Devotional by Ken Sanford

I WAS A STRANGER AND YOU WELCOMED ME
Matthew 25: 34-37
“Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me.’”
As we prepare to celebrate the founding of St. John’s Baptist Church we need to recall our heritage, particularly that of welcoming strangers.
Many of us recall that our relationship with strangers involved sending missionaries to foreign lands. St. John’s sent contributions and offered up prayers. That approach evolved into sending short-term missions teams to various parts of the world. Members of St. John’s helped to renovate a facility in Prague, Czech Republic as a seminary, replacing one in Switzerland. I was fortunate to travel with a St. John’s team to a suburb of Berlin, Germany where we renovated dormitories that Hitler used for athletes who attended the 1939 Olympics. I found myself wishing he could see his buildings become part of a Christian seminary for European students. Eva Lee traveled to the former Soviet Union on a short-term educational project. Dr. Hank Packman and his team have done medical missions work in Ecuador. And there are others.
The world has changed. The strangers suddenly are here among us in Charlotte in significant numbers. I was startled once to hear church historian Martin Marty say that there are more Presbyterians in Seoul, Korea than in Edinburgh, Scotland. Perhaps the most important role played by St. John’s has been welcoming the strangers. As World War II drew to a close our church welcomed Latvian refugees escaping the ravages of war. A Latvian teen named Zenta became part of the youth group. When Cuban refugees fled Castro’s revolution and arrived in Charlotte. St. John’s members helped the Esquivel extended family adjust to life here. Nina Phillips brushed up her Spanish and helped them across the language barriers. Vietnamese, Hmong and Laotian refugees later arrived from the war in Southeast Asia. About that time Charlotte ministers saw a need for a response to the flood of international people arriving here for various reasons. They were: refugees, business people moving with their companies, students arriving at the area’s colleges and universities and job seekers. Don Rogers, head of Baptist student ministries in the area and a member of St. John’s, began working on a plan to respond to the need. When St. John’s acquired the Staton Mansion, next door, Don, Chris Gambill, Dan McClintock and others worked to make it International House. St. John’s joined partnerships with churches and international organizations. Opal Bryant, a member of St. John’s, organized volunteers to help the flood of internationals with English as a second language and in preparing for citizenship. When Hispanics came in increasing numbers, St. John’s explored a partnership with Briar Creek Baptist Church, which was reaching out to them.
The story of the church’s involvement with the Lost Boys of Sudan is something of a miracle. Many of our members have nurtured these refugees as they resettled in Charlotte. Several of them have inspired us with their success in colleges and universities. David Thon is working with the Carter Foundation to help eradicate the Guinea Worm in Africa, after graduating from Mars Hill College and Emory University. With the help of Phillips Bragg, St. John’s is working with Joseph Lubo to build schools in Sudan.
That’s just a bit of our heritage. As we look toward our 100th anniversary 10 years from now, we need to continue to keep St. John’s open to the world at our doors.
Ken Sanford

Devotional by J Culp

I don’t know what made me think of Bob. Although we had been good friends in high school – well over 50 years ago – he had probably died in the 1960’s.

We lived in separate small towns, brought together by our involvement in Presbyterian Youth. For several years we would meet at least 3-4 times a year at conferences in our area. He was handsome, quite intelligent, well-spoken, a “true Southern gentleman,” and all of those things that make for an “eligible bachelor,” or a fraternity brother at any one of the best houses. He was also a dedicated, practicing Christian and had long desired to become a minister.

When we left high school for college, he went to Davidson and our separation then and through my 3 years in the Army was inevitable. I next heard of him when I moved to Charlotte. He was an attorney and had practiced with another friend of mine for a short time. When their association ended, he went out on his own. For some reason, although we occasionally talked by phone, we never found the opportunity and need to visit, as we had so easily some years earlier. I was married then with a young daughter, and he was single. However, I thought often of Bob and wished we had been able to get together. I had a “million questions” but my main interest concerned his work, his decision not to pursue the ministry and why such a good friend of mine had discontinued their affiliation.

