John 15:12-17 Good News Translation
12 My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you.
13 The greatest love you can have for your friends is to give your life for them.
14 And you are my friends if you do what I command you.
15 I do not call you servants any longer, because servants do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I heard from my Father.
16 You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name.
17 This, then, is what I command you: love one another.
2 Corinthians 5:16-20 Good News Translation
16 No longer, then, do we judge anyone by human standards. Even if at one time we judged Christ according to human standards, we no longer do so.
17 Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come.
18 All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also.
19 Our message is that God was making all human beings his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.
20 Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ's behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends!”
12 My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you.
13 The greatest love you can have for your friends is to give your life for them.
14 And you are my friends if you do what I command you.
15 I do not call you servants any longer, because servants do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I heard from my Father.
16 You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name.
17 This, then, is what I command you: love one another.
2 Corinthians 5:16-20 Good News Translation
16 No longer, then, do we judge anyone by human standards. Even if at one time we judged Christ according to human standards, we no longer do so.
17 Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come.
18 All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also.
19 Our message is that God was making all human beings his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.
20 Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ's behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends!”
Reflection
“You are my friends” Jesus says. in the scripture passage from John “You are my friends.”
Jesus talks a lot about the Kingdom of God. Not so strange, he was one of many followers of John the Baptist who preached on the coming of the Kingdom and that people, Jews, were supposed to get ready. Jesus continued the announcement of the Good News of the coming of the Kingdom.
As we have heard from Isaiah in Advent, the Jews were wishing for, hoping for, praying for the return of Israel. They envisioned the rising up of a leader, like King David, a Messiah, who would conquer the opposing forces and establish once again a Kingdom of Israel, or even bigger and better, an Empire of Israel and Yahweh, God would lead them into victory.
So from Isaiah and the return of the exiled Jews from Babylon, to Jesus – about 500 years- well, things hadn’t changed too much – a lot of history but no decisive victory that effectively changed things for an extended period of time, and as we can see from the inclusion of Judas, the Zealot, in Jesus’ circle of disciples, there were still those who longed for, wished, for prayed for a Messiah who would rise up and defeat the enemy of Israel.
John the Baptist says “Get ready! Get ready and purify yourselves, so that Yahweh will see that you are worthy and come to our aid! So that God’s Kingdom will finally be established. The message is not that different from Isaiah’s as far as we know except that John speaks with urgency and people responded.
Then, along comes Jesus, and I don’t know the how or when or where Jesus started seeing this Kingdom of God differently from his predecessors, I don’t know when his relationship with Yahweh transcended that of God and subject-servant but sometime, somehow those things happened. Certainly, some of us would claim his birth, others his baptism, still others his time in the desert – but Jesus came with a message that consistently different from everything else we have seen or heard up until that point in Jewish history.
Just like John the Baptist, Jesus preached outside of the Jerusalem Temple, not in opposition to the Temple as such but certainly not inside the Temple structure either.
He didn’t set himself up as a teacher, whom students would gather around each day, in the Temple courtyard to discuss, interpret, argue and gain insight to Scripture.
Jesus was known by so many people because he went from place to place, from synagogue to synagogue, from town to town from hillside to lakeside talking to people, healing, preaching, teaching. They called him “Rabboni” master, teacher, Messiah, He talked about the coming of the Kingdom Of God which was coming and which was here and now. He called it Good News.
This Kingdom of God was like a mustard seed, and a treasure hidden in a filed, and a pearl of great price, the kingdom of God is like yeast, the kingdom of God is like the vineyard owner who pays each worker according to what is needed to live not the number of hours worked in a day, the kingdom of God is like giving sight to the blind and life back to a Samaritan woman Jesus meets at a well, the kingdom of God is like Jesus saying to Martha that Mary should stay and listen to what he has to say instead of helping in the kitchen.
What Jesus didn’t say was that the Kingdom of God looked like Rome or Syria or Babylon or Persia with Israel in power. In fact, if we look at the sermon on the Mountain in Matthew 5 or the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6, we can see that however you interpret it this Kingdom is upside down, inverted – all the normal at a glance way things look like in the world are skewed. The humble are exalted, the poor are praised, the peacemakers are right and the innocent get to see God.
Jesus is telling us about the Kingdom of God, the reign of God looks like two sons and a father’s love for both of them, and with every story that Jesus tells, every story about Jesus we see what the world could like, we catch glimpses of the Kingdom of God.
