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Acts 11:1-18; John 13:31-35
Scene
Jesus is with his disciples, Judas has gone to play his part in God’s redemptive plan, and the core of Christianity is given to the disciples. Jesus, in just a few words, hands over to the disciples what he has been teaching for the years they have been together: ” If you love each other, everyone will know that you are my disciples.” ( John 13:35 CEV)
These words will come back to them as they form what we know as the Christian Life and the Church – the Body of Christ in the world. Jesus’ teaching to his followers that night is exactly the same to our being the Body of Christ in the world today. Much has changed in the world but this is the constant we are looking for as we consider our church growth.
As we ponder the questions of how to grow our church family let’s keep in mind that Jesus has provided us a direction that comes directly from God. The very best advertising we can do is to love one another!
What Is This Love
Boy, that’s easy to say, plus it really sounds good and feels good but what does it mean to love one another? Here is another place that I believe we have to confront our cultural bias and listen to the Spirit. It seems to me that cultural love is most lacking and will not work for what Jesus is talking about to his followers.
Cultural Love
In our culture we talk a lot about “falling in love” and “love at first sight.” Generally, this means that we have “laid eyes” on someone and suddenly feel overwhelmed with feelings of emotional warmth and sexual excitement. We take these feelings to mean we are suddenly and unexpectedly in love. Of course, this has been going on forever and I’m not sure we could change it very much even if we so desired. This is the stuff that movies are made of as well as marriages and we don’t want to do away with either.
Difficulty Built Into Cultural Love
Through observation, education and personally pursuing this kind of love throughout my life it’s clear there are serious limitations. In fact, it appears that one may fall out of love just as quickly and completely as falling in love. When the original attraction, whatever it might be, changes or appears to not be there then those warm feelings and lofty commitments fade away.
This is when we begin to hear and say, “If only you would do such-in-such, I would be happy.” Cultural love tends to be directly tied to the other person being pleasing and meeting our needs and desires. Such love and commitment is bound to fail because one’s happiness will never come from another person. It has to come from a greater source and work from inside oneself to be shared with others.
The Love Jesus Demonstrates to His Followers
Jesus is speaking of a love that does not lend itself to our English language very well. It is a love that begins with God, moves into our hearts, transforms our lives, and is then given to others. The love Jesus speaks of connects us directly with God through a power that is what I call mysterious. It is like the connection between some twins:
The stories of identical twins' nearly identical lives are often astonishing, but perhaps none more so than those of identical twins born in Ohio. The twin boys were separated at birth, being adopted by different families. Unknown to each other, both families named the boys James. And here the coincidences just begin. Both James grew up not even knowing of the other, yet both sought law-enforcement training, both had abilities in mechanical drawing and carpentry, and each had married women named Linda. They both had sons whom one named James Alan and the other named James Allan. The twin brothers also divorced their wives and married other women - both named Betty. And they both owned dogs which they named Toy. Forty years after their childhood separation, the two men were reunited to share their amazingly similar lives. (Source: Reader's Digest, January 1980)
What I see here cannot be explained and neither can God’s love. It is beyond explaining but I think it has some characteristics that can be explained as Paul does in I Corinthians 13
rude.
Jesus and Paul are telling us that love is much more than feeling or desire. Love is how one lives. Just like that powerful, yet unseen, connection between the twins, love is the powerful connection we have with God that allows us to reach out to others in a most particular manner.
Love Is Not Conditional
The love Jesus is speaking about is not conditional. It is the very love that God has for us that is shown through Christ. Love is the life shown by Jesus deeply desiring a different path but then hanging on the cross saying, “Forgive them!” and “It is Finished!”
Forgive Them
Jesus asked that those crucifying him be forgiven. I suspect that he is also including those who followed and then ran away. Also, forgive those who call themselves Christian today. He asked for their forgiveness before they asked to be forgiven and that is of extreme importance when we talk about how we are to love others. You see, it is not only that Jesus chooses to be obedient to God and loving toward us to the point of freely going to the cross but that he asked forgiveness for those who are party to his agony.
Increasingly, I read articles of persons ridiculing Christianity as being a violent and unloving way. It is interesting to see and read what those outside the church walls are saying about us. I’m talking about folks that have been part of the family who are leaving because they experience a lack of love. Our “You’ve made your bed now sleep in it” attitude has come home to haunt us Christians. That attitude has no place in Christianity if we look at Jesus on the Cross and beyond the Grave. He has made it clear that God’s plan of redemption includes every person in every time.
It Is Finished
It is finished do not signal the end of Jesus’ life. He is not saying that there is nothing else that he can do. What he is saying that he has finished the job that God gave him. He has completed his redemptive work here on earth. He has fulfilled the redemptive promises of God. He has, as Paul says, run the good race and crossed the finish line.
An Unconditional Love
I believe that God called Jesus to an unconditional love of others. I believe that Jesus has called us to that same unconditional love. I’m not convinced that I will ever get to the point that Jesus expects but my life is committed to that direction. I don’t love because of what another does or does not do but because God desires that I love others as God loves them.
Conclusion
Here we are today gathered around the Table of Jesus where we will break bread and drink wine with him. And as we do this we can ask that he forgive us for failing to love unconditionally and request his help in continuing to call and teach us how to love in his manner of loving.
Peter listened to God and crossed over from being exclusive to inclusive in his love. God guided him and God will guide us. Our job is to watch where God is at work and then join in.
One of the ways we already do this is seen before our very eyes – look at the prayer shawls on the altar rail. We don’t know who will receive these shawls. We have no idea of whether they are good people or bad people. We don’t know if they are Christian or not – believers or unbelievers.
Here is what we know: a group of women, some from the New Oregon church family, and some from other church families, gather and they pray for unknown persons as they knit. Then when we gather as the larger church family we lay our hands on each shawl and pray God’s Presence go with them. They leave the church and can be found around shoulders and bodies of persons who need God’s Presence for whatever reason.
This is the kind of Love Jesus was talking about. This is the nature of the love we need to practice daily that God’s Presence will be in our every action. This is the best evangelism possible! That others will see that we love one another and them.
I want us to build into every project of this church God’s unconditional love for us and for those beyond this wall. This is the kind of Christian advertising I want us to use daily!