I John 5:1-6 John
15:9-17
In our readings from John’s gospel for the past two weeks,
Jesus has given his disciples images of what it means to be his followers – and
for those who would later would read the Gospel, including us, images of what
it means to be church. The first image
is that of sheep provided for and protected by Jesus, the good shepherd, who
lays down his life for the sheep. The
second image is that of branches growing from Jesus, the true vine. In the
first image, our safety depends on being together in one place with Jesus; in
the second image, our life as believers depends on our connection to Jesus and
to one another; if we are separated (or if we separate ourselves), the life of
the Spirit within us will shrivel and die.
Being together and staying connected – these were key to the first
followers of Jesus as they found a way
forward after the resurrection. Being
together and staying connected are likewise key for us who continue to find a
way forward in following Jesus today.
In todays Gospel reading, Jesus moves beyond images and
metaphors to get down to specifics: “As
the Father has loved me, so I love you.
Abide” – that is to say, remain, stay, continue, live, dwell – “in that
love. Just as I have kept the Father’s
commandments and abide in his love, so I want you to keep my commandments and
abide in my love. This is my
commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
And so Jesus did not just teach, but led by example – just as Jesus
experienced God’s love, Jesus wanted his followers to experience God’s love. Just as a fish lives in water, and dies if
removed from the water, just as we as human beings live surrounded by air, with
air filling our lungs, and will choke to death if our air supply is cut off, we
as Jesus followers, as spiritual beings, are to live in love, surrounded by
love, filled with love, love within us, love all around us. That’s what Jesus wanted for his followers,
what he wants for us. And, again leading
by example, just as Jesus showed God’s
love to his followers, Jesus wanted his followers to show God’s love to one
another and to those around them.
We need love. We need
to receive love, and we need to give love.
From our birth, as our mothers hold us and gaze at us, and we at our
mothers, just the experience of being held shapes our minds, literally
stimulates growth of neurons in the brain that sustain us. The opposite is true: if we don’t have that early sense of being
held and loved, our brains develop differently.
In Romania, circa the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, behavioral
scientists observed children who had been raised from infancy in Romanian
orphanages. These children didn’t always
get even the basics of food and clothing, and were greatly neglected
emotionally, being tied to beds instead of being picked up and held. These
children got very little in the way of love or even basic human contact. Even
after these children were later removed from orphanages and adopted, that early
lack of care marked them for life, as they had trouble bonding with their
adoptive parents and had trouble forming relationships as they grew up. A whole branch of psychological thought,
attachment theory, began largely from observations of these Romanian orphans. One of the basic premises of attachment
theory is that if a baby or a small child grows up with a sense of security and
of being loved, the child will have confidence in exploring the world around
it….and the reverse is true, that a lack of love and safety early in life will
cause the child to feel anxiety as it explores the world around it. So the saying is true, that the hand that
rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.
The same is true in our spiritual life. If we know, really know – from the top of our
heads to the tips of our toes, from the tips of our fingers to the marrow in our
bones – that God loves us, if we carry that sense of being loved with us into
everything we do, it makes a huge difference…indeed, it makes all the
difference. In our reading from I John
– written by the author of John’s gospel, but later – John writes: “For the love of God is this, that we obey
his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born
of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our
faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is
the Son of God?” There’s a praise song
that goes, “Victory, I got the victory, I got the sweet sweet victory in
Jesus….” Now, I gotta tell ya, though,
most days I’m not feeling it, and maybe that’s just me. Most days, I don’t feel like I’m conquering
the world…many days, I’m just trying to get by. If I can get through the day, maybe help a
few people along the way, most days, that’s enough for me, and I can go to
sleep in peace. But the word translated
“conquered”, nika can also be
translated “overcome” – and that word makes more sense to me. If we know, really know, really really know, that God loves us, we can
overcome all the garbage – all the unreasonable expectations, all the crazy
demands, all the stress, the insults, the neglect, the abuse – that the world
throws at us. If we are rooted and
grounded in knowing that God loves us, no matter what, we can get through all
that, and come out on the other side stronger for the experience. And so, in this sense of having overcome
adversity, we can claim victory in Jesus.
We need love. We need
to receive love, and we need to give
love. Jesus said, “This is my
commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” A pond that takes in water but does not
release water eventually becomes stagnant and unhealthy….and so does a human
spirit that has grown dependent on constant reassurances of love from God and others,
but is unwilling to give love. And Jesus
made a really strong statement about the quality of love he expected from his
followers: “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.” So again, Jesus led
by example: as Jesus laid down his life
for his followers, so he expects us to lay down our lives for one another and
for our neighbors.
Now, what does that mean? We think of Jesus laying down his life on the
cross and dying. But if we all lay down
our lives for one another, as in die for one another, at the same time, that
would look like Jonestown after Jim Jones’ Kool-Aid party…..and I’m pretty sure
that’s not what Jesus was going for. But
Jesus laid down his life, not only on the cross, but throughout his ministry. He could have chosen another path, just kept working
as a carpenter and living a quiet life.