I later learned that Bob’s decision not to enter the ministry was probably not entirely his choice – it was made for him. The word I had was that it concerned his “sexual orientation,” which was also not his choice. I don’t know but suspect that also played a role in his practicing alone.

Pat and I later saw Bob at a “One Voice” concert, the excellent chorus of the LGBT community. We had 2 friends in the group. Bob and I had a very cordial but brief exchange. I felt no discomfort and wanted Pat and me to spend some time with him. I sensed, or thought I sensed, that he was a little uncomfortable, so I didn’t pursue it. He was with friends and knew nothing of the extent of my awareness or how I felt about his life style.

I still can’t imagine anyone better qualified for the ministry – anyone who would be more dedicated, who “loved his Lord” any more. Maybe the timing was wrong, now maybe his decision wouldn’t have been dictated by fate, or others. Fortunately, times have changed – at least somewhat.

Bob undoubtedly fund his own peace and his way of serving. He was well-known and highly regarded by the gay community, a real source of help and strength. He probably spent more time on pro bono work for his friends than on work that brought only fees. I still remember the heartfelt accolades from so many of his friends.

But there could have been – there should have been – so much more. Not just for Bob and his friends, but for our world.

Devotional by Lou Fuller

January 10, 2012
Mt 25:24-25 “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.”
I came to work last week, fresh from nearly 3 weeks of vacation and holiday time away. You’d have thought I’d be raring to go, eager to work, chomping at the bit for productive projects to tackle. You’d have been partially right, but mostly wrong.
During my time away, things happened that affected my company’s near term plans and direction, with particular impact on the things I thought I’d be doing upon returning to work. Many of my coworkers felt similar lack of direction, focus, and sense of immediate purpose. We felt like a cavalry riding rocking horses – lots of action, but no forward movement.
In the parable of the talents, Jesus describes three servants. All are given the same resources. Two use their resources to productive ends. One, fearing failure, buries his in the sand, preserving the original investment, but producing nothing. It’s clear which servants Jesus applauds.
Fear prevents us from taking risks, trying things, riding our horses into the unknown. We’re afraid of the consequences of failure. Will we get fired? Will our investments lose money? Will we lose prestige or that big promotion? I’ve always wondered what the master would have done with a risk taking servant whose investments failed. Would he have been thrown into a WORST outer darkness? The parable is silent on that front. Should we willingly risk loss in the hope of great gain? In business? In relationships? In doing church?
Our congregation is poised for great challenges, big changes, exciting and scary changes. Will you ride the rocking horse, essentially being a bystander, going nowhere? Or will you mount your charger, accept the risks, and ride into an exciting future with other people of God?
Lou Fuller

Devotional by Scott Hicks

1 John 4:8
New International Version (NIV)
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Many of us “church-goers” spend the majority of our adult lives, in some form or another, pursuing the will of God. By that I mean that we strive to obey the laws and message of our belief system of choice.
Once I believed that folks found this will primarily by serving others. I observed the work of charity and as a Christian recognized it as the core message and example of Jesus.
How then could those who worked so diligently often seem to look upon those they served as objects of charity rather than equals? When Jesus healed the leper or the blind or the possessed did he in some deep part of his psyche consider himself an organism of a higher or more profound presence?
If we are to truly know God can we for the briefest moment allow ourselves to look upon any one of our fellows as different from ourselves?
I know in my heart that on some level, I do. I try to push aside my prejudices and human ideas yet no matter how kind or loving I may feel, deep inside, if I am brutally honest, I sometimes see myself as a servant of those who are in some way less.
Do we not speak and direct our attentions toward those LESS fortunate? We say that we serve those who HAVE less. Is that an honest appraisal or is it not truer that at our core we feel that we serve those who ARE somehow, well … less?
Here lies the difficulty, or obstacle if you will, in leaving service as the driving force on our path to God. We can serve and we should. “Faith without works is dead,” yet if we serve and do not go to the Father in our silent depths then we only build a bridge of straw to a fantasy that is our own materialism. We only make ourselves feel like we have done God’s will. We do not know God.
When I strive to be still and put aside the thoughts of this world, I open myself to the essence of the Father that is beyond self. If we are “created in the image of God” then we are of God just as we are. Our consciousness only impedes His truth.
I want to know God; but if I reach out my hand and see it as just my own then I do not serve God, I serve myself. If the hand that holds out the bread is human … then there is no truth in it. It is only truth if I “know” the hand as the hand of God.
I have come to awareness that it is in the stillness, in the darkness, that is a world beyond the conscious recognition of my surroundings, that I open myself to the power and grace that is the Father.
I can only hope that if, each day as I continue to go there, I might discover in the silent darkness that I no longer exist as I have been. I might discover that it was not me who served another. It is God in his omnipotent reality absorbing the essence of all service. It is God’s love.
God is love; therefore we are love … forever and ever,

