Preached at Canadochly and Grace on May 19, 2019
Preaching Text:
“Love one another.” It’s so simple. So basic. So elementary. One would think that such a commandment would be easy as pie to obey, that Christianity would spread like wildfire by all those who would practice this simple easy basic command. Perhaps that was the hope, maybe even the expectation. In the early years of the church, it certainly seemed that way. Even accounting for the fact that Luke probably exaggerated a bit on the number of converts, the first century world was clearly being set alight by the followers of Christ.
What happened?
“By this, they will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Sadly, we know today that the mark of the Church is not our love. All too often it is our legalism, our intolerance, our bigotry, our anger, our hate. It’s inflexible morality, harsh judgment, self-righteousness, and self-superiority. It is disrespect and apathy towards anyone who is not us. It is anything but love.
What happened?
Even within the Church, we see these evil marks. I grew up in a congregation that’s primary mission and ministry was finding new and creative ways to tear each other apart. We went through 5 pastors in 20 years, each one leaving either because they were thrown out or because of scandal. We bled members, good people, who couldn’t stand the atmosphere anymore or those who were targets of someone else’s ire. My church was hardly alone. I’ve heard other stories. Some even worse.
What happened?
As I often do, I was scanning Facebook earlier this week, looking at the various posts from my friends and groups. One caught my eye, a piece of artwork from the fantasy art group I’m a member of. The artist had chosen to, in addition to posting her picture, include a quote from fantasy author Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. "Love is the strongest emotion any creature can feel except for hate, but hate can't hurt you. Love, and trust, and friendship, and all the other emotions humans value so much, are the only emotions that can bring pain. Only love can break a heart into so many pieces."
I wonder if that’s it. Love is hard. Love means we have to be vulnerable. Love means we risk ourselves. Love means we can be hurt. Love means we can be damaged. And that’s scary. Hate, on the other hand, demands nothing of us. Hate is easy. Hate is armor. Hate means we are not vulnerable or at risk. Hate keeps us safe.
In these times of uncertainty, safety is what we want. The world is a scary place, as I’ve mentioned before. I can see its appeal.
But here’s the thing: Christianity isn’t supposed to be safe. This is a religion of risk, of danger, of being vulnerable and doing the right thing when it’s neither politic or popular. We are called to love and yes, that means often times loving those who are unloved by the greater whole. It means loving those the rest of the world fears and rejects.
And it means bearing the consequences of the choice to love.
What set the world on fire during that first century, when the Church was at its infancy? Love. It was people risking themselves to do what was right. Welcoming the stranger and outcast. Helping the downtrodden. Ministering to the sick. There were no tests of worthiness for these acts of compassion. People were not helped because they were worthy; they were helped because they needed it.
And the world responded. John was exiled. Peter crucified. Paul beheaded. Stephen stoned. The world in its rage and hate responded to love with violence. Killed the apostles. Made martyrs of them. But instead of frightening the Church into silence and subservience to the world’s standards, this made it bolder. It loved even more.
We look around and we see a world full of chaos and uncertainty. We look around and see a church empty and struggling. You want to turn this around? You want to see real change in the world and in our lives? I know I do. But the way to do it is not to play by the world’s rules. It’s not to embrace hate, easy as it is. Nor is it to play it safe.
To put it mildly, if we’re not out there trying to make the world kill us because of how and who we love, we’re doing it wrong.
Now, I get it. That’s not exactly the most appealing sales pitch. Join the church and become a martyr. But nothing in life worth having is gained without risk. And we could have a whole new world. One closer to the kingdom of God. One where the churches aren’t empty and people aren’t consumed with hate. We could have that, if we take the chance on love.
And, let’s be honest about something else, is it really a risk when we cannot die? Oh, sure, we can still suffer physical death. But we are promised eternity through Jesus Christ. The apostles, who died horribly at the hands of Roman persecution, banked on that. They knew Jesus had lived, died, and defeated death for their sake. He’s also done so for ours. What really do we have to fear when Christ has gone before us and his tomb is empty, just as ours will be one day?
So take a chance. Take a risk. Love one another. Love your neighbor. Love your enemy. Let that be the mark of the Church again. A bright light in a dying world. A world that needs that light. A light we can bring to it, if we choose to love. Amen.
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