Juiced: The Inner Life of Vines Transitivity Love
by Ken Wilson
The gospels are a product of experience related to Jesus of Nazareth. Two distinct modes of experience: 1. Remembrances of his words and deeds over a short period of public ministry; 2. Experiences of a perceived-to-be-risen Jesus conveyed by Spirit.
So they do tell "what he said and did," but they only came to be written in the first place because people had an awareness of his living presence through the Spirit after his physical presence ended.
John at the end of his gospel said, "Hey, there were lots of other things he said and did that I didn't have room for." I.e. I had to pick & choose. His picking & choosing was shaped by the experiences people were having that were conveyed by the Spirit. Jesus was coming to them in a different mode. Do you think they needed help making sense of it? That's what the gospel of John, in particular is.
John 15: 9-17
Without prior knowledge, what do you expect from Christianity? This is what God is like and what he expects from us. Now live up to his expectations or else. No wonder many us spend our lives dodging and ducking and keeping out of range of Christianity.
Real Christianity has a different starting point: a son being loved by his father. "As the Father has loved me…"
Jesus' public coming out event was his baptism by a popular desert prophet named John. A record of mystical experience: "Just as Jesus came up out of the water he saw heaven being torn open [code] and the Spirit descending on him like a dove, and a voice: "You are my beloved son in whom my soul delights." [This is being told from the perspective of Jesus' subjective experience]
Where it all begins. Not us at center, but us observing a son experiencing the love of a father. Set aside your questions about your own spiritual experience, how you're doing. Doesn't start there. Instead, just behold--look at this son being loved by his father in this way. He's human, when we look at another human, we can't help but empathize: what would it feel like to a son loved by a father like this?
Look long & hard--that's where it begins and that's what you're in for.
"As the father has loved me, so have I loved you…"One would expect, "As the Father has love me, so I've loved the Father" A declaration of piety, common in the Bible: Oh how I love God! Instead, "As the father has loved me, so have I loved you"
In geometry it's called "transitivity": if A = B and B = C, then A = C.
A relation between 3 or more things. As the Father (A) loves me (B),
so I love you (C) with the A-Love I received.
When we feel God's love for us, what we are feeling is the original love of the Father for his beloved Son. That's the tinker-bell fairy dust being sprinkled on us.
God's love for us doesn't begin with us, doesn't depend on us pe se.
Huge! In 1970's thought self esteem was key to love. First we must learn to see ourselves as lovable: "I'm good enough, smart enough and gosh darn it people like me!" But transitivity love bypasses all that: As Father (A) loves me (B), so have I loved you (C) with the
A-love I received.
It doesn't begin with us, it flows toward us, having origins elsewhere.
Don't forget "as": "As [in same manner as] the Father has loved me [you are my beloved, in whom my soul delights] so have I loved you. We're getting the A-Love!
That's the mystical heart of good news. We are included in a pre-existent love that doesn't depend on us because it began with two other parties: Father loving his Son. A love that is not centered on us but by golly comes to us, involves us, touches us.
Why? Because that's what this love DOES. Something in the nature of this love agitates to be passed on to others so there is an ever expanding circle of love. Like the universe after the Big Bang--ever onward! THIS IS THE LOVE OF GOD. LOVE IN TRANSIT. EVER ONWARD TO AN EXPANDING CIRCLE OF THE BELOVED.
"As the Father has love me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love." [Notice shift? Command: NOW REMAIN!]
Remain = verb form of the Gk. word for "dwelling place." The dwelling place was a place--the temple, where God lived on earth. John's gospel begins with the declaration that the word became flesh and dwelt [tabernacled] among us.
So love is a kind of something we can "remain" or dwell within.
Love, in other words, is a kind of place. Yes, it is. You know it is.
That's why we say things like, "I feel surrounded by love." Love is a kind of surrounding presence, as place surrounds us.
There's a part of our brain called "orientation association area" In this part of the brain certain neurons fire when our body feels anything (touch, sensation); a different set of neurons fire when anything beyond arms length is perceived. The brain's way of orienting us as a self in the context of a space thru which we move.
Dwell in My Love. We step into a group of people and we feel what? Depends. If they are at odds, tension. If they like each other exclusively, we feel excluded. But sometimes we feel ourselves surrounded by love, as though dwelling within love.
