Loving What Jesus Taught

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Season 1, Episode 13: John 14:15-21. Lectionary A, Easter 6

Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.

If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.

You can find the latest show on YouTube at https://youtu.be/QnXt34XGexc

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Herb Montgomery | May 12, 2023

To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.

“I don’t want it to be said of me that what I loved was the hope of heaven, not Jesus, because loving Jesus means actually loving the things he taught and following them. And so, in the spirit of this week’s reading, I have to ask myself: do I really love Jesus—the political, social, economic Jesus of the gospels? Or am I simply addicted to the religious candy that my religion about Jesus offers, if I only believe?”

Our reading this week is from the gospel of John:

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” (John 14:15-21*)

I grew up hearing Christians interpret the Spirit as Advocate as an intermediary interposing between sinful humans and a holy God. Today, I reject any interpretation of this language that places humanity and divinity on polar opposites and a mediator in between. I experienced that bearing bad fruit in my own life and I believe it produces bad fruit societally as well.

This reading is from the Johannine community’s version of the Jesus story, and we should remember that as we consider this language. Repeatedly over the past few weeks, we have seen how the Johannine community characterized the Pharisees and Jewish leaders. We have also noted the tensions between Pharisaical Judaism and the early Gnosticism that the Johannine community was part of. 

Consider the following passages in John, where being removed from the synagogue is a penalty for Jewish people who follow the Johannine Jesus.

“His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Anointed would be put out of the synagogue.” (John 9:22)

“Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue.” (John 12:42)

John’s Jesus also repeats the warning in John 12, “They will put you out of the synagogues” (John 16:2).

In this context, characterizing the Spirit as an Advocate would have meant something to this community. The Spirit would not have mediated between them and God but between them and other members of their own religious communities. We must hold all of these references in John in tension with the fact that most of the history between Judaism and Christianity is not characterized by Jews persecuting Christians but by Christians persecuting Jews. The gospel of John was also written when Gentile Christians wanted to distance themselves from their Jewish siblings under the Roman Empire.

We find a different nuance in the synoptic gospels. The early Jesus community was comprised of those on the undersides and margins of their society who were in deep need of advocacy or justice socially, politically, and economically. This is the context in which I understand the work of the Spirit as Advocate to bear the most life-giving fruit. The synoptics characterize the Spirit as an Advocate between humans in matters of justice. For the original audiences of the synoptics, “advocate” would have called to mind actual legal proceedings that elites in Judea and also from the larger Roman society initated against Jesus’ followers:

“When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 13:11)

“When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” (Matthew 10:19-20)

“So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” (Luke 21:14-15)

“When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, do not worry about how you are to defend yourselves or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say.” (Luke 12:11-12)

A representation of the Divine that places God against us with us in need of an Advocate before God ignores this context, the social context in which these passages were originally written. 

Lastly, in this week’s reading we see an important if-then statement: If you love Jesus, then follow his teachings. 

To be honest, it is a lot easier to revere Jesus and to worship Jesus in word and song than it is to choose every day to follow the ethics and values we find in the Jesus story. In the Jesus story we find a Jesus who taught inclusion of the marginalized, resource-sharing with the poor, wealth redistribution from the rich, nonviolent resistance for the oppressed, treating others the way we would like to be treated ourselves, and an ethic expressed through justice above all else. 

It’s much easier for privileged, powerful, and propertied Christians to religiously worship a Jesus who promises us a beautiful afterlife, than it is for us to socially, politically, and economically follow the ethics and values our Jesus taught as challenging but fruitful means of reshaping the injustices, oppressions and violence of our present society.

I’m reminded of the poem “A Dead Man’s Dream” by Carl Wendell Hines, Jr. Hines who wrote this poem in 1965 after the assassination of Malcolm X. After Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in 1968 his poem also came to be associated with Dr. King.

“Now that he is safely dead,
Let us praise him.
Build monuments to his glory.
Sing Hosannas to his name.

Dead men make such convenient heroes.
For they cannot rise to challenge the images
That we might fashion from their lives.
It is easier to build monuments
Than to build a better world.

So now that he is safely dead,
We, with eased consciences will
Teach our children that he was a great man,
Knowing that the cause for which he
Lived is still a cause
And the dream for which he died is still a dream.
A dead man’s dream.”

To apply this poem to Jesus of Nazareth for Christians leads to some haunting questions. Have we simply built churches as monuments to Jesus? What images of Jesus that Christianity has shaped would Jesus challenge if he physically walked the earth today? Have we built a religion when we should have been building a different world, a safe, compassionate, just world big enough for all of our differences and where each us treat each other the way we would like to be treated? Have we taught the message of Jesus’ greatness while ignoring the truths he taught and the solidarity with the marginalized he modeled that made him so great?

The phrases that give me pause in this week’s reading are: “If you love me, keep my commands” and “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me.”

Forget a religion or gospel about Jesus for a moment. What was the gospel our Jesus himself taught in the story? Are the things we as Christians so passionate about the same things that Jesus was passionate about? Are the things this Jesus was so passionate about, the themes and truths that he taught and emphasized, the centerpieces of our teaching and action? 

Some Christians today are intentionally endeavoring to answer in the affirmative. There are also large portions of Christianity that are known instead for their hate and bigotry. For these Christians, the Jesus of the gospels (even John) is strangely silent on the issues they are most vocal about, and the themes Jesus focused most intently on would threaten their social privileges too much. This kind of Christianity has to avoid or deprioritize the gospels because within those stories we run headlong into Jesus’ teachings. 

I have to allow myself to be confronted by this contradiction regularly. It’s much easier for me to focus on the parts of the New Testament that subtly redirect me toward cosmological claims about Jesus rather than to Jesus’ call for obedience to his teachings. I don’t want it to be said of me that what I loved was the hope of heaven, not Jesus, because loving Jesus means actually loving the things he taught and following them. And so, in the spirit of this week’s reading, I have to ask myself: do I really love Jesus—the political, social, economic Jesus of the gospels? Or am I simply addicted to the religious candy that my religion about Jesus offers, if I only believe?

HeartGroup Application

1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.

2. What are some of the things Jesus taught that you love and choose to follow? Share with your group.

3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?

Thanks for checking in with us, today.

You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.

Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.

If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.

And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.

My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com

Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.

I love each of you dearly,

I’ll see you next week.

*Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!

Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.

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