Sometimes we need
to step back for a moment and admire how stunning some bits of scripture are.
“We love because he first loved us,” writes John, which is a nice little
Christian Hallmark card waiting to be made, but he goes on: “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.” I am utterly floored by that scripture not because I don’t believe
it, but because it’s the kind of thing that I honestly don’t expect to find in
the Bible. Usually, the Bible focuses on elements of faith and then treats acts
of love as a response to that faith—and so it is in that little diddy in verse
19: “We love because he first loved us.” But to take it one step further and
say that our love of God is proven in our love of our brothers and sisters—not
in the strength of our faith—is so dang practical; it makes my job easy because
I don’t even need to make that small leap. It means that a Christian who does
not demonstrate love for her neighbor is an oxymoron.
And
what does that love look like? Well, according to John “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.” Love can’t be compelled—this
is not a case of God saying “love your neighbor or else.” If you feel that this
is a command of the law then you’ve already missed the point, because the kind
of love that God loves is love that has no ounce of self in it. You don’t love
because you’re going to get something out of it, and you don’t love because
it’s the right thing to do; you love because God loves us, and the only way to
experience God is to pass it on.
We
live in a practical world with practical concerns that I can hear in the back
of my mind here. Well, just because I
love somebody doesn’t mean they won’t hurt me. Absolutely. Remember: For
God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son… not to live
comfortably, have good things, and ascend into the sky after scoring a
touchdown at the Super Bowl. No. He sent his son to die so that his love might
be shown through that death. True love looks like the kind of things Jesus did
on the road to the cross. So when we say that “God is love” that is very true,
but when we say that in a kind of fluffy duckies and bunnies kind of way it misses
the gravity of it. There is nothing most people will pursue harder in life than
love—whether it’s a person you’re falling for, a parent whose love you have
been missing, or the not-inconsequential love of a best friend (or bff, as the
young 'ens say). Our lives are about the pursuit of dramatic, life-altering love,
and that’s what God as love is all
about. It’s not “nice”; it’s earth-shattering.
Every
once in awhile I come across somebody who is critical of the Christian faith
for its lack of living up to its ideals. Christians
don’t actually believe what they claim, the skeptics say. That’s a pretty
common refrain out there, and in one way it’s true. We don’t live up to the
expectations set by God. We sin—we say this here often. But this is not what
people critical of the faith mean. They point out the way that we talk about
loving our neighbors and then always make that love conditional on them
becoming more like us. And you know what? They’re right. The #1 most common
unrepentant sin of the Christian faith is desiring to make God and other human
beings more like me. We love, sure, but only if others are making legitimate
strides to change their ways and become what we would consider to be better people.
When
we make those judgments we betray a lack of faith in the God of the universe.
The atheists who suggest that Christians don’t actually believe what they say
are right if what we’re saying is that God is the judge of the heavens and the
earth but we are the ones tasked with making those judgments known. Love has no
place for fear—least of all the fear we bring with it.
The
only question—the only real caveat to this message at all—is where commitment
comes into this question. At what point do we love one another by spurring each
other on to become better people? Love, after all, isn’t only accepting one
another as who we are; it’s also challenging one another to be the kind of
people we can be. This is where the relationship language that John uses is so
important. We spur each other on as sisters and brothers. There is a subtle but
critical difference between helping a sister or brother to improve their
character because you love them, and urging them to change because you think
they are unworthy. One is about love; the other is about fear. One genuinely
wants to see them succeed because seeing a brother or sister thrive is a joy in
itself; the other wants to feel better about his or her self because of the
failings of others.
Most of you probably know what it’s like to be
around somebody who takes joy in others failing. Some do it explicitly—some
even go out of their way to find people who mess up and rub it in. There is
something human about this. How many of us have to resist an urge to click on
that video on the internet of somebody crashing or running into things, or
having some kind of “epic fail” (This sermon has all the cool kid lingo this
week!). What is it about being human that
makes us attracted to others’ pain? I think it is the opposite of love,
which isn’t so much hate as it is fear. We are afraid of our morality, so we
watch others encountering there’s. We are afraid of standing out in public, so
we revel in the misfortunes of celebrities who are constantly in the public eye.
We take our fears and project them on to others so we feel better about
ourselves by comparison.
But
it’s a temporary thing. It always is. And, like most temporary highs, we become
desensitized to it and we need to imbibe more and more of other peoples’
suffering in order to feel better about ourselves. So we gossip and dig up
dirt; we exaggerate and just plain make up stories all in the feeble attempt to
escape that fear deep within us that we are insufficient. All the while what we
need more than anything—what we are craving all along, though our actions do
not show it—is love, real love, that accepts us in all our faults and calms our
fears.
There
are few more important things in life than to love and be loved in return,
because, though there are plenty of people walking around in the world who want
to say that Jesus is their boyfriend, the simple reality is that that love of
God is revealed in our actions on behalf of all our brothers and sisters—the
people who get us and the people who
don’t. This is why even monastics live in communities—one man on his own is not
much—and, unfortunately, we have many people in our communities who, though
they are surrounded by people, feel utterly alone. This is completely
unacceptable. In fact, for an area of the country where nearly everybody knows
the story of Jesus, the mission field has less to do with telling people about
Jesus and much more to do with seeking out those people who are feeling alone
and sharing with them your love, which is a reflection of God’s love for you
and for the person who most desperately needs it.
That
is your life’s purpose; whatever else you might think it to be. You love
because God loved you first. We need to be reminded of that again and again. Go
love your sisters and brothers—the ones in your family and the ones down the
road. And kill the fears inside of you; the parts of you that want to feel good
by tearing others down. It’s amazing how multifaceted this love thing is. It’s
so simple, but if you actually live it—if you actually put aside gossip and
click not on the video of somebody’s failure but on the video of somebody’s
success—then it’s amazing how much your outlook will change for the better.
This shouldn’t be surprising. It’s all here in 1 John: We love because he first
loved us. You are loved. End of story… and also just the beginning.
These verses are my favorite in the whole Bible!
ReplyDelete