Do the Right Things

This is the message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are John 15:18--16:4a.

            It’s Jesus’ last night on earth.  He’s with the disciples, other than Judas, who has already left to go and betray Jesus.  In just a few minutes, they are going to go to the Garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus is going to be arrested there, an event which will lead to him being beaten, mocked, tortured, and ultimately killed.

            Jesus knows that’s going to happen, of course.  He knows this is the last time he’s going to be with his disciples before his death and resurrection.  And so, Jesus knows this is the last chance he’s going to have to tell the disciples things they need to know, to get them ready to carry on his ministry without him.

            Jesus tells them a lot of things, more than we’re going to talk about tonight.  But one of them is this:  if you continue to follow me, the world is going to hate you.

            It’s hard for us, living here in north-central South Dakota, to really imagine that.  I mean, we know it.  We know Jesus himself was crucified, and we know his disciples and others who were part of the early church were persecuted.  But it’s something that it’s really hard for us to relate to:  the idea that people would hate you because you were a follower of Jesus Christ.

            Now, understand, it’s not the goal of a Christian to be hated.  Jesus did not tell his disciples to go and try to make people hate them.  Jesus did not do things to make people hate him.  Yes, Jesus argued with the religious authorities, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the others.  And sometimes Jesus did things that he knew would make those people hate him.  But that was not the reason he did them.  The things Jesus did--healing someone on the Sabbath, proclaiming himself to be the divine Son of God, offering salvation and eternal life through faith--were the things God wanted him to do.  They were the things Jesus had come to earth to do.  

Basically, Jesus did those things because they were the right things to do.  How people reacted was how they reacted.  Jesus could not control how people would react.  All he could control was what he did.  And what he did was stay faithful to God and do the right things, the things God wanted him to do.

And that’s what Jesus tells the disciples to do.  Do the right things.  Stay faithful to God.  Do what God wants you to do.  Jesus tells them, in effect, if you do what I have done, they will treat you the way they treated me.  They hated me, and if you follow me, they will hate you, too.

But Jesus tells them some more things, too.  For one thing, he tells them that it does not matter.  It does not matter if people hate them.  They are not supposed to do things to be popular.  They are supposed to do things to please God.  Not because they want God to reward them on earth or even because they want to earn their way into heaven.  They are supposed to do things to please God because that shows love for God.  They are supposed to do things to please God because God deserves that.  They are supposed to do things to please God because that’s the right thing to do.  How people react is how they react.  That’s up to them.  It’s not your concern.

We’re not told how the disciples reacted when they heard this.  But it cannot have been easy to hear.  To be told that following Jesus and doing the right thing is going to lead to people hating you.  Most of us want to be liked.  We want to have friends.  We want to be thought well of in our community.  I don’t know anyone who wants to even be disliked, much less hated.  For the disciples to hear that this was going to be their fate, if they continued to follow Jesus--well, that had to be a really tough thing.

But Jesus told them this because they needed to know it.  Jesus said, “All this I have told you so that you will not fall away….I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I have warned you about them.”

And it’s clear that the disciples took Jesus’ warning to heart.  It took a lot of courage for the disciples to carry on Jesus’ ministry, despite all the opposition and hatred they faced.  But one of the reasons they were able to have that kind of courage is that they were ready.  They knew what was coming.  They may not have known all the details, but they knew they would need to stand up to the hatred of the world if they were going to follow Jesus.  And they did.

You and I need to be ready, too.  We need to know what’s coming.  And we need to let that knowledge give us courage, just like it did for the disciples.

I said earlier that it’s hard for us, living here in north-central South Dakota, to imagine a time when we might be hated for our Christian faith.  But Jesus’ words apply to us, too.  Jesus said, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.  As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.  That is why the world hates you.”

You and I, as Christians, do not belong to the world.  Christ has chosen us out of the world, just as he chose the disciples.

What does that mean?  That means that you and I need to follow Christ, just as the disciples needed to follow Christ.  It means we need to do the things Jesus told us to do.  It means we need to live the way Jesus told us to live.  It means you and I need to stay faithful to God and do the right things, regardless of what the world thinks.

And we hear that, and maybe we even nod our heads in agreement.  The thing is, though, that it’s easy to say we don’t belong to the world.  But we live in the world.  This is our home.  It’s pretty hard for us to say we’re not going to care what the world thinks, when everywhere we turn we’re surrounded by the world.

But it was hard for the disciples, too.  That’s why Jesus said the things he said, so they’d be ready.  And that’s why those things are recorded in the gospel of John, so you and I could read them and be ready, too.  

But there’s one more thing to say about this, and it’s good news.  The disciples did not do this alone, and neither do we.  You may have noticed that there’s one thing in our reading I have not mentioned yet.  Jesus said, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send you from the Father--he will testify about me.”

“The Advocate” refers to what we now call the Holy Spirit.  When Jesus left, he sent God’s Holy Spirit.  God’s Holy Spirit testifies about Jesus.  He testifies about Jesus to us.  And he testifies about Jesus to others, too.

The disciples would’ve known what Jesus meant.  They should have, anyway.  Because this is not the first time Jesus talked to them about the Holy Spirit.  In Luke, Chapter Twelve, Jesus tells the disciples about the Holy Spirit, too.  And it’s in a pretty similar context, really.  He’s telling the disciples that they are going to be brought up before religious authorities.  They’re going to need to defend themselves and their faith.  And Jesus tells them not to worry about that.  He said, “Do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.”

            If you and I follow Jesus Christ.  If you and I do the things Jesus told us to do.  If you and I live the way Jesus told us to live.  If you and I stay faithful to God and do the right things, then the Holy Spirit will be with us.  The world will react in whatever way it reacts.  But it won’t matter.  It won’t matter if you and I are hated for our faith.  When we’re challenged, the Holy Spirit will be with us.  And the Holy Spirit will teach us what we should say, just as the Holy Spirit taught the disciples what they should say.

            Will you and I, living here in north-central South Dakota, ever experience hatred because of our faith in Christ?  I don’t know.  As I said, it’s hard to imagine.  But it would be a mistake for us to think that, just because of our location, we are not subject to the influences of the world.  We may like to think we live in Mayberry, where the worst thing that ever happens is that Otis gets drunk on Saturday night, but it’s not true.  Gettysburg, and Onida, and Agar, are part of the world.  The things that happen in the rest of the world can happen here, too.  And they will happen here.  And we need to be ready when they do.

            As Christians, it is not our goal to be hated by the world.  But it is also not our goal to go along with the world.  The world will do what it does.  But our goal is to do the right things in God’s eyes.  Our goal is to stay faithful to God.