Finding Faith ... in keeping Jesus' commandments

EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 3 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on May 17, 2020. This was the ninth digital service we performed after our church was shuttered because of the COVID pandemic.

A short two-paragraph gospel but so much packed into those two paragraphs.

I don't know about you Faith Family, but this week was a particularly tough one for me. Not just for the fact that I had come off last week being sick, and I was starting to mend again. But, but hearing the news on Tuesday when I gathered with our bishop, and with the rostered leaders from all over our synod, we started to talk about what being in service together, and what being in church was going to look like in the coming weeks and months, it started to dawn on me, more so than any other period during this past couple of months, that we are in for a marathon. And this is not a sprint.

I don't know what might have been particularly tough for you this week, but the thought for me is the idea that some of us are separated from our loved ones, and it might be quite some time before we see them. For others it might be the thought of the fact that your work has been devastated, or the fact that your work will never be the same again. For others it might be the thought that school and how our children will be affected moving into the future. We can already see the discussion going on for some colleges that won't even be back into session in the fall. They'll be doing everything online. And so it's easy to make us wonder what this means for education for us into the future.

And don't even get me started on the idea of large gatherings. When we look at things, not only church, but the other things in our lives that add so much to the fulfillment of joy -- when we talk about concerts and sporting events and plays and theater -- we don't know. We don't know when we'll be able to enjoy those things the way that we have for generations.

And I thought this week, as I looked at this gospel, the thing that came to mind for me was many might be asking this very question: Where is God in all of this?

As we look over the past two months, maybe going on three now, of the times that we are living through, and as we project into the future what that might look like, I think it easy to wonder in all of this, "Where is God?"

I can share with you that several years ago when I was going through my clinical pastoral education experience at Sanford, many of you might remember that that was the period where I was working at Sanford as a chaplain for four and a half months. And I can share with you that often times, in those most dire of medical times, during those experiences people would turn to me and say, "Where is God?"

I think it is a natural response for those of us who live here on this earth, when something goes wrong, when nature goes askew, when a pandemic closes down the world, I think it is very easy for us as humans to think, "Where are you, God?"

But I think that is why today's gospel is so important. Short though it may be, it is powerful because it reminds us that God is here. God is present. He is with us in the form of the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us so in today's gospel. Remember, this is Jesus' farewell to his disciples. This is happening on the night that he will be arrested.

And he is talking to his disciples in that locked room, and he's telling them, "I know I'm going away." But the Father will send you another advocate. I quote: "I will not leave you orphaned. I am coming to you."

He goes on to add that in a little while the world won't be able to see me any longer, but you will. And he is speaking to his disciples, and thus, he is also speaking to us. And so, when Jesus tells us that we are not going to be orphaned, that he is sending his advocate. And we will live because he lived. He makes us that promise in today's gospel. If you go back and read that, we will live because he lived.

And so, we will see him, but much of the world won't. It might be a little confusing as you think about this. Jesus is talking directly to these disciples sitting in this room, and he says, "You will see me, but the world won't." And so I thought about that this week, and I thought, "Well, does Jesus mean in that moment?" ... How does he mean that we will see him, and the world won't.

Of course, what Jesus is talking about is that as people of faith we do not see by sight alone. We see through our faith, and we will be able to see Jesus Christ, even though Jesus in a physical form will ascend to our heavenly Father. What Jesus promises us and what God delivers to us is that they send the Holy Spirit to be right here among us.

And I know that at times as Lutherans, this Holy Spirit is a bit of a mystery to us. You know, we are heavily grounded in the Word, or the Son. We get the resurrection. We know that Jesus went to the Cross for us to bear our sins, and he will rise again from the dead, conquering death.

However, we really rarely talk about it in our faith, about the Spirit, the third being of the Holy Trinity. And so in passages like this, at times, we forget where Jesus promises us that even though Jesus ascends into heaven to sit beside his Father, that even during a global pandemic, that we are not alone. God sends in Jesus' place; he sends another advocate. You see that in the gospel. Jesus says another advocate, meaning that while Jesus was here, in his time, he walked those dusty roads alongside the disciples. He was their advocate at the time. ... God will send another advocate.

