John 16:1-15 "Guided into all truth"

All truth. Anyone else comfortable with half-truths? I am exceptionally okay with half-truths sometimes. I believe we are conditioned toward half-truths. And it is easy to find proof for half-truths. After all, there is some truth in a half-truth. Just not all truth.

Sometimes, I am all-too-aware of my shortcomings. Fascinatingly, I can find plenty of proof to fuel the inner voice "You suck." In the past three days, I have had deeply encouraging conversations or messages from four different people. These are people who are lifting a truth that is better than my half-truth. And yet I cling to my half-truth. I say "If you only knew me, you would know the truth." Self-deception is a beast sometimes.

But what if? What if I am the one with the half-truth? What if people aren't lying to me when they encourage me? What if the whole truth is deeper than my own perceptions?

The full truth is that the inner "You suck" voice is a lie. After all, my identity is not formed by my behavior- it's not even formed by me (see previous posts). My identity is formed by the Spirit, who is guiding us toward all truth, ultimately the Truth who is Jesus. And grace tells me that my identity is based completely in the promise of God to seek and to save, to multiply and to bless, all because of the sake of Jesus.

Have you believed a half-truth? What is the full truth about who God is and who you are?

John 15:18-27 "Be hated or liked?"

Passages like these are hard ones for chronic people-pleasers like myself. The Bible seems to say, at multiple places in the Old and New Testaments, that following God is a one-way ticket to being disliked. Who woke up this morning saying "Please God, I want to be disliked," I mean, really?

Some faith traditions embrace being disliked. Particular fundamentalist movements enjoy being disliked by "the world," and take satire and mockery as signs they are on the right path. On the other side of things, other church movement embrace being liked out of Paul's admonition "As far as it is possible with you, be at peace with everyone." So who is right? Who is wrong? Should I want to be liked by people outside my faith tradition or not?

Neither. Jesus doesn't call on us to embrace being hated, Jesus encourages us if (key word in John 15:18) we are hated. Jesus doesn't call on us to embrace being liked, as the Lord only knows how many foolish decisions I have made in the race to become more liked. Jesus calls us to embrace the Spirit of Truth. At times, we will be disliked, especially as the Spirit drives us to mission, including the prophetic call to justice for the forgotten. No society likes to be reminded of what it has forgotten. Other times, embracing the Spirit of Truth will lead us into deeper love of neighbor that will increase the peace of our communities. It's hard not to like that.

I suppose, in short, I don't think I need to gauge my success in the Christian walk based on people's response to me, just on the wind of the Spirit blowing through my sails.

John 15:1-7 "The Pruning of Jesus"

Jesus offers Himself to be pruned (John 15:2). In other words, Jesus takes our fruitfulness personally. That which is not bearing fruit is cut away, and that which does bear fruit is optimized by the words from Jesus' mouth (John 15:3).

What I love about this passage is how oddly warm it is. Despite talk of being thrown in the fire, I don't particularly feel scared by that prospect. Instead, I think of the idea of remaining and how transformative remaining could be.

When I was in college, my best friend was deployed to Iraq. And as soon as we got off the phone for the last time, I broke down. It couldn't handle it. This was the only friend of mine who was deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. And I was a wreck. This was my best friend, a guy I've known since elementary school. My roommate did something I thought would be humiliating. He called my friends, and we met in the common area of my dorm. And I just sat there, as a wreck, knowing my best friend was boarding a plane to one of the more dangerous places in Iraq for several months. And they remained. They heard my absurdities, sat in silence, and watched me walk through that painful moment. And it wasn't even embarassing, not even a little. Despite my shame, which could have overwhelmed me, I remained. Despite the discomfort of sitting with a 19-year old sobbing, they remained. And I went through. I was being pruned in that moment- allowing all of my fears to be experessed through tears and the occasional pounded pillow cushion.

Jesus remains with us in our pruning. In fact, if we read the passage correctly, when I feel like I am being hacked to ribbon by shame and fear and whatever else is there, it's Jesus who is going through the process. It seems like Jesus doesn't just sit with me, Jesus bears the brunt of it for me. I don't know how that words, maybe that's the peace that passes understanding. All I know is that it makes a difference for me knowing that when I feel the pain, Jesus is going through the pruning.

John 14:15-31 "My Part in the Story"

When I was in school, I wanted to be an actor. Something, however, kept me from auditioning. One year, our school did the musical Cinderella and I thought it would be a blast to participate. However, again, I didn't audition. But an opportunity came up for me to still be a part of the show. I was first chair trumpet in the school band, and they needed a trumpeter for the performance. And so I found my part to play in the story. While I was by no means a cast member, I still had fun.

Jesus, in John 14, is trying to prepare the disciples for the end of His earthly ministry and the beginning of theirs. And so Judas' question is an appropriate one. Judas wants to know why Jesus doesn't just reveal Himself to the world like Jesus did to them. Jesus' answer is a bit puzzling. Jesus doesn't answer the question directly.

However, Jesus does actually answer the question by challenging us. Jesus promises the Spirit to empower us to take up our part in the story. When Judas says "Why not tell everyone about you?" Jesus says "Because you will... but don't worry, I am sending the Spirit to give you everything you need to do it."

I love this vision of Christ and Christ's purpose. We have a part in the story! There is something for us to do other than wait for heaven!

And... our capacity to fulfill our part of the story is not the basis of our relationship with God. Christ's capacity to fulfill the part in front of Him is. Therefore I do not live out of fear, but out of hope.

