|
|
|
|
|
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love; Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love. Am I a Christian? Are you? Can we prove it? If we were in a court of love, on trial for our Christianity, and our attorney stood up and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, Tom (or Joe or Jane) is a Christian, because…” – would there be enough evidence to convict us? Would the jury know without a doubt that we were real, practicing Christians? How would they know? There are people all over the world – watching, waiting, desperate to know if we are the Christians we claim to be. The people of Haiti and Panama, Afghanistan and Africa. The people in our neighborhoods or schools, our places of work or retirement. The people in this church. There are people who want, who need to know: just how Christian are we? Jesus wanted and needed to know about the people of Nazareth. At that time there was no Christianity, no Christian religion, no Christians. There was no one who believed in Jesus enough to change their lives quite yet, no one who had decided to follow Jesus, to live and love like him. The people of Nazareth in the synagogue that day thought they knew what to expect from Jesus, but they soon found out they didn’t have a clue. Of course, those folks in the synagogue weren’t just anyone. They were Jesus’ friends, people of his own hometown, folks he’d known since he was a boy. “Is not this Joseph’s son?” they asked themselves. They “all spoke well of him,” the story begins, “and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth” (Luke 4:22). Here was their hometown-boy-made-good, giving his inaugural speech, enjoying an approval rating that was as high as it gets. And then, things shifted. Jesus began to speak some truth in love. He talked about their expectations and how they would reject him. His friends began to see that, like Jeremiah, Jesus was a prophet. But Jesus was more than prophet. He did more than speak of God’s justice and mercy and love for all people. He lived it out; he walked the talk. He gave himself to the whole world. He lived God’s love in ways they never expected, ways they didn’t want but needed, ways that turned their world – and ours – upside down. St. Paul also lived in a world that needed love. Those early churches he helped to plant needed to be taught about love, over and over again. The Corinthians were no exception. They were jealous of each other, boasting about their own spiritual gifts, yet refusing to share them with their sister and brother Christians. They became arrogant and even rude. Their attitude was what we sometimes describe as “my way or the highway.” The state of their spiritual union, Paul told the Corinthian church, was not strong. They were in crisis. In First Corinthians 13, this beautiful passage we hear so often at weddings, Paul is not talking about the covenant of marriage. But he is talking about another covenant relationship. He’s describing the ways in which they are not living up to and into the covenant they made when they were baptized, when they became members of the church, the body of Christ. He suggests that, in a court of divine love, they lack in living out that love. Yet Paul is in covenant relationship with them. He wants them all to work things out – together, in love. Love, Paul reminds them, God’s love, the love that Jesus loves, ismany things. God’s love in Christ is patient and kind. God’s love in Christ is full of truth. God’s love in Christ is able to endure everything. And God’s love in Jesus Christ is eternal. This is the kind of love Jeremiah and Paul longed for, the kind of love we long for, the kind of love Jesus lived and offers us – still, today. If we are to love one another as Jesus has loved, as Jesus loves us still, we need to practice what he preached. Practice, as one spiritual teacher put it recently, makes pilgrims, not perfection. Our imperfect practice of love puts in good company, on a journey with Jesus and all those who are or have been Jesus followers. I suggest we are here today because, at some level, we want to learn more about practicing love. We want to learn how to live into our Baptismal Covenant, how to respect more fully the dignity of every human being, how to love more completely our neighbors as ourselves. We want there to be enough evidence in a court of divine love to be convicted by a jury of our peers. And yet we will always do this imperfectly. That’s what it means to be human. We resist God’s love, the very love we long for. We practice childish ways, even when we are no longer children. We may be adults, but sometimes, our behavior is anything but grown-up. That’s why our teenagers, those in adolescence, our young people, on a journey with Jesus through that great transition between childhood and adulthood – our youth are important to us. If we are willing to learn from them, our youth can teach us, often painfully, what it’s like to grow up, to mature into the loving adults Jesus wants us all to become. Here’s a story about growing up in love. A homeless man once used a church I served in ways that felt wrong, even sinful to some leaders and members there. He was smelly and obnoxious and didn’t conduct himself very well. He spoke up at some inappropriate times, even in worship. He did some inappropriate things. In a fit of righteous indignation, I decided I needed to tell those Christians the truth – God’s truth, as I saw it. So I wrote a letter to my fellow Christians, telling them how unchristian I thought they had become. I scolded and chastised them. At the time, I thought I was following Jesus. In my arrogance I thought I was behaving just like him when he told his friends at Nazareth that, if they really loved God, they would reach out and touch those who were different, widows and lepers who might never become “Christian.” At that time and in this time, I was not and I am still not Jesus. I am not the kind of Christian I hope to become. Even though they, too, had something to learn, I did not speak my truth to my fellow Christians in the love of Christ. I spoke out of my impatience. I was unkind and irritable. I tried to insist on my own way, seeing myself dimly in the mirror. I am embarrassed now to admit how far I was from putting away childish things. And yet I do believe, through God’s mercy and grace, that I have learned from that painful experience. Love, as the saying goes, begins at home. In our homes, here in our church home, we always need to be asking: What’s the loving thing to do?What’s the loving thing to do in Haiti and Panama and around the world? And what’s the loving thing to do at home, at school, at work, in our community, in our own church? Together, let us learn how to love. Together, as the body of Christ called All Saints’ Church, let us practice our Christianity. Together, let us learn more and more about sharing our gifts, collaborating with each other, encouraging each other, building up each other, calling each other to account, convicting each other, speaking the truth to each other in love. This is and always will be our Christian “practice,” because, in this lifetime, we will never get it completely right. We will continue to disappoint each other from time to time. We will fail to love, again and again. But I do believe God has brought us together – me, you, all of us – for some good, perhaps even some holy reason. Together, with God’s help, let us learn more and more about how to love, as Jesus Christ loves us. Am I a Christian? Are you? How much do we want to learn how to love? For they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love. |
||
For more on the interruptions of life, go to http://fathermom.wordpress.com |
 |
 |
||
|
|||
