Sermon 5/11/03
Festival of the Christian Home Sunday
How Can We Name a Love? - John 10:11-18, Psalm 23, I John 3:16-24
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Sometimes, after reading or hearing certain passages of scripture, I have a feeling that the words I have heard are so powerful, and so straightforward, that it seems trying to 'add on' to these words somehow through preaching is a particularly daunting task. Some words are so powerful that they speak for themselves. Today's words fit this description to a T, and I found it difficult to think where to begin. However, you can't keep a preacher from preaching for very long, so here I am, trying to add on to these amazing passages.
But let's start, at least, with listening to these words again. First, in John's gospel, Jesus shares these words: "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep." We hear this same shepherd imagery echoed in the words of that most beloved psalm, the 23rd: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." And then, in the epistle of I John, we read the words that really speak to me most strongly. "We know love by this, that Christ laid down his life for us - and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action."
What does it mean to love not in word or speech, but in truth and action? How do we show people that we love them? On the day we celebrate mothers it is perhaps easy to think of ways we show love: gifts, food, flowers. Spending time together as family, doing special acts of service for one another. But when we hold up this text about truth and action to the gospel text where Jesus speaks of laying down one's life out of love, a different, deeper idea of love in truth and action emerges.
Listen to this story of love in action, told by a father of two: Last month, I took Helen (eight years old) and Brandon (five years old) to the Cloverleaf Mall in Hattiesburg to do a little shopping. As we drove up, we spotted a Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler parked with a big sign on it that said, "Petting Zoo." The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, "Daddy, Daddy. Can we go? Please. Please. Can we go?" "Sure," I said, flipping them both a quarter before walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking for a scroll saw.
A petting zoo consists of a portable fence erected in the mall with about six inches of sawdust and a hundred little furry baby animals of all kinds. Kids pay their money and stay in the enclosure enraptured with the squirmy little critters while their moms and dads shop. A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking along behind me. I was shocked to see she preferred the hardware department to the petting zoo. Recognizing my error, I bent down and asked her what was wrong.
She looked up at me with those giant limpid brown eyes and said sadly, "Well, Daddy, it cost fifty cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter." Then she said the most beautiful thing I ever heard. She repeated the family motto. The family motto is "Love is Action!" She had given Brandon her quarter, and no one loves cuddly furry creatures more than Helen. She had watched Sandy take my steak and say, "Love is Action!" She had watched both of us do and say "Love is Action!" for years around the house and Kings Arrow Ranch. She had heard and seen "Love is Action," and now she had incorporated it into her little lifestyle. It had become part of her. What do you think I did? Well, not what you might think.
As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo. We stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it. Because she knew the whole family motto. It's not "Love is Action." It's "Love is SACRIFICIAL Action!"
Love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits accrue to another's account. Love is for you, not for me. Love gives; it doesn't grab. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and wanted to follow through with her lesson. She knew she had to taste the sacrifice. She wanted to experience that total family motto. Love is sacrificial action.
This eight year old had the lesson down. Do we? Love always pays a price, always costs something. Jesus' love for humanity, for us, cost him his life. What does our love cost us? What price are we willing to pay to put love into action? Christ calls us to deeper love, to stronger love. It is one thing to say that we love our brothers and sisters and therefore treat them kindly and help them when they are in need. It is quite another thing to ask the question from the other direction: based on the actions I take, and the deeds I do, and the things I share, who do my actions say that I love? What does my life and my work tell others about who I love? Very often, the only person our actions suggest we love is our own selves. Examining our own deeds and our neighbor's deeds, we might find that the person with whom they are most concerned is simply themselves. We care about protecting ourselves and making sure our own needs are met. Beyond that, if our actions do show love of others, which others do our actions speak to? Who do your actions say that you love?
Do our actions say that we love those who are poor, rich, and middle-class, that we are willing to cross economic class lines? Do our actions say that we love people no matter what color skin they have, black, white, brown, yellow? Do our actions say that we love those who have different beliefs than our own, whose families look different than ours do and include different members than ours do, whose worship styles are different than our own, whose passions and causes are different than our own? Perhaps we don't put our love into action as much as we'd like to believe we do, or perhaps we have not yet broadened the scope and the focus of our love as much as we should. Jesus reminds us in our gospel lesson that there are always other sheep to tend to, always others that need to hear his voice and feel his love in action. It is the same in our work too: there is always another for us to love and reach out to. Always another who needs to feel love in action desperately. This constant demand of love will prove costly: to our time, our energy, our whole beings. Can we pay the price?
Now, perhaps, you may be feeling overwhelmed! But lest we be immobilized and action-less because there is so much to do, let's put things in perspective. Christ is a good shepherd, helping those of us struggling and straggling to catch up and keep up. Today we celebrate the Festival of the Christian Home. This Sunday lifts up the richness of the many different kinds of families represented here at Rome 1st, and reminds us that we as the church make a family as well. We've got a lot of loving action to take right here within our own congregation. Whenever T.J., Todd, Jim, and I would get into fights growing up, Mom would always say, "how can we expect there to be peace in the world if we can't get along in our own home with our own brothers and sisters?" Perhaps this was not a very persuasive argument then, but I'm here to dutifully pass it on to you today. How can we expect to put love into action in the rest of the world if we do not practice this love in our own church family? Look to your left and right, in front of you and behind you. Do you know the names of all the people around you? Do you know the names of those who worship in the same place as you? Who share a community of faith with you? How do you care for your church family? How do you put your love in action right here, right now, at Rome First? Putting love into action is hard work. It requires that we invest a lot, not just resources, but our whole selves into our work and life together.
A month or so ago at our Saturday Celebration worship, we watched a skit about losing ourselves. One of the characters, who runs a costume shop, closes with these words: "There is a parallel in life and on the stage. On the stage the actor must sacrifice - must lose himself or herself in a role to discover the person behind the lines. In life, we must lose ourselves in the life of our Lord, Jesus, to discover the person behind the Scriptures." The witness of Christ carries on for thousands of years not because of how much he talked about love, or how many times he proclaimed his love for others. Jesus speaks rarely of his love for others in the gospels. And yet, we proclaim his ministry as a ministry of love. Why? How can we make such a claim? It is because Jesus' actions clearly illustrated the love that was their foundation. No one had to wonder how Jesus felt about them: he showed them, he shows us. We are called to show others, in truth, in action. When in your life have you felt really loved? How can you tell when someone truly loves you?
"We know love by this, that Christ laid down his life for us - and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action."
Let us pray: God of love, show us a way to live. Show us those who most need your love, even as you show us your love, we who are so in need of your touch and your loving grace. Help us open our hearts, to you and to others, so that your love might abide within us, and make us whole. In the name of the one who loves-in-perfect-action we pray, Amen.
Benediction: They'll know we are Christians by our love, yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and love is God. Let God's love abide in you always, as you put the love of Christ into action in the world. Go in love. Amen.