He Choo-Choo-Chooses Us

'Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. 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. 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. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”'

--John 15: 9-17

He said, "You didn't choose me but I chose you."  When I hear this I can't help but think of one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons. In it Lisa offers a valentine to her classmate Ralph.  The card shows a crazy looking train with the tag line "I choo-choo-choose you!"  Well, that's Jesus folks, the one who will always choo-choo-choose us, even in the times when we don't choo-choo-choose him – or each other. 

In his Farewell Discourse, the last teaching to his disciples before his arrest and crucifixion in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells them that while they did not choose him, he chose them. He even goes so far as to call them friends. Think about that for a second. Plenty like Moses, David, and Elijah had been referred to as servants of God, but friends, that's pushing it. Still, that's the level of intimacy that Jesus offers his disciples. It is a friendship grounded on a commandment, a mandate - the very mandate we got on Maundy Thursday - to love one another as he loves them. 

I’ve told this story, but it bears repeating: years ago when I was playing baseball in high school I had a coach tell the guys on the team, "You don't have to like each other, but you do have to love each other."  At first that didn't make any sense to us, but we came to figure out that, while we may not always get along or agree with each other, we did have to respect each other. We did have to know that we were in this thing together, and that we could count on each other when the chips were down. That's what it meant for our team, our community, to love one another. 

The briefest instruction of all: love each other. The hardest instruction of all: love each other as you have been loved. Maybe it’s that second part that’s so hard to remember. I wonder sometimes if the reason we are so cruel to one another is not that we willingly ignore Jesus’ mandate to love, but rather because we forget that we ourselves are loved; after all, if we don’t know that love for ourselves, how can we possibly give it away; hurt people, hurt people, as the saying goes. How can we choose to love someone if we don’t know Jesus has already chosen us, and them, for that matter? Perhaps we are afraid that grace is somehow limited, that there is an expiration date or that we don’t have enough patience, enough bandwidth. Maybe we expect that Jesus doesn’t. 

Why do we so quickly hoard grace? We want it, we crave it, we long to feel the peace of Jesus’ presence, but still we find it nearly impossible to receive his grace easily and give it away freely. We have treasure to share, and when we know that grace – which calls us his friends – we can pour out forgiveness lavishly upon ourselves and all of God’s creation and share freely, without the need for anything in return. We can go laughing into our lives because we have inherited, through no deserving of our own, the very best of Good News: that Jesus choo-choo-chooses us.

Knowing that, how can we not choo-choo-choose to serve others, encourage others, challenge and call forth other’s gifts? The way we listen to and love the One who claims us as his friends is by keeping his fierce and gentle rule of love. As we love, we become love. As we become love, we give love. As we give love, we receive love. As we receive love, we love. And the cycle starts all over.

We are the body of Christ alive in the world now, loving now. Jesus has no hands, no feet, no heart in this world but ours. The little circles of love interlock with the big love weaving its way through the whole universe – healing, renewing, restoring all that is. We will not fail in these, our tasks of love, when we allow ourselves, first and simply, to be loved. To hear the voice of the one who calls us his friend and to believe him when he does so. When we know that kind of grace for ourselves, oh boy, love can abound, and the whole world can be changed. 

Even when we feel the evil coming and shadows all around, or when we feel danger around us, the love and grace of Jesus – of a loving, liberating, and life-giving God – joins us together as one. We are bound to this struggle with the wind and flame of the Holy Spirit, and we will never fail those whom we love in the very truest sense. We see this playing out right now – once again being led by a younger generation – as those who love justice and mercy – the very qualities Jesus himself preached to his friends – stand in solidarity and cry out against the atrocities of war and occupation. Not everyone may like them for doing so, but we are all called to love them, to remember why they’re witnessing in the first place, and to understand that the same loving, liberating, and life-giving God that choo-choo-chooses them to stand in solidarity with the suffering does the same of all of us who have been called friends of the crucified and risen One, and furthermore invites us to reflect on that friendship, on that amazing grace and love given to us, and to ask ourselves what we are doing with it.

As some of you know my all-time favorite saint is Julian of Norwich, whose feast day is coming up this week. In a vision she once saw something the size of a hazelnut in the palm of God's hands and heard a voice saying to her, "This is everything I have made. And I made it all for love."  In a time of plague, war, and death, Julian knew what it meant to be a friend of Jesus, what it meant to abide in his love, what it meant to know Jesus had chosen her. This is how, in spite of her hardships, she was able to hear Jesus’ say to her, "All manner of things will be well."  In our own time of plagues, war, disasters, and political upheaval, God’s hands are still cupped, still holding all that is in, and the voice of Jesus – the same voice that calls us his friends, that choo-choo-chooses us – whispers that all will be well. We have been given this gift by grace, which is unearned and unending. Let us all pray that we do not squander it.