[Jesus said:] 9<\/sup>\u201cAs the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10<\/sup>If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father\u2019s commandments and abide in his love. 11<\/sup>I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. <\/p>\n In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n Welcome to Trinity on this Sixth Sunday of Easter, this season of rejoicing in the Good News that Jesus Christ is Risen and Risen Indeed! And since this is also Mother\u2019s Day, we pray God\u2019s blessing today on all mothers and grandmothers, far and near. We also give thanks for all our mothers who are at rest, knowing that as part of that great cloud of witnesses they cheer us on from glory; and we also recognize all those women we know who love with a mother\u2019s strength and gentleness whether they have children of their own or not. We\u2019re all here, for better or worse, because of our mothers, so we thank God for all of you this morning.<\/p>\n A couple weeks ago our kids were invited to a birthday party, the first one of those we\u2019ve attended in over a year. There have been drive-by birthday parades, and Zoom birthday parties, and everything else, but this was a real in-person party, at a local park. But one of the first things the kids did, before any glimpse of cake or presents, was to divide up and pick teams for a game. They all lined up, and the birthday boy and another team captain chose who they wanted for their respective teams. And I have to admit, that while I was feeling so good about being at a real live party with other parents and kids, all of a sudden I had flashbacks to every team- picking moment of my own life and that wondering if you\u2019d get picked, that hoping you wouldn\u2019t be last, all the worries and insecurities and fears that go through our heads as we wonder if we\u2019re valued, if we\u2019re worthy, if anyone, in fact, wants us.<\/p>\n Today, right into our fears and insecurities, Jesus promises us: \u201cYou did not choose me, but I chose you.\u201d \u201cI chose you,\u201d he says. Not last, not least, not grudgingly, not even second, but he chose you, Jesus says, as first on his list, he chose you to belong to him! What an amazing thing for us to be promised, that even though we don\u2019t deserve it, that even though we haven\u2019t earned it, that even though we can\u2019t always believe it, that he chose you! How precious does that make you? That the Lord of all, the Maker of heaven and earth, the One was who was and is and shall be forever has chosen little old you to be his own?!<\/p>\n Now sometimes this chosenness can be a little unsettling and a little unnerving, but Jesus doesn\u2019t pull his punches, instead he confronts us today: \u201cYou did not choose me,\u201d he says. You might think you did, it might feel like you signed up somewhere along the way, like you worked your way onto the team, but this had nothing to do with you! I did it, not you! I\u2019m God and you\u2019re not! And even if we object to this, even if we say, \u201cWell when do I get a say, when do I get a vote, what about my rights, what about my feelings,\u201d even if we don\u2019t like feeling constrained, even if we wonder if we got so great a deal, Jesus passes through all our objections with his divine promise, \u201cI chose you.\u201d This is what grace means. That God doesn\u2019t deal with us according to our many sins, according to our many doubts, according to our manifest unworthiness. But God deals with us according to his kindness, according to his mercy, \u201cYou did not choose me, but I chose you.\u201d<\/p>\n If the choosing at a birthday party is for playing the playing of the game, then what is this choosing for? Why have you been chosen? Why has Christ decided to put you on his own team? So you can be among the frozen chosen? So you can stick out your tongue and say \u2018nah-nah-nah\u2019 to those who weren\u2019t chosen? If Jesus is clear that he chooses us by his grace, he\u2019s also clear today that he chooses us so that we can serve: \u201cI appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.\u201d Jesus says he will grow fruit in our lives, he will grow his fruit through us, fruit to serve our neighbors and give him glory, fruit that even though it won\u2019t always seem like a lot to us, will be fruit that will last, fruit that will continue, fruit that will abide, because it is his.<\/p>\n One of my mentors in the ministry was a Lutheran pastor who was a missionary for many years in college towns and in Tanzania, Africa. As he would often say, \u201cWhich do you think was harder?!\u201d And one of the mission projects he came up with in the rural village where he served in Tanzania was to build a library, and stock it with donated books, making it a real headquarters for education and training in that part of the country. Eventually it was his time to leave, the library was fully stocked, and they named it in his honor and he left to come back to the States. After many years he returned to Tanzania for a visit, and came back to the village, and the library, but found it abandoned and empty, the shelves bare, the books all gone, his best-laid plans for this community and the biggest achievement of his life crushed. How often do our plans for bearing fruit come up short, how often does our best seem to come up empty? But as he travelled around the area, he began to meet children he had once known, now grown, one now a doctor, one a pastor, one a teacher, each one showing him a book or two from that library, his library, they had used in their studies, that had started them on their way, those collected books now scattered across a thousand different homes, bearing fruit in the lives of so many kids, impacting the community in so many ways, but so different from how he planned it. \u201cYou did not choose me,\u201d Jesus says, \u201cbut I chose you and appointed you to bear fruit, fruit that will last.