“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.
John 14:15-21
“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.”
My sermon from the 6th Sunday of Easter (May 10, 2026) on John 14:15-21.
So I’m curious: where do your ideas come from?
Now I, personally, spend a lot of my time playing around with ideas. Most weeks I’m figuring out what prayers to say in worship, what lesson to teach in Confirmation, what themes and insights to highlight in our Bible study, and which ideas should shape my sermon. Through prayer, our time together, as well as paying people who are way smarter than I am – there are all kinds of ideas which help us see the Jesus who is always with us. And so when I’m looking for an idea I usually open up a blank page on my computer screen, ignore all the notifications on my phone, and take the time necessary to solve the problem at hand. I assume what I’m bringing into that moment will be enough to figure everything out. My education, my intelligence, my charm, my ability to recognize patterns, and all the living and work I’ve done to get to this point should be enough to come up with that one thing that can move me forward. But when I do this, the ideas don’t always come. In fact, most of the ideas I use on Sunday morning come while I’m busy doing something else. When we’re caught up living out the multiple vocations God has given us while being bombarded by all kinds of joys, sorrows, responsibilities, and that never ending to do list – an idea we need just shows up in a completely unexpected way. Noticing how the ideas we don’t plan for change us is one of the ways God shows up in our lives. And I wonder if we pay attention to how this played out during Jesus’ long sermon at the Last Supper, we can discover what should shape all the ideas that make us who we get to be.
Now we’ve been spending time this Easter season with Jesus right before his betrayal and arrest. He was, during our reading today from the gospel according to John, celebrating the festival of Passover with his friends in Jerusalem. After hosting a dinner party where they could all eat, drink, and talk, Jesus interrupted everyone by wrapping a towel around his waist and washing their feet. Jesus knew the Cross was only a few hours away and the idea that the One who could cure the sick, raise the dead, and calm a storm with a word could be visibility defeated wasn’t something the disciples could imagine. Their ideas about strength, power, success, and faithfulness required Jesus to always win. And there wasn’t any room in their hearts and minds to recognize just how far God would go for you. A new idea wasn’t going to be enough to break through everything they carried. What they needed was the promise their story would continue despite all the Crosses we build along the way. Jesus’ words throughout this long sermon shouldn’t, then, be reduced to ideas of the divine that serve as ways to divide who is with Jesus and who isn’t. Rather, they were a word of comfort for those who didn’t trust that Easter really was on its way. So that invites us, I think, to wonder if the start of this part of Jesus’ sermon might not be as transactional as it first appears. We always assume whatever idea that’s in the second part of any “if” statement should become our priority. But if that was true, this one wouldn’t bring comfort to anyone. On one level, it does sound as if Jesus was providing us a way to quantify our faith by measuring it by what we do. All we need is to follow Jesus’ commandments – and we show not only what we love but also our worthiness for God’s love too. The centering of our – and the disciples’ actions – is, however, a little out of place especially in light of what is about to come next. It was, after all, a disciple who was about to betray him; a friend who loved him who would deny him; and those who promised to be with him would flee from Jesus’ side. They would, through what they do, show anything other than love and faith. If Jesus’ “if” statement was doing what we assume it should do, Jesus was setting them up to fail. Jesus, though, isn’t interested in reducing life and our experiences of God into some kind of divine transaction. He knows being human isn’t easy and we don’t need help when it comes to not meeting God’s expectations. Any idea that lets us be the ones who define the fullness of what love can be is an idea that can never be as big as God knows it can be.
And so that “if” in Jesus’ words isn’t an invitation, I think, for us to dwell on how we fail. It’s an opportunity for us to recognize how, because of Jesus, something new is possible. Since, in baptism and in faith, you are part of what God is doing in the world and since your worst days won’t be your only days – God refuses to let love only depend on us. A Jesus who is willing to welcome and listen; to care and serve; to recognize those we push aside and who knows us and loves us despite the ways we hide who we truly are – won’t let us limit how big grace can be. God refuses to let faith depend on us or to let the promise be something we hold on our own. God also gives us the Holy Spirit – the Advocate, the Comforter, and the Helper to hold us, guide us, and make Jesus’ promise to always be with us real in our life. The Spirit is the word we hear in worship, read in Scripture, or receive from a friend that sustains us when things get hard. The Spirit is when others show up for us to cry by our side. This Spirit is the sound coming out of our mouths when we challenge an injustice in our world. And the Spirit is the water we splash on our face to remember that – through baptism – we always belong. The Spirit is the sacrifices we make so others have what we need. The Spirit is when we don’t horde God’s gifts only for ourselves. The Spirit is when the welcome we receive from God becomes a welcome others experience through us too. And the Spirit is when we’re able to ask for help and to bring help to those whose eyes have long run out of tears. Faith is always more than an idea because it’s rooted in the promise that shapes not only how we view ourselves but also how we relate to every one God brings our way. And that promise is that you really are worth living, dying, and rising for. The love God gives us is a love big enough to hold us exactly as we are. And it’s that love – and the Spirit – that reminds us we are never far from God.
Amen.