Another Advocate

May 10, 2026

John 14:15-21 / 1 Peter 3:13-22

            Our second reading today is from John’s gospel… picking up where we left off last Sunday.  In the story, it is still the time just before the arrest… before the trial… before the crucifixion… before all the evil of the world will try to take away the life of God that is found in Christ Jesus.  In this moment Jesus is praying and teaching his disciples.  Listen along with them.

            READ

            I feel like I need to begin back at our reading from 1 Peter.  I’ve really been enjoying hearing from this letter for the past few Sundays… probably because I keep getting surprised at what I discover from this letter each time I sit down to write a sermon.  1 Peter isn’t one of those texts I know that well… or read very often… so it’s been like hearing that great song again that you’ve forgotten until those first few notes begin to play and you like… discover it all over again for the first time.

            I think my joy in this particular passage from 1 Peter is rediscovering the importance of simply being good.  If nothing else, Christ ought to inspire us to simply be good people.  But too often I hear the idea of the simple goodness of faith being downplayed nowadays in all the noise.  I hear lots of grievance Christianity where complaint is more important than goodness.  And there’s American political nationalism Christianity where power is more important than goodness.  Fundamentalist nonsense is quick to cast aside goodness in favor of right belief.  There’s the selfishness of prosperity Christianity or other forms of Christianity that promise some exclusive membership reward is better than simply being a good person.  Goodness… when it is mentioned… always has these caveats or special conditions… or the twisted ethic of sometimes the good thing is to do the bad thing as long as it serves the end that has been deemed to be good for us.  Our neighbor… not so much.  There’s no need to be a decent and good Christian person if you believe right… or are popular enough in your messaging… or have the riches to be above it all… or you’ve gotten your guaranteed entrance into heaven.

            These words from 1 Peter sound more like something an imaginary mother would teach her child.  “Now who will harm you if you are eager to do good?”  I guess what is interesting in that particular question is the assumption that someone might still harm you even if you do good.  Being good is not a shield.  It does not protect you from the harm caused by others.  A wise imaginary mother knows this.  A wise imaginary mother prepares her child for the harsh reality of the world, but still emphasizes the importance of maintaining your own integrity… of meeting evil with good… of doing right when faced with wrong.  And for us reading from 1 Peter… the idea is not just a generic form of right… or a generic form of good.  Because of who we are…  because of who we are being called to be… that good has to be reflective of the goodness that is Christ.  It’s a high bar.  There’s no denying that.  But the wise imaginary mother sets the high bar for her child… inspires her child to become that better human being.   

Jesus sets a high bar for his disciples in our gospel passage.  “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  Now… I always find myself doing a bit of knee jerk recoiling at the beginning of that quote.  If you love me.  I don’t like the conditional sound of it.  But I don’t think that’s how it has to be read… I guess I’m just always on guard against conditional love… which really isn’t any sort of love at all.  So, in my mind I want to rewrite that quote in different ways… “You will keep my commandments because that’s what happens when you love me.”  Or…  “You will keep my commandments because that’s what happens when I abide in you and you in me.”  There it is using John’s theological lingo.  Abiding.  That place of being.  “Obeying my commandments will be to you like breathing… it will become second nature where you won’t have to think about it.”  Since we are still in the Easter season, I have to put in here a teaching about resurrection.  Keep building on this idea we’ve been exploring the past few Sundays.  Resurrection will be just like normal life and the life-giving ways of God will be just like breathing where you won’t have to think about it.  It’s getting pretty clunky now my rewrites… I admit… but that’s the idea, right?  That’s what it is to be surrounded by the Spirit… to be alive in God… to live this resurrected life.  To be good as Christ is good.

Jesus has already told Thomas that Thomas knows the Way… Thomas has already been witness to what is the truth and what is the life.  He told Philip that to know Christ is to know God… to know God is to understand the Christ… and if he can’t believe that then look at the fruit of the works Jesus has done.  See what goodness has done.  Believe in that.  This Advocate that Jesus then promises will be sent… this Advocate is the Spirit of truth… a Spirit that will help the disciples keep their Christ discerning eyes wide open.  He tells them this as they are about to face the worst of the world.  These disciples who have had feet washed.  These disciples who have been called friend.  These disciples who have sworn their own fealty to the end.  When the world threatens… these disciples will scatter into the night when the world’s violence comes for them.  They will run… and hide… and deny.  Their goodness will be lost in self-preservation.  Jesus will be falsely tried.  Lies will win out over truth.  Jesus will be tortured and crucified and put in the tomb. 

