Dear friends,

Fr Mike reflects: https://stgeorgechorley.co.uk/news/news_inner/324

Here is the notice sheet: https://stgeorgechorley.co.uk/brochure/theway.pdf

Here is a video from Bishop Philip on your involvement in the diocese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyZpHyQAZe8

God bless,

Fr Mike

Today's Sermon

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

So today’s Gospel reading, continues on from the ‘I am the True Vine’ reading, which we really need to know to make sense of it. All the language around fruit and abiding or remaining in his love, all flows on from that and now Jesus is saying that this is what that means. This is where today’s gospel reading flows from.

And this is actually one of my favourite parts of John’s gospel and there’s loads of stuff to unpack here. There’s so much you could write a whole book on it. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to go through, almost verse by verse and pick out the key things that we’ll see, build into a big picture – and that picture is basically just the picture of the true vine but expanded out, where we have Jesus’ love as (if you like) the sap that flows from the Father out into us, and that that sap should be bearing fruits of love in our own life. So keep that image in your head and hold onto it.

And that’s what verse 9 is all about, that love flowing out and into us but then, straight off the bat we get to a phrase that might sound like it doesn’t fit when we’re talking about love, if we didn’t pay attention. “If you will keep my commands, you will remain in my love” well that sucks doesn’t it because absolutely nobody in this room can obey the laws God sets out all the time, sooner or later we all make mistakes, don’t we? Well there we have a huge problem that people don’t get and if you get this problem you’ll be a step closer to understanding this reading.

Because of Jesus, the law isn’t our work anymore. Jesus’ command isn’t like the law of Moses, because Jesus’ commandments and laws are fulfilled by him dying for us, all we’ve got to do is believe and trust in his love. Love is the fulfilment of the law, in the sense that Jesus’ love led him to die for us. So by telling us to keep his command he’s saying believe in me. Trust in me. It’s not saying that you have to perform well or keep the laws strictly, it’s not saying that if you don’t do this thing you’re out. It’s saying keep the command by trusting Jesus and, as a result, loving people. Following the love of Jesus will bear fruit.

In verse 12 he reminds them of exactly that, my command is this, love each other. But still we don’t get it because when we tell people to love each other today you hear something soft and squishy. Or maybe some sort of hippyish ‘one love’. But when Jesus talks about love he means something that will actually make people change the way they act, not just an emotion. Earlier in the gospel it’s love that leads to Jesus’ challenge to a young man who wanted to follow him, and Jesus tells that young man to give everything to the poor and come back… love in the bible isn’t just an emotion it’s the thing that gets you up and makes you go and ‘do’.

It’s a bit like the breath of Aslan in the Narnia books, if you remember that? Where Aslan breathes on those people who had been turned to stone by the white witch, and in breathing on them they come alive and can go and fight. That’s what love is like, it’s the thing that gets you going.

Then Jesus reminds us of exactly what his example of love looks like, he’s going to lay down his life, he’s going to be the good shepherd that he talked about earlier in the gospel. He’s going to die for them, the love he has is so great that that is how far he will go. He’s not just sitting there thinking about love like the modern person might, he’s going to go and do something about it. His love will bear fruit. Fruit that will last. Following the love of Jesus will bear fruit for us too.

So here’s the thing about all that I’ve said so far and the thing we still don’t get, Jesus’ love changes people’s real lives. It actually affects things, it’s not an emotion. You know, I was watching one of these amazing planet earth documentaries the other week and I learned what tumbleweeds were. Because I thought that tumbleweeds, like you see in the old westerns, were just dead bits of grass or something that has been caught by the wind and blown over the desert but, actually, tumbleweed is alive as it’s blown along in that state, through the desert, that’s a natural part of its life cycle.

The tumbleweed can remain in environments with absolutely zero water for months and months, until a bit of water comes along and then they germinate and they even start to grow flowers and look beautiful. This dry old crusty, dead-looking plant, comes alive with colour. It produces new seeds and they then start the process all over again until the next spring.

So all it takes is water and the thing that looked like it was without hope suddenly springs to life. It actually changes things around and changes the situation of the plant. Well Jesus’ love is like that water. If you let Jesus’ love change you, if you start to follow him and live in that love then what is dead and hopeless can find a new life. And that life will get you up and move you through the wilderness of the world.

Brothers and sister, some of you are exhausted. You can’t imagine getting up and trying with something new but, following the love of Jesus will give you the life to bear fruit. Like the water on the tumbleweed, it’s his love that does the work. It’s the love of Christ that we have to turn back to when we’re all dead and dehydrated.

Or, if it’s helpful, think back to that image of the vine. Jesus is the vine and his love is the sap that flows into each of us so that we can bear fruit.

So you know what? Stop trying to do it all yourself. Do you know how many people I see trying to do it all themselves and ending up ragged and without any energy left to do anything? Almost everyone at some point or other, myself included. If you’re feeling like dry bones, then instead of working more and more, you should try spending time returning to Jesus’ love and being filled up and renewed. Let Jesus’ love be the thing in you that bears fruit. That is the fruit that will last.

And as a church, haven’t we been a bit without hope for a while, until recently? Hadn’t we all but given up? Weren’t we like that tumbleweed drifting along? It has been the love of Jesus that has started to turn things around. People have pointed to me a bit, but that’s wrong because all I’ve done is remind you guys and remind the new helpers at closer about the love of Jesus and how that love can transform this community. All I’ve really done is point out how the love of Jesus can bring families together, can change the way people think and give them hope; it’s been the love of Jesus that has started to change this Church.

So remain in his love, all you who are tired and fed up, all you who are old and weary. Follow his love, and we will bear fruit.

Let us make today the day where we decide that that is what we’ll do. Let us make a commitment today that every day of the next week we will spend some time abiding with Jesus, whether in the quiet of our homes or in the beauty of creation, let us spend some time with Jesus this week, I challenge you, and you will see how you are brought to life in him. Amen.

Fr Jordan