Sermon for Easter V Year C 2016 If You Have Love...

Transcription

1 Sermon for Easter V Year C 2016 If You Have Love... I give you a new commandment... love one another Sounds simple enough, right? Even a toddler could memorize and appreciate it. It s just like a favorite song I sing with the Sunday school children It s about love, love, love! That s what it s all about! Cause God loves us, we love each other mother, father, sister, brother... everybody sing and shout! cause that s what its all about... it s about love, love, love! The children and I loved to sing it... And, yet, how embarrassed, and even ashamed, I am at how poorly I really comprehend it or put it into practice. So I have been wondering this week, do I, do we as a church, take seriously that love is the center of our faith? On the one hand, I think we all do. Most of us Christians if asked for the core message of the gospel would quote John 3:16 For God so loved the world... And yet, when I think of my own life and the many conversations I ve had with fellow Christians through the years, I wonder what other things vie as candidates to be the center of our faith: law, justice, knowing and doing God s will. 1

2 All of these are important, of course, and yet, as the Apostle Paul once said, without love, none of these other things amounts to anything... without love, we are no better than noisy clanging cymbals and much worse. But, even if we know and believe that love is at the heart of things, why do we sometimes find it so hard to love? Or, put differently but perhaps better, who do we have the hardest time loving? Is it people who are different from us? People who have hurt us? People who see things differently? Perhaps this is a question we don t often ask but probably should. Because... if we fail in love, we fail in all things. So what would it be like if we did make love our aim What is it like when we do love others well? What is it like when we know our selves to be loved, valued, cherished, honored what is that like? How does that change our lives? One thing we know of God s love is that it is poured out unconditionally and universally from the greatest of these to the least of these. Another thing we know is that God s love doesn t seek value, it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved... we have value. So our value, our worth is a gift, not an achievement. 2

3 Knowing these things about God s love for us brings us back to where and when Jesus gives his new commandment about love. It s easy to forget where we are in the story. After all, we are already four weeks into the Easter season hearing stores of Christ s resurrection and his appearances to his disciples. And yet, this Sunday we circle back to the night before the cross and the resurrection. We last heard this text on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week. In fact, the name Maundy is derived from the Latin mandatum, meaning a mandate or commandment and it comes precisely from this text I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. And that s where I always get a bit hung up. After all, to love others as I love myself that seems somewhat possible but can I possibly love others the way Jesus has loved us? Perhaps the problem is you and I have heard these words not just as a command but as a challenge. But to hear it as a challenge is wrong. Because this is, after all, just hours before Jesus will be handed over, tried, beaten, and crucified all for us. Not as payment against some wicked debt God holds against us. Not to make a just and angry God satisfied or happy. Not because this was the only way to satisfy God s wrath and make it possible for God to forgive us. Rather, Jesus goes to the cross to show us just how much God loves us. 3

4 Jesus has been extending God s forgiveness and love throughout the Gospel, and as John reports in the opening line of this chapter, Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. And having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end (13:1). That s what this verse is about. Jesus reminding us of just how much he loves us and of how much God loved and loves us through him that we might be empowered to love others, extending God s love through word and deed, and in this way love others as Jesus has loved us. In the book of James, the writer states that no one can say they love God whom they cannot see if they do not love their brother or sister whom they can see Yet, if I were writing such a letter as James did, I think I might have to state: it is not possible to love brother or sister if we do not love God. ( + ) Without love of God first in our hearts and our lives, we are without well, the source of all love, the source of all life. Without the vertical relationship, our love, our lives are flat (--). Without the vertical relationship with God, we do not know nor do we have access to the height, depth, width and breadth of love. We do not know love as a steadfast, grace-filled commitment to the other. 4

5 The "basic reality" is God is love; and to love God is to love love itself. That is why Jesus embodied love in his own life in a more radical way than the simple love of neighbor might suggest. He loved prostitutes. He loved sinners, and traitors, and tax collectors. He treated the shamed with honor and declared the unclean clean. He loved the unlovable. He loved his enemies. (This is what Peter had to be reminded of in his vision described in the book of Acts) To love God is to be devoted to a basic and fundamental reality that runs through all of life and creation. When we're trying to figure out the meaning of life, when we're trying to make sense of everything, Jesus is the reality that can give life its richness and ultimate meaning. This is the reality that beckons us to live better than we live. The great Christian spiritual writer and thinker, Thomas Merton, wrote: "To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name. If, therefore, I do anything or think anything or say anything or know anything that is not purely for the love of God, it cannot give me peace, or rest, or fulfillment, or joy. To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God." 5

6 We don t have to do this perfectly to do it meaningfully, of course. Indeed, even as we remember those who have loved us, we probably acknowledge that while their love was not perfect, it was nevertheless powerful. And, of course, we experience the perfect love that casts out all fear in the love of God in Christ. So, my fellow little children, let us not just sing songs about God s love for us as we know it in Christ Jesus... let us allow the love of Christ to take deep root in us so that it flourishes in all that we do and say to one another... and by this everyone will know that we are his disciples. 6