JESUS’ LEGACY
Scripture: John 14:23-29

FOCUS: Jesus leaves a wonderful legacy to his disciples and to we who are his disciples for this time and in this place.

As I approach my June birthday I find I am increasingly aware and a bit anxious about the fact that I am at best at the top of the hill and more realistically over it. Somehow I have refused for a number of years to acknowledge the notion that I am no longer a young adult. In just over a month I will turn 60. So I guess it is time to admit that I have become that old geezer at whom I once poked fun. Yet I still intend to claim as mine one of my favorite aphorisms, “Youth may be temporary, but immaturity can last a lifetime.” I plan to remain just a bit immature for as long as possible, it just makes life more interesting.

Still, I have been thinking about the fact that retirement is no longer something multiple decades away. So the other day I told my banker that I thought I might need to take a look at the investment strategy for my retirement accounts. Having been in the investment business for a number of years a long time ago I have always been less risk averse than some. But I have also always had the luxury of a 10 to 20 year horizon for my strategy. It recently dawned on me that in significantly less than 20 years I am going to be counting on my pension for meeting daily expenses.  

My advisor sent me a lengthy form to complete so that we might determine what adjustments we need to in order to insure that Kathy and I will have what we need to support ourselves in retirement. The form asks about anticipated retirement needs and plans, acceptable income levels and possible large expenditures just as I expected, but one question surprised me. It asked how large an estate I wanted to leave. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really have the luxury of thinking too much about the size of the financial legacy I can leave. I was tempted to put down “ten million dollars” just to stir the pot, but I knew doing so would probably blow up the program because, I hate to break it to you Ryan, but I don’t think that is in the cards. For one thing you have to have ten million in order to leave ten million!

As I thought about our morning scripture I realized that what we have before us is a last will and testament of sorts, left by Jesus, his legacy. We encounter, not instructions concerning a financial legacy, he would leave nothing, for he accumulated no wealth while among his people. Wealth was not something Jesus pursued or endorsed.  

I am amazed by the number of well meaning folk who paint the gospel message as a ticket to the good life and financial security and who proclaim that the one whose life it chronicles seeks to enrich us all. It is true that Jesus talked a lot about money. One source says that every seventh word in Luke’s gospel deals with money or wealth. I’m not sure that is accurate, but it is true that Jesus had a lot to say about the subject. A quarter of Jesus’ parables deal with it, and the message imbedded in them is never that accumulated wealth is a worthy quest. Rather Jesus’ parables are ripe with warnings of the dangers and temptations which accompany riches, and of the often devastating consequences which accrue to those whose lives are focused on them.

Jesus would have probably laughed out loud had anyone asked him how much cash he hoped to leave as a legacy. Or perhaps he would have simply answered proudly, not a denarius. Jesus was not interested in accumulating wealth, nor had he any desire to encourage others to do so. But that doesn’t mean he left no legacy.

The setting for our scripture is the upper room on the night of Maundy Thursday. Jesus is seeking to prepare the disciples for life in his absence. He is aware that they have not exactly comprehended the nature either of his mission or the calling which is theirs, so once again Jesus is instructing them in matters of God’s kingdom. Jesus has washed the disciple’s feet and charged them to become those whose lives reflect a spirit of servanthood. He has told them once again, as he has on numerous other occasions, that he will soon be going away to the Father, yet the disciples don’t get it. You see the disciples were a lot like us, like regular folk of all generations. They were basically good people, yet they were human to the core, inclined to selfishness and pride as are we all. So they found it extremely difficult to take to heart the message they heard, but didn’t want to hear. So they did what we often do when confronted with truths we would just as soon not have to face. We hear the words but ignore the message. We know what’s coming so we, at least mentally do the old, lalalalalala thing. That way we can claim that we haven’t heard the message.

Jesus has just told the disciples that he will love and reveal himself, or as The Message reads will love and make himself plain, to those who love him. Judas, the disciple, then asks Jesus “Why is it that you will reveal yourself to us, but not to the whole world?” You may remember that by the time the events we have before us today occur, Judas Iscariot has already left the room, having been identified as the one who would betray his Lord. So how is it that Judas was now asking Jesus a question? Well the answer is simple, there were two disciples named Judas. I bet some of you didn’t know that.

Notice that Judas immediately assumed that he and the other disciples were part of the included crowd. He doesn’t ask how they can be certain that they will be among those to whom Jesus reveals himself. Rather he asks a curiosity question about all those other folks. I’m afraid we are often like that other Judas ourselves. We take great pride in our inclusion in the family of God. We lay full claim to our citizenship in the kingdom of God, we assume we are already on the inside and we ask theoretical questions about all those sinners out there. Jesus’ answer is swift, wise, and if fully comprehended intimidating. “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.”

One dictionary defines legacy as, “What someone or something is remembered for or what they have left behind that is remembered, revered or has impacted current events and the present day.” As Jesus delivers this, his farewell discourse to the disciples, the first thing he leaves as a legacy is profound and profoundly challenging. Jesus leaves us a legacy of love. A blessed part of that legacy is the love Christ has for you and for me and for every other soul whose feet have ore ever will touch the good earth. I’m reminded of the words of the contemporary hymn, “Amazing love, how can it be that You, my King, should die for me? Amazing love, I know it’s true.”

