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The Holy Gospel According to St. John, the 14th Chapter

”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

I went to a Lutheran seminary in South Carolina.  Most of us, as you might expect, were Lutherans… but not everyone.  There were some Methodists, some AME folks and even some Baptists.  Not Southern Baptists… mostly African American Baptists like Clyde.  Clyde was 6’ 4” and probably 350 pounds or so and he was mostly bald.  He was older than most of us and he had been the pastor of a nearby, rural, Baptist church for years but was working on his seminary degree, one course at a time.  

Clyde was in my very first preaching class.  Our preaching professor, Dr. Ridenhour gave us some VERY clear expectations… every sermon BETTER have a “Word from the Lord” in it.  That meant it needed to have Gospel in it… Good News… It needed to remind folks of the GIFT of God’s love and grace, given freely to us in Christ’s life, death and resurrection.  It needed to remind folks of what God has done, is doing and promises yet to do and it BETTER do all that in language the folks could understand and not with any highfalutin, seminary words, either!  After all, Dr. Ridenhour was known to stand up during a student’s sermon and hike up his pant legs if it was getting “too deep” in there and it was rumored that one time he had even climbed up on his desk and hiked up his pant legs when he thought it had gotten REALLY deep! 

So, for the first few weeks, Dr. Ridenhour taught us some things about preaching, gave us techniques we could use.  He warned us about some common pit falls and maybe even scared us just a little bit and then, for the rest of the semester, we preached.  After each sermon, those who listened shared their thoughts with the preacher.  Two sermons per class… a bunch of white, German and Scandinavian descendant Lutherans… and Clyde.  

The first time it was Clyde’s turn to preach, he tried to preach like the rest of us did… like a white Lutheran.  It was painful to watch.  But more than that, it was heartbreaking.  Heartbreaking because clearly he had figured that he would have to preach “our way” to make it though this class and clearly he had learned in his life to expect, that in a room full of white folks, he would be expected to do it “our way.”  We apologized for our part in continuing to create a world that led him to assume that in the first place and then we asked him to PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE be who God is calling YOU to be the next time you preach.  

As we all talked about Clyde’s sermon with him after he was finished, we were all taught the lesson Jesus was trying to teach the disciples in the Gospel for today.  Jesus was reminding the disciples that the Gospel… the Good News… God’s care for them… God’s love for them… God being present with them… would not change… BUT… There’s always a BUT… BUT the WAY that care, that love and that presence would be DELIVERED to them would be different.  

For the last three years, God’s care, God’s love and God’s presence had been delivered to the disciples by way of Jesus… Immanuel… God with them in flesh and bone.  Soon though, God’s care, God’s love and God’s presence would be given to them by another, different, Advocate… by the Holy Spirit.  The delivery method would look and sound and work DRAMATICALLY differently, but WHAT was being delivered would not change.  

The next time it was Clyde’s turn to preach in class, he felt free to be the preacher God had called him to be.  He had his floppy Bible and his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his balding head and he gave us a Word from the Lord!  He preached it!  The core was there.  He proclaimed the Gospel.  It had Good News.  It reminded us of the gift of God’s love and grace, given freely to us in Christ’s life, death and resurrection.  It reminded us of what God has done, is doing and promises yet to do and it did it without any highfalutin, seminary words, either!  Now, I’m POSITIVE that if it hadn’t had all that at it's core, Dr. Ridenhour would have had no hesitation to climb up on his desk and hike up his pant legs as he would have for any of the rest of us!  But that wasn’t necessary that day!  The Good News was delivered and Jesus was revealed in his words and we all got “A Word from the Lord.”  The CORE was the same.  The DELIVERY was different. 

This wasn’t just a lesson for the disciples to learn as Jesus talked to them about his death in the upper room and it wasn’t just a lesson for a seminary class full of a bunch of white Lutherans and our Baptist brother Clyde.  This is a lesson for all of us, in every place and in every time.  Things change.  The way we do ministry, the way the church looks, the style of delivery, the faces in the congregation, the gifts of the pastor, the talents of the priest, the places in the community we are called to go… ALL of it HAS changed, is changing and WILL continue to change… over and over and over again.  HOW we love God will look different.  But loving God won’t stop.  How we love our neighbor will look different.  But loving our neighbor won’t stop.  

Do you see?  God loves us LIKE Jesus loved the woman at the well.  God doesn’t ONLY love women at wells.  God opens our eyes LIKE Jesus did for the man born blind.  God doesn’t ONLY open the eyes of men born blind.  God turns death into life LIKE God raised Jesus from the dead.  But God doesn’t ONLY give Jesus new life… God gives us ALL new life as well… “Because I live”, said Jesus, “you will live also.”

HOW the love, compassion, presence and new life is delivered into each of our lives, in each of the places we live and over the years of our lives will continue to adapt and change all the time.  WHAT gets delivered… The Gospel… the Good News of God’s unconditional love, compassion, presence and the new life we have been given in Christ… THAT will never change.  And THAT, my friends, is a Word from the Lord!  Amen.