John 13:34-35 (NIV)
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
1 John 4:7-21
7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
19 We love because he first loved us.
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.
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
1 John 4:7-21
7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
19 We love because he first loved us.
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.
Reflection
We have lots of words to describe God but the one I like best is Love. God is love: absolute, pure Love!
When we hear the story of Jesus as the Son of God, it is the idea that God so loved the world, creation, humanity, so loved people that God gave up (or at least something of God gave up) all the words that we sometimes use to describe God: Almighty, Eternal, Victorious, Omnipotent, Deliverer, Great, Preserver, Triumphant, gave all that up and took human form. And Jesus is that human- fully human- and thus able to be born, to suffer, to grieve, to celebrate, to be tempted, to anger, to love, to wonder, to be disappointed and to die. All the human things that God being God could not be or do.
So right away, we have this sense that God loves with a love (agape in Greek) that is qualitatively different from the love that you or I are capable of. God is able to love everyone unconditionally.
We, however, have a harder time; love is messy and it is not easy. Parental love- not always easy, relationship love – not always easy, friend love – not always easy, even loving ourselves – not always easy. Loving our enemies- really hard. See love is messy and we are only scratching the surface.
We like to think that here in the church we have a handle on love but Paul didn’t write all those letters for nothing, there are churches that have a litmus test even before you get in the door or before they accept you as a member of the congregation. There are churches which focus on the God of Anger, the God of Judgement, the God of Wrath and operate from a mode of fear.
I would like to think that every church is a welcoming church, a church where love is encouraged and shown, where people are nurtured and supported regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, skin colour or ethnic origin – I like to think that all churches are places of love.
But churches are buildings as well as people and the outside doesn’t always reflect what you find inside. That is one of the reasons that the some churches become affirming congregations and proudly proclaim that fact. That way people know ahead of time that the LGBTQTS+ community is welcomed in that church, and the individual doesn’t have to stand outside and wonder – “Is this a safe place for me to worship the God who loves everyone?”
I would like to think that when we say “Everyone is Welcome” that we would not have to add: “Everyone includes you” It hurts me to think anyone would stand outside any church door and have to wonder whether or not they will be accepted if they enter.
Jesus is unequivocal on the subject when he tells his disciples in the Gospel of John:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you,
so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that
you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
This how we are to be known, this is how we are to be identified as followers of Jesus. Jesus understood love to be a defining characteristic of the community, love is how he understood God, love is how he understood his way of being in the world.
Unfortunately, Jesus didn’t exactly leave us an instruction booklet. Just as we saw in the stories about Jesus, Jesus was learning on the way, he didn’t always know what love looked like in a specific situation. Sometimes people walked away like the rich young man, sometimes they dropped the stones in their hands and walked away like they did in the story of the woman caught in adultery, sometimes love looked like a Syrophoenician woman challenging him to extend his boundaries and heal her daughter, sometimes it looked like Jesus rebuking Peter, or urging Thomas to touch the wounds he suffered on the cross, sometimes love exchanges a cup of water for a lifetime of living water, sometimes love is allowing someone to anoint you with sweet smelling perfume. See not an instruction book.
We are left with the question: What does love look like in our lives? Love is not a one size fits all situations, all relationships. We don’t have all the answers in what and how love works.
The first letter of John tries to clarify things a little- at least in how this love thing works. He says: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”.
That simple! If you love, you know God. That means wherever we see love at work, we can be sure that God is involved – I don’t think it really matters if you are Christian or not. If what you see is love at work then regardless of where that love comes from; the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ghandi, your Sikh neighbour, your Hindu co-worker, your Muslim friend, your indigenous partner, the atheist walking by the church; that love, their love makes the world a better place. John would say all those people know God by his own definition; “everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”
OK, I know that really makes love sound simple and our response is pretty much the same as it is to Jesus’ other commands: “Love God with all your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself.” We hear that and we go “Yep, sounds good. We’ve heard it a thousand times; being a follower of Christ is about loving people.”
Except this is a little bit different in John’s letter, he makes this link between how we, as followers of Christ, love God and loving others, loving others depends on how we love God. You can’t love God and hate other people. If you hate other people you are not loving God the two cancel each other out, one cannot exist with other.
It’s complicated. Love is messy.
We have kids we love and don’t like, we have partners we love dearly and can’t live with, we have neighbours we like and neighbours we don’t like, we have relationships that can be abusive and for our own sakes we have to distance ourselves from those people, sometimes marriages and partnerships break down and even though the couple love each other they need time and space to work their own lives out and so they separate with the hope that the future may hold them getting back together or it may not. We have parents who drove us crazy or were difficult to deal with.
And yes, we are called to love all those people. We are called to love all the people in our lives. We need to be willing to open ourselves up to being hurt, we need to become vulnerable yet wise in that vulnerability. We need to be able to look at ourselves and love ourselves in all honesty - so the good stuff and the stuff we’d rather forget.
Relationships are messy and unpredictable and they are what help us grow and develop as human beings.
Thank goodness there are some people and situations where love is fairly straightforward and simple but for the most part we need wisdom and grace to love. We need God’s love.
John’s message to us as followers of Jesus is so clear:
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.
This is who you are, this is who we are as the church. This is Jesus’ mission, this is God’s dream for the world, This is God’s Kin-dom (that is the place where are all kin, we are all brothers and sisters, we are all God’s children, we are all related to one another through God’s love)
This is God’s Kin-dom coming into being.
