"It's All About Love"
Good News Sunday Sermon
Isaiah 43:1-7; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:9-17
Today is officially Good News
Sunday at Littlefield! We told people
that—if they brought someone to worship today—we promise that they would hear
some good news!
I hope that
people were paying attention to the scripture passages today as they were being
read. Have you heard some good news? I hope so.
That takes a bit of the pressure off me, now. Though I’ll do my best.
I do
believe we have good news to share--
important and life-changing good news.
Sometimes I think I risk sounding like a “broken record.” Some of you have heard me say this over and
over again, in various ways. But the more I’ve studied the scriptures over
the years and looked for the main themes and the big picture, the more I’ve
become convinced that our Christian faith is really all about love.
God loves
us. We are—all of us-- God’s beloved
children. Our faith is about responding
to God’s love for us and for all God’s children by loving God and
loving all the people God loves.
The Old
Testament includes a lot of stories and verses that a lot of us find puzzling
and troubling. Yet one of the major
themes in the Old Testament is of God’s steadfast mercy. One of my Old Testament teachers at seminary did
her doctoral dissertation on the recurring theme of “hesed”, which is a Hebrew word that can be translated
as “mercy,” or “steadfast loving-kindness.”
One of the other prominent themes in the Old Testament is how God keeps
sending prophets to call people back to living in right relationship with God
and neighbor… and how those right
relationships are characterized by love and justice and mercy.
The gospel message in the New Testament
proclaims in various ways how Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and
truth, to embody God’s love for us, and to show us how to live in the way of
love. Jesus preached about the “kingdom of God” or
the “reign of God” and how we are called to live into it.
When people
asked Jesus what the most important commandment is, he said what’s most
important is two-fold: Love God. Love your neighbor. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus
made it clear that your neighbor is anybody we encounter—even people who are
different… people we might even see as
enemies.
In his last
talk with his disciples, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you
love one another as I have loved you.
People will know you are my followers by the way you love one another.”[1]
In the
gospel lesson we heard today, Jesus tells his followers, “If you keep my
commandments [the commandments to love
God and love the neighbor] we will abide in his love.” Jesus tells his disciples that he has said
these things so that we may have his joy, and that our joy may be complete.
Jesus made
it very clear that it’s all about love.
So I keep wondering how so many people who call them selves Christians
could be so confused about this.
We live in
such a broken and fearful world. Our
government spends vast amounts of resources fighting terrorism. Alarm systems to protect homes, businesses,
and even churches are commonplace.
We live in
a nation plagued by gun violence. Every
year in the United States, an average of
more than 100,000 people are shot.
That’s an average of 289 people shot every day, and eighty-six of them die. Precious lives, of beloved children of
God—lost.
So many
people in our society fear and mistrust those who are different: Muslims…
people whose skin is a different color…
immigrants.
There are
too many people in our nation who are hungry or food insecure or lack the basic
things they need to live a life of dignity.
In the
midst of all this brokenness and fear and injustice, how are we-- as people of
faith-- called to live?
“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. 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.”
I hear the
scriptures saying that loving one another is a spiritual practice, and that--
as we work at loving one another—God is living in us and working in us and
perfecting love in us….
“There is
no fear in love. But perfect love casts
out fear. Whoever fears has not reached
maturity in love.”
We love
because God first loved us. If we say,
“I love God” but hate our brother or sister, we’re lying about loving God. As we heard in First John, “those who do not love a brother or sister
whom they have seen—cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
Fear
divides us. It leads to violence and
destruction. Hatred and fear are toxic. They harm us as persons and as a society.
But
there is a way out. It is not the way of fear, and hate and violence; it
is the way of love. In Dr. Martin Luther King’s words: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only
light can do that. Hate cannot drive out
hate: only love can do that.”If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we have a long way to go to drive hatred and fear out of our lives and out of our society. Living in the way of love is not easy. Living in the way of love is too hard to do on our own power alone.
And so… we need to be in prayer. We need to open our lives to God’s call in our lives, as we live further into God’s dream for the world—the world that God so loves.
We need each other. The Greek word ekklesia which we translate as “church” literally means an “assembly,” or those who are gathered together. We need to come together as a community of faith-- not for the sake of coming to a place called church-- but for the sake of coming together as part of the Body of Christ… for the sake of gathering as disciples who need to learn and practice living in the way of love. We need to love one another and encourage one another. We need to love one another into becoming more and more the beloved children of God we were created to be. We need to love one another into becoming the beloved community.
God isn’t finished with any of us yet. Our love isn’t yet perfect, and it hasn’t yet cast out all our fears. But God is still working in and among and through us, through the power of the Holy Spirit-- leading and empowering us to become more patient and kind and generous… and helping us to become less envious or controlling… less irritable or resentful.
God is still working in us, guiding us further into the truth, re-forming us, teaching us what it means to go out and be the church out in the world, in this time.
The good news is that as we grow more
and more into God’s way of love, God’s love will cast out our fears.
In a broken and fearful world, 1we can
trust in the Holy Spirit to give us courage to pray without ceasing.[2] As we work with others for justice, freedom
and peace, our lives will be transformed, and together we can change the
world.
So be it!
Amen.
Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan]
September 27, 2015
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