St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, May 17, 2009

Commanded to Love – Rev. David Mundy

1 John 5:1-6 John 15:9-17

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Do you think God has a sense of humour? It may be dangerous to give God human attributes, but I have to wonder whether I am hearing a divine chuckle from time to time.

I’ll give you an example. In January Cathy and I preached a series of sermons on spiritual practices, the disciplines of faith that allow us to grow stronger in Christ. One of the subjects was witnessing, sharing our Christian faith with others. I suggested to you that a reason we are sometimes reluctant to speak of our faith is because most of us have met someone who loves Jesus so much that they are quite insistent that we love Jesus exactly the same way they do.

Well, the next day I was on a flight from Toronto to Minneapolis, the first leg of a trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and a week of continuing education. And wouldn’t you know it, I sat next to the person I described in my sermon! I’m sure I could hear laughter from somewhere close at hand. The fellow next to me was a clean-cut guy in his late thirties who came across as friendly and outgoing. When I asked where he was going he told me that he was on his way to Colorado Springs, in the state of Colorado. Colorado Springs is the centre for a number of conservative Christian ministries, including Focus on the Family. I commented on this and it turned out that he was on his way to meet with James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family.

As we talked, I eventually mentioned that I am a minister of the United Church of Canada – not exactly renowned as a conservative Christian organization – and while I might have just imagined a glint in his eyes, there is no doubt the challenge was on. We talked for most of the two and a half hour flight, and during that time he gave me his strong opinion on who was in and who was out when it came to the love of Christ. He assured me that Roman Catholics were out, even though he was raised as one, and because they hadn’t been “born again” they were going to hell. We never got around to other religions but I have no doubt that they are condemned as well, and while he was too polite to speak about my salvation, I have to assume that I am not on St. Peter’s guest list.

Because we were both running to connecting flights that day, we parted company in a hurry, but I was left with the lasting impression of judgement on his part, not the love of Christ. I had the strong impression that in his view the people God really loves are pretty much the folk who attend his congregation in the north end of Toronto and some others who think along the same lines as they do. It was sad really, because I know he felt he was offering a sincere witness to Christ.

You may have noticed that this morning we heard a lot about love in our two scripture passages. Have you been puzzled the last couple of weeks by readings from the book called First John, then the gospel of John? There are actually three relatively short books in our New Testament which we call the letters of John, although they are not so much letters as brief reflections on the Christian life.

The language of these three books and that of John’s gospel is often so similar, as you may have noticed, that scholars through the centuries have assumed they had the same author, although, as always, there is some dispute about this. There is no question that the two passages we heard this morning tell us that love is essential to the Christian message and our lives as Christians. And both of them “command” us to love one another. Now, if I told you that you must love me, you might not say much in response but inside your thought might be “not if I don’t want to!”

Maybe it will help to remember that Jesus is speaking to his followers in the setting of his last meal with them before he is executed. So he says that the greatest love anyone could offer is give up his or her life for another. And when he commands them to love, it may well be an urgent request to this handful of ordinary human beings who will share the extraordinary message of new life through the Risen Christ. If they don’t demonstrate love to each other, they won’t get far. We could easily miss the sentence here in which Jesus tells them the relationship they have isn’t one of teacher and student or master and servant anymore. They are friends, friends who love one another.

What these two passages don’t do is actually define love. Maybe it is because actually putting love into words and action is so elusive and difficult, although it doesn’t stop people from trying.

We have a poster strategically placed above our ironing board which is all about love – in fact it has the title, What Is Love? Some of you will remember me showing it to you several years ago but now it can be put up on the big screen. From Ruth’s perspective, love means never having to do your husband’s ironing, so the poster is there in front of me every morning. It fell down recently which was probably a good thing because it caught my attention. There are probably close to a hundred different quotations on the subject of love, some of them fun or silly, and others are profound. Here are some examples:

Love cures people -- both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.

Dr. Carl Menninger

Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better. 
Wm. Shakespeare

The giving of love is an education in itself.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Love is a perky little elf dancing a merry little jig
and then suddenly he turns on you
with a miniature machine gun.

Matt Groening

One of the longest of the quotes, if not the longest, is from the bible, the apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth:

Love is patient; love is kind;

love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things,

hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

Some of you will have included this reading in your wedding ceremony, and it is certainly appropriate, but I will be using it this week at a memorial service for a beloved father. Whatever the occasion, this is one of the most practical and honest directives to a loving life, and ultimately the Christian life. Together these phrases are magnificent, but can you imagine if we simply chose one of these as a focus every week and asked God to deepen them in our hearts and minds?

Of course this is not what we do, unless you are a lot more disciplined than I am. So, even though we might agree that love does make the world go ‘round, and we may claim that the love of Christ is central to our faith, we somehow slip into unloving behaviour. It may be our judgmental attitudes about people who don’t think and believe the way we do. Unfortunately we often forget that we are commanded to love which means consciously demonstrating all these attributes of patience, and kindness and humility and civility. These qualities are in short supply in our world and you might think that as Christians we would do everything in our power to demonstrate them, but sadly we are very “worldly” at times.

The fellow I met on the plane in January was sure that he was doing the right thing in offering up his bleak assessment of those who didn’t follow his program for salvation. And if I had asked him if he believed the verse in the third chapter of John which says, God so loved the world that he sent his Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life, he would undoubtedly say yes. Yet he seems to have missed the next verse which says that Christ came, not to condemn the world but to redeem it.

Of course it is often easier to ponder our love in an abstract sense, rather than in practical ways. Do you find that you often act in the most unloving ways and say the most unloving things to the people you supposedly love the most? One of our daughters has been working part-time at a shoe store the past few months and she says that she is amazed at the harsh exchanges between parents and children who are in the store. If you asked the parents, do you love your children so much that you would you lay down your life for them, they would probably answer “absolutely, in a heartbeat.” They just don’t love them all that much when they are buying sneakers for gym class!

It’s this down-to-earth love that we are told to share. When Jesus spoke to his disciples, commanding them to love one another, he was speaking to his adopted family for the past three years, both his friends and his brothers and sisters in faith. Maybe laying down our life for our friends isn’t so much “I’d take a bullet for you man!” as it is our willingness to let go of some of our stereotypes and resentment and the conviction that our way is always the right way.

Last Sunday we read from that First Letter of John as well, and

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. We love him because he first loved us. 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. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

Even though we would like to think in terms of our private, personal faith, we can’t be Christians without each other. There are no solitary Christians, only Christians who are learning to love by being with others.

This morning we can hear this again, as though for the first time, and here is the Good News. If we can find the way to live this love, through the grace of Christ, there is no question that people will hear the message and accept it and allow it to transform their lives. If we accept the commandment to love one another there are so many possibilities that are opened to us. Thanks be to God!