That tradition is carried on by Jesus’ disciples and followers. People coming together to remember the stories and discuss the implications for their lives, to listen to scripture and praise God.
Paul in writing to these early gatherings urges them to embrace and live out of this Kingdom. He tells the fledging communities to share, to take care of one, he tells them to love one another, he calls them brothers and sisters, he tells them to be friends. In case they didn’t quite understand what friends meant in Galatia, Paul was a little more specific: “28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
He is saying “in this community there is no hierarchy.” There is no top down rule of one person over another because of their position in society.
Maybe, today, we could call it a kin-dom kingdom, a family of brothers and sisters. This kin-dom of God isn’t ruled by top down authority.
Instead, God empowers one and all to have a place at the table regardless of our social or cultural status. A community in which we are all kin or family, not by blood – but by the baptism.
Kin-dom is a term you have heard me use before, and I kind of like to use it without having to get rid of Kingdom. It is not an either/or nor is it a substitution rather, I think, it is a different way of looking at, embracing and expressing the Kingdom of God.
Ada María Isasi-Díaz , a Latina theologian who wrote extensively about faith and life, used the word in 1996, after she heard kin-dom used by a Franciscan nun name Georgene Wilson. Throughout her work Diaz talked about how the kin-dom of God as a way of being,and the place, to which we are all invited, where there is enough for each of us.
How do you think the ‘Kingdom of God”, that Jesus, the disciples and Paul described, sounded to those first century people? The Kingdom of God as a community they were invited to and belonged, a place where the fortunes and the hierarchical status thrust upon you outside lay at the door, discarded, because in that place, with those people you were accepted and loved because you are family.
We are all family, we are all siblings. We are a kin-dom, living in the promised kingdom that God is bringing and which already present in our midst. It is the promise and invitation into a way of life and a way of being. As we enter into a New Year, when you make your New Year’s resolutions, and set your intentions, remember it matters how we live our lives. Who we are makes a real difference in the world.
When we accept the invitation to love God, and live into the kin-dom of God’s kingdom, we are living out and making real Jesus’ commandment to love one another as we love ourselves.
If we want to be in the Kingdom of God, then we have to be a kin-dom people, called by God’s own grace to be gracious to others; if we want to be forgiven, then we have to forgive others, if we want to really understand salvation then we have to, have to, be born anew, be transformed, and embrace the new creation that Jesus holds out to us.
It takes courage to be a kin-dom people, to live into and out of the gospel promise and grace. I think we have that courage, and strength and love within us and in this community.
On this first day of the New Year, let us embrace the Good News proclaimed by Jesus the Christ. Good News of a loving God that guides us and allows us to look at each other and see the image of God in each other, because we take seriously the real good news of the Jesus who says to each of us: “I have called you friends. I have laid down my life.”
May it be so Amen
“You are my friends” Jesus says. in the scripture passage from John “You are my friends.”
Jesus talks a lot about the Kingdom of God. Not so strange, he was one of many followers of John the Baptist who preached on the coming of the Kingdom and that people, Jews, were supposed to get ready. Jesus continued the announcement of the Good News of the coming of the Kingdom.
As we have heard from Isaiah in Advent, the Jews were wishing for, hoping for, praying for the return of Israel. They envisioned the rising up of a leader, like King David, a Messiah, who would conquer the opposing forces and establish once again a Kingdom of Israel, or even bigger and better, an Empire of Israel and Yahweh, God would lead them into victory.
So from Isaiah and the return of the exiled Jews from Babylon, to Jesus – about 500 years- well, things hadn’t changed too much – a lot of history but no decisive victory that effectively changed things for an extended period of time, and as we can see from the inclusion of Judas, the Zealot, in Jesus’ circle of disciples, there were still those who longed for, wished, for prayed for a Messiah who would rise up and defeat the enemy of Israel.
John the Baptist says “Get ready! Get ready and purify yourselves, so that Yahweh will see that you are worthy and come to our aid! So that God’s Kingdom will finally be established. The message is not that different from Isaiah’s as far as we know except that John speaks with urgency and people responded.
Then, along comes Jesus, and I don’t know the how or when or where Jesus started seeing this Kingdom of God differently from his predecessors, I don’t know when his relationship with Yahweh transcended that of God and subject-servant but sometime, somehow those things happened. Certainly, some of us would claim his birth, others his baptism, still others his time in the desert – but Jesus came with a message that consistently different from everything else we have seen or heard up until that point in Jewish history.
