Year B
Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 3, 2015
Cross~Wind UMC
Title: Love is the Answer
Going deeper
The theme
of I John 4:7-5:4a is loving one another. In 3:23, John makes the statement
that believers need to believe and to love. 4:1-6 is an elaboration
of what it means to believe. This segment is an elaboration of what
it means to love.
The letter reveals a community that has been shaken by
mutiny, one in which some of the insiders have left (2:18-19). John is writing
to keep the faithful together. Those who have left are becoming like a world that hates.
These verses are the most intensive treatment of love,
18 of the 28 occurrences in I John. The dominating idea is that love
is from God, who is love.
Another issue would have been the salvific importance of
living out the implications in our lives. Too many seem to think that if they just have faith, then they will go to heaven. What happens between now and then does not matter. In this letter, we learn that it does matter.
Verses
7-10 have the theme of love from the God who is love. It begins with a
magnificent description of the priority of the love of God. 7 Beloved,[God's love is not some elusive, theoretical idea but is by
its very nature a transformative agent of change. The person not only receives
God's love, the person becomes the beloved. ] let us love one another, because love is
from God; [Pannenberg says that because it
comes from God, love is grace, mediated by faith and fulfills the law, for it
is the goal of the law. This is why gospel is the fulfillment of the law. [4]]
everyone who loves is born of God
and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is
love. [The secessionist failure to love is
evidence they are like the world in not knowing God. The real contrast here is
between “God is love” is that world hates. Barth says that along with John 4:24, here is the only New
Testament statement that read like definitions of the divine nature.[6] John is not describing a
quality of God, but the divine essence or nature as love. The believer who has
experienced the transformative love of God lives it. The love here described is
dynamic and relational, an expression of the Creator's very essence to the one
who believes.] 9 God’s
love was revealed [The love of God is
incarnational. It is not only a feeling; it is an historic reality. John did not just come up with a nice thought or idea. The human
body of Jesus fully reveals the love of God. Jesus, to John, is the intersection of the divine and
human.] among us in
this way: God sent [not
just in his Incarnation, but in his entire way of life with Pannenberg saying that the sending of the Son into the
world refers to the passion and death of Jesus, as here, but not to his human
birth.[10] his only Son into the world] so that we might live through him. 10 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. [Being transformed by such
a love as this necessitates the same kind of sacrificial loving outreach to one
another. Reminiscent, of course, is John 15:13, "No one has greater love
than this, to lay down one's life for one's friend." Hence, the primary
incarnation of God's love in Jesus becomes secondarily incarnational in the
love that the believers have for each other.]
Verses
11-16b have the theme of the God of love abiding in us. 11
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and
his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him
and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. [God’s love is not already perfect, but needs fulfillment in the life of the
believer. One should relate “Spirit” to the giving of the Spirit of a second
step. Note the author related Spirit to love in the previous section. The
Spirit allows people to see the divine origin of the ministry of Jesus.
Considering that God the Creator, Christ the Savior and the Spirit are
mentioned in that order in the space of just a few verses indicates an early
orthodoxy concerning the Trinity. The Spirit is the entity that allows the true
believer to abide, confess, testify and love.]
14 And we have seen and
do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15
God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in
God. 16 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.
[What John says about abiding in love here expresses
the fact that what is at issue is not just human action, but a sphere in which
we move, a force field that comes from God and binds us to God.[15] The knowledge of the love
God that we get from Christ is called the basis of faith in him.[16] There is much repetition.
Abiding in love is a condition that makes possible the divine indwelling or, it
is through love that we experience the divine indwelling. John is not
describing a quality of God, but the divine essence or nature as love.[17]] 17 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. [Apparently, this
Johannine community expected the Judgment Day to be near. A mark of abiding in
God's love until the end is "boldness," standing firm in their
conviction. Those who stand firm in the faith need not be fearful of the divine
wrath of the punishment.] 18
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. [Obviously, fear was a
very real issue in the early church. John keeps his community mindful that if
they fear then they have not experienced the perfected love of God. Again, the
emphasis is on abiding, maintaining, confessing, and loving. As the believer
continues to do these things, she or he continues the journey towards faithful
perfection.] 19
We love because he first loved us.
Verses
20-5:4a have the theme of defending loving fellow Christians. 20 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. 21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who
love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
[Love of God and love of brothers are two facets of the same love. Barth will
say that sloth puts in danger the bond that joins us to other human beings in
that this bond with others unites us to God. [19] To summarize the thought here, if we are indifferent to one in need, we are indifferent to God.
Introduction
Well, as I have reflected upon these matters this week, I kept putting
together love, friendship, marriage, and family. I hope over the next few
moments, we can receive some help in practicing this aspect of Christian life.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines “love” in the following way.
An
intense affectionate concern for or passionate attraction to another
person. A strong liking or enthusiasm
for something. A zero score in tennis.
Ruth Haley Barton, in SacredRhythms, says that when it comes to deciding what to do in any situation,
we need to step back, pause, and remember that the primary calling of all
Christians is to love. What would love call us to do in this situation? What
would love do? Love is our deepest calling. John
tells us of Jesus :
Having loved his own who were in the world,
he loved them to the end. (John 13:1)
She thinks that any
decision that fails to ask the love question misses the point of Christian
practice.
I agree with her.
Yet, love does not solve everything. I find John Wesley intriguing on
this point. He points out that even love in all its purity will not protect us
from many mistakes.[21]
1)
Many
mistakes may exist together with pure love.
