Chronological time comes nearly to a stop in the four chapters of the Gospel of John that get called “The Farewell Discourse.” One-fifth of the whole Gospel of John takes place in the evening time before Jesus’ arrest. Jesus’ parting words remind me of the instruction list that my mother used to leave before my parents went away for a trip (and I always feared that they would leave us orphaned). The long list was accompanied by their admonition for me to use my best judgment. Okay, fine, I would think, but do you know my brothers and my sister?

In terms of literature, these four chapters of the Farewell Discourse are cast in the most popular Jewish literary genre of the time. There are also Greco-Roman and Gnostic influences here, but the essential Jewishness of this text is important to highlight, with its emphasis on love as the center of the life of the community.

If you love me, Jesus says, you will keep my commandments. The word ‘keep’ here (thrh/sete in Greek) means watch over, pay attention to, guard, hold dear. And what are Jesus’ commandments according to John? In the Gospel of John, Jesus gives a lot of speeches, but says very few things that could be called commandments. What we know as “the two great commandments” isn’t in the Gospel of John. There are, however, ten things that Jesus said in the Gospel of John that might be considered commandments. Here they are in order of appearance:

• Do not complain among yourselves. (Jn. 6:43)
• Do not judge by appearances.  (Jn. 7:24)
• Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone (at the woman caught in the act of adultery…. No one threw any stones.) (Jn. 8:7)
• Walk while you have light, so that the darkness may not overtake you…while you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light. (Jn. 12:35-36)
• Wash one another’s feet. (Remember, in John, there is no commandment to remember Jesus in the context of a meal with bread and wine) (Jn. 13:14)
• Love one another. (Jn. 13:34)
• Love one another. (Jn. 13:34)
• Love one another. (Jn. 13:35)
• Do not let your hearts be troubled. Jn. 14:1
• (from last week’s Gospel portion) Believe in God, believe also in me…but if you don’t believe in me, believe in my works. (Jn. 14:1-11)
• there’s a number 11 – kind of a bonus commandment, if we understand the risen Lord’s instruction to Peter to be not just for Peter but for the church universal, we could add, “feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep” to the list.

Why would a bonus commandment be a good thing? Why might a bonus commandment be a good thing? Well because the word for commandment (hwcm in Hebrew) and (e)ntolÐ in Greek) doesn’t mean in either language quite what we tend to think in terms of a demand or a constraint or a militaristic order. Rather a mitzvah or an entoláy is a charge or a commission – an indication of intentionality – an expression of divine desire or longing and a statement of faith in people – a statement of belief that people can do the right thing if we’re told what the right thing is. I often say that the amazing thing about the Hebrew Bible and the Christian scripture is that they are a vast collection of stories of God believing in people against all odds, in spite of a mountain of evidence!

A commandment in the Bible really is not a finger-shaking kind of order. It’s a behest – an urgent request – a divine directive that describes what God hopes for God’s people and what it means to be God’s people. And the best clues to that are in the verbs – the action words. In the commandment “love one another,” the verb love is in a form, which indicates continuing action.(1) Grammatically, the verb is not in the form of a demand or a constraint. So too, in Hebrew, commandments to love are in the imperfect tense (which indicates incomplete action). If you love me, Jesus says, you are loving one another. When you are loving one another, that’s what loving Jesus is, according to John. It’s all of a piece. Another way of putting it is that keeping commandments is not a condition but a sign. It’s not a sophomoric, “if you love me you will prove it by doing what I ask.” It’s more like, “if you are planting impatiens, Spring is finally here.” “If you are loving God,” Jesus is saying, “you are loving one another” (and vice versa).

Jesus’ commandments are the signs or consequences of the central commandment – the most important commandment of the Torah – the Sh’ma (Ùam:$) which is in the form of a direct order: Listen. Listen very deeply. God is one. The most pressing order in the Torah is to listen for the Divine. The promise is that when you listen so deeply, you will love God and you will love one another. That’s what happens when you listen with your whole being, according to the Torah. Indeed, the exercise of love is a sign that you’ve been paying attention – that you’ve been listening deeply. The theology is quite circular here – listening deeply results in love. Loving enhances listening. Loving God and loving neighbor is the way to love Jesus. Loving Jesus is a way to listen to God.

Now inevitably, the question comes up, well what if I don’t? It’s related to the questions What if I can’t? What if I don’t want to? Their corollaries are:  he’s not doing it!  She’s not even trying! (And of course, this wouldn’t have had to be written down if everyone had been keeping Jesus’ commandments. Have you ever noticed what happens to love when either fear or self-righteousness takes over? (2) Jesus’ answer in this passage is that God’s spirit will advocate on your behalf (as Jesus has been doing). And I think that this spirit will also advocate on God’s behalf (as Jesus has also been doing – because God clearly needs an advocate as well.) This holy spirit is an advocator, advisor, counselor, consoler, exhorter, comforter, encourager, appealer, helper, champion – I know that sounds a little like Rabelais, but there it is. The Spirit in this passage can be understood to be all of those things (and more), which is to say, whatever is needed to support the mission. Jesus is saying to his followers, “I will not leave you orphaned.” That is, Jesus will not leave his followers without comfort, without protection. Being orphaned in his time usually resulted in slavery or death.  Jesus is promising that his followers will not be onlookers to a love that they will never again experience. (3) Jesus is saying that in him his followers have a home in God even if they’ve been thrown out of other homes. Remember, John the Evangelist was writing to a community that had been torn apart by conflict.  In a community that has been torn apart by conflict – anxiety about abandonment is very high.
So think again about that list of commandments and how they might apply to us. Which ones surprised you? What jumped out at you? What connections can you make? I’ll read them again.

• Do not complain among yourselves
• Do not judge by appearances.
• Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone
• Walk while you have light, so that the darkness may not overtake you.
• Wash one another’s feet.
• Love one another.
• Love one another.
• Love one another.
• Do not let your hearts be troubled.
• Believe in God, believe also in Jesus …but if you don’t believe in Jesus, believe in his works….
• Feed my lambs, tend my sheep (feed my sheep).

How do these apply to us as a parish? How are Jesus’ commandments at work in our families, in our neighborhoods and our workplaces? How do they apply in our cities and in our country? Where do we need the Spirit to advocate, advise, counsel, console, exhort, comfort, encourage, appeal, champion for us (and for the Divine)? Where do we need this  Holy Spirit to help, so that we are not just believing in Jesus’ works, but we are doing them. Where do we need this Holy Spirit to help, so that we are not just doing Jesus’ works, but we are seeing the hand of the Divine in them?

What does the hand of the Divine look like, according to the Gospel of John? It looks like the beauty of creation, sure. It looks like the stars of the sky and the ocean and the deep woods. And it looks like advocacy, and healing, and liberating. The hand of the Divine looks like Jesus. The hand of the Divine looks like you when you are standing up for others. That spirit of advocacy is in you, the Gospel of John says. It looks like you when you are championing justice and peace on behalf of people who are most vulnerable. It looks like a banquet prepared for people who have insufficient food. It looks like a cup of cool water for someone who has no bucket. It looks like hospitality offered to strangers and loving kindness extended to enemies. It looks like singing new songs about the oldest Love story in the Book.