Letting Go John 10: 11-18 & 1 John 3: 16-24 Fourth Sunday of Easter, 29 th April 2012 Although they bear the same name, John, they were not written by the same person. The writer of the gospel was not the writer of the epistles. Tradition claims that they all came from the same pen or quill but they didn t. It s easy to assume so because they share a similar theological outlook, they share a common vision informed by the gospel-writer s community and influence. The gospel is John, while the epistle is Johannine, and both point us in the way of Jesus Christ. It s the Common Lectionary that links these readings together. But even without the lectionary, it s easy to see the connection. In John 10, we have Jesus famous declaration that he is the good shepherd, the shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. He doesn t rely on hired hands to care for his own; he directly cares for them cares for us. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,.... The shepherd has more than one fold. In time there will be one fold, and the shepherd will lead them. He will call and people will respond because they know that voice and trust that voice. He cares passionately for all the sheep. In fact, this shepherd is more than good, he s actually beyond good, exceptional, because he is willing to lay down his life for the sheep. That s an
extraordinary shepherd. In fact, this shepherd loves the sheep so much, that he chooses to suffer for the sheep, to lay down his life. No one tells him to this, he s not forced or constrained. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up. Power being rightly used. Power used in action. Power used in love for the sake of the sheep. And so God s love pours through him with delight and joy because he is the good shepherd. In 1 John, we hear an echo of this same teaching: We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. By the time this text was written, after Jesus resurrection, written to a community of Jesus followers, written to a church, the author calls for belief in the name of [God s] Son, Jesus Christ and then, clearly, that we love one another, just as [Jesus] commanded us. This, too, is a direct quote back to John s gospel, when Jesus gives the new commandment, offering the still more excellent way, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. To believe in the name of God s Son, Jesus Christ, means more than simply acknowledging that Jesus existed, more than intellectually saying, Jesus is the Son of God. To believe here means is confess that something of God is known through Jesus, something of Jesus is known through God;
to know that the way of Jesus is the way of God and the way of God is the way of Jesus; that the life of Jesus is the life of God and the life of God is the life of Jesus; that the truth of Jesus is the truth of God and the truth of God is the truth of Jesus. To acknowledge this, to know this with our hearts, not from a distance, but from deep within, is what it means to believe. To make his way our way, our way his way, is the life of faith. And if our hearts know this to be true of Jesus, then our hearts will follow in the way; our feet are bound to follow. Faith and action. Faith leads to action. If it doesn t lead to action, expression, in tangible ways, then you have to question whether it s really faith. Otherwise faith is empty or hollow, tradition or custom or going along with the crowd or hypocrisy. That s why the author of 1 John urges his community, Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. Let us love with more than our tongues, empty confession, empty talk, empty preaching, but with something deeper, deep in our hearts, to love with our whole beings. To love in truth means, literally, here to love from the truth, that is the truth about who God is, the source of truth. Rooted in the truth of God s love in Christ, firmly grounded with that knowledge, that awareness surging through our lives, from that truth that right now we are participating in the Being of God, from this truth act, do something, move,
change, serve. Allow this truth to flow, overflow over into action. It s important to highlight here that this is not an exhortation to become Christian busybodies, Christian do-gooders, becoming exhausted with the busyness of action. There s something to be done, but close attention to what s being revealed here. Rooted in God s love, we act. Abiding, dwelling, resting in the knowledge of God s love, we act. Actions divorced from love become self-serving. Actions divorced from love might have more to do with our egos, selfish motives, maybe even fear. 1 John says that we know what love is like, because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our life for one another. How does God s love abide in anyone who has the world s good and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help? It s easy to hear this as saying, we ought to love our brother and sister, so that s what we do a meal here, a visit there, giving, giving, giving, that s what Christian do, right? and then completely overlook or ignore the first part for it implies that in order for us to really love our neighbor as ourselves, to quote Jesus, we must first be abiding in God s love in the first place. How does God s love abide, indeed? This passage and Jesus description of himself as the good shepherd suggest that we give and share and love out of our abundance, not from our lack. Because we are abiding in God s love, living close to the truth, to the