God’s love is amazing, but being left with God’s love and the love of Jesus to comfort and encourage us is not the whole story. As is often the case with legacies, the legacy of love is left to us so that we might carry it forward. A popular charge to those who have been assisted by charitable organizations these days is the call to “pay it forward.” That is precisely what we are called to do with our legacy of amazing love. If we are to fully inherit what Jesus would bequeath to us, we will not only accept his love we will also actively seek to pay it forward.

In one commentary we read that “to love Jesus is to keep his commandments and to keep his commandments is to love Jesus.” Loving Jesus is about far more than feeling a warm and fuzzy emotion, though it is at times about that. Such is one of the fruits of praise and worship. Yet we must recognize that in Jesus’ vocabulary love was most often an active verb. Jesus tells his disciple, and he tells us, that those who love him will keep his words. It is significant that Jesus spoke of keeping his words in the future tense. He didn’t say, “If you love me, keep my words.” Rather he proclaimed that “If you love me, you will keep my words.” Do you see the subtle, but important, difference here? Jesus was not issuing a command, rather he was defining a life lived in light of Jesus’ legacy of love, he was saying that those who truly love Jesus will come to keep his words, to follow his commandments, to follow his example, naturally. Those who truly comprehend this marvelous legacy will find that loving Jesus must mean that, keeping his commandments and following his words, all his words, not just those we want to hear, will become second nature to us. 

I quoted only part of that hymn chorus earlier. “Amazing love, how can it be that You, my King, should die for me? Amazing love, I know it’s true.” It continues “It’s my joy to honor You. In all I do, I honor you.”  So what does it mean to follow his words, his example? What does it mean to honor God and God’s amazing love in all we do? How can we come to so live that keeping Jesus’ words begins to come naturally?

Keeping Jesus’ words naturally is not the same as keeping them automatically. Rather, it means become so immersed in God’s grace and goodness, so focused on God’s love that Jesus words and example become the measuring stick against which we evaluate all our actions, thoughts and attitudes. Now I am a realist. I understand, from my own experience, and from observing lots of good Christian folk, that no matter how much we may seek to honor God, we will find that on more occasions than we would like to admit our automatic responses don’t measure up. Keeping Jesus’ words naturally doesn’t mean keeping them automatically, but it does mean that we come to care when we fall short, that we will then be motivated to adjust our behavior, that we will repent and seek to move ever forward becoming day by day more completely the people we are called to be.

Secondly keeping Jesus words naturally doesn’t mean doing only what is convenient. In fact it often means doing just the opposite. We are a people who seek to serve the Master who taught that we are to go the second mile, to carry a cross, to turn the other cheek, to forgive repeatedly, to pray for our enemies, to give the shirt off our back to the one who steals our coat. To borrow the title of that movie about climate change, God’s truth is often an inconvenient truth. But it remains the truth none the less and we who seek to make following Jesus, legacy second nature must be willing to be inconvenienced, sometimes by those we don’t even like.

In the Wesleyan Sunday School Class this morning Adam Hamilton spoke in the video segment of morality and how we make moral decisions. He suggested that in all cases we ask several questions when deciding what to do. One of those questions speaks directly to this idea of God’s inconvenient truth. Using the story of the Good Samaritan as an example Hamilton suggested that when making moral decisions the question we should ask ought never be “What might happen to me if I take this action?” Instead he said in all situations we ought to ask, “What might happen to this other person if I don’t?”  

 If we truly seek to live as those who allow Jesus’ words and example to become second nature, we will accept the truth that faithful living is never automatic, that it is often inconvenient and finally we will recognize that keeping God’s word doesn’t necessarily mean we will be rewarded for our efforts in this life.

Ruth Morris was a Quaker activist who championed many controversial social issues. Among other things, she was active in prison ministry and anti-poverty programs. In an article concerning her ministry she was quick to acknowledge that when reaching out in love to people with deep needs, you are likely to be disappointed if you expect them to change. She went on to say that the biggest effect of loving others in the name of Christ is not on others, it is on yourself. Loving unconditionally may not change others, but it does change us and it is our legacy from the one who gave himself for us.

When we consider the magnitude of the calling which is ours we might get the impression that only the very best, the brightest the most holy, should even aspire to become disciples. But look at who Jesus called to be his first followers, very ordinary people, folks who really were not all the quick to pick up on the nature of the task which was theirs. How on earth did he expect 12 losers like them to become the foundation on which God’s church would be built?

Jesus didn’t expect them to be faithful by themselves, nor does God expect us to be. God didn’t expect those twelve goofy guys to do anything by themselves, nor does God expect us to. Scripture teaches that none of us can come close to being what we are called to be by ourselves. God understands, so God sent and still sends the Holy Spirit to be our advocate. Jesus told the disciples that he was leaving them as a legacy, not a book of rules, not life’s little instruction book, but a teacher, a guide, a friend and a personal Advocate.

I love the way Jesus talks about the coming of the Holy Spirit, and then tells the disciples that what he leaves for them is peace. What a wonderful picture of the work of the Spirit. Because we have the guidance, the instruction and the advocacy of God’s Spirit we can love in such a way that the world cannot understand and we can live as those for whom obeying Jesus’ words and following his example come to be second nature, and we will come to know a peace which is beyond human understanding as we serve and honor the God who loves us unconditionally. When we do that we can come to sing with gusto the verse of the hymn, the chorus of which we have already considered. The verse of Amazing Love proclaims, “I’m forgiven because You were forsaken, I’m accepted, You were condemned. I am alive and well, Your Spirit is within me because You died and rose again.”

For your sake, and for the sake of the kingdom of God, may God’s Spirit be within you now and forever. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN