1 John 4:7-21 7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15 God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 16 So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Those who say, I love God, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. 1
07.26.2015 The Weight of Love The visual arts are not my area of expertise. My knowledge is pretty much limited to knowing what I like [SLIDE]. This is one of my favorite paintings. It s by an American artist named Jackson Pollock. He was part of an artistic movement known as abstract expressionism that was popular in the middle of the twentieth century. Jackson Pollock didn t paint on an easel with precise and delicate brush strokes as had most of the painters throughout history [SLIDE]. Instead, he painted on a giant canvas on the floor using bold, sweeping strokes and letting the paint drip from his brush. Pollock titled this painting simply No. 8. That might seem like an odd title for a painting. Paintings are usually titled after the subject the person, place, or thing that they depict. But that s the thing when it comes to abstract art the subject is often, well, abstract [SLIDE]. The word abstract means existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence. Abstract art conveys to us an idea, a feeling, or a mood. It doesn t try to present us with a realistic depiction of something from the world. The meaning of the painting must come from the viewer. Abstract art is not everybody s cup of tea. Some prefer realism. Pollock was far from the most popular American painter of the twentieth century. That title belonged to Norman Rockwell. Rockwell was at the opposite end of the artistic spectrum from Pollock. Norman Rockwell depicted scenes from everyday life children and their teacher in a classroom [SLIDE], a family at the dinner table [SLIDE], a man speaking his mind at public meeting [SLIDE]. These were concrete, realistic images that viewers could readily identify and relate to. There wasn t any abstract thought to process. 2
The contention between the abstract and the realistic is not limited to the art world. We see a similar divide in theology. Theological schools teach both theology and what s called practical theology [SLIDE]. Theology is the study of God and God s relation to the world through the use of reason and argument. Theology is like philosophy with God at its center. Because its subject is God, theology has a tendency to lean toward the abstract. Finite human language cannot fully convey the nature of an infinite, eternal God. Practical theology, on the other hand, deals with things that are much more concrete. Practical theology is a large umbrella that covers things like theology of worship, preaching, pastoral care and counseling, and Christian education. If theology is oriented toward ideas, practical theology is oriented toward people in a particular context, e.g., the worship service, the counseling office, or classroom. I will let you in on a little secret. Practical theology is the red-headed stepchild of a theological seminary, at least it was at Princeton. In English the phrase red-headed stepchild refers to a person or thing that is neglected and unwanted. Simply put, the practical theology department gets little respect. That could be because many students who attend seminary these days have no interest in becoming pastors. They want to serve the Church outside the walls of a church, as teachers, professors, social workers, chaplains, etc. Yet still they must suffer through classes on speech and preaching, which are mandatory for all students. Frankly, practical theology was something I was not at all interested in when I entered seminary. Learning how to plan a worship service? Boring. Taking a preaching class? Only if I have to. I wasn t interested in worship or preaching. I wanted to wrestle with big abstract theological ideas. Predestination vs. free will. Limited vs. universal atonement. God s grace vs. God s justice. Human suffering and divine will. Come on! Let s go! I was ready for some serious, heavy theology. I was far from alone. Many of the friends I met that first year shared my low opinion of practical theology. We were excited to discuss abstract issues of theology. 3
Important issues. Substantial issues. Weighty issues. We regarded the more abstract issues covered in our theology classes to be of much greater importance than planning a worship service, preaching a sermon, or learning how to be an effective pastoral counselor. This same divide between the abstract and the practical exists within the church today. It existed within the church of the late first or early second century when the letter of 1 John was written. In both instances, then and now, the issue centers upon love. Not the idea of love in the abstract but the concrete expression of love in the particular. As Christians we have mastered the idea of love, but we are still novices when it comes to expressing love, when it comes to actually loving people, especially those outside our immediate circle. Rather than loving people, we love the idea of love. Pop music, movies, and especially TV dramas never tire of telling us about love. It is an unwritten rule of Korean dramas that they must feature at least one love story. And it s a certainty that that love will face obstacles in one form or another: disapproving parents, a meddlesome friend, a difference in social class, a terminal disease, or a car accident. The disapproving parent is a popular theme at the moment. A few years ago it was leukemia. For a while there it seemed that in every drama someone was diagnosed with leukemia. So, we love the idea of love. Love as an idea is easy. And I m speaking now not of romantic love but Christian love, i.e., what theologians call agape [SLIDE]. Agape is not like romantic love which has its roots in sexual attraction. It is not like familial love, which is based on the bonds shared among family members. It is not like the love between friends, which develops from shared interest and experience. Agape has no rational basis. It s not based on sexual attraction, family bond, or shared interest or experience. It is simply directed toward the other meaning anyone and everyone apart from ourselves without any expectation of return. 4
