Love: A Matter of Truth and Action - 1st John 3:11-24
Valentine’s
Day! Friday was a day where more “I Love
You’s” were probably exchanged than any other day during the year. It is a day when many people are “in-love”
with the idea of being “in-love” and so some folks easily say “I love you” to
keep from being alone on that day. Now before you accuse me of just being
cynical about “Valentine’s Day,” and believe me, I used to be cynical—there
were many Valentine’s Days where I intentionally wore all-black in protest of
the day (and no, I don’t have a picture of that to show you—thankfully there
were none for my niece to get a hold of and share with the world of Facebook,
as we shared a couple of weeks ago when considering “labels”), I don’t really
have anything against Valentine’s Day or it’s cards, candy, flowers, or, if
you’ve been to Papa John’s this weekend, pizza.
In fact, Anita and I wished each other Happy Valentine’s Friday, watched
a couple of romantic movies (Marriage
Retreat and Fireproof—I highly
recommend these for any couples), shared some heart-shaped pizza, and told each
other that we loved one another several times through the day.
My
concern is that in the midst of “being ‘in-love’” with the idea of “being
in-love” and freely tossing around “I love you”’s that many in our society have
lost an understanding of what love is. I
mean, think of how easily we use the word “love.”
I
love my house…I love my car…I love pizza…I love snow…I love the beach.
And
at the same time we say:
I
love my spouse…I love my children…I love my friends …I love my neighbor…I love
God.
Some
of you may be saying, “Preacher, that’s no big deal. What’s your point?”
The
point is, I think in the midst of it all, we have lost an understanding of what
love is when we can use the same words about our car, snow, our spouse, and
God. Why? Look at it this way.
We
love our house because it provides us shelter from the weather. It provides us a safe place to sleep, eat,
and relax. How, though, might we feel
about that house if it all of a sudden started having troubles. If it became a money pit, with repair after
repair being required? If, all of a
sudden, the neighborhood it was located in became unsafe? Or, if it is a big house, on the days where
it was time to do all the spring cleaning?
Suddenly we may no longer love our house.
The
same could be said for our car. We may
love the car because it gets us where we need go, because we look good in it,
or because, depending on the car, it gives us the appearance of being among the
more elite in our community. However,
let the car break down on us, maybe when we are already late trying to get to
work or somewhere important, or sustain major damage to the vehicle, and
suddenly our feelings toward that car change.
We
may love pizza because of how it tastes or how it satisfies our hunger. However, once it is gone, or if the leftovers
go bad in the fridge, or once we step on the scales or have the doctor tell us
our cholesterol is through the roof—suddenly our feelings change toward the
pizza.
We
may love the snow because of its beauty falling or covering our yard. We may even love the snow because of being
able to play and have fun with the kids, or simply, like kids. However, if you are having to get somewhere,
especially here in NC when it snows, or if your power goes out, suddenly you’re
feelings change.
The
same could be said of the beach—we love the beach because of the beauty of
God’s creation, or the opportunity to play in the sand and surf, or simply lie
out and get a tan. However, for many
folks (myself not included) let a beach trip be plagued by constant wind and
rain, and feelings about being at the beach change.
What’s
the significance of all of this? The
significance is that our “love” for each of these is based on their usefulness
to us. Our feelings toward them, our
being “in-love” with them, are based wholly and completely on their usefulness
to us or them making us happy.
Unfortunately, we have come to transfer that same mentality of functional
love toward our spouses, children, parents, friends, neighbors, and God.
A
couple begins dating, and as time moves forward they begin discussing marriage,
they have told one another they love them time and again, suddenly she becomes
sick and it looks as if it will be for the rest of her life. He realizes that taking care of her will
hamper all the plans he has made for his future and the “I love you’s” turn
into “I have no use of you.”
A
married couple separates and divorces because day to day routine has replace
the “warm fuzzy ‘in-love’” feelings, and a new person has come along and
brought those feelings out in one of them.
