war, let there be understanding and peace. Inspire our leaders, and the leaders of other nations to govern their people with compassion and with your Holy Love. Where there is famine and thirst, may good hearted aid come and satisfy the needs of those who want. Where there are natural disasters, may help come from good neighbors and from compassionate governments. Where there is hardship and unemployment, lend your patience and hope.

Lord, send your healing love to all those suffering in body and soul. We ask you to give the gift of health to all in need.