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“Abide in My Love,” Rev. Melissa St. Clair, 5/17/15

“Abide in My Love”

A sermon preached at

Heart of the Rockies Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Fort Collins, CO

by the Rev. Melissa St. Clair

May 17, 2015

 This week, I had the privilege of attending the Festival of Homiletics. Think: Woodstock for preachers. Homiletics refers to the study of preaching. Festival and feast are words and concepts that are closely linked; when we refer to feast in the religious sense, it most often refers to a religious festival. Lord knows we love to feast as part our festivals.

On Monday afternoon, I gathered with nearly 2,000 of my closest preacher friends and settled in for a week of feasting on worship, lectures, and workshops with my preaching heroes – the ones whose work I read, study, and listen to as I prepare to preach and seek to strengthen my own understanding of scripture.

And, true to its title, this week was like eating a really, really rich multi-course meal. Despite my doubts that it could be so, each morsel was in fact better than the last, and so I kept going back for more – one more worship service, one more lecture, even though that meant I had to roll, stuffed, back to my hotel room at night.

The extreme fullness I felt as I drove home on Friday exhausted was worth it. There will be much to digest for the days and weeks to come. What a gift it is to serve a congregation who values continuing education for its clergy – designating both time and money for us attend events like these that nourish our souls and strengthen our skills. Thank you.

Our gospel reading for this morning comes from the 4^th gospel – John’s. Speaking of feasts, where we pick up our reading for this morning, Jesus has just washed his disciples’ feet and shared with them the Passover meal that he knows will be his last with them, for his hour had come to depart from this world (John 13:1). The words we hear today are part of what’s known as the Farewell Discourse in John’s gospel – a four chapter section in the fourth gospel in which Jesus both tells his disciples what is coming next and lays out his hopes, prayers, and commands for them going forward.

READ JOHN 15:9-17

I’d expected to run into friends and colleagues that I’ve met across years and miles, but an unexpected aspect of this past week was getting to meet my successors in each of my previous two congregations. We broke sandwiches together and caught up over the cup of coffee. I couldn’t help but recall the memories – the beautiful, the painful, the fun, the difficult memories – and the hopes I’d shared with people who still hold a special place in my heart in places I used to call home.

I wonder what memories the disciples were recalling about the one they loved, the one they left their homes and families for, when they ate that meal together where he shared with them what was coming next and what his hopes for them were. Were they caught up in the moment – relishing the intimacy and connect they shared as they reclined together? Or were their thoughts racing, trying to process what Jesus was saying?

There were moments this week when sitting on the pews of these giant cathedral-ceiling, pipe organ-gilded sanctuaries felt like we were living in a bubble. The outside world seemed far away, save for our prayers remembering the people of Nepal as a second quake hit this week.

Until Wednesday, anyway.

That was the day a man walked into one of the churches where we were gathered. A brother in Christ. A lecture-interrupting, angry, swearing, homeless, and hungry brother in Christ. If, during a lecture about privilege, someone doesn’t stand up and do something when encountering such a brother, you might as well pick up your Bibles and go home.

While one person rummaged through her bag to give the man a bag of chips, one of the emcees for the event invited the man to come with him to give him more to eat. The presenter prayed a prayer for him – and us – after he’d been ushered to the lobby where there was food available.

It’s no surprise that Jesus had to explain what joy and love would look for his disciples. These weren’t just hollow words about Hallmark love and joy, built out of positive thinking and good thoughts. Just because words are eloquent doesn’t mean they are easy.

If they’d been easy, trite, they would’ve seemed radically out of place in that moment, as they might sound today in the midst of huge natural disasters, ongoing violent conflict, scandals in our own community, loss, grief, sexism, anxiety, broken relationships, and sorrow. Disillusionment, distrust, depression, and disregard.

Too often lately it seems like it’s been that kind of week. That kind of time. That kind of world.

Seriously, Jesus. JOY?

What is joy doing here and now in a time and place like this?

For the disciples, for US disciples, Jesus has already acknowledged that their hearts are troubled. He’ll go on to mention things like rejection and hatred and abandonment. And yet, there’s more joy on its way, too: “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete” (16:24). And later “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” (John 17:13).

The kind of joy Jesus preaches is not abstract happiness. The kind of joy Jesus promises is elusive. True joy is hard to come by and can seem simply impossible when we start down the road of real life. Even once you’ve decided that the pursuit of JOY is essential to whom you are, to who you are called to be, to who you want to be in the world, it’s still hard. It takes work. It takes effort. It takes intention.

Carrie Newcomer, a folk artist from Indiana who also happens to have a Master of Divinity, shared with us at the concert she gave on Thursday night, the last night of the festival, a practice that she’s developed. Every night, before she goes to sleep she comes up with three things she’s grateful for. She’s discovered that often once she comes up with three, it’s easy to come up with a whole lot more. They just start flowing. But it takes some effort, some intentionality to come up with those first three. No matter what the day brought – or didn’t – she still sleeps better at night now.

What do you need to remind you that joy can be present? Who do you need around you to tell you that joy is here? Especially in the face of those who seek to steal your joy away? Those who seem quite determined to make sure that your joy is but a dream? That which tries to quell your joy?

Here’s a little tidbit to chew on this week: The Greek words for “grace” and “joy” share the same root. Joy may very well be a feeling of grace, the emotion of grace, even the response to grace. Joy is that indescribable sense when you find yourself experiencing abundant grace. In other words, joy amidst all the junk is not an answer. It’s an affirmation. It’s the guarantee of God’s grace when all that is good seems so far away. It’s the security of God’s love when it appears that love is nowhere to be felt, especially from those you thought would love you. It’s the hope that even in the darkest places of separation, God’s abiding and our abiding in God (1:18;13:23) is promised and present.[1]

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always.

Receive it with joy.

[1] Ideas on JOY borrowed from Karoline Lewis, Choose Joy.  Poste May 3, 2015 at www.workingpreacher.org.