Sermon on John 15:1-17 and Psalm 1
Originally given 03 April 2022 at St. Alban's Church, Coventry

'This is my command: Love each other.'

If all the Gospels could be summarised in one single verse from the Bible, it would be this verse from today's Gospel. Every sermon ever preached should be based on this command. Every church should open its doors to proclaim this command to the whole world. Every Christian should walk through their lives living out this command every single day. Love each other.

Unfortunately, what seems to be one of the simplest of concepts is also one of the most challenging. Turning on the news every day we encounter story after story of people not loving each other. Whole systems and cultures and governments have been built on the idea that some people are just unloveable, that whole groups of people just don't fit in our boxes of who we are comfortable with loving. We have drawn fault lines of division between ourselves and our neighbours, both near and far, because they don't look like us, or think like us, or love like us, or believe like us. We live in a world based on the idea of us and them, a world at odds with the foundational concept of the Gospel message preached by Jesus Christ himself, a message without exception: Love each other. 

In reading today's Gospel, it's made very clear that this idea of separate groups of us and them divides us not only from the so-called them, but also from Christ Jesus. In the parable Jesus tells, the vine and the branches are intertwined, one cannot thrive without the other, there is no hierarchy, no successful separate life, no fruit without the vine. So if we abide with Jesus, we abide with each other, and in this vein Jesus also abides with each of us. But it is also clear that we cannot abide with Jesus unless we abide with each other and this is why Jesus gave this great command: Love each other.

Perhaps I'm getting a bit redundant in my message. But if I say it often enough, maybe I'll start to truly live out this Gospel message. And if I live it out, then maybe I can encourage others to live it out too. And if we all live it out, then we'll be able to actually fulfil the command of Jesus, we will be able to see the fruit of the kingdom we belong to. All we are asked to do is love each other. 

When Alexander and I were planning our wedding blessing, we chose the second half of today's Gospel reading, John 15 verses 9-17, as our Gospel reading for the ceremony. As we joined each other in love before God, we felt compelled to share the Gospel message with our friends and family who had gathered with us. Our friends and family who were from around the world, some with different faiths, and some with none. We were desperate to share the Good News with the people that we loved, because we knew that so much of the news they had heard about the Christian faith was anything but good. We wanted to share the Good News that Jesus is not only for us, but also with us. The Good News that we too can be with Jesus and all we are asked to do is to love each other. 

Our first reading today, Psalm 1, declares, 'blessed is the one…whose delight is in the law of the LORD.' How truly fortunate for us that the law of the LORD is so simple and easy to remember. How joyful for us that we can all be blessed if we delight in the law of the LORD by following that one simple command: Love each other.

I grew up in a place that preached a very different Gospel. A Gospel of prosperity, where pastors lived in mansions because they were blessed because they talked about a wrathful God, and those of us born on the wrong side of the tracks were for some reason not deserving of this God of prosperity. We had somehow done something so wrong that God didn't bless us with the basic necessities of life, yet alone any disposable wealth. I spent much of my youth grappling with a faith that didn't make sense. A faith that said it's somehow acceptable for people to go without food or clothing or homes or any other basic necessities. I grew up believing that my political ideologies, which were based on the idea that all humans should be treated with dignity and had the right to life, were somehow at odds with a Christian faith. But I assure you, this message preached by megachurch pastors was a false Gospel. In truth, God is of, for, and with the oppressed, the marginalised, the silenced, the poor in spirit and poor in pocket. The capitalist mindset that would see people starving on the street is the opposite of the Gospel message. Any form of hatred, any structure that would treat people as other or less is the opposite of the Gospel message. The fact is that God desperately loves every single one of us and so has given us this most important command: Love each other.  

This is our holy task, to bring the love of God to a hurting world. More than that though, we should strive to be the love of God in a hurting world. It sounds so simple, but it's honestly challenging when you confront all the hurt that pervades our world. When you actually think about it, the thought of loving the world can feel quite overwhelming. Our world is filled with war,  abuse, prejudice, and every other evil you can imagine. But as Christians we have been given a new imagination through the Gospel message. A new heaven and a new earth. All that we hope for in the coming of the new age can be achieved through our simple actions. The action of following Jesus' command to love each other.