Amen.

Devotional by Scott Hicks

MATTHEW 7: 1-5
“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”
Gal 6:2
Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

For a few years now I have gone to the church periodically in the winter months and slept there with the homeless. We place mattresses in the gym and cover them with sheets and blankets. They are fed well and have a quiet, protected night. Most fall asleep after a shower and their bellies are full of warm food. I am usually tired from the workday yet without fail feel surprisingly energized to attend to the various tasks at hand.
. One of those nights, as is often the case, there was a fellow that worked the system from the moment he “hit the door.”
“Can I get an extra t-shirt?”
“Is there any more chicken?” This would be his fourth piece.
He was constantly stuffing whatever he could into his pockets. The whole time he never stops this garbled but loud diatribe on everything under the sun; opinions, places he’d been, things he could do, fights he’d seen, the end of the world, etc. The other guys would just give him a tired look or roll their eyes.
I must say that, before the night was over, he was getting under my skin a little. I got a bit “toney” with him (I’ll call him Demetrius.) about tying up the phone and talking so loud while the other guys were watching a movie in the same room.
So I prayed before trying to get a little shut-eye. I asked God to show me what about the man was something about myself that I didn’t like. As quick as I asked, the answer came. I hate to say it but at times, I’ve been a afraid that I wasn’t going to get what I needed or that someone or some entity was going to take away what I had. Are we not all at least vaguely familiar with self-centered fear?
Periodically I find that I possibly talk a bit too much. I’m aware that it’s because I’m afraid to let folks get too close. It’s also about intimacy and a lot of other psychological “isms” we hear about these days. I couldn’t help but think that was exactly how the fellow at the church felt.
The next morning he was in true form. “You got any talcum powder? I need it bad. Can I take the whole bottle?” Then he began to regale one of the other homeless men, who appeared to be half asleep, resting his chin in his hand as he sat over his now empty cereal bowl.
Next thing I know, I hear Demetrius asking Steve, who is working with me, and “Didn’t you guys say you had some extra socks?”
It’s early, so I’m not going to start with the judging after that wonderful bedtime praying so I just stay quiet. Steve gets the closet key and a few minutes later returns with the socks. He hands them to Demetrius who then turns and hands them to this gentle giant sitting at a table who had not spoken ten words all night. The “giant” mumbles something obviously a little surprised. Then he smiles for the first time in twelve hours, this big grin like a kid at Christmas,
“Hey thanks. I needed these somethin’ awful.”
I can’t help but wonder if Demetrius did some praying about me.
On the way home I’ll feel a little fuzzy from lack of sleep. Funny though … I’ll often sing a hymn or say a prayer out loud as I speed down the expressway back to my family and warm, cozy life. Then I will think of them and know that we are all better for having encountered each other if only for a brief while. I’ll thank God for letting me do this thing that gives me so much more than I could ever give them.