And Jesus will be resurrected by God and his goodness will live on. 

We’ve already encountered the disciples from this same story on the Sunday after Easter.  Disciples who were still full of fear.  Disciples who put their trust in the safety of locked doors.  The resurrected Jesus appears among them.  The resurrected Jesus speaks peace to them… tells them to let go of their fear.  The resurrected Jesus then breathes on them and fills them with this life-giving Spirit of truth.  The world will never stop threatening them.  The world will never stop undoing the good with its own evil.  The resurrected Jesus will not work some great magic that will destroy all works of evil… he simply will send out these ordinary disciples into the world with the resurrection gospel.  The ways of the world will not suddenly come to an end because of what these disciples will pray and will teach those who follow them. 

Doing good… following the goodness of Christ… truthfully… it is exhausting.  It feels like the task of Sisyphus… rolling that boulder up the hill only to have it roll back down over and over.  It’s hard to be good as Christ is good.  It really is.  It makes you feel like the child of that imaginary mother who despite trying to follow Mom’s teaching… is still getting hurt again and again.  Feeling like a failure.  How long until Mom’s wisdom gets questioned and abandoned for another wisdom that works better in that child’s world?  When will the victory come?  When will good defeat the evil?  When will God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven?  When?

What is the good you want to fight for?  Feeding the hungry?  Hunger never ends.  Hunger is definitely like that boulder going up and down… up and down.  What is your goal?  To meet the immediate need?  To do good there.  To meet the long-term need and eradicate hunger entirely?  Except hunger is built into our economic system.  Some will say hunger is the motivator that ought not be taken away.  Hunger drives the feelings of scarcity… and scarcity drives the market.  So… is it good to feed the hungry or is it better for everyone to have that pain… or the fear of that pain?  Without their hunger what is there to motivate some people?

Yet… who would Jesus allow to go hungry for their own good?  Who would Jesus let die of starvation because it teaches an important lesson for others?  Choose any simple good and you can ask the same questions.  When would Jesus allow someone’s human dignity to suffer?  When would Jesus withhold mercy from the suffering?  What are the circumstances where Jesus would abandon the teachings of his Beatitudes for another wisdom?  When would Jesus decide that the costs were too great to try for the good?  When would Jesus say that self-sufficiency was a greater good than communal responsibility?  When would Jesus simply not choose to the good he could because the evil was so overwhelming? 

Not easy questions that come with quick tic toc friendly answers. 

Perseverance is our witness to the good.  We trust that God’s will will be done.  We believe in the goodness of God.  We do this even while the systems of the world persist in creating the same dead results.  Perseverance to the good is the way of God.  It is interesting how many people will refuse to believe in God because if God were good… then God would have eradicated hunger… or illness… or poverty… or even death itself.  If God existed and were good… if God were all powerful… then God would force the victory of goodness and enforce God’s goodness upon us all… for our own good.  Except… Christ proclaimed the gospel.  Christ fed the hungry around him.  Healed the sick who were brought to him.  Tried to restore the dignity of those he encountered on his way.  And Christ was betrayed, abandoned, falsely tried, tortured, and crucified dead and buried.  As we know Christ, we know God.  God is the Lord of the conscience.  All disciples will suffer for their goodness… and all will be blessed… and become a blessing through their goodness.     

Last Sunday, I told you again how resurrection was not a dead body coming back to life.  Resurrection is the perseverance of God’s goodness in a world that neither sees it nor knows it… nor trusts it.  Resurrection does not remove our struggle with evil in this world… but it does transform our relationship to that struggle… exhausting as it can be.  I feel like we should end this morning back with our imaginary mother giving us another life lesson… this time she uses a quote from Paul… as imaginary mothers tend to do… “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow.  If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.  So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.  So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.”  Amen.