The Divine Dance
A circular sermon on abiding in Christ.
These Monday sermon postings are pretty close to what I said in my sermon the previous Sunday, minus a few asides and stories. If you’d rather watch or listen to these sermons, here are the video and audio links.
One of my favorite icons is The Trinity, also sometimes called The Hospitality of Abraham. As these names indicate, it's a depiction of the three angels Abraham entertained in Genesis 18, as well as the interdependent relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Circle Dance
It an expression of what theologians call--fancy word alert--Perichoresis (Circle Dance). If this is a new concept for you, you're not alone. Growing up, I heard more sermons about the evils of dancing than I did about the divine dance of perichoresis, in which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are moving and working together in an intimate relationship of mutual love and unity.
Much of the source material for the concept of perichoresis comes from Jesus’s farewell discourse in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus, the Son, describes his relationship with with the Father and the Spirit.
“Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.” (John 14:10, NIV)
“After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” (John 17:1, NIV)
“(The Spirit) will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.” (John 16:14, NIV)
It's an eternal dance of the divine in which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit glorify one another as they manifest and display God's abundant, overflowing, self-giving, other-oriented love.
Disciples Abide
In John 15, Jesus uses viticulture, rather than choreography, to convey a similar message.
““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, NRSV)
You don't have to own a vineyard to make to sense of this allegory. Imbedded within it is a command, an imperative from Jesus, the vine, to his disciples, the branches.
“Abide in me as I abide in you.” (John 15:4, NRSV)
"Abide" is one of John's favorite words. It shows up throughout his gospel. Back in chapter one, a couple of would-be disciples ask Jesus, "Where do you abide?" He answers by saying, "Come and see." As they follow Jesus, they come to see that he abides in his Father.
At the beginning of chapter 14, Jesus tells his disciples he going away to prepare a dwelling or abiding place for them in his Father's house. But then later on he says:
“Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home (abiding place) with them.” (John 14:23, NRSV)
Jesus isn't just preparing a place for us to to abide with God. He’s also preparing us as the place where he and his Father can abide.
The result of all this abiding is that we produce abundant fruit that glorifies God and proves our connection to Christ as his disciples. We are known and judged as disciples of Christ by our fruit.
Yet Jesus does not command us to produce fruit. He does not put us on a production quota requiring us to produce fruit each day, week, or season. We can't make ourselves produce fruit. Christ, the vine, rooted in the power and life and love of God produces the fruit.
Nor does Jesus command us to cut off or prune the other branches on the vine. That's not our job. We're not the gardener.
Jesus commands us to abide. This is our job. Our task. Our focus.
We must abide.
If this notion of abiding in Christ as he abides in us, seems a bit abstract, don't worry, he goes on to clarify and make concrete what this mutual abiding looks like in 15:9-17.
“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, NRSV)
How do we abide in Jesus, the vine? By abiding in Jesus's love which is an extension of the Father's love in which Jesus abides.
We abide in Jesus's love, not by taking it easy dude-style (you knew it was coming), but by obeying his commandments, which he reduces down to one command: We must love one another as Christ has loved us.
Elsewhere Jesus describes this as a "new" commandment. While the command to love one another or our neighbor is not new, the standard or the motivation behind it is. The new standard/motivation for loving one another is found not in loving ourselves, but in Christ's love for us, which he demonstrates by laying down his life for his friends.
Love One Another
All of these concepts--abide, obey, fruit, love--interlock, support, and dance with each other in much the same way the Father, Son, and Spirit interlock, support, and dance with one another.
To abide in Jesus is to abide his love. To abide in his love is to obey his command to love one another. We learn how to love one another from Jesus in whose self-giving love we abide. Loving one another as Christ loves us is the fruit that glorifies God and proves we are disciples Christ.
If this all sounds a bit circular, congratulations for paying attention.
To be a God-glorifying, fruit producing disciple of Christ is to abide in the circle dance of God's abiding, self-giving love.
Loving one another as Christ has loved us is Christianity 101, 201, 301, and 401. We never graduate from loving one another to a more advanced subject. It’s where we begin, and where we end.
One of the curiosities of the Trinity Icon is the square at the bottom center of the table. Some art historians speculate this is the residue of glue where a mirror was attached to the icon. So that whenever someone looked at the icon, they saw in the mirror a fourth participant at the table, a fourth participant in the divine dance.1
Even if not true, the idea of an attached mirror inviting us sit at the table of God and participate in the divine dance, captures so well both Jesus’s invitation to come and see where he abides and his command to abide in his love by loving one another.
May we respond to his invitation and may we obey his command.
May we join and enjoy together the never-ending dance of God's love.
I first learned of this explanation from Richard Rohr. Frankly, it sounds a little too good to be true to me.