Text: John 15:9-17,  1 John 5:1-6

May 21, 2006

Why does everything that Jesus tells us to do sound so simple but in reality is really really hard things to do? As we focus on the epistle and Gospel lessons today, I am struck by how much sense Jesus makes, and how difficult it really is to live what he says. I sometimes get a little mad at Jesus. Doesn’t he get it? I don’t have TIME for this stuff. It isn’t relevant to my life. I mean, I get up, I get dressed, I go to work so I can make money to survive, I come home and eat better than a vast majority of the world, and I spend the evening relaxing in relative opulence.

          Yes, I intellectually get the argument here. It’s simple. Put others before myself. Love others as Christ loved us. But once again, sometimes I feel that I don’t have time to take care of anyone but myself. I find I am not alone in my thinking and my lifestyle at times. It is so easy to get into yourself today. I have so many things that command my attention and so many ways to entertain myself. So I tell myself, if offered the chance, I would do the right thing, it's only that chance just hasn’t come along yet.

          I am beginning to fear that my sometimes insular life is the way that the church is going. Because of this I am so happy we are not a “mega” church. As I watch facilities being built that become monuments to entertainment complete with state of the art sound systems and stadium seating, it seems that these buildings become more shrines to our needs than our neighbors. They become opulent temples to ourselves and we build them and turn our love inward to ourselves. I was once told by a pastor friend of mine that once you start spending money on the sound system and the seating, you stop looking outward.

          I fear that churches lose the commandment that Christ gives his disciples as they grow more used to serving who they think are the saved and turn their backs on those that are different. Studs Terkel in his book WORKING quoted one of the workers he interviewed as having said that people generally aren’t prejudiced, they just feel more comfortable with like people. The church can often be like that as well.  It is my fear that there is a prevalent movement in some Christian circles to be exclusive and to revel in self. As I watch the advent of the new “mega” churches who become societies unto themselves for example, I feel that we are becoming a nation of churches that adhere to a doctrine that serves themselves at the exclusion of others. Once again, it is easy to love my brothers and sisters in the church safe within my element.

          Yet, this is not what Jesus commands of us in John. As he speaks to his disciples, he commands them to do as he has, to love others as Christ has loved them. Jesus states: “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…”

          What does this commandment mean for us today? Some of the answers are found in the epistle today.  Harry Denman of St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Broken Arrow, OK, puts it succinctly:

1 John is a guideline to developing a fellowship with Christ. In our lesson we discover that it takes confidence in our lives to be able to relate to such a fellowship. To express the truth of love toward others as we love ourselves is no easy task. The great glory of our Christian faith is that it is at times secular. It is designed to prepare us for life and to fit us for living that life. God, indeed, created us to be that kind of person -- to be confident, adequate, and full of the assurance that we can do that which God has planned for us.

This epistle from John lays out the secret of this confidence we seek. It is in the fellowship of sharing the life of Jesus Christ. This confident life will be manifested as truth, righteousness, and love. This is authentic Christianity.

John is very specific about this fellowship. He says, “If we claim to know God, but yet walk in the darkness of disobedience, we are a liar.” Back in the second chapter of this same epistle, John says, “To claim to possess the Father and yet deny the deity and incarnation of the Son is to be a liar.” Finally, John says in chapter four, “You are a liar if you say you love God and yet do not love your brethren.” These actions are not genuine. As Christians we cannot have life both ways.

Often we are asked when talking about this expression of love, “What does it really mean to love my brother or sister? Who is my brother or sister?” In verse one we hear it said, “Everyone who believes that Jesus Christ has been born of God … is a child of God.” We are family. If we love the Father, we will likewise love the other children of the family. We are talking about the extended family of God. We are talking about relationship with each other in the body of Christ.

We ask ourselves, “Are we to love others who are not Christian?” Yes. We must find ways to share God’s creative love for them in ways they will understand. Non-Christians do not have to be outside the circle that makes up the family of God. If we are able to unconditionally love those in the family circle we know are believers, then we will be better able to love those outside that circle. The love of a Christian is never limited.

John says in verse three, “His commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world.” As humans, there are times we simply do not agree. This is true within any family situation. There are times when we must do things that may offend one another. Does this mean that we don’t love that person? Not if we are keeping the commandments of God. It may mean that we need to find ways of better understanding each other. It may take great prayer on our part to override some prejudices or opinions we may have. Or it may take great prayer on our part to seek God’s wisdom in bringing us together for His sake and His glory.

