Sunday
04/29/18 Homer Avenue UMC
Sermon Title: “Love one another”
Old Testament
Scripture: Psalm 22:25-31
New Testament
Scripture: 1 John 4:7-21
Gospel Lesson:
John 15:1-8
My dear friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome
once again on this our 5th Sunday of this the Season of Easter. Five
Sundays after Christ gloriously rose from the dead, giving us hope, giving us life,
giving us light, and giving us love. Through Christ, his life, his teachings, his
cross, and his resurrection, we are offered eternal life and a relationship
with him.
So often in church and other “churchy” places though, we
hear about the love of God, of the love of His son Jesus Christ, and of the
power of the Holy Spirit. Yet, sometimes this “love” that so many people seem talk
about doesn’t always seem to be a present reality for us. Has anyone here for
example, ever visited a church that was unloving? You went in, no one said
hello to you, and people were generally cold and unfriendly. Or maybe you knew some
people who said that they were Christians, but they didn’t seem to love or
treat you like they were Christians.
The problem with this, is not only is it mean, not only
will likely result in churches shrinking and closing, result in discouragement,
hurt, and anger, but above all of this, it is against what the Word of God
says.
Jesus Christ said in the gospel of Mark 12:30-31:
“you shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
(Mk.
12:30-31, NRSV).
This morning
in our reading from the Epistle or letter of 1 John, the Apostle John tells us
this 1 John 4:7-12:
“Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever
does not love does not know God, for God is love. 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. 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. Beloved, since God loved
us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we
love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 Jn. 4:7-12, NRSV).
As you might have guessed by this point, I want to talk about
love this morning, as my sermon title is called, “love one another”. This
sermon title is taken right of our reading from 1 John 4:7. In the gospel of
Mark scripture that I just read, and in this portion of this morning’s reading
from 1 John that I just read, it is clear that we are called love all people,
no matter what.
With
this said, I bet that everyone here can say that you love your children, your
grand-children, and for some of you, your great-grandchildren. You might also say
that you love your siblings, your cousins, and so on and so forth.
Even so, I have had people that have told me things like, “Pastor
I love my brothers and sisters, but we don’t get along, and as a result, we
don’t ever speak to each other”. Then I think, but that isn’t loving. If I were
to tell the person this, they might say to me, “Even though I love my brothers
and sisters, when we are together all we do is fight. Due to this, I believe
that the best way I can love them is to not see them or speak to them”. The
Bible tells us that we are supposed to be reconciled with each other, but we
know that this means both sides have to agree to that idea of reconciliation.
Do we have to agree then with everything that someone else
does or believes in order to love them? No. I am sure for example, that every
decision that your children have ever made, have been ones that you always agreed
with! I have heard parents says things to their kids like, “I still love you,
but I think that the decision that you are about make is a mistake”.
My brothers and sisters, we are indeed called to love, but
God still has expectations on how we are supposed to live and act. If I visited
someone in jail, as I have before in doing prison ministry, I love the people I
spend time with and minister to. I don’t love the crimes that they committed,
but I do love them. We are called to love everyone, and care for everyone, but
this does mean that we have to agree with everyone on everything.
Once
again, the Apostle John writes in 1 John 4:10:
“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” (1
Jn. 4:10, NRSV).
To know God, to know Jesus, is to know
love, yet Jesus still needed to come and die for us. So we should love, but not
everything we do is ok. You love your kids, but you might not love every
decision that they make. This is a really hard balance I think, but as the
gospels says, Jesus came in “grace and truth”. Jesus came with love, but He
also has expectations about how we are to live and treat each other. If someone
loves everyone for example, but is stealing cars let’s say, then the stealing of
the cars is wrong. Sometimes when we love someone, we have to be willing to
tell them that they are wrong.
The reading this morning from 1 John 4
once again ends like this:
“God is love, and those who abide
in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 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. 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 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 (1 Jn. 4:16b-21, NRSV).
In this
reading from 1 John we really hear in great detail about how God loves us, and that
if we know God, how we are supposed to love each other. We are not supposed to
hate each other, but rather are to love each other.
Once again
though, the last two versus of our 1 John reading say:
“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”
(1
Jn. 4:16b-21, NRSV).
The reality is,
is that we are all fallen, all broken, and are all sinners. We are called to
love one another, even if we don’t agree with one another. We are called to
love others, even if we don’t like them, or even if we are the ones making the
mistakes.
As our Bishop
Rev. Mark Webb said in a sermon at our Annual Conference a few years ago of
himself, “You don’t have to like me, but you do have to love me”.
A great part
of our Christian faith then, is that we are supposed to love everyone with the
love of Jesus Christ. For by doing so, they may then come to know Jesus Christ
to.
We are called
to love. If someone is a Mets fans for example, it doesn’t mean that you have
to be a Mets fan, it just means that you have to love them. It probably also
means that since there a Mets fan, that you should pray for them to.
I really like the
concept of “tough love”. I have heard people tell parents before to show their
kids “tough love”. I have heard that sometimes saying “no,” or allowing your
kids to struggle some is “tough love”. Do we believe that love can be “tough
love”?
I had a friend
in college, when Melissa and I went to Potsdam College. This guy stole stuff
everywhere. He went to the school bookstore and store clothes, pens, and you
name it. One time a group of us went to Pizza Hut for my birthday, and I kid
you not, this guy stole, a full set of utensils, the plate from the table, a
menu, and then the plastic cover from the cash register. He had somehow stuffed
all of this into his clothes, and then showed us all of this when he got in the
car. Do I still love him? Of course. Did I agree with what he did? No. Is he
still crazy? Yes, but I still love him.
It is true
that to know God is to know love, but it is also true that to follow God, to
follow Jesus, is to do what we have been commanded to do. Why won’t I steel
like my friend in college did, because we have a commandment from God that
tells us not steal. The funny thing with this story, by the way, is that my
friend in college had the money to buy the things that he stole, he just
thought that it was funny to steal them.
Anyone who
walks through the doors of this church then, will be deeply loved and
appreciated by me, but it is also part of my sacred duty to tell them how God
wants us to live and act. Love needs to have rules, and love needs to have
boundaries. If not, you could just tell your kids or grandkids “do anything you
want, because we are to love each other”. Yet you don’t them that. You teach
them what is ok, and what isn’t ok. Maybe you have said to your kids, “this is
what I think that you should do, and if you don’t do it I think that you are
wrong, but I will still love you anyway”. Part of love is being honest.
To mention our
gospel of John reading from this morning briefly, we have another “I am”
statement from Jesus Christ. Last Sunday, Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd,”
and in this gospel reading, Jesus says:
“I am
the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower” (Jn. 15:1, NRSV).
Jesus then says in John 15:2-5 of God:
“ He removes every branch
in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to
make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word
that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch
cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you
unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in
me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing”
(Jn.
15:2-5, NRSV).
God is the plant, and Jesus is the vine that connects us to
the plant that is God. To know God, to know Jesus, is to know love. Yet apart
from Jesus, who is the vine, we cannot bear fruit. Our love for others is
something that we should have, but we should also seek to live in the ways that
Jesus told us how to live. For what is love without truth?
I pray that we may be patient with one another, love
another, even if we do not always agree with one another. As one of my Bible
Commentaries says:
“Not
everyone around us will deserve our love, yet we must extend love to all. We
were equally unlovable when God first lives us” (Africa Bible
Commentary).
Know
that you are all loved, and prayed for. Amen.
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