Sermon, Sun 6 May: 'Abide'

READINGS: 1 John 5:1-6;  John 15:1-17

SERMON
Let’s pray: may the words of my mouth, and the thoughts of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer, Amen.

At our last Kirk Session meeting, we were thinking of Jesus, of vines and branches,
of God’s love, and of the meaning –
not of names [earlier in service we were talking about names, and Jesus naming us as friends]
 – but of words, or rather, one particular word within our gospel reading from John.
The translation of the bible we have talks of ‘remaining’ –
now, I hasten to add, that this is not a conversation about the various merits or demerits of Brexit!
Seriously, let’s just not go there!

Jesus says ‘remain in my love.’
A little earlier in the conversation, when talking of vines and branches, he says:
‘Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself;
it must remain on the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches. If a person remains in me,
and I, in them, they will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing.’
Older translations of this passage,
of this conversation,
use a different word for ‘remain.’
So, apart from those of you who were at Session, can anyone remember
the word I might be thinking of?
It’s ‘abide.’
‘Abide in my love.’
But what do we mean by ‘abiding’ or to ‘abide’?

Well, I’m glad you asked.
I pulled out a couple of trusty dictionaries to see what they might say.
So here we go:
These days, the most common sense of the word ‘abide’ means:
to ‘agree, or acquiescence, to stick to – or follow - the rules, to conform.’
Or, there’s an entirely different meaning:
it’s a case of not being able to stand someone or something.
Now, although Jesus calls us to love one another, sometimes we might be heard to mutter darkly:
‘I can’t abide that man on the telly!’
Occasionally, it can be used in the term of remembering:
‘while that painting/ piece of music/ continues to be in people’s minds, 
the memory of her will abide.’
Here, in our translation, we have the word ‘remain’:
to stick with a thing or stick by a person.
But, there’s a lovely, much older sense of the word ‘abide’ and it means
‘to dwell, to live in, to inhabit.’
‘To dwell’ - if we substituted that word, our passage would sound like this:
'Dwell in me – live in me, as I also dwell in you...
I am the vine; you are the branches. If you dwell in me and I in you, 
you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing...'
and later in the passage:
‘dwell – live - in my love.’

Jesus calls us his friends.
He asks us to ‘dwell in him.’
Think of the best and closest friend you’ve ever had:
the shared stories,
secret conversations,
often your own private shorthand language –
the person who most understands you, and you, them.
The friend you feel 'at home' with.
In our gospel passage, this is what Jesus is getting at:
a friendship at such a deep and close level that there are no secrets;
where you are truly known,
fully accepted and loved for who you are.

Jesus is our dwelling place – our home –
our place of rest;
our shelter from the storm;
our security.
The place within whom we find space to live, and move, and have our very being;
the place where we can most fully be ourselves – no masks, just us...warts and all.
The place where we can come in from the crazy-busy, sometimes alarming world,
slip on our baffies, and just go ‘phew...’
And, the place where we are, out in the world.

In order to blossom and flourish, we do best when we have a home.
Jesus... is our home:
the door is open,
the table’s set,
the bread is broken –
he bids us to bide awhile,
to be, to rest,
to talk about the meaning and the stuff of life –
to crack on with the living of our lives;
to share our lives with him.
He calls us his friends and calls us to make our home with him –
in the here and now,
even as we look ahead to the not yet.
He offers us the hospitality of his heart.

Jesus is our home.
But what does it mean to live in Jesus?
Because being at home is more than scheduling in a 10.30 appointment on a Sunday,
or fitting in a meeting here and there –
being at home is coorying in, putting down roots.
So, how can we better find ways of being ‘at home’ with Jesus?
Well, helpfully for us, Jesus is the home that travels with us wherever, whenever we are:
he has made his home in us...
as we make ours in him.

I think I’ve said before, that when I was a shiny, brand new Christian,
I really wanted to get my head around prayer, and spending time with God.
And, in my usual way, I turned to books, and found there were many on this very subject.
But, my word, it was all very ‘efficient’ and almost terrifyingly organised.
One book suggested that ‘if you only have one hour,
then spend the first 15 minutes in praise,
the next 15 minutes confessing your sins,
the next 10 minutes giving thanks to God,
and the next 20 minutes praying for the world, for others, and for your own particular needs.
Friends, I’m sure there are some people who find that structure an excellent one,
but it really didn’t work for me or my kind of personality.
So many of these spiritually improving books became a stick to beat myself with –
truly, I just didn’t measure up.
And then, at some point, I realised:
that in and through God’s love and grace, the business of having to measure up wasn’t required -
I was a beloved child of God, and that’s all that mattered:
being at home with God was not a tick-box exercise, but a way of being.
So, how then to live in Jesus – to dwell with him?

Something that helped me was a wee book that I may have mentioned to some of you.
It’s a book called ‘The Practice of the Presence of God'
written by a 17thC monk called Brother Lawrence.
He lived a simple life, and a busy one: and through it all, developed being present with God –
abiding in God –
making God his home as God had made a home within him.
For Lawrence, whether within set times for prayer and worship,
or in the midst of the pots and pans of the monastery kitchen,
he worked at abiding, dwelling, in God.
He said:
‘I possess God as peacefully in the bustle of my kitchen, 
where sometimes several people are asking me for different things at the same time, 
as I do upon my knees.’

For me, I find some of my most profound moments of abiding in God come
when I happen to be driving from one thing to another.
Or, in conversation with others, sometimes a little nugget of insight happens
and a quiet ‘thank you’ finds itself fluttering upwards.
Or, even just sitting on the beach listening to the waves,
or walking outside and checking on the progress of the lambs
bouncing about in the fields at the back and front of the manse...
Moments of soul restoration which are gifts
given by the One who restores our souls
and who makes his home in us,
and invites us to make our home with him:
who invites us to live in love –
for he is love –
and as we grow in that love,
so we show that love to those around us.
Or, if you like,
as we are shown hospitality by Jesus, so we show hospitality to others.
We become a place of welcome and a sanctuary;
we become a place where others can truly be themselves, as we are truly ourselves;
we become a place where others can blossom and flourish, just as in Jesus, we blossom and flourish.
We open the door and welcome people into our hearts and our lives:
a subversive and radical thing to do in a world of suspicion, fear, and hostility.
That’s why I’m keen that we try to support things like our wee
'on the road and out into the community' effort – ‘Blether and Biscuits’
To find ways to connect,
to find ways to listen to people who live in the community – in our villages.
How might we show what it is to be welcome?
Being present, actively listening...
offering a cuppa and a chance to talk...
well, it’s a simple start,
and I’m interested to see who comes,
interested to hear the conversations,
interested to see where we might go from this.

‘Dwell in me – live in me’ says Jesus.
Sometimes we mess up, other days, we somehow get it right.
But remember, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon,
because living in Jesus is an ongoing process, over a lifetime,
with every morning a fresh opportunity to know and to grow in him.
And we know that we can take comfort and assurance from Jesus’s words,
for we believe and trust that He makes a home for us;
that He makes His home within us;
and that He has gone ahead of us to prepare our heavenly home.

Whatever sort of physical place we live in,
we belong with Jesus, upheld by His love and surrounded in His peace.
As Dorothy famously said in the Wizard of Oz –
‘There’s no place like home.’
Jesus is our heart’s-home.
And with Him, whatever may be happening in our lives, it’s good to know that:
there’s no place... like home.  Amen.