John 14:8-27

⁸ Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." ⁹ Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹ Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. ¹² Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³ I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

¹⁵ "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷ This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you."

²² Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?" 

²³ 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 with them. ²⁴ Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me."

In the film Dead Poets' Society, the teacher, Mr. Keating, jumps up on a desk and then invites all of his students to do the same. It was a very effective teaching device because it helped his students to see life from a different angle, from a different perspective -- even in the classroom. It was his way of dramatizing that if you always look at things in the same way, you just might miss something really important. 

This morning I would like us to examine a common religious bumper sticker message from a different perspective than most of us would normally take. What would you do if you encounter the bumper sticker: "Honk, If You Love Jesus?" This has happened to me on a number of occasions, and being the outgoing sort of guy I am, I usually honk. Invariable my honk has produced a friendly wave, or smile, or answering honk from inside the car wearing the bumper sticker. But I learned this week that it is not always so.

When I shared my intent to preach on this bumper sticker, a friend told me a story about his colleague who happened to be a United Methodist district superintendent: a black United Methodist district superintendent. This story made me look at this bumper sticker from “on top the desk” so to speak, and completely changed the direction of this sermon message.

This black pastor was driving down the road and came to a light where the car in front of him had the bumper sticker, "Honk, If You Love Jesus." He thought, “I love Jesus; why shouldn't I honk?" So he honked his horn… and the person in the car ahead of him set Christian race relations back a couple centuries with his response.

Then on Wednesday night I again shared with some friends, the fact that I was going to preach on this bumper sticker. They told me a similar story. From their rearview mirror they saw that they were in front of a car that had a sign: "Honk, If You Love Jesus." They thought, "Well, we love Jesus" and so they honked. The driver screamed at them to get the #^&!@!! out of the way. It seems that he was in a very big hurry.

I think it is clear that if we are going to display our faith so proudly, if we are going to advertise our beliefs so boldly on our cars or any other place [and I do believe we should], then our actions better be consistent with the faith that we proclaim. If we really love Jesus we will try to live according to the pattern set by his life.

Did you hear our Gospel lesson this morning? It does not say, "Honk, If You Love Jesus." Rather in it Jesus says, "If you love me, keep my commandments."

And over the last few weeks, our gospel lessons have highlighted the central commandment of Jesus over and over again: "love one another as I have loved you." We are commanded to love with action. We are commanded to love in a way which places the needs of others before our own. We are commanded to love as Jesus has first loved us… even to death on a cross.

My next statement is the most important part of this sermon: If you really love Jesus, you must come to understand how much our mere honking about our faith, turns people off. If you love Jesus. You must strive to keep his commandment. In other words, "Love, if you love Jesus," should be our bumper sticker message. Just making noise, just honking about our faith, has a terribly negative effect on people at the edge of the church, and outside of the church.

One of the things that concerns me most as a pastor, is the realization that the church so often gets in the way of its own message. Our noise about our faith, our honking about Jesus is seen by others to be at odds with the way we act and speak on an everyday basis. We profess to love everyone; and then speak and live by racism and segregation. And increasingly I see this in regards Hispanics more than African Americans. We profess to put the needs of others first; and then get angry and act out when things aren’t the way we want them. We profess to have a mission to reach others for Jesus; and then resist every change which might help us to do just that. We profess to love our neighbors as ourselves; even while we must have three color TV’s, drive expensive new autos and play golf twice a week; while so many of those neighbors can’t even afford to feed their children. 

It is so easy, so very easy for others to see this and to be turned off. We need to lower our decibels of proclamation and raise our active discipleship. Our lives need to proclaim what we profess with our religious lips.

Somewhere I came across this saying: "Your life screams so loudly I can't hear what you are saying." I say to you as forcefully as I can this morning: please honestly examine your life. Unless we begin to truly live according to the pattern of Jesus' life, all our noise as a church will not make any difference in the world. The world is waiting and watching for us to set a pattern that speaks loudly and clearly. Not by honking, but by acting in love.

Here is a poem that I'm sure most of you have heard. It speaks this sermon message with crystal clarity:

“We are the only Bible 

       the careless world will read.

We are the sinner's gospel; 

       we are the scoffer's creed;

We are the Lord's last message, 

       given in deed and word.

What if the type is crooked? 

       What if the print is blurred?”

Someone recently described to me another person in the church, as giving the Lord "heart-service" seven days a week, not just "lip-service" on Sunday. Or in the language of this sermon: we are called to give Jesus "heart-service," not "honk-service." We are called to truly live our faith, not just make noise and show about it. We are called to live according to the pattern of love set forth in Jesus' life.