Hello! We provide each other the dwelling place that is love.
Another way of saying we are branches that constitute the vine where the vine-life flows.
When I went to my first backyard Bible study full of Jesus freaks, though most were strangers, I felt myself surrounded by love.
That's an experience of "remaining" dwelling in my love. Fact is, we need to be in a vine, a relational network, a church to remain, dwell in his love. Sure, there's static in the love vibe at times; love comes in glimpses, fits, starts; it's not pure-unadulterated [that's for later] but it's there.
This is a good a place to start--Sunday morning. But also good at dining room, living room level, small group level, where everyone knows your name. Or can learn it.
Spirit is best conveyed in that setting. Alpha Course. IJBS.
Remain in my love. Dwell. A spatial thing. Special too, but spatial. Surrounded by love in a place.
Love like a cloak that surround us.
Love like an embrace that surrounds us.
Love like a room within which we dwell, surrounded.
So remain infers place, but it also infers time. "Now remain in my love--stay there over time." As Hebrews says, "Let's not neglect our meeting together as is the habit of some" (See Heb. 10: 25)
It's something we're to do and continue to do as a way to remain in his love.
Other ways. My experience of remaining in his love has been powerfully enhanced by prayer at intervals through the day. I'm using these words of prayer, prayed by others loved by God, with dawning awareness that whenever I pray I am surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, and it's a way of staying surrounded--or being aware that I am surrounded--at intervals through my day.
"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love… just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love.
And this staying-remaining is meant to be a source of joy: "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."
But is that it? Just remain in my love? Park there? Has to be more than that! And there is: "Now remain in my love. If you keep my command you will remain in my love…My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."
Transitivity: love in transit. The Father (A) loves me (B) and I love you (C) with the A love. And you are to love each other (D) with the A-Love. What's the A-Love? What's the tinker-bell fairy dust getting sprinkled all along the line? The Father's love for his Beloved Son.
So our love for others doesn't have its origin in the love worthiness of others. That helps! That makes more love flow!
The love each other bit is so important, so easy to miss….see we get the idea we're now the elite truth bearers. We get off on that. And we forget the whole love bit. What we love is the leg up feeling religion gives us. So we focus on our elite truth and we argue over it, get pre-occupied with it. But we forget about the love bit.
So Jesus gives extra attention to the "love each other" bit. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because servants do not know their master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.
Knowing what we know about Jesus, do you think "each other" refers only to those 12 men in a room? I'm thinking no. I'm thinking this is the "Son of Man" who gave his life as a ransom for "many."
I'm thinking he's here owing to God's love for the world. I'm thinking he's thinking "each other" is just the next step. I'm thinking all us
"each others" are to be loving even our enemies.
Take God as Jesus experienced Him out of the equation and love is very different at its core. Love is an economic chip. We love others in exchange for the love of others. We give love, in order to get love.
Economic love: buy low and sell high so we come out on top.
Find a person super easy to love, who loves a ton back. The ideal marriage partner.
But this love of God is different. Its measure is different. Its origin is different. The fire of God's love got burning before the time began.
The love of a Father for his Beloved Son. The Bang that got the Big Bang of God's love exploding outward.
I am the vine you are the branches. Remain in me and I will remain in you. As the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you do as I command you will. This is my command: love each other.
Love, vine style. Love flowing through a vine, bearing love fruit.
Love like a river flowing. It's origins beyond us like a river's is.
Going back deep in time….originating in a Father's love for his Beloved from of old. And we step into that current and carry this love to others.
When a river is flowing downstream, it's because of back-pressure. The river isn't thinking, "I want to go downstream." It's more like "Oooh, there's back pressure, I need to go somewhere"
Are there people in your path downstream?
When Jesus says: "Love each other!" who are they? Where are they in your life? The world, yes, but starting somewhere. Especially with these rag-tag others that he's drawn into the vine.
If they are not near at hand it's Jefferson Airplane time: you better find somebody to love!
Don't you want somebody to love,
don't you need somebody to love,
wouldn't you love somebody to love,
you better find somebody to love.
Oh! Here we are! What a great place to start!