May 6th:
He Desires
May 6, 2012
Call: 1 John 4: 7-21
Text: John 15: 1-8
Read: Canticle of Love (646)
He Desires
Raise your hand if you are familiar with WWVA
I am too!
Until about twenty years ago, it was the most famous four letter combination that began "WW."
For WWVA were the call letters for a powerful AM radio station in Wheeling, West Virginia
While I was growing up,
An apparently unique combination of
geography, atmospheric conditions, and radio waves
(That probably someone at Clarkson can explain)
Created the situation that no matter where I was at night
When I played with the radio dial trying to get a station
Even if nothing I wanted to hear came in clearly
I could always get WWVA
And WWVA played the old twangy country music
That I didn't want to hear
I can remember lying in a canvass tent
Camping on some wooded land that my Dad owned near Brookfield, NY
And having other stations going in and out
But WWVA would continue to come in strong
As if it were
Putting its thumbs in its ears
Waving its fingers
And saying "Na na, na na na" to those other stations
And to me
But about two decades ago
Another four letter combination that began with "WW"
Became even better known than WWVA
This more recent phenomenon was, of course, WWJD
These letters were not the call letters of a powerful radio station
But rather an acronym for a powerful mantra which many Christians adopted as their approach to things
"What Would Jesus Do?"
For some time there was an abundance of
Bracelets, tee shirts, and placards reading simply: WWJD
And there was an abundance of people
Repeating the phrase those letters represented
Either because they meant something to the speaker
Or Because they were mocking the speaker
Today the WWJD letters and the phrase they represent
have become somewhat old hat or out of date
although the sentiment still has meaning.
But we remember it.
We remember it
Like I remember WWVA - but more positively.
But I think that old phrase fell a bit short
For any time we ask ourselves
"What would Jesus do?"
And get an answer we think is too hard for us to handle
All we have to do is invoke the built in escape clause
and say, "But I'm not Jesus."
In saying that, what we are saying is
Jesus could do that, but I can't
He could go to the cross,
but I would have been like the disciples and run away
He could stand before Pilate
but I would have been like Peter and denied knowing him
He could speak with the crowds after learning of JTB's death
But I would have shooed them away
And felt sorry for myself.
Thus, I think the better question would have been
"What would Jesus desire?"
That too has the same acronym - the same call letters, if you will -
But this time WWJD does not let us focus on
What Jesus himself would do
This time WWJD changes the focus to ourselves, asking
"What would Jesus want me to do?
This way, there is no built in escape clause.
This morning's two scriptures give us an understanding of the process of answering such a question.
We were called to worship by Cassidy's (my) sharing a passage from John's first letter.
It is one of my favorite passages.
In it, John tells us not only to love one another
But explains that we need to do it because love is from God!
He tells us
that God's love was revealed by God's sending his son
that God sent his son
not because we loved God
but because God loved us
He says that it is a simple thought process:
Since God loves us so much
We also ought to love one another
And he even goes so far as to add
That those who do not love one another
Are lying when they claim to love God.
Not one of us should have any trouble understanding that
God desires that we love one another.
Hand in hand with this
is the image found in our text from John's gospel: [John 15: 1-8]
God the father is the vine grower
Christ is the vine
You and I are the branches
Christ tells us that he wants the branches to bear fruit.
The branches cannot bear fruit, however,
if they are detached or separated or disconnected from the vine
The branches that do bear fruit will be pruned and trimmed
So that they can bear even more fruit
Thus from these two scriptures we learn
That love comes from God
And is the way we love God
And That the ability to bear fruit comes from God
And our connection to God
And in these two scriptures we find:
that Christ desires that we love one another
and that Christ desires that we increasingly bear good fruit
An algebraic equation might read
2X = Y
Thus, "2X" and "Y" are different ways of saying the same thing
And when we understand that both scriptures are saying the same thing
We can write them algebraically as well
But here we have no unknowns.
Our equation and proof:
What Jesus wants/desires = increasingly bearing good fruit
What Jesus wants/desires = loving one another
Therefore,
Increasingly bearing good fruit = loving one another
It's not too hard for any of us to understand what Christ desires.
It is simple
Christ desires that we bear the good fruit of/by loving one another
And since loving one another is the way we love God
By simply doing what Jesus desires
We demonstrate our love for God
Who already loves us so much
that he sent Jesus in the first place.
And so when we meet a challenge and ask the revised WWJD question
"What Would Jesus Desire?"
Or "What would Jesus want me to do?"
We should be able to grasp immediately
That that the answer is for us to take the approach that reflects
Loving one another.
Unless we don't want to increasingly bear good fruit
Unless we don't care if we disappoint Jesus.
And as we talked two weeks ago
Disappointing Christ hurts us worse than any punishment could
So you and I need to allow
the new WWJD to come in as clearly
as WWVA came in when I was playing with those old radio dials.
And unlike WWVA (for the younger Jim Barnes anyway),
The revised WWJD is the station we should want to hear.