John 15:9-17
Today’s gospel reading is the completion of the passage we started last week where Jesus describes himself as the True Vine, and if we abide in him he will abide in us to bear fruit to the glory of the Father.
There are many sermons in this passage! But today we are focussing on one particular verse which changes everything.
In today’s reading, Jesus says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last (v.16). That is, Jesus specifically chose you. You.
“You did not choose me,” Jesus said to his disciples in today’s gospel reading, “but I chose you.” And it’s true. Jesus chose his disciples. And when he did, he was continuing a long tradition that we see throughout scripture, and throughout the history of the church, of God choosing unlikely people to accomplish surprising tasks.
Let’s go back to Genesis. There are many examples of people being chosen by God for surprising tasks, people like Noah, and Abraham and Sarah. But let’s look at Joseph, Abraham’s great grandson.
One of Jacob’s twelve sons, and the one that Jacob loved most. The one with the coat of many colours. The one the other brothers hated so much that they sold him to Midianite traders and slavers headed for Egypt.
Joseph unexpectedly became quite successful in Egypt, and after a long journey with many twists and turns, including time in prison after being unjustly accused of sexual assault.
Joseph became second only to Pharoah, and helped Egypt prepare for a great famine. Why? Because God had a plan for Joseph. As he explained to his brothers, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.” Joseph was chosen by God to preserve God’s chosen people.
Fast forward four hundred or so years to Moses, whom God also chose to preserve God’s chosen people, and to free them from slavery in Egypt. Moses, of course, should have died as a baby, along with all of the Israelites at that time.
But his mother placed him in a papyrus basket and entrusted him to God by sending the basket down the river. Pharaoh’s daughter spotted the basket, and rescued the baby, and he grew up in Pharaoh’s household.
After he had grown up, he saw his people being beaten, and retaliated by killing an Egyptian. He fled to Midian, got married and became a shepherd. Until God chose him to confront Pharaoh and lead God’s people to freedom.
Moses not only should have died a baby, but he had a major speech affliction (perhaps a stutter?) and had to reply on his brother Aaron to do most of the talking. On the surface a ridiculous choice.
It gets crazier in the New Testament.
God chose an unmarried young virgin from a tiny village at the very edge of the world (the Roman Empire) to bear the Son of God and to be his mother for eternity. What a thing! Mary had a remarkable faith, an open heart, and a willingness to do whatever God asked of her. She turned out to be the perfect choice, but only God could have known that.
I really could go on and on and tell you about the most unlikely people outside Scripture who had no real qualifications, but whose lives have been turned around because they were chosen by Jesus to bear fruit.
So when Jesus chose the disciples, he was continuing a long tradition, started by his heavenly Father, of making surprising choices to do God’s work. And the disciples were no different. Fishermen, tax collectors, not a religious leaders or scholars among them.
If we were asked to pick a team to lead the universal Church it would not be the disciples! They only had one thing going for them - Jesus chose them.
And in our passage today, in the upper room where Jesus was telling them that one of them would betray him, their leader Peter would deny him, and they would soon be stricken with grief, I suspect that Jesus could see that they needed to be reminded of this. That he chose them. They were all scared, anxious, confused.
Jesus had commanded them to love one another, reminded them to abide in him, told them that he would be leaving soon, to prepare a place for them. They really didn’t know what to think of any of this. They needed to remember that Jesus chose them. They didn’t choose him. He chose them – those particular people, after prayer and discernment.
To continue to bring Jesus into this world, and to bear his fruit, fruit that will last.
They may not have felt particularly qualified to do this, or very confident that they could pull it off. Except for one very important thing - Jesus chose them.
We truly need to ask the Holy Spirit to bless this truth deep into our hearts, because the Lord wants us to know it too. “You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit.”
How many times, I wonder, would they come back to that assurance? How many times would they remind themselves that they didn’t choose Jesus; he chose them? If they are anything like me – all the time!
How many times did they remind themselves that God’s own Son chose them, and he chose them for a reason? So they would bear fruit. Not that they would try to bear fruit, but that they would bear fruit.
Now Scripture (particularly the New Testament) is filled with verses telling us that each and every believer has been chosen for a particular purpose in the world
Ephesians explains it this way; that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world for a particular purpose, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. (1:3-6).
In Colossians, Paul tells us that we are “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.” And Peter (who defines an unlikely choice!) writes that we are a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.
Chosen by God to proclaim God’s mighty acts. Chosen by God, hand-picked specifically, to bear the fruit of God’s love in this world.
Now when we are baptised and washed clean and come up through the waters of death we are chosen by Jesus to bear the particular fruit that only we can bear, to do the particular task that only we can do. We did not choose this, but Jesus chose us and appointed us for this holy task.
We all have our moments when we wonder what in the world we are doing with our lives and what on earth we are really here for. At least, I hope we do. I hope that we get real with ourselves in that way. I hope that we sometimes go below the surface of life to ask these big hard questions.
But if we dig down far enough, we find, just as Joseph, Moses, David, Mary and the disciples found, the true and deep concrete of our foundation as children of God. “You did not choose me, but I chose you.”
We have been chosen to bear the fruit of God’s love in this world, and to bear it in a way that no one else can!
And what a time to bear this fruit!. What an important time for us, as God’s chosen, to bear the fruit of God’s love in this world. Our world is not the same world we lived in at the turn of the millennium only twenty years ago. The love of the world is growing cold, as Jesus said it would in Matthew’s gospel.
Later in the year we will be looking at the book of Ester. Ester was a young and powerless Jewish girl chosen by God to save God’s entire chosen people from being killed by the Persian king? She is chosen by the king to become his wife and the queen.
Why? In her cousin Mordecai’s words, “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”
We have been chosen for just such a time. A time such as this.
If ever there was a time for the church to be the church, it is now. And we are the church. We are the ones that, for whatever reason, God has chosen for this task. We are God’s surprising choices to accomplish this unexpected task; of bringing healing and hope to our world, one person at a time.
“You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you to go and bear fruit.”
May God bless you and help you to bring the light of Jesus into our world, and to bear the fruit of his love. Let me pray ...