Abide in my love. [John 15:9]
Let’s go back to the Greek word for a moment – menein (μενειν), means to stay, to
remain. In fact the English word
“remain” is related to the Greek word menein. It is related also to the Latin noun mansus, which means a house, a dwelling
– and indeed, some English Bible translators have rendered menein, not as “abide”, but as “dwell”. Presbyterians may note that menein is also a precursor of the word
“manse”, where their parish minister lives, abides, dwells, and dreams of
retirement. So, we see the note of
settledness, stability… dwelling, residing, being present and waiting… all
included in what our translators chose to call abiding.
But as you know, we have another strikingly different
paradigm of faith, called journeying, pilgrimage, moving on, changing and
conversion, developing, growing... this is the “adventure” of faith. The
biblical exemplar is Abraham, who, we are told, on hearing God’s call, left his
settled life in Ur of the Chaldees, and went out, as the writer to the Hebrews
puts it [11:8], not knowing where he was
going.
Perhaps it may be seen as a conundrum. On the one hand the moving-on theme, the
journeying… Behold, says God to Isaiah, I
am doing a new thing; do you not see it?
Jesus tells his disciples, The Son
of Man has nowhere to lay his head… presumably nowhere permanent. But now on the other hand, this theme of
abiding, as though there does have to be somewhere to arrive. We need an abiding place. It is an inner place, a place of belonging
and returning, a place of knowing and being known, and it is above all a place
of truth.
There, it seems to me, is the heart of it. When Jesus inspires us busy, involved people
to come and abide in him, and he in us, he is offering us a place where love
and truth come together. “Love” is not
the saccharine, sentimentality normally portrayed, which depends entirely on me
and how I am feeling -- and “truth” is certainly not the negotiable quality
currently in vogue. Love is setting self
aside… and I will not attempt to define truth.
In the stillness of prayer, content to be humble and receptive, we learn
to discern it alright, and its counterfeits.
Those two pictures of faith, one of journeying and the other
of abiding, come together, it seems to me, when we understand what Jesus means
by love. Abide in my love, he says.
Shakespeare’s famous sonnet [116] says that love does not alter when it alteration finds… But love as we encounter love in Jesus
certainly alters, it is much more dynamic.
It suffers and may be wounded. It
does change – it deepens, becomes wiser, retreats and comes back again, it
ventures, it risks, it learns forgiveness.
Abiding in love may be a rocky ride, but it is unlikely to be
boring. The place of abiding is at once a place of
stillness where anxiety retreats, love and trust prevail – and at the same time
it is a place of change, of setting burdens down, letting things go, and moving
on.
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