This
mentality starts pretty early as a young child loves his parents as long as she
gets whatever she wants—however, when they suddenly have to tell her “no.” She retaliates with, “you don’t love me” or
even “I hate you.”
I’ve
listened to conversations about friends over the years where all is wonderful
until you ask a favor of that friend and they can’t do what you want—give you a ride, loan you some money, lie for
you—and when they refuse, it is suddenly, “what kind of friend are you”? The love is suddenly gone.
There
are even situations where express a true love of God while blessings are
flowing into their lives, but let tragedy hit, and they do not just get angry
with God, they hate God, or they dismiss God all together from their lives,
maybe even encouraging others to do the same.
The
problem has become, my friends, is that all of our love has become based not on
care and compassion, and a deep commitment toward the other person but
completely on what that other person can do or has done for us. That may be okay for folks out in the world,
for those who have had no encounter with True Love, but it cannot be for those
of us who have encountered the love of God in our lives. Our understanding of love has to come from
our encounter with the love found in God.
God’s
love for us is not based on what we can do for Him, what we can provide for
Him. We do not say, “we know that God
loves us because we have pleased Him and served Him faithfully.” Paul tells us, “…God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” God didn’t share and shower us with love in
the midst of our pleasing Him, but in the midst of our sin, God loved us enough
that He sent His Son to die for us.
Jesus loved us so much that He lay down His life for us, all in the
midst of our own rebellion against Him.
That
is love in truth and action. Love in the
truth of a deep concern not for what God could get out of us, but that we could
truly be who we are created to be. Love
in the action of not simply Jesus saying He loves us, but sacrificing Himself
for us.
With
the understanding of Christ laying down His life for us, John confronts us with
the call to just to say that we love, but to truly show it…not to love with
mere words, but in truth and action.
When we say that we love, it should be with the same heart out of which
Christ loved…the heart of God—a heart that is willing to sacrifice everything
for the good of the one we say we love.
I
could go into detail about how this would mean that loving our spouse would
entail giving up a night out with the guys to help care for a sick wife, that
attending our child’s recital is more important than a business meeting, that
listening to and offering encouragement for a friend in crisis is more
important than whether or not our supper gets cold or we lose an hour or two of
sleep, but you can fill in all the rest of those blanks.
The
author of John emphasizes that the same kind of sacrificial love that Christ
offered for us, and that we might consider offering for our spouse, our
children, or our friends needs to be the same kind of love that we would offer
to one another. Last week’s reading told
us that we cannot claim to love God while hating a brother or sister in
Christ…that if we hate our brothers and sisters that we still walk in the
darkness apart from God. This week’s
reading picks up John taking it a step further.
He says that if we hate a brother or sister, then we are murderers, we
are no better than Cain who killed Abel.
John challenges us though, that we cannot simply say that we love our
brothers or sisters in Christ, that our actions have to reflect it. Just as God’s words of love took on the flesh
of Jesus Christ, our love for one another must take on flesh…we cannot simply
say that we love one another, but it should be seen in the way we treat one
another—that means that we put the needs of our brothers and sisters ahead of
our own.
Our
love for our brothers in sisters in Christ and our love for neighbor,
remembering Christ’s definition of who our neighbor is, is experienced when we
feed someone who is hungry, even if it means that we have to settle for a
peanut butter sandwich instead of a T-bone steak. It is experienced when we spend time visiting
someone sick in the hospital, even if it means giving up time watching the
Olympics. It is experienced when we stop
shoveling our own snow so we can get to the store to help shovel out someone
who needs to get to their chemo treatment.
It may even mean risking our lives going into a dangerous neighborhood
to help free someone from slavery to drug addiction.
My
brothers and sisters, it is when we live our love in truth and action, when we
live out Christ-like love in how we treat our family, including our brothers
and sisters in Christ, and how we love our neighbors, that the world begins to
see what love truly is…that it is far more than candy and flowers…it is a life
given for the sake of another.
As
Christ has loved us…let us love one another…and the world…
In
the Name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit…Amen.
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