Dr. David Kuhl has written a book called What Dying People Want. He offers practical wisdom for the end of life, wisdom that has grown out of his personal experience with people who are dying. He has learned that listening — really listening — is the mode of presence we must bring to the bedside. What concerns dying people most surprises us sometimes: it is often not their own suffering or the fear of what will happen to them; it is what will happen to the people they love when they lose influence over those lives upon their death.

Alice was the patient that taught him most about this. As a palliative-care physician, Dr. Kuhl spends his life trying to relieve the suffering of those who are dying. He had tried everything he knew to try on Alice. The pain in her chest persisted as she lay in the St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. Her lung cancer was progressing, but for all his efforts to make her comfortable, she was getting no relief. He finally asked her if the pain in her chest might have to do with her heart, not her cancer. Her eyes brightened, as if he had finally pushed the right button. She opened up. Yes, the pain is in my heart. It has to do with my daughter, Ruth. She is marrying a man I do not approve of, and I told her so. My daughter, my only child, did not want to hear that message. I had to tell her because by the time she realizes that he’s no good for her, I will no longer be alive. I don’t ever expect to be free of this pain, and what’s more, unless circumstances change for Ruth, I don’t want this pain to be taken away. [Public Affairs, 2002, p. xvi.]

My pastoral experience confirms the point. Most people can handle their own dying, but they worry about those they will leave behind. Jesus is doing much the same thing in our text today from the 15^th chapter of John’s gospel. This is part of what scholars call the Farewell Discourses. Jesus faces his own death by passing on to his loved ones, his disciples, what is most important for them to know after he is gone. While he was with them his own love for them could control their behavior to some extent, but after he is gone he knows that, his Spirit’s presence notwithstanding, their love for each other will be the controlling mark of his success.

Rick Warren is an innovative pastor in Southern California. He has written a new book called The Purpose Driven Life, which is a sequel to the Purpose Driven Church. Rick says he found his own purpose from his father’s deathbed. The elder Warren was a Texas-born Baptist preacher who helped start 150 churches over 50 years. With his body ravaged with cancer, he talked about what mattered to him the most — building churches. Rick sat by his father’s bed and heard him say in his sleep over and over, Gotta save one more for Jesus. Gotta save one more for Jesus. He said it nearly a hundred times in the next hour, Rick says. And then before he died, he laid his hand on his son’s head and said, Reach one more for Jesus. [The Dallas Morning News (May 24, 2003): 5G.]

Well, Jesus himself said some things about that to his disciples in the other gospel records. Go ye into all the world and make disciples of every nation. Matthew 28. And where the passing of the word is the main thing in churches, there is good energy around bearing witness to those who do not know Christ. And yet, when that becomes the main thing, it is also an invitation to dissension. The Word, Martin Luther said, is the one perpetual and infallible mark of the church. And when that is so, doctrinal correctness becomes the all-important issue. And that leads to loads of conflict over who is interpreting things aright. This is the very thing that the battling Baptists have gotten caught up with over the past 25 years or so. And when some of us have tried to say that that isn’t the Baptist way, that we have not been trying to exclude our fellow Christians, we have been trying to say that fellowship itself is the true mark of the church. How we treat one another, in other words. There is no way ever to know for sure whether we get our doctrine right, but there is no doubt about whether we love one another.

And just this is what Jesus emphasizes in our text. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Not this is my commandment, that you get an A+ on every Bible quiz. Neither did he say, this is my commandment, that you do everything right all the time. No, good theology is a good thing, and personal holiness, too. But the church demonstrates that it knows Jesus by the way it loves.

I visited with Taylor Little this week before her baptism this morning. I asked her about what it means to be a Christian. I didn’t ask her to recite the Ten Commandments, The Lord’s Prayer, or The Four Spiritual Laws. We read this passage together. We talked about how no one has greater love that to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. We talked about how Jesus had done that for us. And then I asked her if she knew anyone else who might love her enough to die for her? She said that she and her mom had talked about that recently, and that she thought her mom and dad would do that for her, and that she thought she would do that for them, too. I told her that that’s the kind of love God has for her and for everyone. And that’s the kind of love God wants us to show for others as the church Jesus left behind.

