Practicing Resurrection: 4th Sunday of Eastertide
April 21, 2024 - Practicing Resurrection
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia! Welcome to the 4th Sunday of Eastertide. We are practicing resurrection by being here together today as a community following the way of the one who was resurrected.
Scripture of the day: 1 John 3:16-24
16 We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person?
18 Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. 19 Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. 20 Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.
21 Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. 22And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him.
23 And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.
[Moment of Silence]
Listen to the voice of the Spirit speaking to the Church. Thanks be to God.
Message
They say that preachers really only have one good sermon in them. Some might say we don’t any!! But I think they mean by that that preachers have a tendency to come back to the same theme over and over again in the sermons we preach over our lifetime. I’ve been preaching long enough by now that I suspect they are right. I think, though, that perhaps the one good sermon we preach might vary just a little with each community of faith. I wonder if you might have identified a theme that surfaces again and again in my sermons.
Take the scripture for today which is one of the ones assigned to this Sunday by the lectionary. You may remember that the lectionary is the 3-year cycle of scriptures – a Psalm, an Old Testament or Hebrew Bible text, an Epistle, and a Gospel text for every Sunday of the year which mostly covers the whole Bible over three years. This text that I just read from the first Epistle of John fits very well what I think is a recurring theme for me. Have you guessed it yet?
I think a theme that occurs over and over again in my sermons is some variation on how we are loved by God and how as followers of the way of Christ we show God’s love to others.
These verses from John’s epistle also seems to me to be sort of a theme scripture for our community of faith. And I think that what has shown up in my sermons as I’ve been with you all is that the theme I come back to over and over has started to include our mission mantra – Be the love.
So, verse 18: “let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.”
Verse 23: “And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us.”
What do you think? Do these verses have a familiar ring to them? Do you hear the echo of our mission mantra?
Yeah, me too.
We like our mission mantra, don’t we? It sounds good. Bethel’s mission is to “Be the love.” I think we like it because it has our name in it. It’s tailor made for us, so to speak. It’s easy to remember too. It has some assumptions built in. We don’t spell it out, but I think they are understood. If we were to add anything to it, we might add the words “of Christ” or “of God” – “Be the love of Christ” “Be the love of God.” Is that fair?
I think the other assumption is about who are the recipients of this love. We are being the love of God to each other – those of us who consider ourselves part of this community of faith. Right? And we are being the love of God to our neighbors near and far. Also right? And perhaps we are even being the love of God to our enemies or those who hate us… Yeah, that one’s a little harder, isn’t it? But the implication is there, I think.
Ok, so let’s go back to the first of these assumptions – the one that says we’re being the love of God to each other. That one seems to be the easiest, doesn’t it? How do we know we love one another. Some possibilities are spending time with one another beyond worship on Sundays, checking on one another when we aren’t here or when we hear someone is sick or has some kind of crisis going on, listening to one another’s stories, bringing food, being there when one of us loses a loved one, providing rides, being prayer partners with our youth…
What about the second assumption? How are we being the love of God to our neighbors near and far? Some possibilities are collecting needed items for different helping organizations in our community or for a family in need or for Rock Bridge Elementary and actually delivering those items to those organizations, giving money for missions or for Kristy Engel, volunteering for ForColumbia or for other organizations, providing meals for our neighbors – like the Groundhog Supper, growing food for our neighbors, having a booth at Pride to show love for our LGBTQ+ neighbors, welcoming new folks who come to worship with us on Sundays… How might we as a community of faith be the love to our neighbors in other ways? Possibly advocating for those on the margins, caring for the earth…
Warren, who leads our community’s core function of serving neighbors, has suggested that we need to celebrate those among us who find ways to be the love to our neighbors in ways that aren’t Bethel-sponsored ministries – like volunteering for one of Columbia’s helping organizations or providing rides for people who don’t have a way to get to the polls on voting days or helping someone you know who can’t get to the store to get groceries by either taking them or getting the groceries for them. I’m wondering if any of you would be willing to share some of the ways you are being the love for our neighbors that we don’t know about? Or maybe you know about something someone else does. I think sometimes we feel a little awkward talking about these things – like we’re tooting our own horn or drawing attention to ourselves; but I see it as a way of inspiring others to realize they too do similar things or that they can. Would anyone care to share? How are you being the love to our neighbors?
Am I correct in the assumption that included in our mission of being the love of God is loving our enemies or those who might hate us? If so, can you think of ways we have or can do this? Maybe listening instead of responding, finding common ground…
I think there’s a fourth assumption here too. I think we need to include being the love of God to ourselves. Remember the verses from Mark 12?
28 One of the teachers of religious law … asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” 29 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. 30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ 31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”
You’ve probably heard it said before that it is hard to love your neighbor when you don’t love yourself. And I know you’ve heard how important it is to take care of yourself – that you can’t be there for others if you don’t. Some of us are better at this than others, and some can be so consumed with their own wellbeing that they don’t have time for others. I don’t believe that anyone in this space fits that description. I suspect that the opposite is true. Many of us tend to neglect ourselves. And I don’t think that’s what is meant by “giving up our lives for our brothers and sisters.” I think we’ve been talking about how we give of ourselves to others, and I believe that living in such a way that puts the needs of others first is a way of being the love.
And now I’m back to the sermon that I have found myself preaching over and over. God loves each of us in a way that is not dependent on what we do for others. God loves us, period. We may stand confidently before God or we may feel guilty before God, but “God is greater than our feelings, and God knows everything.”
The truth is this: God knows our hearts and God wants for us to be in relationship with Them the way Jesus was. We are practicing resurrection when we practice loving one another. We have likely not perfected loving one another. If we’re practicing being the love, then we are abiding in God’s love and God’s love is abiding in us.
Will you pray with me?
God of love, create in us a desire to be your love to one another. Thank you for loving us despite ourselves and for inspiring us with the love of your son Jesus the Christ who laid down his life for us. We pray this in his name. Amen.
Invitation to Love
If you listen to the news these days, Christians are not known for their love. It makes me not want to call myself Christian. It doesn’t much matter what we call ourselves, though. What matters is how we follow the way of Jesus – by loving one another, by loving the other, by being the love to others that God has shown to us. Let’s be known for that.