Keeping Our Word
Jn. 14:23-29[1]
There was a day when “your word is your bond” was one of the primary
codes of our culture. I doubt anyone
would say that these days. I don’t
believe that integrity has completely vanished from our society, but for most
of us, these days the watchword is, “don’t believe everything you hear!” Keeping our word sounds simple, but there are
so many ways in which life in our world complicates things. Sometimes keeping our word is relatively easy—you
make a promise to do something and you do it.
But “keeping our word” goes beyond that, it seems to me. Integrity means living a life that is the
same in private as it is in public.
That’s a different matter altogether.
That kind of “keeping our word” isn’t so easy or straightforward.
In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus gives us another of the
characteristics that are to define those who follow him: they keep his words
(Jn. 14:23). Earlier in the chapter, he
said it a little differently: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”
(Jn 14:15). That might sound strange to
those of us who are used to the language of grace promising us freedom from the
bondage of living by rules. But in
Jesus’ day and time, “keeping” the commandments was a perfectly normal way of
expressing a life of faithfulness to God.[2] “Keeping” God’s word meant internalizing the
teachings of Torah to the extent that
they shaped every aspect of one’s daily life.
It meant living in harmony with God’s
truth and God’s justice, with God’s love and God’s mercy.[3]
I think people get confused
about all that these days. We tend to
fall into one of two extremes—we either obsess about every little detail of
Scripture in an compulsive effort to obey God perfectly, or we ignore biblical
teachings altogether and “fly by the seat of our pants.” It seems like we have an “all-or-nothing
approach” to “keeping” God’s word.
Unfortunately, life is rarely that cut-and-dried. We are often placed in situations where the
“correct” answer is far from clear.
That’s when the true test of “keeping” God’s word comes out. If we’ve really internalized the central
principles of Scripture—principles like doing justly, and loving mercy, and
walking humbly with God—then we can follow them as guideposts when we are
uncertain. In our ever-changing world,
we are going to be placed more and more into situations where we have to live
somewhere between “all” or “nothing” when it comes to keeping God’s word.
One of the challenges this
lesson presents us with is that Jesus doesn’t exactly say to “keep” God’s
commands, he says those who love him will keep his commands. I think many
of us still think that Jesus’ commands are easier than God’s. With Jesus, all we have to do is believe,
love God, and love others, and we’re just fine.
But a quick overview of just a portion of Jesus’ teachings--the Sermon
on the Mount--makes it clear that Jesus doesn’t make it easier for us to obey
God, he makes it harder. When it comes
to the commandment, “You shall not kill,” Jesus said not only should you not
kill another, you should also not give in to the hateful anger that devalues
the life of others by the way you speak to them! Time and again, Jesus didn’t make it easier
to live a life of “keeping” God’s word, he made it harder. [4] And for the record, there’s really no
distinction at all between the essential commands of God in the Hebrew Bible and
the teachings of Jesus. Throughout the Scriptures, the calling is to love God
with everything we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves. That’s infinitely harder than a checklist of
“do’s and don’ts” that you can mark off.
I don’t think any of us will ever be able to mark off that we “loved our
neighbor as ourselves” in every circumstance of life. And when it comes to “loving God with all our
being,” I don’t think we even have to go there.
And yet, Jesus said that one
of the distinguishing marks of those who follow him, of those who love him, is
whether or not we “keep” his word.[5] This doesn’t mean that our relationship with
God is something we have to earn by our obedience. Rather, it’s like a relationship where two
people love each other and want the best for each other—not because of some
external rule or code of conduct, but because of the love they have for each
other. Jesus said that if we love him,
we’ll follow his teachings, his way of life, his example—simply because the
love we have for him compels us to do so.[6] That’s how we practice the kind of integrity
where our private lives match up with our public lives.
Jesus said that one of the
ways we can demonstrate the new life of the resurrection is through the way we put
his teachings into practice. When our
love for God and for Jesus Christ truly define who we are, then our lives will
be public display of what it means to keep God’s word.[7] Fortunately, it’s not a do-it-yourself
project. Jesus promised the disciples
that “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will
send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have
said to you” (Jn. 14:26). [8] With the Spirit’s help, we can live a life of
keeping God’s ways, which means a life of fulfilling our promise to follow
Jesus. When we keep our word in that
way, then we can truly demonstrate a new and different way of living to the
world around us.
[1] © 2013
Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev.
Dr. Alan Brehm at First Presbyterian Church of Dickinson, TX on 5/5/2013.
[2] Cf.
Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to
John XIII-XXI, 638; cf. also Gail R. O’Day, “The Gospel of John,” New Interpreters Bible IX:746.
[3] Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 127; Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 323.
[4] Cf. Ernst Haenchen, John: A commentary on the Gospel of John. , 127: “The ethic of the
spirit is not ethical anarchy, but a true ethic with the highest requirements
one can imagine: the unlimited sacrifice, like the love with which Jesus loved
them in his entire human existence”
[5] Cf. Brown,
Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, 646:
“love and keeping the commandments are but two different facets of the same way
of life.” Cf. also O’Day, “The Gospel of
John,” NIB IX:747: “the sign of
faithfulness to Jesus’ commandments is to live a life of love grounded in
Jesus’ own love.”
[6] Cf. the Heidelberg
Catechism 4.090-091, which defines eternal life as “Complete joy in God through
Christ and a strong desire to live according to the will of God in all good
works.” Cf. also Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 69: “faith
only becomes faith in the act of obedience”; cf. also ibid., 76: “Only those
who obey can believe, and only those who believe can obey.”
[7] Cf. Gerard
S. Sloyan, John, 183: “Obedience is
the hallmark of Jesus’ disciples, the proof that they love”; cf. also
[8] Karl Barth, Church
Dogmatics, 1.2:277–278, where he uses Paul’s teaching in 2 Cor. 3:12-18
about the Spirit of the Lord changing believers into Christ’s likeness as a
means of understanding what it means in John’s Gospel to “keep” Jesus’ word
and/or commandments (Jn. 8:51; 14:15, 21, 23; 15:10).
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