John 14:1-14 "Home Sweet Home"

Home is an interesting concept. I lived in the same house for 13 years of my life, and the next house for 5 years, then it was off to college where I lived in a different hall (or at least floor of a hall) every year, moved back home for the first two years of seminary and then moved into seminary housing for a year before moving to Northern Michigan. I spent three years in middle school, four in high school, three in college and three in seminary. I have been in my first church assignment for almost three years. While I certainly haven't moved around nearly as much as other people, a sense of permanence isn't exactly my thing.

You don't need a sense of permanence to know the joy of being "home." Whether it's the peace of coming home after a vacation, or the terror of seeing your home vandalized or burglarized, the emotional power of home is stirring. And, I believe, is part of how we were created.

Consider Cain and Abel. When Cain murders Abel, his fate is to wander the earth, finding nowhere to call home. Some who wander are able to find home wherever they go- but Cain's curse was that he wouldn't find a home anywhere because he poisoned the earth with his brother's blood.

We are a homeward bound people. Jesus speaks of this home when He speaks of God. And the good news is that this home is on the way. Revelation speaks clearly about the new city coming down onto a renewed earth to inaugurate the eternal kingdom. Leonard Sweet recently posted on facebook this quote "Remember that before Jesus is our way to God, that Jesus is God's way to us." Or something like that.

When Jesus talks about being the Way, the Truth and the Life, I think more and more that Jesus isn't offering us the path home. I think that when Jesus came to us, we are now at home.

Allow me to explain by a story. I moved to Glen Arbor, MI on June 1, 2009. Heather's job did not allow her to move up until June 5, 2009. And so on June 1, 2009, I lived in our house alone. I had no friends (although I made some that week in quick measure), no family, only my work and the still-brand-new relationships with Glen Lake Church. Needless to say, it was hard to feel like I was home. With Heather over a hundred miles away, it hardly felt like home at all. Here I was, ready to start this new adventure, excited about the possibilities of pastoral ministry with people and in an area I love, but yet I felt alone. It wasn't home until June 5, 2009, when Heather arrived. When she arrived, our house became home, and it seemed right.

Jesus has come. It's more like home, now.

Jesus will come again. It'll be a perfect home.

Come, Lord Jesus.

John 13:21-38 "When Following Means Staying"

When I accepted the call of God on my life, I joined the millions who have gone before in following Jesus. This is the call that gives my life purpose and direction. The words of Jesus and the commissioning Christ gives continues to shape my life more and more. I am sure the same was true for the disciples. I am sure that they never considered the adventures their lives would take before following Jesus.

And so when Jesus tells them that they have followed as far as they will go, I am sure there was a level of disappointment. They witnessed miracles, heard teachings, escaped angry Pharisees and even hid from bloodthirsty crowds. They had been through everything with Jesus, and when it seems like the adventure is really going somewhere, Jesus tells them to stop.

The 12 (now the 11, Judas took off) are not the only ones to have this experience. The Gerasene demoniac wanted to follow Jesus as a disciple, but Jesus made him stay in the town that had rejected him as dangerous in order to be a witness. He never got the full apostolic adventure. Only the 12 got that. And here, they are called to the task of loving one another no matter what, and given the promise that one day they will follow Jesus to the final destination.

Love is boring. I mean, love is boring compared to the adventure of laying down your life for what you believe in. People go to movies where lovers fight empires and slay dragons for each other. People do not generally go to see movies where people live out every day lives. And if you have, I'm sorry, your 20 dollars could have been better spent elsewhere. And so why did Jesus invite the disciples on an adventure just to drop them off with boring ol' love? Peter certainly felt a little ripped off by the idea!

Except love is not boring. The love that Jesus was talking about is far from boring or monotonous. It may be small, but it is significant. The love that Jesus told the disciples to employ was not about choosing a few friends and a spouse and a family to love, that would be boring. The love that Jesus gave the disciples was for God's world. This love was meant to be of service and crossing boundaries, or making new relationships and seeing lives transformed. This love is not for the faint of heart- this love is courageous and messy, complicated and yet peaceful. This is the love that Jesus gave us, and the task that all of us Christians have on our lives.

John 13:1-20 "Knowledge is Half the Battle"

One of my favorite TV shows as a kid was GI Joe. The constant battle of the Joes against the wicked COBRA organization was a constant source of delight. One of the funny things at the end of the episodes was a public service announcement starring the GI Joes. Usually, a child would be ready to do something hazardous and unsafe, and one of the GI Joes would show up and tell the child how better to live. Then the Joe would say "Knowledge is half the battle..." and you would assume that follow-through on this knowledge is the other half.

Same thing is true here. Jesus is revealing something about the nature of God here. I do not picture God as the one washing my feet. I picture God on a throne, sitting above it all, or a figure holding me up when I need support, but never beneath me. Yet, if I believe the Bible, I hold that it is not only possible but true that God takes a service role. God does not obey me, God does not make me a god to take a break (Bruce Almighty, I'm looking at you), yet God voluntarily takes the servant role. I think of a God who would sacrifice just so that I might reconciled to God (along with creation).

That is a picture of God that shocks. Let it sink in, and I think you might find yourself protesting with Peter. This doesn't seem right, this isn't the picture of Lord and Teacher that I have in mind. God surprises me.

And that's a good thing. I ought to be surprised by God every once in a while. I would not have done what Jesus did, and that comforts me. It means that I am not allowing myself to construct a Jesus who looks and acts just like me. I follow Jesus, not the other way around.

And that means that I take on the example of foot-washing. I will do this in a symbolic way next Sunday (spoiler alert!), but for today, I wonder how I can take on the servant posture. That kind of imagining actually sounds like fun... what do you think?