I Chose You
Beth Braxton
May 17, 2009
John 15: 9-17
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I remember the playground recess years when I was 10, 11 years old. There would be wonderful weather like this in Atlanta and we would choose up sides for a game of softball. Of course, the two boys who were the best players were captains and then one by one they would call out the name of another classmate to be on their team: Bobby, Bill, Larry, Curt, Steve, Gary, Tommy, Ben, Beth - Yes, I was the first girl chosen, even before all the guys were chosen! Well, then I would feel sorry for all those who were chosen last – the meaning being you are NOT good players.
The junior high dance was a different matter. Do you remember how we would stand clumped together – we girls on one side of the gym and the boys clumped together on the other side. Then Sammy would bravely step out and come over to the girls. I certainly did not want to dance with Sammy, I was a foot taller, so some of the other girls and I would duck into the girls’ bathroom. I did NOT want to be chosen!
Then there is reality TV where in shows like “Survivor” you get chosen (voted) off the island. The others in the group literally choose you – not to be there! Or on the show “Bachelorette” where there are twelve (or so - I don’t know how many) beautiful talented women waiting to be chosen to marry this gorgeous bachelor, and he chooses one by one who is to leave the show. This week the American public is going to choose another American idol – will it be Adam or Chris? What is your vote – who will you choose?
This choosing business gets very tricky. Sometimes you want to be chosen (you know the answer in biology class and you want to show off as such). Sometimes there is an extra project that needs to be done at work, but your plate is full and you do not want to be chosen to do it so you try to hide from being chosen.
Today in the scripture we hear “I chose you!” Jesus is speaking to his disciples and all disciples down through the centuries, “I chose you.”
The disciples did not choose Jesus as a rabbi. He initiated the search for them. He called them from their fishing nets, from their tax tables, from their families. For much of his ministry he taught, acted and modeled the way he expected all his followers to think and act. In that sense, they had been apprentice-servants under his guidance. Now they were being taken to a deeper level of relationship: friend. “I no longer call you servants, but friends.” (v. 15)
Jesus wants his disciples/you to be His friend. I choose you, Jesus says, to be my friend! Why? Jesus needed persons he could trust to carry out his mission, to continue his work.
Let’s look at some characteristics of friends here.
1. All secrets are shared among friends. You tell your best friend anything. Right? There is fidelity and trust with friends. Jesus said, “All that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you.” (v.15). Friendship takes down all barriers. He made known to the disciples “the godliness of God” which consists in the power to forgive, the acceptance of others who may even be hostile, and to love even the unlovable.
2. Friendship takes seriously what the friend takes seriously. Here pointed out in today’s scripture is the command to love – “This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Abide in my love.” This is the kind of love that wills another’s good and bears the fruit of that love – that is what is important to Jesus! Jesus wants to see the fruit of love – works of love that bear fruit that lasts!
Allison McMillan spoke about it in her sermon last week on Youth Sunday - giving of self – singing at the nursing home and witnessing God’s grace enable a woman to sing and talk who had not spoke for months, not one word! I witnessed the fruit of Jesus’ love in a documentary this week about Sister Cyril Mooney, an Irish Catholic Sister, who has spent fifty years in India and has taken 450,000 street children off the streets and educated them! I experienced the fruit of Jesus’ love in the compassionate listening of an elder and a colleague.
Friendship takes seriously what the friend takes seriously. Jesus takes seriously loving other human beings as a way of life. One confirmand said in her statement of faith that she is to live, love and forgive as Jesus did! Amen!
3. Friendship costs, said Jesus. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.” (v.13). It is the most explicit statement in the Gospel of what it means to love as Jesus loved! I can think of no better story than the one I have told you before about the Vietnam platoon. They were gathered in the jungle during this horrific battle, a grenade was thrown right in the midst of the group. One soldier immediately dove on it! He laid down his life for his friends. Jesus did that for us; he was brutally nailed to the cross for us and for our salvation!
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (I want you young people to know this name – pastor, teacher, theologian, writer) is an excellent example of one who knew what Jesus taught, took seriously the example of Jesus, and was willing to pay the cost of friendship. He, as a Lutheran pastor could not let Hitler take over the church, the hearts and minds of the people. He became a part of the resistance movement during World War II. His obedience is an example to us. On April 9, 1945, in a cold, dank cell in Flossenburg, a little town in southern Germany, two prison guards appeared at a cell and said, “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, come with us.” From there they took him, stripped him and hung him to death, yet another victim of a Nazi atrocity - Exactly one month before Germany surrendered and ended the war.
Bonhoeffer came from a noble, educated and well-to-do German family. He was a brilliant student who surprised his family by deciding to become a pastor. And his death like this was one of disgrace for such a noble family.
Bonhoeffer went to his end reading the Bible and Plutarch. During the period of his imprisonment, he was engaged in an intensive study of the Gospel of Mark, a Gospel that is all along a passion story that culminated with prisoner Jesus being led to the cross. In a way, Bonhoeffer’s life and death embodies the Gospel of Mark.
Of course, Bonhoeffer could have not left for Germany. He could have stayed at Union Seminary in New York and ended his days as an honored retired professor. But he chose to get on a boat and head back to Germany to participate in the resistance movement against Hitler. When he got on the boat to Germany, Bonhoeffer said that he was filled with a great sense of peace because he was obeying what he knew God wanted him to do. In his book, Ethics, Bonhoeffer stressed the importance of obedience to Christ as the hallmark of truly Christian ethics. In his life and death, Bonhoeffer did not just think about Christian ethics; he embodied Christian ethics!
It was interesting for me to find out something about the story of the judge who sentenced him. His name was Arthur Forbeck. In the very last days of the war, Forbeck was ordered by Hitler to execute Bonhoeffer. Forbeck took a train toward Flossenburg and when the train stopped some 20k from the killing camp, the judge secured a bicycle and peddled the rest of the way, so eager was he to carry out the trial and execution of Bonhoeffer in obedience to Hitler’s command.
These two men were both Lutheran, both worshipped the same God, and had read many of the same books. How did they come to such vastly different conclusions? One answer was that each of these men were following a different “savior” and obeying a different voice, aligning their lives to a different story. (William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 37, No. 2 Year B May, 2009, p.35.)
Jesus chooses you to be his friend, someone he can trust, someone who knows all about his life, no secrets (You know all the secrets. There here in the Good Book.), someone who follows his command to love one another and someone who is willing to pay the cost for this love and friendship! Becoming a Christian is not just lip service – it is embodiment! It is producing fruit!
Jesus has chosen you; the question is – will you choose Jesus?
Will you choose to continue to learn all about Jesus?
Will you choose to love as he loved?
Will you choose to pray as he prayed?
Will you choose to forgive as he forgave?
Will you choose to be a healer as he healed?
Will you choose to give as he gave?
Will you choose Jesus’ way of life?
Jesus has chosen you! He is coming across the dance floor for YOU! Are you going to meet him and join in the dance of your life, or are you going to duck into another room?
Jesus said, “I have said these things so my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” (v.11) Amen!