But instead he went out, called disciples, spent time with them, taught
them, cared for them, loved them. He
could have stayed in his hometown, but instead traveled, healing and teaching,
meeting opposition from religious leaders along the way. And so Jesus laid down his life for his
disciples, not only at the end, not only at the crucifixion, but throughout his
whole ministry. And in this sense we can
lay down our lives for one another and our neighbors, not all at once, but day
by day, on the installment plan if you want to think of it like that, daily
turning away from our own priorities and perks in order to be present for
others in need. And, of course, history
tells us that if we live in love, we may well be called on to die in love as
well. Love those whom those in power
tell us not to love – as Dietrich Bonhoeffer did in Germany, as Archbishop
Oscar Romero did in El Salvador – and it may cost us our lives, even while
opening to us the gates of eternal life.
What if we knew, really knew, how much God loves us. How would our lives be differen? And what if we knew, really knew, how much
God loves our neighbor, especially the one that scares us or annoys us or works
our last nerve? Now, we can sit back and
say, “Well, that’s God’s job, to love the unloveable.” Sort of like the bumper sticker that reads,
“Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks
you’re a jerk.” But as Jesus’ disciples,
we’re to love those whom God loves, even when we find them very hard to love.
Indeed, Dorothy Day, now under consideration for sainthood
in the Roman Catholic church, was unsentimental about God’s love. She quoted Dostoevsky in saying that “love in
action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” Sometimes love in action means doing for
others when they’re incapable of doing for themselves. And we do it – certainly changing diapers is
nobody’s favorite activity, but because you love your baby, well, that’s part
of the package. It may become part of
the package when our parents become incapable of caring for themselves…and
because you love your mom or your dad, you do it, or make arrangements for
others to provide the needed care. And
it extends to those beyond our families. Along these lines I’m reminded of a late
afternoon when I was a member of Old First Reformed Church. Old First housed homeless men during the
winter, and so even during the summer, a lot of homeless persons hung around
the church. This one afternoon, when I
and another member were at the church with our pastor, Rev Geneva Butz, a deranged
mentally ill man was in the courtyard in front of the church, talking to
himself, taking off his clothing and tearing up a large piece of cardboard into
small pieces. Geneva coaxed the man into
her car, and with I and the other Old First member on each side of the man in
the back seat, we drove to the Hall Mercer mental health center and had him
302’d – involuntarily committed. It was
anything but a romantic interlude. “Can
you feel the love tonight” wasn’t the song playing inside my head at that
moment. But, even though there was a
whole building full of loft apartments across from the church, nobody from the
apartments was coming out to the rescue.
And so it was left to Pastor Geneva, another church member and myself to see that this man received help.
And, of course, for weeks afterward, we jokingly warned others about getting
into Geneva’s car, because who knew where you might end up…you might even end
up getting locked away. But even though
it didn’t feel like it at the time, it was an act of love for a man we’d never
met, didn’t know, and likely wouldn’t
see again.
“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to
love in dreams.” For Jesus, love in
action meant being misunderstood, being vilified, ultimately being nailed to a
cross. I John reminds us that Jesus
came, not only with water, but with water and blood. That is to say, Jesus’ love for us carried
the ultimate price for him. For us, love
in action means being there to help people when they’re at their most helpless
or their most unloveable – and dealing with misunderstanding, abuse, and even
hatred from those who feel that some persons are unworthy of love – likely
projecting their own feelings of unloveability onto those they consider “the
other”.
Jesus called on his disciples to bear fruit, fruit that
would last. Here Jesus is giving his
disciples assurance that what they do in love, be it ever so small, will have a
lasting impact. The Apostle Paul, in his
first letter to the Corinthians, spoke of everyone’s works being tested by
fire, whether they were made of gold or silver or costly stones or wood or hay. In today’s Gospel reading, it is those works
that are done out of love that are fruit that will last, fruit that will stand
the test of time. We have no way of
knowing how much impact our acts of love have in the lives of those around us –
and likewise we have no idea how much impact a lack of love on our part has.
In our reading from Acts, we see the disciples discovering
that God’s love is broader than they imagined.
In stories such as Philip baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch and Peter being
called by God to the house of Cornelius the Roman centurion, the earliest followers
of Jesus learned that God loved those outside the Jewish faith – while it seems
obvious to us, it was a revolutionary revelation to t hem – and so they acted
to expand their circle of love, baptizing those Gentiles on whom the spirit had
come. And those baptisms bore fruit that
would last, as the Gospel took hold among the Gentiles even as it struggled
among Jesus’ Jewish followers.
For our members and friends here at Emanuel, this place has
been a place of love. May we carry the
love we experience here outside the walls of the church, outside to our
neighbors who need to know, in concrete, tangible ways, that God loves them and
so do we. May God’s love overcome both
our own limitations and the defenses of our neighbors, so that the circle of
love expands, so that our congregation can embrace our neighborhood in God’s
love. Amen.
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