          Another key is the use in the Gospel of John of the word “abide.” One of the core verses of this text is “As the father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” The word “abide” means live – To live in Christ and Christ to live in us. Over and over we are told that we must live in the love of Christ. Yet, what kind of love are we talking about? Lutheran theologian and Pastor Edward Marquart looks at the root of the Greek word for love, “agape,” as he writes:

We recall that the Greek word for love is “agape” which has been translated as “charitable love.” This “agape love” is not “Eros” or erotic love. Nor is it “philos” or brotherly or sisterly love for friends. Nor is it “storge” or family love. These are all forms of love. The gospels are consistent in using the word, “agape,” for love which is love for people who can’t pay a person back. This “agape love” is like grace, a free gift for others which is undeserved or unearned or unmerited. It is a free gift for those in need.

I am struck by this. As we all know, it is easy to love those we know. It is easy to give to those we know. For example, I find my wife Erin easy to love. She’s cute, talented, funny, and the source of all that is good in the world. Not that I am in any way biased, but tell me, who couldn’t love her, I say. Yet, when it comes to those that aren’t “like people,” to quote Terkel, it gets harder. It’s easier to put up walls and fences, to create rules to exclude and to separate. We find it easy to judge and to divide because we make no effort to understand.  I am struck by the people who state they refuse to give to the homeless on the street because they are afraid that those they give to are really not homeless, or are scamming us somehow, or will use the money for bad  use. In other words, if you are not in our eyes “deserving poor” you are deserving of nothing.

I am reminded of a recent editorial in the Star Tribune, where a man of means donned old and shabby clothes and tried begging on the street for a day. After six hours on the street, he made 30 dollars, had three cups of coffee, some food, and several screamed profanities. As the song by the 1^st Edition states, “Did you ever kick a poor man when he was down, just to make yourself feel strong.” Nowhere, it seemed, was there the abiding love of Jesus.

The Church of Christ has been innovative in some of its advertising to promote equality, tolerance, and love. Unfortunately, it seems too innovative that some of their ads have been deemed possibly “offensive.” My mother brought to me the attention of the “ejector pew” ads which make a strong point of promoting the subject of inclusiveness. This ad speaks to the rejection of various categories of people by unnamed Christian churches. As we tend to be a nation that tends to declare itself among the most god-fearing on Earth, it is a very “touchy” subject. The ad shows various targets of discrimination being ejected into the air from springboards hidden in the pews. Ejected from the pews are an African American woman with a crying baby, two men who appear to be a gay couple, a man who looks Middle Eastern, and an elderly woman with a walker. The spot ends with the contrasting message that the UCC church, which is descended from the early Puritan churches, rejects no one. The ad shifts mood at the end and shows a diverse array of people standing together smiling. “God doesn’t reject people,” reads the tagline, “Neither do we.”  Fox, NBC, ABC, and CBS have refused to run the ads that are ultimately about…inclusiveness. The argument has been that they did not want an ad to run an ad that may be insulting to other churches, presumably those churches that discriminate.

The message of God’s love and our commandment to love others isn’t limited to who we are comfortable with, or who we know, who we work with, who we like the looks of, whose race we are, whose lifestyles are like ours, whose countries of origin we are favorable to, and whose age we best relate to. If we are to abide, or live in, Christ’s love, we have to be willing to extend the love that Christ showed to us, to everyone. The moment we start excluding, or hoarding the message for ourselves is the moment we stop abiding in Christ.

Jesus made it clear in his ministry that the abiding love and abiding grace is available for all. He specifically made a point that it was for the Jews as well as the Gentiles. Jesus’ disciples had problems with including the Gentiles, yet Jesus made it clear that his message of love, or “agape” was for all people.  Jesus states, “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

“How many times,” writes Marquart, “does Jesus have to say it so that his words penetrates our hearts, minds, and habits? Jesus wants us to have love for one another. Christ laid down his life for us and for his friends. Through Christ we learn to give all of ourselves.”

          Jesus loved the whole wide world, and commands us to do the same. To be Disciples of Christ, we must take these words to heart. “Love one another as I have loved you”. This is the commandment of Jesus. It is to love as he loved on earth. These eight words summarize the whole Old and New Testament. These words summarize all 1189 chapters of the Bible. These words summarize the purpose of our lives – to love one another as Christ has loved us. Amen.