May 17, 2009 - Everyone Who Believes -1 John 5:1-6
When my friend Susan was a teenager, her family’s summer vacation was a trip to visit her grandmother in
Being a typical teenager, Susan remembers thinking that her grandmother was very foolish. Susan vowed that she would never turn the other cheek and let someone get the better of her.
Susan says that it took her years to understand that her grandmother was right. It took her years to understand that it is not taking care of ourselves that makes us victorious, and it’s not making sure no one gets the better of us. And this morning’s scripture portion shows us that clearly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This morning’s scripture shows us that those who turn the other cheek – who respond with love instead of retaliation - are not those who lack courage, but those who possess it in abundance. It took a lot of courage to be a Christian in the 1st century. Christians were beset on all sides. They were ridiculed. They faced prejudice. They even battled some in their own family of faith who told them that they were wrong in their beliefs – that their faith and belief in Jesus was not enough. They must have wondered if theirs was a futile faith, a bankrupt hope, a fruitless lifestyle. They must have wondered if all they were going to receive in this life was bitterness and misery – if Christianity was about nothing more than feeling like a failure and an outcast. They must have wondered if the life they had was all they could hope for. They must have wondered it what they saw around them was all that the world could be.
John writes in this morning’s scripture portion to assure them that all is not lost – that in fact all is won – that they were in Paul’s words, ‘more than conquerors’ and that the victory was theirs.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This being the 6th Sunday of Easter, it is the 6th Sunday we have been studying in 1st John. Surely, we think, John must be tired of writing about love. Surely, we think, he has said all there is to say - but this morning, we will find that John is not done with us and that he still has more to say. Here John asserts that if we truly love God we will keep God’s commandments.
Commandments? Our first thought when we hear that word is, ‘Who wants to hear about commandments and what has that got to do with all that love stuff?’ Rules! None of us likes rules. No one wants to believe that the God of love would also give us rules to keep.
But here, John links keeping the commandments of God with expressing the love of God. Obedience is a sign of our faith as much as it is a sign of our love and a source of our strength – the strength that overcomes the world. For people in the 1st century or the 21st century who are desperate for a way out of the wretchedness of life, who are looking for a way to survive a hostile world, the news that keeping God’s commandments is a sure sign that we are born of God is good news not dreadful oppression.
The commandment is not burdensome – it is to love one another as we have been loved by God – it is to share freely and openly with others the free gift we have received from on high.
--------------------------------------------
In the past chapters of 1 John, we have read that believers must love one another. We have read that before we can love one another, we must first love God. Now we read that if we love God we must also love the children of God.
Let’s see: If we love God, we must love one another.
We can’t really love God if we unless we love one another.
Before we can love one another we must first love God.
If we can’t do one without doing the other and having the one shows that we have the other, how can we ever know that we love God and how can we ever learn to love one another? This sounds like we go around in circles, from failure to failure, from doubt to doubt. This sounds like a sort of chicken-and-egg circular logic question of which comes first and how can we have both?
If we were trying to do all this loving and acting on our own, this would be terrible news indeed. If we were trying to do this on our own power we would keep running around in circles never getting anywhere, never sure of anything, always trying and never succeeding – but this morning’s scripture assures us that we can be sure.
What resolves this circle of logic problem is that God reaches out to empower and sustain the whole thing. It is the power of God that enables us to love one another and the only possible response to receiving God’s love is to return it both to God who gave it and to all those who are also recipients of God’s gracious love.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Recently, I heard an advertisement for a big church in large metropolitan city. The pastor assured the listeners that if they ‘Love people and enjoy God’ then this was the church for them. The first time I heard it I thought my ears were deceiving me so I listened more carefully the next time the commercial was on just to make sure I had it right. He said again that this was the place for those who ‘Love People and enjoy God’.
If we look at this morning’s scripture portion, we can see that this sincere pastor has gotten it backwards. John would say that we need to be people who ‘Love God and enjoy people’ – Before we can love people, we need to love God. Before we love God we need to accept the love that has already been given to us by God.
If we love God, then enjoying – and loving – people will come as naturally as breathing. – and if we don’t love God, then loving anything else is impossible.
--------------------------------------------------------
Susan’s grandmother understood that being victorious in life did not include anger and pride and the determination to take care of ourselves, but that being victorious in life does include love and humility and the faith that rests in the reliability and the promises of God.
--------------------------------------------
To love as God loves requires a certain kind of humility that is in short supply in the world. It is the kind of humility that can honor others over ourselves. It is the kind of humility that enables us to turn the other cheek, to go the second mile in being kind, to inconvenience ourselves to show love for others and to treat others as better than ourselves.
To love as God loves requires a certain kind of courage that is in short supply in the world. It is a courage that comes from getting on our knees in prayer – a kind of courage that comes from first seeking the face of God and then returning to face the world certain that God stronger that the evil we face – stronger than armies, stronger than dictators and stronger than the ill-humored neighbor down the street.
To love as God loves requires a certain kind of faith that is in short supply in the world. It requires a kind of faith that knows with certainty that Jesus came in the flesh. That Jesus died for our sins. That Jesus sits at the right hand of God. To love as God loves requires a kind of faith that dares to believe God’s promises and to rest in that belief – certain that God will do all that has been promised.
This is the kind of faith that overcomes the world. This is the kind of faith that gives us the courage to turn the other cheek and to seek the good of others over our own. This is the kind of faith that gives us the ability to love as God loves.
This kind of faith is not limited to just a few souls, but is available to all who will take up the cross and follow Jesus – to all who will accept and believe the love of God - to all who will love their neighbor as themselves – the ones who will arm themselves with humility, courage and faith instead of pride, fear and force. It is a kind of faith available to everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ – and who believe it not just with bumper stickers and pretty plaques on the kitchen wall, not just for an hour on Sunday morning - but for every minute and in every circumstance of every day.
This kind of faith is the gift that comes when the Holy Spirit of God comes to live in our hearts. It is the kind of faith that follows the Spirit into places we’d rather not go because of the love we have for God – the kind of faith that conquers the world – and it’s for everyone who believes.
-------------------------------------------------
The good news for us this day is that the kind of faith that overcomes the world, the kind of faith that strengthens us for living in the world outside the doors of our church, is the free give of a loving God – ours for the taking, ours for the giving, ours for the living in Christ. Amen.