Just like John the Baptist, Jesus preached outside of the Jerusalem Temple, not in opposition to the Temple as such but certainly not inside the Temple structure either.
He didn’t set himself up as a teacher, whom students would gather around each day, in the Temple courtyard to discuss, interpret, argue and gain insight to Scripture.
Jesus was known by so many people because he went from place to place, from synagogue to synagogue, from town to town from hillside to lakeside talking to people, healing, preaching, teaching. They called him “Rabboni” master, teacher, Messiah, He talked about the coming of the Kingdom Of God which was coming and which was here and now. He called it Good News.
This Kingdom of God was like a mustard seed, and a treasure hidden in a filed, and a pearl of great price, the kingdom of God is like yeast, the kingdom of God is like the vineyard owner who pays each worker according to what is needed to live not the number of hours worked in a day, the kingdom of God is like giving sight to the blind and life back to a Samaritan woman Jesus meets at a well, the kingdom of God is like Jesus saying to Martha that Mary should stay and listen to what he has to say instead of helping in the kitchen.
What Jesus didn’t say was that the Kingdom of God looked like Rome or Syria or Babylon or Persia with Israel in power. In fact, if we look at the sermon on the Mountain in Matthew 5 or the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6, we can see that however you interpret it this Kingdom is upside down, inverted – all the normal at a glance way things look like in the world are skewed. The humble are exalted, the poor are praised, the peacemakers are right and the innocent get to see God.
Jesus is telling us about the Kingdom of God, the reign of God looks like two sons and a father’s love for both of them, and with every story that Jesus tells, every story about Jesus we see what the world could like, we catch glimpses of the Kingdom of God.
That tradition is carried on by Jesus’ disciples and followers. People coming together to remember the stories and discuss the implications for their lives, to listen to scripture and praise God.
Paul in writing to these early gatherings urges them to embrace and live out of this Kingdom. He tells the fledging communities to share, to take care of one, he tells them to love one another, he calls them brothers and sisters, he tells them to be friends. In case they didn’t quite understand what friends meant in Galatia, Paul was a little more specific: “28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
He is saying “in this community there is no hierarchy.” There is no top down rule of one person over another because of their position in society.
Maybe, today, we could call it a kin-dom kingdom, a family of brothers and sisters. This kin-dom of God isn’t ruled by top down authority.
Instead, God empowers one and all to have a place at the table regardless of our social or cultural status. A community in which we are all kin or family, not by blood – but by the baptism.
Kin-dom is a term you have heard me use before, and I kind of like to use it without having to get rid of Kingdom. It is not an either/or nor is it a substitution rather, I think, it is a different way of looking at, embracing and expressing the Kingdom of God.
Ada María Isasi-Díaz , a Latina theologian who wrote extensively about faith and life, used the word in 1996, after she heard kin-dom used by a Franciscan nun name Georgene Wilson. Throughout her work Diaz talked about how the kin-dom of God as a way of being,and the place, to which we are all invited, where there is enough for each of us.
How do you think the ‘Kingdom of God”, that Jesus, the disciples and Paul described, sounded to those first century people? The Kingdom of God as a community they were invited to and belonged, a place where the fortunes and the hierarchical status thrust upon you outside lay at the door, discarded, because in that place, with those people you were accepted and loved because you are family.
We are all family, we are all siblings. We are a kin-dom, living in the promised kingdom that God is bringing and which already present in our midst. It is the promise and invitation into a way of life and a way of being. As we enter into a New Year, when you make your New Year’s resolutions, and set your intentions, remember it matters how we live our lives. Who we are makes a real difference in the world.
When we accept the invitation to love God, and live into the kin-dom of God’s kingdom, we are living out and making real Jesus’ commandment to love one another as we love ourselves.
If we want to be in the Kingdom of God, then we have to be a kin-dom people, called by God’s own grace to be gracious to others; if we want to be forgiven, then we have to forgive others, if we want to really understand salvation then we have to, have to, be born anew, be transformed, and embrace the new creation that Jesus holds out to us.
It takes courage to be a kin-dom people, to live into and out of the gospel promise and grace. I think we have that courage, and strength and love within us and in this community.
On this first day of the New Year, let us embrace the Good News proclaimed by Jesus the Christ. Good News of a loving God that guides us and allows us to look at each other and see the image of God in each other, because we take seriously the real good news of the Jesus who says to each of us: “I have called you friends. I have laid down my life.”
May it be so Amen