Try to imagine a church like that — a church where people took loving each other to such extremes as giving their lives for each other. It certainly wouldn’t be a church fighting each other all the time over whose theology was right. It wouldn’t be a church where a few people tried to control all the committees. It wouldn’t be a church where everyone was trying to find out who had been misbehaving so they could tell others about it. It would be a church that astonishes the world by the way they welcome people, forgive each other, find ways to pick up those who have fallen and restore their lost luster. It would be a church where people would recognize Jesus.

We’ve had a task force at work in our church in recent months trying to come up with a way to interpret to our community what kind of church Wilshire is. Our middle name, Baptist, does not turn up in the Roget’s Thesaurus as a synonym for love. The group kept bumping up against stereotypes of Baptists as small-hearted, narrow-minded, petty, chauvinist “only-we’re-going-to-heaven” types. They started out with the slogan, We’re not that kind of church. But the more they talked about their experience among us, the more they leaned toward a more positive motto: We’re that kind of church! The kind of church that wields hammers to build houses for the poor rather than shaking fists at each other. The kind of church where women know their place, which may be behind the pulpit or the communion table as much as in the kitchen or preschool department. The kind of church where singles of all kinds are as much family to us as married people, and even those married more than once. We’re that kind of church — the kind of church that loves each other enough to honor Christ by the way we treat each other under any and all circumstances.

Next to our gospel reader today, Allen Walworth, who is one of the best preachers and storytellers I know, don’t you know?!, the beloved Fred Craddock is a source no sermonizer can resist quoting. He tells about being the pastor of a small church in Appalachia years ago that had a wonderful custom. They would gather new converts on Easter eve at sundown by a nearby river. Craddock would wade out to a sandbar with the candidates, as the congregation met around a fire and sang hymns. Once everyone was gathered, a man named Glenn Hickey, and only he, would introduce the new folk and share what they did and where they lived. Glenn would then work his way round the circle. Every member would give his or her name and say some like: My name is ____ if you ever need somebody to do some washing and ironing. My name is ____ if you ever need somebody to chop wood. My name is ___ if you ever need anybody to repair your house. My name is ___ if you ever need a car to go into town. Once they were finished, they would sit down to a huge meal, pull out the banjos, and some would take to dancing. When darkness and cold got the better of them, Percy Miller would kick dirt over the fire, and they would head home ready for Resurrection Sunday. Craddock remembers the first time he was part of all that. Percy was standing behind the dying fire and said, Craddock, folks don’t ever get any closer than this. With his usual flair, Craddock concludes: In that little community they have a name for that kind of experience. I’ve heard it in other communities, too. In that community, their name for that is church. They call that church. [Cited by Mark Barger Elliot in Lectionary Homiletics (Apr-May 2003): 63.]

Nice. Do they call this church? If we love one another like that, we will have no worry about how others perceive us. They will know that this is where they can come in from the world when the wind chill of broken relationships and life disappointment leaves them cold and alone. They not out there searching for perfect theology, people; they are looking for love. They are not searching for perfect people, people; they are looking for love. They are not searching for the perfect building or music or preaching or parking, people; they are looking for love. They are looking for imperfect people who will not quit practicing until they get their love down perfectly.

An old African king is dying. He calls his people to his side and gives each of his many offspring, wives and relatives a short, sturdy stick. Break the stick, he tells them. They each one strain at it, but they all snap their sticks. This is how it is when a soul is alone and without anyone. They can easily be broken, he says. Next he gives each of them another stick and says, This is how I would like you to live after I pass. Tie your sticks together in bundles of twos and threes. He waits as they arrange themselves according to his wishes. Now break these bundles in half, he says. No one can break the sticks, no matter the effort. The old man smiles: We are strong when we stand with another soul. When we are with others, we cannot be broken. [Kuhl, p. xxviii.]

What Jesus wanted is for his disciples to live like that after he was gone. He wants that still. We can’t control what others do, but let it be said of us that that is a church that loves. It’s that kind of church.