SERMON FOR THE SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER MAY 9, 2020              TEXT: JOHN 15:9-17

          After I read today’s Gospel I found myself humming a Christmas carol — “Here we come a-Wassailing/Among the leaves so green/Here we come a wandering/So fair to be seen.” And then the chorus: “Love and joy come to you/And to you your Wassail too/And God bless you and send you/A happy New Year/And God send you a happy New Year.” Love and joy come to you. Indeed, Jesus tells his disciples he has brought both into their lives “As the Father has loved me, so I have 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. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”

        The passages from John that we read in these last weeks of the Easter season are part of what is called Jesus’ Farewell Discourse. They take us back in time, before the Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection, to the last night of his life. Jesus speaks at great length to his disciples, preparing them for the dramatic changes that are coming. He has in mind not just the separation of his impending death but the time after his resurrection and ascension, when he will have returned to his Father.

          The psalmist writes, “Weeping many linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Ps. 30:5). But night has just begun to fall on the disciples, a very dark night indeed, so it seems premature to speak of joy. Yet Jesus does so repeatedly in the Farewell Discourse. When he is praying to the Father regarding his followers, he says, “But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves” (17:13). This echoes what we heard in today’s Gospel, and between these two statements we find another saying. Jesus tells the disciples, “[Y]ou will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (16:20b-22). A birth brings life into the world; it is intended to bring love and joy as well.

        According to the fall story in the Book of Genesis, the pain of childbirth is a consequence of sin, the particular punishment imposed on the woman for her disobedience (Gen. 3:16). Jesus, however, makes no reference to this. There is no shame in a mother’s suffering. The word translated as “anguish” in this passage is the same word Jesus uses twelve verses later for “persecution,” when he tells his disciples, “In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” (16:33).    Earlier in John’s Gospel Jesus has announced in the presence of his opponents, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). He, like a woman in labor, is bringing new life into the world; he too will endure pain and anguish to do so. Indeed, Jesus will sacrifice his own life so that we may be born anew, because “no one may enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5). Now, he tells the disciples, their hour has come to bear that life-giving pain in turn.

          In the section of the Farewell Discourse that is the Gospel for today Jesus makes it clear that the bond of love is what brings joy. The love between Jesus and the Father overflows into Jesus’ love for those he has chosen as friends and then joins them one to another, as their lives are nourished in common by the same source. “I am the vine, you are the branches,” he has told them (15:5).

          Love can be a slippery term for us, because we use it in so many ways for matters ranging from the profound to the trivial to the nonsensical. For example:    “Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out, even to the edge of doom" (Shakespeare Sonnet 116). “I love hot sauce on my scrambled eggs.” “Love. It’s what makes a Subaru a Subaru.” What is the love of God in Christ Jesus in which we are to abide? How do we love as God loves?

          Let’s circle back to the image Jesus uses of the woman in labor. I remember the next-to-last prenatal prep session I attended. The topic was labor and how to manage it. We women were in the bathroom on one of the numerous breaks now required during our evening meetings. A number of us were standing at the sinks when we heard a plaintive voice emanating from a stall, “Oh my God, this is really going to hurt, isn’t it?!” We looked at each other, dumbfounded -- ya think!?! Then a resigned member of the group responded, “That’s one thing about motherhood you can bank on, sweet pea!” and waddled back to class.

          I was prepared for labor that first time, but what I didn’t realize then was that it would be the easiest of the various rounds of birth pangs to come over the years. We try to be good shepherds to the lives God has entrusted to our care, but time and again we have to get out of their way and let them go. To honor their freedom, as God honors ours; to remain committed even, especially, when they turn away and cause us grief. To be slow to anger, ready to forgive and abounding in steadfast love. Accept that you can’t get it right all the time, but that time and again you can get it better, and then do the work of repentance. To abide in love is to follow God’s lead into ventures of which we cannot see the ending, to take the risks, bear the pain, keep the faith, and reap the joy. Amen.