Every mention of love in today s passage and there are twenty-nine in total is a translation of some form of the word agape. Verse 8 even makes the startling claim that God is agape. God is love. That sounds great, and even many non-christians are familiar with the claim. Christians and non-christians alike can get behind the idea that God is love. We like it. It makes us feel good. My guess is that its appeal lies in its vagueness. In its vagueness it says nothing specific of God nor does it demand anything from us as a consequence of God being love. To say God is love without any context, without any reference to the cross, puts us back in the realm of ideas love as an idea. That is not at all what the writer of 1 John is saying. He is not saying that God is the idea of love. The word love, of course, is a noun, and because it is a noun we may think of it primarily as a thing, as an idea. But love is also a verb. To say that God is love means that God is the one who loves. God is not an idea but an active subject who directs his love toward his beloved. And God loves in a radically unique and special way. Here s how [SLIDE]: God s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him (1 Jn. 4:9). God s love manifests in a concrete, particular way. God s love is not vague. It is not abstract. It does not consist of flowery words. God shows his love for us not in words but in the Word that is made flesh. God s love is physical. It is made of flesh and blood. We often think of God as a thing a spiritual being who exists somewhere out there. Theologians describe God using language borrowed from philosophy. God is omniscient (all knowing), infinite (beyond space), eternal (beyond time). These words paint a picture of a God who is formless, vague, and abstract. Those qualities of God are all true, but they don t paint the full picture. In the incarnation, in sending the Son into the world to be with us, God shows us that he relates to us in a most personal manner. God s love has substance. It has presence. It has weight ( 사랑의무게 ). It has all these things because it comes to us in this particular person of Jesus of Nazareth. 5
God does not love in some general sense. God loves in the particular. God s love was revealed through the particular person of Jesus Christ, and God s love is directed at particular people to flesh-and-blood individuals to you, to me, to our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and even to our enemies. John even addresses readers of the letter as [b]eloved. That is who we are God s beloved. Even when we read in the Gospel of John, chapter 3 verse 16, those famous words, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, the world is not some abstract idea, as in, God so loved mankind. God does not love the idea of human beings. God loves human beings flesh-and-blood persons. And that is what God calls us to do. There it is in verse 11 [SLIDE]: Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another (1 Jn. 4:11). No kidding. That doesn t exactly come as news to us, does it? Every person who professes to follow Christ understands that we are commanded to love one another. But knowing and doing are not the same, are they? And, frankly, if loving one another were so easy, I wouldn t be preaching a sermon on it. We would all be demonstrating such love on a regular basis without the need to be reminded of our calling as Christians. It s like this classic comic strip from Peanuts [SLIDE]. If you re not familiar with Peanuts, it was an American comic strip that centered around the life of a child named Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown was a lovable loser who never won not the girl, not the baseball game, and not even his own dog s affection. Although all of the characters in Peanuts were children, they spoke with wisdom and insight on serious topics like philosophy, religion, and psychology. Here Charlie Brown s best friend Linus reveals his mixed feelings about his fellow human beings: I love mankind, he says, It s people I can t stand. There is so much honesty and insight in that line. Mankind is an abstract idea. To think of mankind is not to see any particular face but rather to see human beings as a monolithic, faceless mass. Linus has a great love for mankind. Mankind is easy to love. Mankind makes no demands on him because mankind has no ugly face, no 6
annoying personality, no disgusting habits, no ignorant political opinions. Mankind is not an individual who meets him face to face. But people, well, that s another matter. Linus can t stand people. If we re honest with ourselves, we probably see a good bit of ourselves in Linus attitude. It s easy to love humanity in the abstract; it s much harder to love individual people. Not all individuals, of course. We can love those who return our love, but that s not exactly noble. Jesus talks about such love, saying [SLIDE], If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them (Lk. 6:33). Instead, Jesus challenges us to love those who may not return our love. That annoying coworker. That reckless taxi driver. That grumpy neighbor. That homeless person who smells like death. That hypercompetitive classmate. That hypocritical church member. That random stranger. These are the faces of an otherwise faceless humanity whom God commands us to love. But why do we have to go through all this trouble? And it is troublesome. Let s be honest: the command to love can feel like a burden. But it feels that way only if we treat love as one more box to check off on the checklist of things that Christians must do to prove that they are Christian. I prayed today. Check. I read the Bible today. Check. I loved today. Check. No! No! No! Love is not an obligation another thing that we must do to certify that we are Christians. Love is not an obligation. Love is a proclamation. It is through loving that we proclaim that God lives in us. It is our love that shows that we are Christ s disciples, that we abide in him and he in us [SLIDE]. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world (1 Jn. 4:13-14). Our love is a testimony to Christ s love. Our love for one another proclaims God s love for the world. In other words, We love because he first loved us (1 Jn. 4:19). 7
That is no abstract concept. God s love is as real as real gets. God s love is sturdy, strong, and steadfast. There is nothing more real, nothing more firm, nothing more physical than the weight of God s love. 8