Scott Hicks

Devotional by Randy Brantley

In a couple of days, most Americans will transition from the caloric over consumption of Thanksgiving to the consumeristic over consumption of Black Friday without giving much thought to the significance of the national holiday. It’s no wonder, given the frenetic pace of life that we create for ourselves this time of year. I’m often torn between holiday invitations and my desire to slow down and focus on more spiritually meaningful activities.
Sunday at St. John’s is a refuge for me during the holidays. This past Sunday, as we placed our financial pledges on the Lord’s table, I noticed smiles, people greeting one another, pats on the back, and children darting in and out among adults. When I returned to my pew, I gave thanks for the Body of Christ known as St. John’s Baptist Church. I am particularly grateful that, in the midst of our social, political and theological diversity, we hold fast to historic Baptist principles, such as soul competence, religious liberty, and the autonomy of the local church.
The 80 or so members of my childhood church in rural northeastern North Carolina would sing the old hymn “Count Your Blessings” with gusto. As I grow older, I count life’s blessings with more deliberateness. On especially challenging days, I’m tempted to say, “I’ve got nothin’,” but I’ve learned to “pan out” and take a wider view. If one day seems to hold few blessings, I expand my perspective to include recent days, months or even years. I always can recount God’s presence and accompanying blessings in my life.
Recognizing God’s blessings instills a sense of responsibility to minister to others—not only those in need of basic food, clothing and shelter but also those with spiritual and emotional needs, which oftentimes includes the affluent. Thus the circle continues, for in ministering I often receive unexpected blessings that fulfill my own spiritual and emotional needs.
When counting blessings I sometimes expand my thinking to a cosmic level through the realization that God created me, and I am playing a role in the eventual consummation of the Kingdom of God. Realizing that the God of creation seeks a personal relationship is almost too much for the mind to comprehend. Despite that reaction, I continue on the pilgrimage to discern and live the will of God.
Sometime during the holiday season take a moment to stop, look up and gaze at the stars. As you sense your smallness while soaking in the majesty of God’s universe, may you realize that God’s blessings are as numerous as the celestial bodies before your eyes. As the old hymn states, “Count your blessings, name them one by one, count your blessings, see what God hath done!”