\u201d Where in your life is Jesus growing fruit through you, even if you don\u2019t know it, even if you don\u2019t believe it? Where in your life is what you planned to grow dying, being replaced by Christ\u2019s fruit that will last, fruit that will abide forever?<\/p>\n The greatest fruit Jesus appoints us to bear, is the fruit he commands from us today, in his greatest commandment: to love one another\u2014\u201cThis is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.\u201d And again, \u201cIf you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.\u201d It\u2019s not that we keep his commandment first and then he loves us, but rather that he first loves us, that he has chosen you and me in love, and because of that, because of what that does to us from the inside-out, then we just naturally will keep his commandments. Because that is grace\u2014not that we loved him first, or chose him ourselves, or did anything by ourselves to measure up. But rather that he has chosen you first in love\u2014chosen you in love before the foundation of the world, chosen you in love as he gave himself up for you upon the Cross, chosen you in love the day you were baptized, chosen you in love once more again, right now, here today.<\/p>\n And just as we have been chosen in love, we are chosen in order to \u201clove one another,\u201d just as Christ loved us. And how has he loved us? Loved us even with our sins and imperfections, loved us even when we didn\u2019t deserve it, loved us even when it was difficult, even when it cost him everything, even when he despaired, even when it meant he must go to the Cross, he still loved us. \u201cLove one another, as I have loved you.\u201d Not a love that is all conscious self-sacrifice and bitterness at what you had to give and others took, but a mystery of being loved and sharing love that somehow actually results in joy. The joy that comes from outside of us, because of love. A joy that is not always easy, but like a mother\u2019s at the end of a long day\u2014exhausted, torn, tired, all spent and given away, but somehow as you see that child finally asleep, full of joy. Joy is the natural byproduct of being loved, of giving ourselves away in love, of Jesus\u2019 kind of love, of love that lays down his life for his friends.<\/p>\n A couple years ago I read the story of a mom in New York City who was pregnant and developed an aggressive cancer. She could either undergo treatment which would kill the child, or bring the child safely to birth with no treatment and give up her life in the process. An impossible choice, with heartbreak guaranteed either way. But she chose the latter, she laid down her life for her unborn daughter, and the widower father now raising this little girl said, \u201cI see her mother\u2019s strength in her every day, and that keeps me going.\u201d We\u2019re all called to love as Christ loved us, to lose our lives in ways large and small for each other, investing our lives in those around us, it\u2019s the love we see in Christ, and the fact that he chose to give himself up for you and me is what gives us strength and keeps us going. He who chose to take on human flesh for you, he who chose to go to the Cross for you, he who chose you in love and has made you his own, calls you to love with his love, to lose your life for those around you, just as he gave his for you.<\/p>\n \u201cFor you did not choose me, but I chose you,\u201d Jesus says, \u201cand this is my commandment, that you love one another.\u201d<\/p>\n For Alleluia! Christ is Risen!<\/p>\n And the Peace of God which passes understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.<\/p>\n The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills<\/p>\n New Haven, Connecticut<\/p>\n Pastor@TrinityLutheranNH.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sixth Sunday of Easter, 5\/9\/21 | by The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills | [Jesus said:] 9\u201cAs the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father\u2019s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,157,108,110,347,3,109,212],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-5050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-johannes","category-beitragende","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-15-chapter-15-johannes","category-nt","category-predigten","category-ryan-mills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5050"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5056,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5050\/revisions\/5056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5050"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=5050"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=5050"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=5050"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=5050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n12<\/sup>\u201cThis is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13<\/sup>No one has greater love than this, to lay down one\u2019s life for one\u2019s friends. 14<\/sup>You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15<\/sup>I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16<\/sup>You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17<\/sup>I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.\u201d (John 15: 9-17, NRSV).<\/p>\n