source of our being, drawing from that Source, we are able to care for our neighbors in need. Similarly, Jesus fully aware of God s love for him, out of the abundance, the fullness of his life, he willingly lays down his life. No one forces him to do this. He lays it down because he chooses to, because it s an expression of his nature, who he is really, authentically, truly is. He s not trying to be good or do good, because he is good that he loves this way. I am the good shepherd and this is how I love and those who know my voice eagerly do the same. This is what love looks like. Both of these texts really talking about love in the Christian experience. Both point to the way of agape. Every place love is mentioned here, in the Greek, we find agape. We know agape by this, that he laid down his life for us ; How does God s agape abide in anyone...? Little children, let us agape one another. Jesus said, Agape one another. God agapes Jesus because of the way he cares for his sheep. In the next chapter of 1 John it becomes even more explicit: Agape is from God, because God is agape. What does this word mean? It s something more than friendship (philos) or romantic-sexual love (eros), more than the bond between family members (storge). It s been defined as selfless or unconditional love. As I read these texts together this week what be clear (or clearer) to
me is the way both characterize agape as other-focused, a turning away from oneself and giving oneself over to another, a laying down what one has so that another can take it up, a yielding, of letting go. It is to hold one s other in high regard, to give over to the other, to want the best for the other, and not for the sake of oneself, for what one will get out of it. And all of this is done, not from a position of absence or lack or need, but from a strong sense of oneself, abundance, and fullness, that one is able to give oneself away. If sin is the heart turned in upon itself, as Martin Luther (1483-1536) said, then love is the heart turned outwards, turned outward, that gives with a full and overflowing heart that s being filled continuously by the source of love, a heart that s free to give. If this is correct, then we are given a profound window into the very heart of God s of nature and way of being. For isn t this the way God has been loving us from the beginning of time and promises to do to the end of time? For God s agape gives itself over and gives itself away again and again without worries of depletion. It pours forth from a bottomless generative Source that creates and creates, that gives and gives, letting be and letting be, calling forth life and life, calling the universe and our souls to thrive, thrive, thrive, extending its energies outward, sun-like, not directed inward, but outward because the inward is full to overflowing and there s plenty to share.
When we in prayer and contemplation abiding in this truth, abiding in the awareness of how God is toward everything and everyone, including you and me, we come to discover that we can let go. We can let go of our narcissism and our ego-centricities and the myriad ways we pull people into our orbits, into our inward worlds, to meet our needs and allay our fears, and maybe come to discover and really see, the needs of our brothers and sisters and begin to help. We can let go of our need to dominate, manipulate or control people, feelings, situations, outcomes. Sometimes agape means letting go of the people we love, of relationships, the letting go of dreams and aspirations. There is a grace that is found in such moments of release. For agape does not insist on its own way (1 Cor. 13: 4). We can let go of our anxieties and our worries about the future, our income, our children, our nation. We can let go of the past, of our hurts and regrets. Then we might be able to focus on the needs of the people around us and really serve. All of this mind might sound Buddhist. It might be closer to the Chinese Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu (c. 604-531 BC) who said, By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. Didn t Jesus say the same thing about losing letting go in order to find? There s a difference though, it seems to me. Jesus offers this way of being as an expression of love itself, because love is free to let things go, and when that
happens we gain everything, a hundredfold and more. We don t gain the world by grasping, and hording, and accumulating, but by letting it go, releasing it from our grasp, letting it be in love. We give it away. We find Jesus saying the same thing in the Gospel of Thomas, Whoever finds the cosmos and become rich must ultimately let the cosmos go (Logion 110). Or, as Presbyterian writer and minister, Frederick Buchner put it, We find by losing. We hold fast by letting go. We become something new by ceasing to be something old. This seems to be close to the heart of that mystery. I know no more now than I ever did about the far side of death as the last letting-go of all, but now I know that I do not need to know, and that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing. God knows. That is all that matters. You don t get to this insight by thinking your way there, but from coming to abide in love, to rest, to trust, to know that I do not need to know and do not be afraid. I was really struck with what Richard Rohr says about all of this in Falling Upward. For all of our talk about love (agape), it s easy to overlook that Jesus praised faith and trust even more than love. Not because agape is secondary to faith, but because it takes a foundational trust to fall into God s love, to trust it, that frees us to let go. Then, and only then, will
deeper love happen. It s a deeper love that is forever calling us to let go in order to be open to the larger vision and purpose and hope and glory of God s love.