Amen
We have lots of words to describe God but the one I like best is Love. God is love: absolute, pure Love!
When we hear the story of Jesus as the Son of God, it is the idea that God so loved the world, creation, humanity, so loved people that God gave up (or at least something of God gave up) all the words that we sometimes use to describe God: Almighty, Eternal, Victorious, Omnipotent, Deliverer, Great, Preserver, Triumphant, gave all that up and took human form. And Jesus is that human- fully human- and thus able to be born, to suffer, to grieve, to celebrate, to be tempted, to anger, to love, to wonder, to be disappointed and to die. All the human things that God being God could not be or do.
So right away, we have this sense that God loves with a love (agape in Greek) that is qualitatively different from the love that you or I are capable of. God is able to love everyone unconditionally.
We, however, have a harder time; love is messy and it is not easy. Parental love- not always easy, relationship love – not always easy, friend love – not always easy, even loving ourselves – not always easy. Loving our enemies- really hard. See love is messy and we are only scratching the surface.
We like to think that here in the church we have a handle on love but Paul didn’t write all those letters for nothing, there are churches that have a litmus test even before you get in the door or before they accept you as a member of the congregation. There are churches which focus on the God of Anger, the God of Judgement, the God of Wrath and operate from a mode of fear.
I would like to think that every church is a welcoming church, a church where love is encouraged and shown, where people are nurtured and supported regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, skin colour or ethnic origin – I like to think that all churches are places of love.
But churches are buildings as well as people and the outside doesn’t always reflect what you find inside. That is one of the reasons that the some churches become affirming congregations and proudly proclaim that fact. That way people know ahead of time that the LGBTQTS+ community is welcomed in that church, and the individual doesn’t have to stand outside and wonder – “Is this a safe place for me to worship the God who loves everyone?”
I would like to think that when we say “Everyone is Welcome” that we would not have to add: “Everyone includes you” It hurts me to think anyone would stand outside any church door and have to wonder whether or not they will be accepted if they enter.
Jesus is unequivocal on the subject when he tells his disciples in the Gospel of John:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you,
so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that
you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
This how we are to be known, this is how we are to be identified as followers of Jesus. Jesus understood love to be a defining characteristic of the community, love is how he understood God, love is how he understood his way of being in the world.
Unfortunately, Jesus didn’t exactly leave us an instruction booklet. Just as we saw in the stories about Jesus, Jesus was learning on the way, he didn’t always know what love looked like in a specific situation. Sometimes people walked away like the rich young man, sometimes they dropped the stones in their hands and walked away like they did in the story of the woman caught in adultery, sometimes love looked like a Syrophoenician woman challenging him to extend his boundaries and heal her daughter, sometimes it looked like Jesus rebuking Peter, or urging Thomas to touch the wounds he suffered on the cross, sometimes love exchanges a cup of water for a lifetime of living water, sometimes love is allowing someone to anoint you with sweet smelling perfume. See not an instruction book.
We are left with the question: What does love look like in our lives? Love is not a one size fits all situations, all relationships. We don’t have all the answers in what and how love works.
The first letter of John tries to clarify things a little- at least in how this love thing works. He says: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”.
That simple! If you love, you know God. That means wherever we see love at work, we can be sure that God is involved – I don’t think it really matters if you are Christian or not. If what you see is love at work then regardless of where that love comes from; the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ghandi, your Sikh neighbour, your Hindu co-worker, your Muslim friend, your indigenous partner, the atheist walking by the church; that love, their love makes the world a better place. John would say all those people know God by his own definition; “everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”
OK, I know that really makes love sound simple and our response is pretty much the same as it is to Jesus’ other commands: “Love God with all your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself.” We hear that and we go “Yep, sounds good. We’ve heard it a thousand times; being a follower of Christ is about loving people.”
Except this is a little bit different in John’s letter, he makes this link between how we, as followers of Christ, love God and loving others, loving others depends on how we love God. You can’t love God and hate other people. If you hate other people you are not loving God the two cancel each other out, one cannot exist with other.
It’s complicated. Love is messy.
We have kids we love and don’t like, we have partners we love dearly and can’t live with, we have neighbours we like and neighbours we don’t like, we have relationships that can be abusive and for our own sakes we have to distance ourselves from those people, sometimes marriages and partnerships break down and even though the couple love each other they need time and space to work their own lives out and so they separate with the hope that the future may hold them getting back together or it may not. We have parents who drove us crazy or were difficult to deal with.
And yes, we are called to love all those people. We are called to love all the people in our lives. We need to be willing to open ourselves up to being hurt, we need to become vulnerable yet wise in that vulnerability. We need to be able to look at ourselves and love ourselves in all honesty - so the good stuff and the stuff we’d rather forget.
Relationships are messy and unpredictable and they are what help us grow and develop as human beings.
Thank goodness there are some people and situations where love is fairly straightforward and simple but for the most part we need wisdom and grace to love. We need God’s love.
John’s message to us as followers of Jesus is so clear:
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.
This is who you are, this is who we are as the church. This is Jesus’ mission, this is God’s dream for the world, This is God’s Kin-dom (that is the place where are all kin, we are all brothers and sisters, we are all God’s children, we are all related to one another through God’s love)
This is God’s Kin-dom coming into being.
Amen
