|
1 John 3:16-24 CEB This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. But if someone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but refuses to help—how can the love of God dwell in a person like that? Little children, let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth. This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and reassure our hearts in God’s presence. Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things. Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence in relationship to God. We receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. This is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love each other as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments dwell in God and God dwells in them. This is how we know that he dwells in us, because of the Spirit he has given us. Over a dozen women gather together to compete. They get makeovers, take on challenges, and even travel to exotic destinations to decide who will become America’s Next Top Model. A panel of judges weigh each and every contestant, based on their appearance and performance, to decide if they are true modeling material. Finally, one lucky lady gets through every hurdle to claim the prize, the honor of becoming the top model. Now, other than questioning the pastor’s viewing habits, what does this have to do with beloved community living? Well, modeling can tell you a lot of things. When you watch the people sporting Carhartt clothing, do you get the impression that they are about to wear their rugged heavyweight hoodies to a fancy dress party? How about models showing off the latest spring wear, are they enjoying the sun and breeze while wading through six inches of snow in December? Modeling tells us when and where these clothes are appropriate, so we can in turn imagine ourselves working outdoors while wearing our Carhartt or wearing a new sundress in June. Our reading from 1 John this morning invites us to remember Jesus' love, modeled in his sacrificial death and invites us to consider what that tells us about God. We are invited to become models ourselves, acting out the love God has shown us through Christ.
I find it striking how 1 John 3:16 begins, declaring “This is how we know love” before talking about Jesus laying down his life for us. What is striking is the implication that without this act we would not truly know love, not through any other relationship between people or any emotion that springs up within our hearts. Love must be modeled for us, and this love modeled is love in action. 1 John 3:16 says this love is found in how “Jesus laid down his life for us,” and invites us to experience this love through laying “down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” Jesus' love is found in the laying down, and our love can be seen in imitating the action. In other words, we see love as Jesus’ action, and to have love is to do the same for our siblings in Christ. If there are still any doubts about what love looks like, verse 17 tests us by asking, “But if someone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but refuses to help—how can the love of God dwell in a person like that?” This is an example in 1 John of what laying down our life looks like, helping our “brothers and sisters in economic need.”[1] This example didn’t come out of thin air either. The people who left this faith community had decided “that material need was not a matter of spiritual concern.”[2] They did not have to act in a way that provided relief to the poor. Their belief in Christ was independent of how they acted, and how they interacted with their neighbors. They believed they could call themselves Christians without loving in “action and truth.” Elsewhere in scripture, we are commanded to love our neighbor, but 1 John focuses this love in on just our siblings in Christ, our fellow Christians. Now, at first, I felt some relief because, you know, loving our neighbors, especially all the neighbors I don’t know so well is tough. What a load off to simply love the people I am in church with every Sunday! I am sure you all agree that it's super easy to love the people we know best! After all, it's not like I have ever had a situation where someone I claim to love in my words has told me that I have not been very loving in my actions. Right, everybody? Anybody…? I think if we are honest, it’s pretty tough to love our siblings in Christ too. The closer someone is in relation to us, the more we can become blind to their needs, and take them for granted. I can assume my wife will always be there because she has been there for ten years, so why do I have to make a special effort? I have tried to care about my sister, tried to do something about her situation, but it has not changed anything for so long, so now, isn't it easier simply not to care anymore? Why act when it has proven pointless? Every night, I scroll through my phone feed, and I see all the hard things happening in the lives of my friends and family, but they are far away and it’s not like I can do much from Wyoming. Helplessness makes me feel guilty, so it is easier to say I cannot do anything. If I am really honest, there are some people close to me that I find tough to muster even the smallest spark of affection for, so why should I even try to love them? Love might be a verb, but it is certainly easier for some subjects than others. Thankfully, 1 John’s truth, mentioned in verse 18, is about where all love originates, again, that original model that demonstrates God’s love for you and me, is the person and example of Jesus. “Loving action is not self-generated but flows from the truth, that is, from the divine reality to which those who love belong.”[3] Love in action comes from God. Again, 1 John talks about how God is light, that light illuminates. Trapped in a dark room, you are either frozen in place or you stumble and collide with every object in the room, hands splayed in front of your face as you desperately try to feel out your direction. This is what loving was like before Jesus came to model it for us, and now, we have a light, and we can move with purpose, trusting in Christ’s example. If we trust God’s love to be our light, we don’t have to rely on our own love. We are not asked to figure this love stuff out by ourselves, because the truth is that “our hearts condemn us.” While this passage from 1 John 3:19-20 has sometimes been used to talk about judgment, it is not judgment from God but the ways we often judge ourselves. You know, that voice in the back of your head, “Did I really do enough?” “Am I a good enough parent, spouse, friend, or Christian?” Those feelings of guilt, shame, and doubt. Those times when someone says “love your neighbor,” but you don’t know if you can love a neighbor well let alone your fellow Christian. As 1 John points out, we are all novices when it comes to putting love into action, we need a model! We need help, but God, who knows us and sees us fully, gives us the kind of help, the kind of light we need to put what we see in Jesus into practice. Believing in Jesus without action is worthless, that’s why the commandment found in 1 John is not only to “believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ'' but to “love each other as he commanded us.” These are not two distinct acts, you do one and then do the other. No, the believing is only found true in our doing what Christ has modeled. It’s like the beating of a heart, you cannot pump blood with one beat, it takes one to draw blood from the atria to the ventricles, and another beat to push the blood from the ventricles into the rest of your body. Like a breath, you cannot keep breathing in and live, you must breathe out. The two are not independent, they happen almost simultaneously, the same is true of believing in the love of God we see present in Christ and the way we reflect this love in our own actions. Right now, Caitlin and I are on an exciting journey, we are working on teaching our daughter how to use the potty. Now, most of us in this room are probably potty trained, but believe it or not, potty training is not something that happens simply by instinct. You must learn how to use the potty. You must be trained. Unfortunately, we have too long believed that loving each other was something we could simply do based on our emotions or instinct, but we too are babies or at best toddlers. We do not always know our right hand from our left, and we do not always know how to love our siblings in Christ well, thankfully, God has commanded us to get a make-over, to find a coach, and get us trained up on acting out love. We have a job, a modeling gig, if you will, and our gig is to practice love. Like any job, we will not be experts on day one, we will need time, and we will need to keep going back to our model to learn. We will need to keep practicing if we want to love well. Tell me, who are you modeling today? Carhartt, the latest spring fashions, or are you wearing Christ himself? How are you learning to love well? Where is the example of Christ’s love proving to be a challenge for you? Like that community, are there certain practices– certain parts of our lives, like our wallets– where we are uncomfortable copying Christ? Look, the truth is that we are being judged, not by God and hopefully, one day, not even by our own hearts, but we are being judged by a world that looks on, hearing us proclaim love with our lips and they then look to see whether this love is evidenced in our lives and actions. Let’s be top models in that department, what do you say? Amen. [1] David Rensberger, Abingdon New Testament Commentaries: 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, ed. Victor Paul Furnish (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997),100. [2] Ibid. [3] Ibid., 103.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
|