Devotional by Todd Stillerman

Blessed is the one who considers the poor and the weak! In the day of trouble, the Lord delivers him; the Lord protects him and keeps him alive; he is called blessed in the land; you do not give him up to the will of his enemies. The Lord sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness you restore him to full health (Psalm 41:1-3 RSV).
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father, who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16 RSV).
My daughter Mattie just turned seven. She was born into the family of the church, and much of her personal system of ethics and morality (to the extent that 7 year-olds have such a thing) was created and nurtured by her church family at St. John’s. I was delighted earlier this fall when she decided (admittedly with some prompting from her daddy) to participate in Charlotte’s CROP Walk for world hunger awareness.
CROP stands for Christian Rural Overseas Program, and the walk in Charlotte is the largest of over 2,000 walks held across the nation. Proceeds from the walk go to local and global hunger-fighting agencies. Mattie and I spent some time talking about why we were participating in the walk, and she started soliciting pledges with a passion. By the day of the walk, about 75 friends had pledged over $800 toward our efforts. We borrowed a double-stroller, strapped in Mattie’s little brother, Will, and headed out for an adventure. Our fellow churchgoers, the Perkins family, fell into place beside us along with several thousand other walkers.
All of this sounds pretty fantastic in concept, but here’s the catch: you actually have to complete the walk. The walk’s length is set periodically to match the average distance that people in underdeveloped countries have to walk each day to get clean water. Sadly, that’s a little over four miles. Mattie and Will were game and each walked over a mile, but long before the halfway point, I found myself pushing about 90 pounds of kid through the streets of downtown Charlotte. And it may not seem this way when you are zipping down the streets in your Ford Fusion, but downtown Charlotte has some SERIOUS HILLS! The pace was slow, and I was immediately grateful that I only have to turn on my faucet to get my own clean water.
Just as we made the mid-point turn at 18th Street, Casey Perkins noticed a woman collapsed on the side of the street. Casey is a nurse, and she immediately began attending to the woman, who we quickly learned was actually a girl of 19 with Down’s Syndrome who had failed to hydrate properly before the walk. Casey and the girl’s caregivers comforted the girl while the race personnel called for a paramedic team, and Mattie and the other children crowded around Casey with rapt attention.
The paramedics were slow to arrive. So slow, in fact, that I began to see the police escort at the back of the walk creep close and closer to us. It was hot, I was tired, and I had places to go at the conclusion of the walk. Casey had determined that the girl would be OK, but she wanted to wait for the paramedics to arrive. Three times, I nudged Mattie and quietly suggested we continue on. Mattie waived me off repeatedly, the last time with a look of disdain worthy of a teenager twice her age.
So … we waited some more as the retinue at the back of the walk passed us by. Policemen began pulling up the barricades on the side streets, and we were suddenly on a busy street in east Charlotte with no escort. Casey’s husband, Matt, urged us to go ahead and meet them at the finish. Will had, by this time, abandoned the stroller and begun tightrope walking on the curb next to oncoming traffic. I needed to go, and I needed to go N-O-W. I pressed Mattie to get in the stroller, this time with a father’s irritated firmness (and probably a little more). She shot me down with an icy look she must have inherited from her mother.
“Daddy,” she said firmly and with unrestrained conviction. “CROP Walk is about helping people, and we are NOT GOING ANYWHERE until we know that this woman has been helped.”
Mattie’s words throttled me like a George Foreman haymaker, and we stayed put. Five minutes later, the paramedics came, and assured Casey that the girl would be OK. We caught up to the rest of the walk without much trouble, and we even made it to our post-walk appointment with time to spare.
I suppose that Mattie is a Christian. My Baptist heritage tells me that, at her young age, she probably lacks the maturity and discretion to make an informed profession of faith. She has, however been raised in an atmosphere of Christian love such that she has no trouble grasping Christ’s core message. How telling that, in the midst of a walk for hunger awareness, I so quickly let worldly annoyances – the heat, my personal wants, a self-dictated schedule – overwhelm the most primary of Jesus’s directives. Mattie had it right: Christianity is about helping people, and that is what we are supposed to do. May we all approach our daily lives with that simple message in mind.

Devotional by Alan Christian

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. – Matthew 5:5

Because the beatitudes are so elegantly succinct, we must guard against devaluing them as mere pithy wisdom. Our Lord Jesus was speaking out of the fullness of His Godhead, thus we know that His words are very Truth itself. Christ alone has complete authority to speak of “blessedness,” for He is the Blessed One who descended from Heaven to confer blessedness upon mankind.
In our culture of action and strength, Jesus’ statement on meekness is likely to create confusion, or even anxiety. In a later chapter of Matthew, Jesus elaborates on the concept when he says: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
Note the contrast between burden and rest. But what is the burden Jesus speaks of? Some would interpret it as oppression, or poverty, or hard work. In The Pursuit of God (available in our church library) A.W. Tozer defines our burden more broadly and deeply, as something that is borne by all of us – something “from which wealth and idleness can never deliver us.”
Tozer maintains that our burden is pride and observes that “the labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed.” We are invited to ponder how much of our sorrow arises from our perceived injustices at the hands of others: “as long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be those who will delight to offer affront to your idol.”
We can only have true peace through rest in Jesus, and meekness is His method. The meek person no longer seeks to be great in the eyes of the world, for he knows that it is not worth the effort. He understands that the constant struggle to protect one’s heart from every slight and defend it against every criticism will never allow for rest, and over time the burden will become intolerable.
The meek man has reckoned himself against God’s goodness, and he fully knows that by this divine standard he is nothing – “a mere worm in the dust.” He has humbled himself to the Creator of the universe, and by doing so he has ceased to care what men think.
The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything . . . as he walks in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. (Tozer)
Once liberated from the burden of pride we can enjoy the same un-self-conscious honesty that enables a three-year-old to splash joyfully in a rain puddle, or tumble laughing in the grass with a puppy. It is the opposite of ignorance – it is intellectual honesty. It is the “blessed relief which comes when we accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend.”
Lord, make me childlike. Deliver me from the urge to compete with others for prestige or position. Deliver me from pose and pretense. Forgive me for thinking of myself. Help me to forget myself and find my true peace in beholding Thee. I humble myself before Thee that Thou may answer my prayer. Lay upon me Thy easy yoke of self-forgetfulness that through it I may find rest. Amen.

