the Spirit’s instruction through experience

While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

Acts 10:44-48; NRSVue

Circumcision is indeed a perpetual, “everlasting” command and requirement for Israel (Genesis 17). Jesus himself, a Jew through and through was circumcised on the eighth day, as the law required (Luke 2:21-40). Paul likewise (Philippians 3:1b-11).

Circumcision of the heart was what God wanted, the Old Testament along with Paul making that point (Deuteronomy 10:16; 30:6; Romans 2:25-29). But nowhere does Scripture say that circumcision of the flesh will no longer be required, in fact quite the contrary.

But enter the Spirit. The Spirit shocks the circumcised believers. How? Not through helping them see the truth through the Biblical text, but through experience. The Spirit is poured out on uncircumcised gentiles who hear the message of God’s good news in Jesus, evident in the manifestation of their speaking in tongues and praising God.

Fastforward to today. We see the same thing happening now with the LGBTQ community, not to say it wasn’t happening before, among or in such. Those who believe, who seek to follow, plainly evidence the Spirit in their lives through the fruit of the Spirit being manifest (Galatians 5:22-23), love for Jesus (1 Corinthians 16:22), and special interest in Scripture (2 Timothy 3:15).

And yet Scripture itself seems and according to Luke Timothy Johnson, does prohibit same sex activity. That’s this biblical scholar’s position (not universal among scholars who hold to LGBTQ inclusion in the church). And yet Johnson says that by experience we can know these people are fully accepted by God through the gift of the Spirit in their lives. To be clear, he doesn’t mean just those who are celibate.

Although Luke Timothy Johnson is widely regarded as certainly one of the foremost Bible scholars (Roman Catholic himself), there are other interpretations of the so-called clobber Scripture passages concerning LGBTQ+ people, which make sense too, challenging traditional interpretations.

But suffice it to say for this post, experience plays an important role in discerning God’s activity and blessing. To love God, love one another, love our neighbor, love even enemies, to believe in Jesus or God’s way which ultimately resides in Jesus seems to be what is required (1 John 3:23-24), the stamp of God’s people, the “amen” and proof of the pudding coming through the Spirit and known by experience.

Sixth Sunday of Easter: Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17

While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

Acts 10:44-48; NRSVue

O sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done marvelous things.
His right hand and his holy arm
have gotten him victory.
The LORD has made known his victory;
he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations.
He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the victory of our God.

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD.

Let the sea roar and all that fills it,
the world and those who live in it.
Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing together for joy
at the presence of the LORD, for he is coming
to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness
and the peoples with equity.

Psalm 98; NRSVue

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.

1 John 5:1-6; NRSVue

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; NRSVue

Revised Common Lectionary

accepting difficult news and finding God’s help and provision

And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for

“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves; keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.

1 Peter 5:5b-11; NRSVue

And everyone, clothe yourselves with humility toward each other. God stands against the proud, but he gives favor to the humble.

Therefore, humble yourselves under God’s power so that he may raise you up in the last day. Throw all your anxiety onto him, because he cares about you. Be clearheaded. Keep alert. Your accuser, the devil, is on the prowl like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith. Do so in the knowledge that your fellow believers are enduring the same suffering throughout the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, the one who called you into his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will himself restore, empower, strengthen, and establish you. To him be power forever and always. Amen.

1 Peter 5:5b-11; CEB

And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. And God will exalt you in due time, if you humble yourselves under his mighty hand by casting all your cares on him because he cares for you. Be sober and alert. Your enemy the devil, like a roaring lion, is on the prowl looking for someone to devour. Resist him, strong in your faith, because you know that your brothers and sisters throughout the world are enduring the same kinds of suffering. And, after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him belongs the power forever. Amen.

1 Peter 5:5b-11; NET

Life. There’s no escape from disappointment and not good news. It happens. What are we to do with it?

Easy things to do: Panic. Spend hours and hours on the internet trying to find something that will bring some relief. Brood. Imagine a better report. Fret. Blame God. Ask, “Why me?” Fill in the blanks. My list here comes out of my experience.

They say psychologically that it takes time to come around to accept something, that one has to go through a series of reactions. There’s probably much truth in that, but for the believer, there’s also the help that comes from God.

Peter helps us see that out of humility within community, we can find God’s help when bad news comes. We’re to cast our difficulty onto God, who cares for and about us. God wants to help us.

The kinds of difficulties Peter was describing seemed to come out of suffering, in the context of that letter, persecution for their faith in Jesus as Lord. Where I live what “persecution” we face for being faithful is nothing of the sort referred to here. We think of anything that makes us uncomfortable or worse. It does seem generic enough to me in this passage, that we can do that. But suffering in the New Testament is largely in the context of enduring resistance in following Christ. That said, casting all of one’s anxieties on God, means all of them, so that excludes nothing that weighs us down.

Peter says we’ll be exalted in due time if we cast our cares on God, maybe referring to the resurrection (CEB), but could refer to the here and now as this is probably interpreted most of the time. And the encouraging promise at the end that after we’ve gone through suffering “for a little while” God will help us be established and stand because of God’s help. I take that to mean internally. We receive help to cope and live well with life as it is.

