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O God, you have prepared for those who love you joys beyond understanding. Pour into our hearts such love for you that, loving you above all things, we may obtain your promises, which exceed all we can desire; through your Son Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
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Reflection
When I was installed as a conference dean at the 2012 synod assembly, the bishop draped a prayer shawl across my shoulders; as she did with each of us who were installed that day. As chaplain at Lutheran, I have draped numerous prayer shawls over the shoulders of family members as they kept vigil at the bedside of a mother, father, spouse; as we commended the dying into the care of Jesus. The shawl wrapped about the shoulders comforts as if the very hands of Jesus rested there while he whispered, "Peace be with you, for my love rests upon you. Abide in my love." The shawl carries the voice of the Church lifted in prayer "so that you may love one another as I have loved you."
"Abide" in Greek also means "remain." "Remain in my love." Sometimes all I could desire would be to wrap the shawl of Christ's love and the Church's prayer around my shoulders, curl up in a big chair, stoke the fireplace, and "remain." But Jesus, who calls us to remain in his love, also chooses and appoints us to get up from the chair and go. "Go and bear fruit, fruit that will last."
Remain and go - this is not a contradiction. "Remain" is not a place but a relationship, a friendship initiated by Jesus. I have not worn my prayer shawl since I was installed, though it drapes the back of a chair in my office. But certainly Jesus continues to enfold me in love wherever I go; as I go to the bedside he remains. Those grieving at the bedside will get up and go home and go on - their prayer shawl perhaps folded in a drawer - but Jesus remains.
And if Jesus remains with us as we go - whether into the chair of respite, to the bedside of death, to wherever go may lead - "remain and go" will finally lead to the lasting fruit of joy. For Jesus said these things that, "my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete."
Thanks and glory be to God.
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