FRIENDS OF CHRIST
John 15:9-17 & Act 10: 44-48 (inclusive of Acts 10:1-43)
MAY 5, 2024
It has been said that it is easier to be a servant than a friend. I think that is a true statement. A servant serves at the request of and under the authority of someone. The servant follows directions or does the bidding on behalf of someone else. It is a contractual obligation. They are not paid for their opinion. They do not have to become personally involved. At the end of the day, they go their separate ways.
Friends mutually interact with each other on an equal plane. There is a caring relationship between the two parties and within that relationship, there is a give and take that occurs on both sides. Friends talk about things with each other and they consider each other’s opinions. Friends choose to hang out together and they choose to be involved in things that their friend cares about.
In the hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”, it is evident that Jesus is our friend. When we take whatever it is to the Lord in prayer, Jesus bears our sins, griefs and pains, he shares our sorrows, and he is eternally faithful to us because he loves us. In our text, Jesus speaks the words, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.” Jesus is personally involved and connected to us through God, the Father. He loves us because God loves us. So, if Jesus is our friend, how can we be a friend to him?
In today’s text there is an answer to that question. “Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Okay, so what might that be? We just sang it. “This is my commandment that you love one another, that your joy may be full. These words to a children’s song are easy to sing but challenging to live by.
The closer we move toward Pentecost, which is two weeks from today, the more the scriptural texts are leading us forward to what new life in Christ will be like. In that new life, the Holy Spirit plays a predominant role. Again, we are reminded about those other sheep of the fold that must be brought along with Jesus through his church. We read about this last week with the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. The Spirit directed Philip to travel on the wilderness road where he met the Ethiopian, helped him to discern the scripture he was reading, and then baptized him. When he completed his ministry task, the Spirit whisked Philip off to another location where he was needed.
Our historic reading has many similar parallels to last week’s story. The few verses we read this morning are an ending to a larger story. To understand it, we must return to the beginning. At the beginning we are introduced to Cornelius. Cornelius is a Gentile, meaning a non-Jewish person. He is a high-ranking officer in the Roman army, stationed in Caesarea, which was a city on the coast of Palestine. At the time, the Jews and the Romans were not friends, as Israel was under Roman rule. The two interacted when necessary and then they went their separate ways.
We are told that Cornelius was a God-fearer, which means he was a devout person who was seeking to know and serve God. Apparently, God was seeking him too because God spoke to Cornelius in a vision. God gave Cornelius instructions about how he could find Peter and Cornelius sent two of his servants to Joppa to do so.
As we well know, God’s ways are not our ways. In Joppa, Peter, who was staying at the house of Simon the tanner, was up on the roof praying. He too found himself experiencing a vision. God’s timing strikes again. In his vision, he saw something like a large sheet being lowered down and on that sheet were listed all kinds of four-footed animals, reptiles, and birds of the air. A voice, presumably the Spirit, told Peter to get up, kill, and eat, but Peter refused.
When we’ve been taught all your life that something is this way and then we are told to ignore what we have been taught, we become conflicted. According to the holiness codes, certain animals were deemed unclean to eat. Doing so would in turn make a person unclean as a result of eating them. Peter expressed that he had always followed the rules and he was not about to break them now, but God changed the rules. The voice said, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane”. That left Peter puzzled as to what was going on.
Human beings make human made rules. Human beings are free to say that x, y and z are not acceptable, but God does not have to agree. God has rules of God’s own, “Love one another and I have loved you.” In the fullness of God’s time, the Spirit brought two unlikely people together. Cornelius’ men found Peter and the Spirit told Peter to go with them. Peter went.
When Peter and Cornelius met face to face, Cornelius fell at Peter’s feet. Still uncertain as to how this was all going to play out, Peter spoke. “Stand up; I am only a mortal.” 28 and he said to them, “You yourselves know that it is improper for a Jew to associate with or to visit an outsider, but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without objection. Now may I ask why you sent for me?”
In response, Cornelius told Peter about his vision. The text now comes full circle. After listening to Cornelius, the lightbulb went on for Peter. He had a divine, “aha moment” and said, “I now realize that it is true that God treats everyone on the same basis. 35 Those who fear him and do what is right are acceptable to him, no matter what race they belong to…. 44 While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit came down on all those who were listening to his message. 45 The Jewish believers who had come from Joppa with Peter were amazed that God had poured out his gift of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles also. 46 For they heard them speaking in strange tongues and praising God’s greatness. Peter spoke up: 47 “These people have received the Holy Spirit, just as we also did. Can anyone, then, stop them from being baptized with water?” 48 So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay with them for a few days. (Good News Translation) In Christ, those who were once estranged become friends.
In 1997, William Willimon wrote, “To be a Christian follower of Jesus means that there are some things that are not optional.” Willimon defined a follower of Jesus as one, who in every situation, tries to respond to another as Jesus would respond. Then he said, “Christians are those who, through baptism, have signed on, have publicly committed themselves to obey Jesus. And Jesus has commanded us to love (period).” (Pulpit Resource, Vol.25, No2, page 20)
Willimon is right. We have read it and we have sung it. “This is my commandment that you love one another, that your joy may be full”. God’s love knows no partiality. When we love as God loves, we are the presence of God to another. When we love as Jesus loved, we befriend a friend of Jesus, who is also our friend. When we love as the Spirit loves, our joy becomes full; our lives become richer as relationships grow. We are truly better together. Our epistle reading from 1 John this morning goes so far as to say, “For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments… for whatever is born of God conquers the world.”
We are a people empowered by the Spirit to conquer the world. Let that sink in for a minute. Taking on the world will be a challenge. While God may not show partiality, the world certainly does. We see the fallout of our failure to love one another all around us. So how can we stand against such odds? We pray and we allow ourselves to be open to what the answer to our prayer may be. Remember, prayer can also be sung.
The words to the hymn following the sermon are really more like words of a prayer. The first verse reads: Help us accept each other as Christ accepted us; teach us as sister, brother, each person to embrace. Be present, Lord, among us, and bring us to believe we are ourselves accepted and meant to love and live. (CCLI# 991857) As we sing, may the words of our mouths, the meditations of our hearts, and the action of lives be acceptable to our Savior and friend. Amen.