Another important part of God’s promise and help to us in Jesus.

being honest

One who gives an honest answer
gives a kiss on the lips.

Proverbs 24:26; NRSVue

If there’s something pretty clearly devil-like, it would be deceit. I have often thought that I would never be a good salesperson. I am too honest, and don’t care for what often seems to me to be the psychological ploy that comes with trying to sell a product. It often is a good product, and the company knows that their chances of selling it are higher with such practices. I would rather present it straightforward as is, and let the buyer decide in their own time after they have considered other options. But that would not fly well in the high-sales pressure world in which we live. Imagine a salesperson getting 40% of people to agree to buy on the day of their presentation compared to another getting maybe only 15% or less. The first might get a promotion, and the latter might get pressure and by and by be let go.

In the context, if that means anything for this passage, the proverb might concern honesty in the face of injustice (click above link). It might be much easier to let what is wrong go. We see that today in the political world. Similar to high pressure sales, there is a story being told, oftentimes frankly out and out lies. More often in American political history, statements that don’t tell the entire story, can be misleading, and can stretch the truth past the breaking point. That is common in history. Today bald-faced lies, “alternative facts.” This kind of dishonesty is quite common in various places in the world and in history, and it seems to be more and more the means of persuasion in the present.

The proverb likens honesty to love. If we love someone, or we love people, we’ll want to be honest. We won’t want to hoodwink them into making a decision when they’re not ready to. Neither will we want to control them through flattery or whatever other tactic we might use for our own benefit, not theirs.

To be honest doesn’t mean we tell them everything on our mind, like in the film, “Liar, Liar.” We give them a full, complete answer. Notice too, it’s an answer. We answer their inquiry as best we can, and as a rule keep silent otherwise. Honesty according to this proverb involves looking out for the best interest of others, not for our own selfish gain.

More wisdom in the Book for us, for life.

no city or country here

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith, with Sarah’s involvement, he received power of procreation, even though he was too old, because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better homeland, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. (For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-16; 12:18-24; 13:12-16; NRSVue

I never ceased to be amazed at the Christian devotion present for national causes. If we would humbly be just as much concerned about international causes, it would be better. But it seems like we’re not as well versed in what Scripture says, in good theology as we might think. I remember as a nine-year-old boy, mistakenly walking between two people conversing who were obviously foreigners, and being so embarrassed, wanting to return and apologize, but somehow didn’t. We have better instincts at times than the nationalistic, sectarian air we often breathe and imbibe.

The above passages from the book of Hebrews make it clear that our primary citizenship is not here, but in the new “heavenly Jerusalem.” Not in the present Jerusalem, Washington D.C., or any other city here on earth. It’s not like we’re to neglect to do good, to share what we have for the benefit of others. It’s not like we’re not to pray and hope for the good of the nation in which we live. It’s not like we’re to retreat and not advocate for a just peace, for justice in an all too often unjust, greedy world in which power all too often resides at the end of the barrel of a gun, in military might.

Our allegiance as followers of Christ is to one Lord, with one hope in a world which when it’s all said and done has another goal altogether. It might be dressed up in religious, even Christian terms. But the means for the supposedly good end are always a betrayal as to just what that end is. If you use violence and force of whatever kind to achieve the goal, then everyone can be assured that the goal is not of Christ, even if it is Christian in an historical (not biblical) sense.

This world is wonderful, and we can find good most anywhere, although there are political, national and organizational entities which are not at all good in themselves. Even when we think there’s much good in whatever entity we’re considering, we must remember that we’re looking for something better, much better. We challenge all the present entities not to mention even ourselves, our churches, remembering that we are not imagining that we’re the new Jerusalem ourselves, that we’ve arrived. We want to be challenged and to challenge others in the light of God’s good will. Showing that in our humble penitence, lives lived, good works, as well as advocacy for a better world now. But in faith we do so as those who don’t imagine that this old world could ever be the end all.

reaching forward, straining ahead

 

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us, then, who are mature think this way, and if you think differently about anything, this, too, God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.

Philippians 3:4b-16; NRSVue

What is our default position even as followers of Christ? Seriously. U2’s song: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” comes to mind. 

In Christ we have a passion, we have a goal. In a way, one might say that keeps us going. We know we haven’t arrived yet, so we have to keep on moving.

In the meantime, we don’t have to get hung up with our own sense of incompleteness. If we think we’re complete, that we have arrived, we’re mistaken. It is good to have those experiences of wholeness and rest. But life continues, this life.

If we keep pressing on, we’ll be getting closer. That is our experience now. “Already/not yet.” Looking towards Christ as our goal, yes now.

waiting in silence

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

How long will you assail a person,
will you batter your victim, all of you,
as you would a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
Their only plan is to bring down a person of prominence.
They take pleasure in falsehood;
they bless with their mouths,
but inwardly they curse. Selah

For God alone my soul waits in silence,
for my hope is from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my deliverance and my honor;
my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.

Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us. Selah

Those of low estate are but a breath;
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.
Put no confidence in extortion,
and set no vain hopes on robbery;
if riches increase, do not set your heart on them.

Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.
For you repay to all
according to their work.

Psalm 62; NRSVue

We live in a noisy, restless (see CEB) world. Humans act as if everything depends on them, as if they’re in the place of God. Lip service might be given to God, but at best only to help them achieve their lofty goal. When it comes right down to it, they function as their own god, with maybe some help from God on the side, when and if they need it.

Those of us who have faith would not imagine ourselves to be atheists. But what if when all is said and done, we largely function as practical atheists? We act as if all depends on us. This takes place on an individual level in our individualistic western mindset, and also on other levels. If we just have it together and do the right thing, if we just get the right people on city council, if we vote for the right candidates on the local, state and national levels, if we elect the right president. And if we don’t? Then all “goes to hell in a handbasket.”

Scripture, certainly the psalms takes seriously what we do. As the psalm ends, “For you repay to all according to their work.” But where does our confidence lie? In the US, we have money with the words, “In God we trust.” But actions can belie that, words blanketed out with the panicked thoughts that unless we get it right, unless we do it, unless we get the right people elected, unless we have the right ones on court, etc., then we’ll be lost. Nothing about God in that, even if they say it’s all about God. Force by laws or even physical force is not out of the equation. How much of God is really in this?

But what about the rest of us who despise such religious undertaking? Are we any better? After all, we might well imagine that we have to battle back, that we have to do all we can, get the right people elected, get the right laws in place, hopefully better laws and policies. And yet, for what good might be in such thoughts, we act as if it all depends on us and how the election turns out. For all practical purposes God is either out of the picture, or there just to help us succeed.

But what if for starters at the beginning we drop all of that? What if we commit to wait on God in silence ourselves and with others? What if we’re committed to not only letting God get a word in edgewise now and then, but have the floor at all times, the first and the last word, and everything in between?

For the psalmist here, as well as in many other psalms, it’s not like life isn’t challenging and even threatening at times. Even so, the call is to wait in silence, to wait, to do so in silence, our hope only in God. To pour out our hearts to God. Not wavering from the commitment to act in nothing more than God’s will and all God provides.

listen, listen and listen some more

You must understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for human anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.

James 1:19-21; NRSVue

…he who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Back to my go to book, James. If I’m ever wondering where to go, well, I know any of the four gospels are always a good landing place, but James is my default book. And in it, James has some of the most practical, down to earth thoughts on relationships and stuff that most definitely hits close to home and often can hurt.

A person like me, as any who have read this blog can imagine, is hardly ever at a loss for words. Some of us are talkers, others are more naturally listeners. But everyone needs to pay attention to the instruction and warning here. Any of us can think we have the answer already, when we really haven’t necessarily even been asked a question.

Developing listening skills enables us to develop better understanding. A good doctor will probe deeply as to what the source of any illness or malady might be. And that can involve a process that takes time. Not something that we’re very good at in our immediate, feel good, know-it-all society.

I think what is also valuable and not only underrated, underappreciated, and even worse, despised, is the acknowledgement by a listener that they don’t know, that they don’t have an answer, or the answer. Too often our “answers” obscure or get in the way of what one might really need to hear at the time, which might actually be silence.

Good listeners are underrated. A good listener might help the one speaking in the course of the conversation or listening, to work through to what might already be dawning on them, perhaps just offering some pointer or thought along the way. But above all, listening.

A first priority to both God and people.

abiding in Christ is up to us

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

John 15:1-8; NRSVue

As the CEB Study Bible points out, unlike a vine in which branches remain; to remain, reside (NET footnote) or abide in Christ is actually up to each of us individually. Analogies are not analogous with everything, but in this case I think it holds: Christ abides is us, but we’re also to abide in him, so it seems to work both ways. Some might argue that the only way one can abide or remain in Christ is because Christ abides in them. That’s surely entirely true. But that doesn’t seem to negate the possibility that we might fail to abide in Christ, and thus be in danger of being one of those branches which are cut off, severed from the true vine, Christ.

Jesus’s promise following is that as we abide in him and his words abide in us, our prayers will be answered affirmatively, and God will be glorified in us in that we will bear much fruit from the vine, Christ, becoming his disciples.

Again, it’s not something automatic, simply done to us so that we don’t have to do anything ourselves. No, it’s up to each of us to abide in Christ. As we do, the fruit certainly comes from him to and through us. And God is glorified, made to be seen and praised in that.

Fifth Sunday of Easter: Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:25-31; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8

Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.”

The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

Acts 8:26-40; NRSVue

From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the LORD.
May your hearts live forever!

All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before him.
For dominion belongs to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations.

To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
and I shall live for him.
Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord
and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that he has done it.

Psalm 22:25-31; NRSVue

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

1 John 4:7-21; NRSVue

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

John 15:1-8; NRSVue

Revised Common Lectionary