The following is a sermon preached by Vicar Rhonda Lee, on the 5th Sunday of Easter, the 10th of May 2009. The text is 1 John 4:7-21.
God is love.
If John, the author of this morning’s epistle, were writing an academic paper, that would be his thesis statement.
John wants to be sure we understand his claim about God, so he states it twice: once negatively and once positively. “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love”; then, later on, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
In case we’re tempted to define love—and God—according to our own sentimental preconceptions, John makes it clear that his definition is rooted in divine revelation. “Love is from God,” he tells us, and he goes on to remind us of the bedrock Christian belief about divine love: “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.”
Love that heals, nourishes, liberates; love that breathes new life into dead bodies and despairing souls; love that has nothing at all to do with the merits or charms of the beloved; love that never ends. That’s the kind of love God shows toward you and me, on the days when we feel lovable, and on the days we can hardly stand to look in the mirror.
“God is love” is good news, a nurturing message for those who need to know they’re valued, just to get through another day. It’s a direct challenge to the worldly powers that see only some people as worthy of love: the strong, the beautiful, those on the inside of whatever dividing lines they’ve drawn.
John’s words challenge the church too. “Beloved,” he reminds us gently, “since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” If we had any illusions that living in Christian community was easier two thousand years ago than it is today, John’s warning shatters them: “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.”
If we’re honest, most of us can’t help wondering, “John, have you met my sister? My brother? Let me introduce you; once you see what I’m dealing with, you’ll cut me some theological slack.” But again, if we’re honest, we acknowledge that John lists no exceptions. He doesn’t say love your brother or sister except when they don’t, or won’t, listen to you; except when they bite their nails or snap their gum in public; except when they play that song we can not stand for the thousandth time; except when they’re just plain wrong. There are no loopholes.
Loving all our brothers and sisters, all the time, is a tall, in fact, impossible, order, if we think love is a matter of how we feel about someone, and if we think it’s something that happens by our own effort.
That’s not how love works. Love is a holy mystery, evidence of God moving among us, revealed in the way we treat each other. In John’s words, “if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” We know God does live in us, because, as John says, “he has given us of his Spirit.” We are temples of the Holy Spirit, through whom God’s love can work, transforming us into a beloved community over time, as we pray and share the sacraments, study the Scriptures together, and accompany each other through the joys and sorrows of our lives.
Many things can get in the way of love, but John singles out one force as love’s enemy, its polar opposite: fear. Love is the essence of God, and the highest virtue any Christian can practice; fear is a universal animal instinct that causes us to run away or lash out in self-protection. “There is no fear in love,” John states unequivocally, “but perfect love casts out fear….whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.”
As people who base our lives on the two great commandments to love God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, we don’t like to think we live in fear. But John, a wise elder who addresses his readers as “little children,” knows that all of us have fears, many of which we don’t want to admit even to ourselves. None is more serious than our fear of God’s judgment. John knows that fear, and he reassures us. God has shown us his love in Jesus Christ so that, as John says, “we may have boldness on the day of judgment,” not fearing punishment. Since we know God loves us beyond anything we could have imagined, we can live as free people, in communities bound together by love.
To anyone who’s spent more than a day or two in the church, however, it’s all too obvious that love has not yet been perfected in us—in any of us. Each of us struggles with some fear: of being hurt, or hurting someone else; of not being heard, seen, valued; of being misunderstood, or being wrong; of not knowing the right answer when we’re supposed to be the expert; of letting others down, or being betrayed by those we’ve trusted.
Our fears can loom so large in our mind’s eye that they keep us from even picturing perfect love, much less embodying it. So what can we do?
John’s letter gives us the answer. Remember who God is—pure love—and who we are: children of God, and brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, who still lives through our beloved community. Pray for the grace to serve as vessels of divine love, and to pour it out upon each other, and upon the world outside our church walls. With God’s help, we will be emboldened to take the risks that come with truly opening ourselves to one another. As we draw closer to each other in love, it will become clearer and clearer that our endlessly compassionate God is alive among us, and our love will be this church’s testimony to the world about our faith.
