Episcopal Church of the Messiah

Worship Service Sermons

May 17, 2009

Love.

The Scriptures these past few weeks have been full of love: God’s love for us, our need to love one another.

Sometimes we hear a word so much its meaning becomes lost or blurred:

We love chocolate, and long walks on the beach, and sleeping in on Saturday mornings.

We intensify love: we’re passionate about a movie, or a singing group, or our new girlfriend.

Or we settle comfortably into the love of a long-term relationship.

But the radical love of the Gospels somehow gets lost in the translation.

G.K. Chesterton once commented that we need to "…look at things familiar until they become unfamiliar again."

These Easter season scriptures try to help us look at our familiar use of "love" until it becomes unfamiliar once again, showing us what Gospel love – the love of Jesus – does indeed mean.

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. (Acts 4:34 – 5)

The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers living in Judea… (Acts 11:29)

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. (1 John 3:18)

Over and over again, we are commanded to set aside the particularities of our own needs and desires and to think "outside ourselves," to act in terms of the greater need, of our brothers, sisters, friends – and we are all brothers, sisters, friends – even Jesus, as he tells us in this morning’s lesson.

And we are reminded that there is risk and self-sacrifice in that Gospel love: it is, indeed, a taking up of one’s cross to follow Jesus.

Loving one’s neighbor – brother – sister – friend – the Scriptures tell us, is not always a safe or easy or comfortable proposition..

Jesus laid down his life.

Barnabas sold his fields and gave all he had to the greater community.

But do we really "get it"?

Do we really let ourselves connect with the deeper meaning underneath that "feel good" part of the messages of love in the Scriptures?

Sometimes I think we "love with our left overs."

I know that’s often true for me: I expend my time, energy, resources, close to home, prioritizing what goes where, and what is left over, I can give away. It’s hard to start with giving first, with that loving response outside of self as a priority.

It’s an issue I think we all struggle with – that tension between self-interest and Gospel love.

This parish does engage the issue:

We do live out the radical love of Jesus in our ministries with Hands Together, NOAH Project, Catholic Worker, Stephen Ministry.

Our Social Justice Committee challenges us to look at a variety of areas where we might be God in the world.

Our Stewardship of Time and Talent Campaign offers us another opportunity to love, "not in word or speech, but in truth and action."

There is no hierarchy in the radical love of the Gospels.

That’s a hard one.

To be able to see that – to see the great leveling, unifying, force of God’s love for all of creation – is to see our familiar "love" in an unfamiliar way.

I’ve recently come across some examples of people who are able to love in just that way, people whose lives reflect some of that radical love of which we hear in the Gospels. I mention these people, not because they’re saints, or high profile people, but because they’re not. They’re ordinary people whose lives reflect the radical love of the Gospels, ordinary people in whom we meet Jesus.

There is the story of Las Madres de los Disaparecidos in Argentina, courageous and loving women whose fathers, sons, husbands, friends, disappeared in the violence and terror of 1976 – 83, women who risked their own lives and safety each week by dressing in white and faithfully walking around and around the plaza in the center of the city silent witness to the human rights abuses which were occurring in their country.

There is the story of Zackie Achmat, the founder of the Treatment Action Campaign, or TAC, a grassroots movement that works to procure life-saving AIDS medicines for poor South Africans. Zackie himself is HIV positive, and has insurance which would allow him to afford the drugs necessary for his own treatment; however, he is refusing treatment himself because of the South African government’s refusal to distribute drugs such as AZT to the public. His campaign is motivated by his realization that "there is something very artificial" about who would live and who would die – and it is the capacity to afford the drugs.

There is the story of Rachel Corrie, the young American human rights observer, documenter, direct action resister, and friend, who earlier this year was fatally crushed when she tried to prevent an Israeli army bulldozer from destroying a Palestinean home in the Gaza strip. In an e-mail home shortly before her death, she wrote, "I’m witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide… This has to stop! …I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my co-workers. But I also want this to stop… Disbelief and horror are what I feel…" (Harper’s, June 2003, p. 19)

Kafka tells us that "the arrows fit the wounds" – a fancy way, perhaps, of saying "you get what you deserve."

But Jesus counters that message.

Jesus tells us that love, too, fits the wounds. Love can fill the wounds, flow into them, soothe and bind them, heal them.

Did Las Madres make a difference?

Has Zackie Achmat made a difference?

What about Rachel Corrie?

What about you, me?

When a church youth group visited a Catholic Worker house in Birmingham, they were interested in similar questions: how successful was the work with the homeless? How many families moved into their own housing? How many adults find jobs? How many children enroll in school? Their host answered, "I am not often privileged to see the end of God’s work in these people’s lives. This house is one stop of their long journey. While they are here with me, they will see Jesus." (The Gospel and Our Culture newsletter, Sept. – Dec. 2002, quoted in Christian Century 5/17/03, p. 6)

We live in a broken and wounded world, a world which offers abundant possibilities for love – for that radical, Gospel love.

We need to ask ourselves: What wounds can I fill?

Where can I be Jesus to someone?

We heard the Scriptures this morning: No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:12)

What a way to see God!

It is both challenge and mandate.

Can we let God live in us?

Can we let God’s radical love be perfected in us?

Amen.

Thus says the Lord,

The Holy One of Israel, and its Maker:

Will you question me about my children,

Or command me concerning the work of my hands?

I made the earth,

And created humankind upon it;

It was my hands that stretched out the heavens,

And I commanded all their host.

I have aroused Cyrus in righteousness,

And I will make all his paths straight;

He shall build my city

And set my exiles free,

Not for price or reward,

Says the Lord of hosts.

For thus says the Lord,

Who created the heavens

(he is God!).

who formed the earth and made it

(he established it;

he did not create it a chaos,

he formed it to be inhabited!):

I am the Lord, and there is no other.

I did not speak in secret,

In a land of darkness:

I did not say to the offspring of Jacob,

"Seek me in chaos."

I the Lord speak the truth,

I declare what is right.

Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that took place over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, and they spoke the word to no one except Jews. But among them were some men of Cyprus and Cyrene who, on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists also, proclaiming the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number became believers and turned to the Lord. News of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast devotion; for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were brought to the Lord. Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they met with the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called "Christians." At that time prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine over all the world; and this took place during the reign of Claudius. The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers living in Judea; this they did, sending tit to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.

Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous;

It is good for the just to sing praises.

Praise the Lord with the harp;

Play to him upon the psaltery and lyre.

Sing for him a new song;

Sound a fanfare with all your skill upon the trumpet.

For the word of the Lord is right,

And all his works are sure.

He loves righteousness and justice;

The loving-kindness of the Lord fills the whole earth.

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made,

By the breath of his mouth all the heavenly hosts.

He gathers up the waters of the ocean as in a water-skin,

And stores up the depths of the sea.

Let all the earth fear the Lord,

Let all who dwell in the world stand in awe of him.

Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon those who fear him,

On those who wait upon his love,

To pluck their lives from death,

And to feed them in time of famine.

Our soul waits for the Lord;

He is our help and our shield.

Indeed, our heart rejoices in him,

For in his holy Name we put our trust.

Let your loving kindness, O Lord, be upon us,

As we have put our trust in you.

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. 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. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 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. 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, re 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.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another."