Love, First, Last, Always 4-28-24
Love First, Last, Always
1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8
John 15:1-8
”I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
1 John 4:7-21
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, are 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.
Prayer – God of grace, we give thanks that in your expansive, seeking, searching love, you continue to find us, pouring out your love even when we are unaware. Remind us this day that your love grounds us just as we are foundationally and always your beloved. And with your love deep in our hearts, help us to share that love in the ways we think, the ways we act, the ways in which we carry out your work in our world – with love first, last and always – amen.
It’s not hard to see when we look around us that we find ourselves living in a world in which a lot of people are looking for love in all of the wrong places, as the country song goes. We are one of the most connected generations of all time, and yet, we are more isolated from those around us, more separated from friends, family, God and even ourselves, and perhaps therefore more lonely than any generation of humankind. In an article I read several years ago, one observer argued that all of our ‘connectedness’ through social media like Facebook is in fact only an unsatisfying substitute for real relationships. The study showed that is seems the more ‘connected’ we are through social networks, the more alone we actually feel.
We who have looked to the church as a place of community are, to some extent, more fortunate than most. Communities of faith like ours serve as extended families and support groups for many of us. But I think that even those of us who continue to actively participate in church would have to admit that the church doesn’t always do a very good job of practicing that central command that we love one another as we love ourselves. Churches can be filled with normal, everyday people with all of their baggage and junk, and with the church being a safe place, it can sometimes become pretty toxic and not very loving. Sometimes the church is guilty of shooting our wounded rather than offering healing love to the broken and weary.
Our lesson this morning from 1 John suggests that we look to a different source to meet our needs for love. Just as Jesus commanded, the elder John calls us to love one another based on the fact that God is love and is the source of love. More than that, John points to the ultimate demonstration of God’s love in Jesus. There is some significant theology behind this. We call it the incarnation, the belief that in Jesus, God somehow came to walk in our shoes, to experience the fullness of our suffering, our struggles, and even our loneliness. Through this amazing demonstration of love, John says that we come to know and believe in the love God has for each and everyone one of us.
So it all begins with God’s love. In case you or I ever forget this basic, essential fact of our faith, John makes it clear beyond measure. God is the source and the definition of love. GOD IS LOVE. God loves as the sun shines; love expresses everything we need to know about God. John emphasizes that God’s love is not some abstract concept. It is passion expressed in action, God made love real and present by sending Jesus to live among us and to show us the depth and breadth of God’s never-ending, inescapable love. God continues to show love for us through Jesus’ live-giving presence among us. And if ever we should question whether God truly does love us, the gift and witness of the Holy Spirit confirmed it once and for all when the Spirit proclaimed to Jesus and to us, you are my beloved. God’s love is a truth more basic and reliable than the ground we walk on and the air we breathe.
God’s love does not depend on our initiative or on our worthiness. We don’t have to reach out to God or even believe in God in order to be loved. God’s love has not one single, solitary string attached. We don’t have to clean up our act before God can love us. We don’t have to measure up to some standard in order to be lovable by God. No, God broke the divine mold as God continues to shower us with love whether we deserve it or not. And honestly, who could ever deserve such an amazing, immeasurable love?
John insists that the more fully and completely we know God, that is God’s love, the more the immense reality of God’s love dawns on us. When we open ourselves to the warmth and light of God’s presence, we find that even our deepest, darkest secrets and ugliest part of ourselves are not beyond God’s love, God’s reach. Nothing in us is so broken or so filthy that God is unwilling and unable to touch it. God embraces us as we are, loves us as we are, and works in us to make us whole and new. Upheld, surrendered, enfolded by such love, who could be afraid?
I guess that is why when we talk about God’s amazing love, God’s amazing grace it is both profound and perplexing for us as humans. God’s love is beyond our comprehension, beyond our ability to wrap our heads and hearts around it; and so, we struggle to embrace this notion because it appears to be too good to amazing, too much that it just can’t be true – and yet it is.
Such life-giving love is too wonderful to keep to ourselves. To know God’s love is to overflow with God’s love. How can we possibly love God while we hate God’s beloved daughters and sons? Seeing ourselves as God’s beloved means seeing our sisters and brothers as God’s loved ones as well. If we have come to know God’s love, we have seen for ourselves that it is unearned, undeserved and utterly a free gift – see to good to be true – and yet it is. God’s love is without conditions and God’s hope is that we will embody that love and love one another as God has loved us.
In case we haven’t understood the seriousness of God’s command to love one another, John expresses it in a way that leaves no room for doubt. “Just as God is, so are we in this world.” In context, it’s clear that John is not saying that Christians are omnipotent or omniscient or morally pure. Rather, John is saying that because God lives in us, we embody God’s love for the world. We are not gods, little g, we are God’s, big G. God’s love is incarnate in us just as it was in Jesus.
Now I think the theology of incarnation is an important basis for understanding God’s love for us. But I doubt seriously that most of us came to know and believe in God’s love for us in the first place through church dogma or theology. It seems to me that most of us come to know and believe in God’s love because somebody at some point or another in our lives served as ‘living witness’ of God’s love. I can count the people who loved me as God loves me, and it made all the difference in the world. When I received love that I didn’t earn, didn’t even deserve, couldn’t even imagine, receiving that love in those moments was transformative. And because I received that love, you have received that love of God from someone else, it means that we have an opportunity in each and every interaction with other beloveds of God, we can be the one who helps them to know and perhaps finally believe in God’s love for them.
The first century Christian community for whom John was originally writing was in conflict about the boundaries of their community, about theology, and about false teaching. John’s call to love one another, to love one’s sisters and brothers in community was the basis of this letter. And it left the community then perhaps as it may leave us now wondering if that love is only to be shared with those who belong to our group and believe as we do? Tough question huh?
The whole foundation of John’s argument suggests otherwise. If we love one another as God has loved us, there can be NO boundaries. God’s love, made visible and present in Jesus, is the source for the love we share with others. Jesus ignored the limits that religious communities imposed. Jesus ate and talked with people whom the religious leaders had rejected as heretics, as sinful, as filthy and despicable. Jesus touched people we were considered untouchable and welcomed people whom everyone else had kicked out. Jesus’ harshest words were reserved not for the impure, but for unloving, self-righteous people who saw some of God’s children as beneath their attention and certainly as unworthy of their love. If Jesus shows us what God’s love is like, then there can be no doubt how far our love for others must extend, to every single human being. For God it is about love, first, last, always.
Such love cannot originate with us – we just can’t conjure that kind of love up on our own. It isn’t our own, weak, limited love that we share with God’s beloved. No, we are called to open ourselves to God’s love so that God can love others through us. When we love one another, we re-present God to the world. By allowing the love that God has showered on us to overflow onto our sisters and brothers, we make divine love visible and believable in the ordinary lives of ordinary people.
God invites us to let Jesus live in us, so that through us Jesus can continue to welcome the outcasts and touch the untouchables, heal the broken and make crooked lives straight. When God’s unimaginable, limitless love comes alive in us, we become the real presence of God in the world. That is our calling and that is our opportunity. For God, for the world, for us, it is about love, first, last and always, thanks be to God – amen.