And I am encourage and heartened by that this week, because in the dismay of all the heavy news that we've been dealt, I go back to the fact that we're not here by ourselves, going through this alone. God assures us that he is in the mix. Jesus didn't rise from the dead and then abandon us to another day when we'll face judgement. No God sends another advocate to live and walk our dusty roads, right alongside of us.

If you read the Greek in the New Testament, the term "advocate" comes across as the word "paraclete." And that is your five dollar biblical word of the week. And it simply means, "advocate." And in a fuller definition, paraclete means "the one called to be alongside you." And so if we were reading this gospel today in it's original Greek, Jesus would say there will be another paraclete to come be with you. Another advocate that will be here and walk this road alongside you.

And of course we don't spend a lot of attention the Spirit, it is indeed that Spirit that God sends to be with us and among us so that we are not orphaned. We are not alone. Sometimes that advocate, or the Holy Spirit, is going to come in the form of a teacher, or a friend, a companion, or a guide. ... An advocate. And sometimes that Spirit is going to be in a tangible form of a medical doctor that performs their job to keep you safe. Or sometimes that advocate is going to come in the form of a frontline worker that is stocking a grocery store for us. And sometimes that advocate is simply going to be coming in a warm sense of brotherhood, companionship. Today that advocate just might be in the form of "Paper Rose" and "Paper Louie" coming to fill this sanctuary with its love.

But no matter what, it's that Spirit that provides God's companionship and God's comfort to us as a people of faith. And it's that Spirit that makes it possible for us to get up, and go out into that dark and scary world and share Christ's love.

Remember, this is important because if you go back to the beginning of today's gospel -- there's only two paragraphs, but there is so much in there! -- God starts the gospel today with Jesus telling us that: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." And of course, we have to go back a couple of weeks ago in another sermon in which we were discussing what those commandments are.

Now, your first inclination might be to jump back and say, "Well, it's the Ten Commandments, right?" ... But everything in this gospel of John is contextual, and if you remember a few weeks back ago, after Jesus finishes washing the disciples feet, he gives them a new commandment. And of course that new commandment is: Love thy neighbor as yourself.

In this final moment that Jesus is sharing with his disciples before he will be arrested that night, in this very passage, God is telling us that this is how the world will see that Spirit. This advocate that God sends us, and the world can't see, is that it will be an advocate that we can see. Because we live in faith. Because we live in Christ's love. And if we are to love Christ, then we are to love our neighbor. And that, Faith Family, is how the rest of the world will see this advocate.

I know that in this time, it's very easy to despair. It's very easy to think as we see loved ones falling sick to a demonic virus ... It's very easy in these times when we see people losing their jobs, or close businesses, or worry about their financial future ... It's easy to despair, when we see the conflicts that arise between us as humans ... But that is exactly why this gospel is important, and why we need to return back to it again and again because we're not alone.

We absolutely living in a world where God is present and active through the Holy Spirit. And it is essential that as a people of faith that we must live into that Spirit so that the others who do not have faith, the others that are kind of bumbling and stumbling along this early path of theirs without the advocate and in need of the Good News, that is where we come along. That is where the rest of the world will get to see the tangible form of the Spirit, is in us, as a people of faith.

There's the old cliché of trying to describe to a person who is blind what elephant is. Now, imagine a person who was born without sight, and you're trying to explain to them what a creature such as an elephant is like. I think at times that becomes our job as people of faith. When those who are not living in faith, we are there to try and describe to them what the Spirit is to them in a tangible form. And it seems an impossible and daunting job.

And I would say, that instead, that is the point where we will show the rest of the world who this advocate is ... is through our own actions. As Jesus reminds us at the beginning of this gospel, we love Jesus by the way we love our neighbor.

And so Faith Family, in this time, in this time where we can't gather as a church, in this time when we don't know when that will be, in this times time when you might be anxious of your financial future, in this time when you might be anxious about our very own physical health, I would remind you to come back to this gospel that reminds us that we are not in this alone.

Where is God indeed? ... And the answer, Faith Family, is God is right here in this, amongst us, right beside us as our advocate ... and that is the Good News this Sunday, Faith Family. ... Amen.