“Redundant”
Preached by Mark Goad
Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 17, 2009
John 15:9-17
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."
Another sermon on love! You must be thinking “My God, will they ever get off this love kick?”
Yes, this sermon is redundant. I knew that on Monday morning when Stephanie and I were talking in the office and realized that Pastor Krista’s sermon was so good that both of us had been perfected in love. And let’s face it: When you’re perfect, what more needs to be said?
You know I’m kidding don’t you? I am kidding. Really. (Stephanie’s not perfect.)
It is a basic tenant of Christian spirituality that if you think you’re a saint you can be pretty sure that you’re not!
The corollary to that is obvious: If you think you’ve got the ‘love thing’ figured out, you probably don’t know diddly (not to put too fine a point on things).
The matter at hand is not that we do not know anything about loving but that the subject is just too big for any one mind (or heart) to fully master.
In that regard, love is like most any subject a person might study. I wonder if anybody ever knows everything about anything?
The greatest surgeon can always learn one new trick.
A master musician can always improve her technique.
A devout Bible student can always gain new insight.
Manny Ramirez can always learn from his next mistake! (Well, maybe not.)
The love with which God creates the universe is greater than the universe itself. It would be easier to empty the ocean with a teaspoon than to experience all that God’s love is. That is really good news, is it not? The love of God flows in inexhaustible supply.
Yet Jesus, who is God incarnate, commands us "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” It is not a request. An option. A menu item we can choose from column B. (We have been over this ground before.) "This is my — commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
“How, Lord, are we supposed to do that – love as you, the Messiah, has loved – much less become “perfected in love” (as Mr. Wesley claims can happen)?”
Jesus’ answer to the question (which I pose on our collective behalf) is contained just three verses before the love commandment:
“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”
Abide in my love. That is Jesus’ answers to floundering disciples. Abide in my love and all will be well.
Everyone lives – abides somewhere emotionally, spiritually. That is no less true than the fact our bodies have to be somewhere. (Dasein the philosopher Heidegger described our existence: Human beings are dasein which means “being there”; to be a person is “to be somewhere.” This is fundamental.)
But persons are not merely bodies; we are body and soul, heart and mind: As our bodies occupy physical space, our souls also must have a “place” in which to abide.
Some people, for instance, “live in fear.” Quite literally. Fear is not a physical place, you understand, but it is a psychological and spiritual dwelling place nonetheless.
Fox News (which has hijacked the Hartford Courant) loves our fear. It sells papers and turns us into news junkies who’ve got to stay up past our bedtime to savor the latest local horrors. (And Fox, of course, isn’t the only media culprit.)
But speaking of the Courant, did you read the story a few weeks ago of the UCONN students who want to be able to carry firearms to class? They were staging a protest on campus to bring attention to the fact that they cannot feel safe at the university unless they carry weapons. (I suppose if Wesleyan students had been armed, the tragic killing on their campus would never have happened – or at least there could have been a decent gun battle between the assailant and the law-abiding and well-armed students.)
Fear. If we abide there, can madness be far? I suppose we’ve all checked into the ‘Hotel Fear’ once or twice in our lives – but you surely wouldn’t want to take up permanent residence there.
Some folks are “all wrapped up in themselves.” Their abiding place is self – self-realization, self-improvement, self-fulfillment, self-justification, self-determination, self-service. One of the desert fathers called the self a monster. Can you guess why? Because his appetite is insatiable. You can never feed your self enough to tame it. The Eagles named it in their pop song “Life in the Fast Lane.” Anybody – my age – who remembers the chorus? “Life in the Fast Lane: Everything all the time.” Left to her own devices, self has got to have everything all the time – and that is a kind of madness, too.
Your abiding place could be a dream, a relationship, an illusion, and addiction, an idea: It is, metaphorically, the place where your heart hangs its hat, and it can be a life-giving abode, or a place that steals your soul.
“Abide in my love,” Jesus commanded his disciples (you and me included). Do you think his love might be a life-giving place?
And how do we abide in Christ’s love? Again, he provides his own answer:
“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.”
Let me ask you a question. I don’t want you to ask me this question after church (because it’s a rude one) but let me ask you: How much do you love Jesus?
How much do you love Jesus? Ooh, that’s a nasty one, isn’t it? It’s the same dirty trick Jesus played on poor old Peter one day, beachside, following the resurrection.
“Simon, do you love me?” (Notice that it’s not Peter now. It’s not “the Rock” Jesus is speaking to: It is Simon son of John, fisherman from Capernaum. This is intimate, dangerous conversation.)
“Yes, Lord, you know I love you.”
“Feed my lambs.”
“Simon, do you love me?”
“Yes, Lord, I love you.”
“Tend my sheep.”
“Simon, do you love me?”
“For heaven’s sake, Lord, you know that I love you!”
“Feed my sheep.”
Three affirmations to counter three denials, I suppose. Poor Simon. Poor us, to learn almost too late: Love is not what we say. Love is who we are and what we do.
It is by kindness and generosity and abundance of spirit that we shall be measured – and there is not a thing we can say to change what we have done and left undone.
How much do we love Jesus?
How much do we long to abide in his love?
Pastor Krista said rightly last week that Mr. Wesley believed we could be perfected in love in this life. I believe he is correct.
Of course Wesley believed absolutely that it is God who does the perfecting. It is for you and me to want God to have His way with us.
What do you want?
Where will you abide?
I am convinced that someday – maybe not today – but someday we’re gonna get the hang of this ‘love thing’ and that is going to put preachers like me and Krista out of business. What a fine day that will be!
