Let Us Love...(Preached on April 29, 2018)
It
all begins with God’s love. And in case we ever forget
that, I John makes it crystal clear. The writer of this
epistle,
whomever he may have been- Biblical scholars
can reach no consensus
about the authorship- the
writer is very clear what he believes,
what he has come
to know, about the nature of God. GOD IS LOVE. GOD
IS LOVE. Which is a powerful statement…a statement
which
should knock us back on our heels, if we take
time to think
about it. Because it is saying to us that
this God who we say we love…and serve…and in whom
we say we believe, is fully and totally and completely
LOVE. Not judgement or anger or
hatred or exclusion,
but LOVE… and love expresses who God
is.
Now,
the love described in I John is not some abstract
concept…some touchy-feely emotion. No- this love is
passion expressed in action. This writer tells us that
God made love real and
present by incarnating it in
Jesus, whose own loving example of self-giving
love
speaks to us loudly from the cross. And that love of
God continues with the empty tomb…love once again
set free to live in the
world, to live in us, so that we
care for one another with
compassion and acceptance.
In the words of I John, “Beloved, since God loved us so
much, we also ought to love one
another.”
In
spite of what the world may tell us about love- or
the lack of it- the truth of God’s love is that it does not
depend on our worthiness or our initiative. We don’t
have to clean up our
act in order for God to love us.
We don’t have to measure up to any set of
standards
in order to be loveable. We actually don’t even have
to
believe in God in order to be loved. NO…God showers
us with love
whether we “deserve” it or not. And the
writer of I John insists that
the more fully and
completely we know God- not know
about God, but
KNOW God- with heart, mind, and spirit-
the more
the immense reality of God’s love dawns upon us.
You
see, when we open ourselves to the warmth and
light of
God’s loving presence, we find that even our
deepest,
darkest secrets and the ugliest parts of our-
selves are not
beyond the reach of God’s love. God-
this God who is love-
embraces us just as we are,
loves us
just as we are, and works in us to bring a
newness of life we call
“resurrection”.
And
then the writer of this letter to his fellow
Christians goes on: “There is no fear in love, but
perfect love casts out
fear.” Years ago, clergyman
William Sloan Coffin was preaching on this text and
he made this statement: “The opposite of love is not
hate; the opposite of love is fear.” And if we see God as
primarily a
God of power, or demand, or judgement, as
so many sadly do, then we will
approach God with fear,
feeling that we can never be
good enough to satisfy this
demanding God. But if we
understand God first as
LOVE, perfect love, then we approach God with
confi-
dence, secure in our relationship, certain of our
acceptance by the Creator of the Universe. And our own
love is
perfected because we trust in God’s love. “We love
because God first loved us,” says I John.
Now,
did you hear clearly what I just read? Not, “we
ought to love because God first loved us,” but rather the
sense
that we can love, truly love, because God first
loved/loves us. God’s
love is the ground for new
possibility, new hope, new and renewed
relationships.
After all, if we really believe this Love, if we
experience it
for ourselves, how can we keep it to ourselves? To know
God’s
love is to overflow with God’s love. And how can
we possibly say
we love God while we hate God’s
beloveds? After all,
seeing ourselves as God’s beloved
means seeing our sisters and
brothers as God’s loved
ones, too. And our sisters and
brothers are simply
every person living on this planet.
After all, we have
done nothing to deserve or earn this
incredible, all-
encompassing love of God. So why should
anyone else
have to earn it? From God- or from us?
In the words
of I John, “The commandment we
have from God is this:
those who love God
must love their brothers and
sisters also.”
The
author of this letter was writing to a community
in conflict about the boundaries of their community…
who was in
and who was out. And he is saying that if
we love others as God
loves us, then there can be no
boundaries, no in or
out. God’s love, made visible and
present in Jesus, is the source of the love we share
with others. Jesus, after all, ignored the limits that the
religious community was imposing. He ate with and
talked to and
touched people whom the religious
leaders had rejected as
heretics, as sinful, as filthy and
despicable. But Jesus
welcomed and included people
everyone else had kicked out. His
harshest words were
directed to the unloving, self-righteous people who saw
some
of God’s children as beneath
their time and
attention and certainly not worthy of their
love. If
Jesus shows us what God’s love is like- and
that IS
what we say we believe, isn’t it?- then there can be no
doubt about how far our love for others must
extend:
to every single human being. No exceptions.
Years
ago, when my granddaughter, Felicia, was about
3 years old (she is now 21), I had taken her to a park
near their
home in Charlotte. She loved this little park,
loved the slides
and the swings and the climbing
structure, and most often I found myself
climbing and
swinging and sliding with her. (I was much younger
then,
you understand.) But on this particular day, a
dad and
his daughter were also at the park and the
little girl came over
to Felicia. “Want to play?” she
invited, and held out her hand.
Felicia jumped up from
the bench where we had been
sitting and the two of
them ran across the grass to begin
their play, one of
them slender and fair and blond, the other
a bit taller
and rounder, dark-haired and dark-skinned,
making
a lovely picture.
I
sat and watched and listened as they tried out
everything, laughing and chattering and enjoying each
other’s company.
Then I heard the other little girl, who
had been chewing gum the
whole while, say to Felicia,
“Do you want some gum?” and when my
granddaughter
nodded, she took the gum from her mouth, bit it in
two,
and popped half into Felicia’s mouth. And both chewing
happily, they returned to their play. I have to tell you,
for a
moment I was taken aback, wondering what I
should do, if
anything. After all, this seemed wrong for
so many reasons.
But seeing their joy-filled faces,
hearing their happy cries, I
set my anxieties and
prejudices and privilege aside and just stayed in the
moment,
loving the expressions on their faces.
Shortly,
the dad called to his little girl- her name was
Grace- and the two girls came running. As they
neared the
benches where we grownups sat, Grace
reached out, hugged Felicia, and
said, “I love you. I’m
so glad you were here today.” My granddaughter
hugged
back and replied, “I love you, too. And thank
you for the gum.”
They waved to each other as the
two pairs of us headed in
opposite directions and I
found myself thinking, as I watched my happy,
loving
granddaughter, that we adults could learn much about
loving from children, if we would just pay more
attention. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love
casts out fear,” says
I John.
originate with us. It is not our own weak, limited love
that we are being called to share with God’s beloveds.
No…we are being called, you and me, to open ourselves
to the very love of God so that God can love others
through us. It’s called “incarnation”. When we love one
another, we re-present God to the world. By allowing
the love
that God has showered on us to overflow onto
our sisters and brothers, we make divine love real and
visible in the lives
of ordinary people. God invites us to
let Jesus live in us, be
incarnated in us, so that through us…THROUGH US, as imperfect as we are…Jesus can
continue to welcome outcasts and touch untouchables
and heal the broken. And when God’s unimaginable,
limitless love comes alive in us, we become the real
presence of God in the world. Doesn’t that take your
breath away? Let it be so among and through us.
Amen
Beautiful! Thank you for this.
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