2)
Some may
accidently flow from it. I mean, love itself may incline us to mistake. The
pure love of our neighbor, springing from the love of God, thinks no evil,
believes and hopes all things. Now, this very temperament, unsuspicious, ready
to believe and hope the best of all people, may cause us to think some people
are really better than they are. Here then is a clear mistake accidentally
flowing from love.
In this sense,
“love” is not the only answer to life. We need the balance of other qualities,
in particular wisdom, honesty, and discernment, in order to determine properly
what God wants in a situation.
Clearly, we need one another. It is so obvious. Or is it.
Do we really make relationships a priority?
Albert Schweitzer could say in his Memoirs
of Childhood and Youth (1925, p. 87):
When
I look back upon my early days, I am stirred by the thought of the number of
people whom I have to thank for what they gave me or what they were to me. At the same time, I am haunted by an
oppressive consciousness of the little gratitude I really showed them while I
was young. How many of them have said
farewell to life without my having made clear to them what it meant to me to
receive from them so much kindness or so much care! Many a time have I, with a feeling of shame,
said quietly to myself over a grave the words which my mouth ought to have
spoken to the departed, while he was still in the flesh.
Application
I offer this morning four practical
ways in which we can practice the kind of love of which John writes in this
passage.
First, we need to allow the other
person freedom to be themselves.
I start here, because the notion that many people have of love leads to
smothering the other person. Husbands and wives learn quickly that the spouse
is not his or her carbon copy. They never will be. The same is true of parents.
We learn quickly that our children are not carbon copies of us. They are their
own persons. They will make choices, some of which we will not agree.
Second, we must be willing to assign
a top priority to friendships.
Eric Fromm, in a little book entitled, The Art of Loving (4-5), writes that we often think of love as if
nothing could be more natural in human experience and life than love. Yet,
hardly anything fails so regularly as does love. We must make clear that love
takes time, effort, even training. It is
not for novices. Love is an art, just as
living is an art; if we want to learn how to love, we must proceed in the same
way we have to proceed if we want to learn any other art, say music or
painting...or the art of medicine or engineering. Yet he notes sadly that in our society,
"In
spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered
to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power -- almost all
our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost
none to learn the art of loving."
Third, we need to cultivate the
ability to share ourselves with others.
Most of us rightly build up defenses here. Most of us have been sorry
we have trusted someone else with personal information. We become more careful in deciding when we
express ourselves. Yet, that risk, that
act of trust, is so important in friendship.
If we are going to love each other, we need to learn to give the gift of
our true self to another.
Barbara Defoe has what I think is an interesting way of writing about
this in the context of marriage. She shares the result of a study done on
healthy marriages. The challenge of marriage is essentially moral. Marriage is a school of virtue, a domain that
requires tact and restraint along with open and honest communication, kindness
and gratitude along with assertiveness and autonomy. Take the matter of fighting. Good marriages are not free of conflict. However, respect for the partner governs the
conflict. No matter how fierce the
anger, it stops short of the cruelest cut.
Spouses learn what the relationship can tolerate without breaking. The
men and women in this study speak of protecting the marriage almost as if it
were their child. The marriage itself is a creation they cherish and
share. These happily married people see
their spouses as essentially admirable and good, as morally worthy. Many express admiration for the partner’s
conscience or honesty, or praise their courage in overcoming earlier obstacles
in life.[22]
Fourth, we need to share affection and warmth with others.
Now, in the context of a marriage, I could talk about sex right now. I
see nothing wrong with that. Our sexuality is a perfectly healthy discussion to
have during worship. However, I am not going to do that today. Come think of
it, I guess I just did.
This world can be cold and cruel.
People lose jobs. People evaluate
us all the time. We need that warmth and affection ourselves. Other people need it as well. In friendship, those physical barriers need
to come down.
Frankly, technology has isolated many of us in front of the computer
screen. If you have seen the animated film, Wall-E, you see an imagined future
in which the only experience people have is in front of a screen, until a robot
breaks the assembly line and forces the human beings to relate to each other.
People need the message the church has concerning love for many reasons, not
the least of which is that people can feel so lonely in our society.
Conclusion
What would happen if this week we
decided that the person whom we have been thinking about getting to know better
might get a phone call? What would
happen if we begin to take down the wall that has come up between us and
another person? We may need to deepen another friendship. Let us do that this
week.
Why wait?
[1] Church Dogmatics IV.2 [68.2] 756-7.
[2] Systematic Theology Volume 3, 182-3.
[3] Systematic Theology Volume 3, 184-5.
[4] Systematic Theology Volume 3, 72.
[5] Church Dogmatics IV.1 [58.2] 102.
[6] Systematic Theology Volume 1, 294.
[7] Systematic Theology Volume 1, 297.
[8] Systematic Theology Volume 1, 396.
[9] Systematic Theology Volume 1, 424-5.
[10] Systematic Theology Volume 2, 301.
[11] Systematic Theology Volume 2, 369. He
points to W. Kramer, Christ, Lord, Son of
God, 1966, and Hahn, Titles, p.
304-5.
[12] Systematic Theology Volume 2, 438.
[13] Church Dogmatics IV.1 [59.3] 282.
[14] Systematic Theology Volume 1, 317.
[15] Systematic Theology Volume 3, 78.
[16] Systematic Theology Volume 3, 138.
[17] Systematic Theology Volume 1, 424-5.
[18] Church Dogmatics II.1 [25.2] 34.
[19] Church Dogmatics IV.2 [65.2] 441-2.
[20] Church Dogmatics IV.2 [68..3] 817.
Great thought . . . I love the Babe Ruth story
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