Devotional by Ken Sanford

FALSE PROPHETS
Matthew 7:15-20 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.”
Just before these verses come the verses that warn us about judging others. This dichotomy seems troublesome. We want to beware of the sin of falsely judging others. Surely, however, we must discern among all the voices we hear, calling for our attention and loyalty to various causes–religious, political and economic.
A so-called prophet has warned us that the world is ending—once again. On the other hand, remember the days when Jim and Tammy were preaching feel-good religion and the religion of prosperity (If you are going to pray for a new car, be sure to specify the color you want).
I was giving a tour recently to a couple who are thinking about relocating to our region. As I drove them onto the property that was previously the domain of PTL, I was reminded of that great tragedy. The property now has a better and higher use since it has been developed into neighborhoods of attractive houses. Indeed, there was some truth in what Jim Bakker used to say about Christians deserving nice retreat and vacation communities. However, we couldn’t rationalize his position against the practice of multiple selling of the same time shares.
Shouldn’t we also engage our brains when we hear religious leaders and politicians making false claims and advocating ignorance? There are those who disparage Christian teaching just because they don’t like what they hear. Our litmus test should be the example Jesus gave us with his life and death.
Ken Sanford

Devotional by Martha Kearse

John 15:1-15
I am the true vine and my father is the gardener.
He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.
This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command.
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

This passage, from the gospel of John, is both powerful and daunting. For many, these words are the incredible promise of what it means to be connected to the very person of God through Jesus, who walked the planet with us. For others, it seems to serve the primary purpose of excluding all those who do not believe exactly as we do. Undoubtedly, it has been a tool used in the service of condemnation and exclusion—an excuse to say, “You’re not one of us.” For some people with whom I have talked, it is the essence of what they dislike most about Christianity and a reason they cannot embrace our tenets.
Let me make this case:
• Jesus was the most inclusive person, to the date of his birth, who ever walked the planet. He made a ministry of pulling in the outcasts, the unclean, the imperfect, the disdained—he worked and spoke to and included women, children, diseased people, Romans, Jews, Samaritans. If Jesus had meant his followers to be exclusive, his own ministry would have looked extremely different
• Jesus was talking to an intimate group of friends in this passage—his disciples. He was speaking of great mysteries, beyond their comprehension (and, subsequently beyond ours). But he surrounded his words with the language of love—read the passage—over and over again—love and love and love.
The word “true” in Greek is aletheis—this word means coming from the genuine nature of something—valid, trustworthy, confirmed, vetted. Jesus is speaking of his legitimacy here—that his origins, his faith, his work, and his words are trustworthy, because they come from a valid source—God, the Father, the gardener. Our task is not to worry about the behavior or beliefs of those around us (Jesus has quite a bit to say about splinters and logs and not judging others). Our task is to attach ourselves to that genuine source and grow. Rooted, grounded, we are able to become fruitful—without being connected to the source of our strength and our love, we fade and wither.
Accusing Jesus of exclusion is not a defensible position in light of his ministry—such an accusation does not hold up to scrutiny. Using his teachings to be exclusive, therefore, is problematic. What we can do is approach this passage with a sense of who Jesus was, and then we hear him say, “You are part of something wonderful. We are friends—in the truest, deepest sense of the word. And because you know what it means to be friends with me, and because I turn to God as the source of my love, you are also connected to that great love.” Good news—great news for a world where genuine love is hard to come by.