The Work of the Bees

based on John 14:15–21 for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A

A few of you have asked me about my thing with the bees. Bee jewelry makes it onto my jacket every weekend, and there are a handful of reasons for that, but one of the biggest comes from the Easter Vigil liturgy, the Exsultet.
There's this line about the Paschal candle being produced through the work of the bees and human hands together. And I love that image because the production of the very first that comes into our darkened sanctuary after Good Friday is presented not as ressurection magic, but as collaborative effort betwen us, and the bees. Tiny creatures. Human labor. Repetitive work that, brought together, creates the first light in the room otherwise left like a tomb.
Bees do incredibly small work. Almost invisible work. Tiny flights and movements. Tiny acts of pollination.
And yet? Lose the bees, and entire ecosystems begin collapsing.
We so often buy into this myth that meaningful change happens in one giant dramatic moment. But most meaningful change does not work like a lightning strike. It works like mycelial networks underground. Like roots cracking concrete. Like the work of the bees. Even the movements we think of as rather sudden — Civil Rights. Stonewall. BLM in 2020 — those were visible peaks of much longer accumulated labor. Deep community organizing. Conversation. Protest. Feeding people. Acts of art. Presence. Refusing disappearance or silencing.
Tiny, repeated acts that eventually changed entire landscapes. Sometimes with a hallmark moment we all name and remember, like Stonewall. Sometimes without one — which is its own kind of reckoning, like the slow-built pathways of Christian Nationalism that we're watching now. Those were also built one tiny act at a time.
We are in this passage again — a continuation of what came last week, all of it building toward Jesus' official taking of leave. Ascension is coming. Pentecost is coming.
The disciples seem anxious as hell. Those exact words are not written down — but come on. You can hear it in the text. Jesus keeps saying things like do not let your hearts be troubled and I will not leave you orphaned. Nobody says those things when everyone's feeling great. These are the things we say when fear and anxiety are already filling the room.
And it makes sense that the disciples would be fearful. These were people hoping for something clearer. Stronger. Faster. They were living under empire — violence, occupation, exploitation. Their expectations had been wrapped up in a militaristic response to a militaristic regime, and what they received instead was a guy on a cross who then seemed to come back to life. Awesome party trick — but not exactly the thing that feels like it's going to bring down the soldier with the threatening sword when he's demanding more supplies, more money, more compliance from your family.
Any of us would want certainty. Okay, Jesus, sure — God in all of us and in you, but… when do we win?
They wanted specific dates. A clear plan. An underdog victory story. They wanted something to cling to that might make them stop being afraid.
Jesus does not give them a single one of those things.
Instead, he gives them commandments. And if you want to get really technical, he gives them a commandment: love one another as I have loved you. Which honestly sounds deeply unsexy compared to the underdogs taking over and coming out on top. But the wisdom someone thought worth writing down for us to receive is: keep my commandments. Love one another.
The disciples want a conquering system. Jesus responds with an ecology.
They want domination. Jesus responds with pathways for relationship.
They want certainty. Jesus responds by giving them practices. Tiny, repeated acts of love — just the minuscule daily work of the bees.
I think this excerpt from John is easily distorted because we hear if you love me, you will keep my commandments as moral pressure. Like Jesus is standing there with a clipboard. But in John's gospel, commandments are not a list of rules to follow. And in fact, commandments aren't even a list of rules to follow in the Hebrew Bible — they are suggestions for how we live better together, and with God. The commandment here is: love one another as I have loved you. That's it.
Which means Jesus is not saying: prove yourself spiritually impressive. Be some kind of saint. In fact, it's quite the opposite — Jesus is saying: when you participate in love, you participate in God. If you are loving, you know me and you are doing the thing required of you.
This whole chapter is soaked in mutual indwelling language. I am in God. God is in me. I am in you. You are in me. This is ecosystem language. Relational language. Love circulates. Care circulates. Courage circulates. God is not the distant emperor somewhere above the clouds. This is not far from what Luke is writing in Acts: in God we live and move and have our being. God with us via connection, truth, nourishment, courage, protest, mercy, song, bread — through showing up for one another again and again and again.
Zero words about perfection. Lots of words pointing toward participation and collaboration. Like the work of the bees, and human hands.
I also think we can easily distort this passage when we hear I will not leave you orphaned and interpret it as just a line of comfort. In fact, I think this might be the central line of the whole excerpt — but maybe not for the reasons we were first taught.
Because notice: Jesus does not promise the disciples will stop feeling afraid. He does not promise that empire and its overbearing problems disappear tomorrow. There is no promise that the hurts and frustrations and pains will go away. He does not promise certainty beyond this: certainly they will continue to see him and experience him — God — via loving one another.
Maybe I will not leave you orphaned is way less about comfort — and in fact, making it primarily about comfort might be what makes it lose its teeth. Maybe I will not leave you orphaned is more an instructive reminder: you are not orphaned when you remain bound together in love. You are not orphaned when the work continues. You are not orphaned when people keep feeding each other, protecting each other, telling the truth, tending wounds, making art, singing songs, blessing what is breaking, refusing to disappear or silence one another — faithfully continuing on, even when we don't feel like we're getting it quite right.
The world teaches us that power comes through domination.
Jesus skips all of that and insists that abundant life comes through stubborn, ordinary, repeated acts of love. The basic, everyday work of the bees.
And honestly? Bees themselves are not perfect little symbols. Bee colonies operate with hierarchy. They've got their own disagreements, chaos, and problems. They are strange little creatures — just like we are. But they keep participating in the work that sustains life beyond themselves.
Maybe that is the core of discipleship too. Because a lot of us — whether we'll admit it or not — believe that the best way to live well and abundantly is primarily to get things correct, to ensure we entirely dismantle the problems as we go. But that doesn't really work out. All we end up doing is either avoiding the simple everyday work, or reifying the very systems of destruction we claim we're trying to dismantle.
No human is perfect. We are all horribly inconsistent. There is no moral purity among us — and honestly, the more certain someone is, the more suspicious I become.
So maybe that's the invitation and reminder this week. Not perfection. Not moral purity. Not certainty. None of these are necessary.
Just: keep practicing love anyway. Keep participating in courage anyway. Keep telling the truth anyway. Keep blessing what is breaking anyway. Keep on keeping on in the way of Jesus.
Tiny acts. Tiny mercies. Tiny bits of courage.
Because the kingdom of God doesn't come in like a military coup. It comes in more like tree roots cracking up a cement sidewalk. It's the little in-and-out, every-day work of the bees — that eventually becomes that collaborative first light, in a world filled with fear and anxiety, but aching for hope.

​with joy,
Pr. Sam