This is Pastor Aaseng’s message from May 21, 2006

 

Love on Command

 

            This is the time of year when we hear two types of speeches. One of them is the address to graduates, to those who are leaving a safe, familiar way of life and are about to embark on something new. We try to offer words of wisdom that will inspire, encourage, and guide young people heading out into a new world.

 

The other type of speech follows closely on the heels of the graduation events. For we are also at the start of the busy season for weddings; when love is in the air. This is the time of year for the wedding address, when we try to explain to those entering into a new relationship exactly what the word love means.

 

The readings from the Gospel of John and from I John this morning seem to have an obvious connection with the second type of speech. I John, especially, contains the word “love” more frequently than in any just about any love letter you’ll ever find. In the words of a Walt Disney cartoon, the author seems to be absolutely twitterpated. He is so giddy after being smitten by Cupid’s arrow that he can’t think about anything but love, love, love, love, love.

 

But would it surprise you to learn that I John is an address aimed as much at graduates as it is at newly engaged couples?

 

A graduation address is supposed to distill all the complexities of life down to a few bare essentials—the really important basic principles on which one can build a solid life. Sure enough, the writer of I John manages to distill things down about as far as you can distill them.

The key to life, he says, is simple: obey God’s commandments.

And the key to obeying God’s commandments is even simpler: the writer of the letter takes it straight out of the Gospel of John that we also read today: 15:12.  “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

I John tries to add a little to that. It says in 3:23: “This is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of Jesus Christ and love one another.” But that’s actually a little redundant. Why would you follow someone’s command if you didn’t believe in him? Following Christ’s commandment to love assumes that you believe. Therefore, as the Gospel said, the key to obeying God’s commandments is simply: love.

 

But there are some problems with this advice from I John. Let’s be honest, it fails to do what a graduation speech is supposed to do: it doesn’t inspire us. It doesn’t have you jumping up and applauding because that word “love” doesn’t say much to us.

For one thing, it’s been way overused, to the point that it hardly has any meaning anymore.  

When you put a sock on in the morning, you feel that sock sliding on your foot. You feel its softness and warmth. Why?

Because nerve endings in your foot are sending the message to the brain: There’s a sock on the foot and this is what it feels like.

Within a few seconds, however, you stop feeling that sock. And most of the time, you remain totally oblivious to it for the rest of the day.

Why? Do the nerves in the foot stop sending sensory messages to the brain? No. There is a continual stream of messages from the foot to the brain: There’s a sock on the foot and this is what it feels like. There’s a sock on the foot, and this is what it feels like. After a few seconds, your brain says, “Alright, I know that. I know there’s a sock on the foot and that’s what it feels like. You don’t have to keep telling me.”

And when those messages keep coming, the brain ignores them because it’s heard it all and isn’t going to bother with it. Your foot sends that message all day and the brain shuts it off so completely that it doesn’t hear it.

 

That’s what happens when you hear a pastor talk about love in church. “There he is talking about love again. Been there. Heard that. Click.” It’s certainly a problem that we have with I John. Maybe this concept of love was still fairly fresh when this was written, but it’s not now. You can keep saying “love” all you want; we’re just going to click it off; we’re not really even going to hear it.

 

Another problem with the address from I John is that it doesn’t seem workable. It commands us to love and how do you do that? Isn’t love an emotion, a feeling? Marriage counselors teach that feelings are neither right nor wrong, they just are. You can’t help feeling what you feel. You can’t manufacture feelings that aren’t there. So what is the point of a commandment to love?

 

This line of argument demonstrates that those rare connections with love that still manage to get through to our brains get fouled up. They usually aren’t the connections that the I John and the Gospel of John are talking about. In our world love is something romance novels peddle. Love is something we connect with the hippie movement and flower power of the 1960s. Love is the subject of a million popular songs, including one that sounds a lot like I John-- “All You Need is Love.” Love is a chick flick topic. Love is a signoff we use in letters to family and close friends. 

 

It would help if we had more words for love in our language. Greek has several and it helps distinguish what Jesus was talking about.

 

The Greek word for romantic love is eros. The word deals only with the realm of sexual attraction. Eros love is a feeling.

 

The Greek word for the bonds that connect family and close friends is phileo. That tie of affection built through relationships. That’s where Philadelphia gets its name: the city of love. Phileo love is a feeling.

 

Those two words, eros and phileo, are hardly ever used in the Bible. When I John and the Gospel of John talk about love, the word they use is agape. It has nothing to do with romantic love; it has nothing to do with bonds of affection for family or friends, or teammates. It means self-giving for others. That is not a feeling, that is an action; a conscious commitment. Agape is an action we are commanded to do.

 

            When Jesus said love your enemies, he did not mean become romantically involved with them, he did not mean have strong feelings of affection for them, that you need to enjoy their company, or even like them. He said, “Consider the needs of others, even your enemies, along with, and even before your own needs.”

 

            That is what today’s readings say is the key to life. That is the commencement day advice they give to anyone embarking on the path of life. Practice agape, look to the needs of others along with and even before your own needs. That is how you find peace in this life, that is how God lives in you and becomes part of your life, that is how you find joy in the living reign of God.

 

            Is this an easy thing to do? Here’s the third problem with this letter from John. In 5:3, the author declares that this command to love is not burdensome. It is simple and easy to follow. Oh yeah? Look at the model that John lays out for us to follow: 15:13. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. I John echoes, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”

 

            You’re telling me that’s not burdensome? It’s easy to give up your life for someone else? If that’s what love requires, then it seems love is a huge and terrifying burden; and one that most of us cannot meet.

We seem to have a difficult time fulfilling the commandment to love even when it doesn’t cost cents--even when the price is simply listening or being a little careful of what we say. And if that is too great a price to pay, how can you possibly expect us to give up our lives? Then you tell us that’s not a burden, that it’s easy. How could I John possibly expect us to believe that?

 

            A little context in order. The author of I John was not just sitting at desk sniffing rose blossoms and writing odes to love. He was a church leader watching his congregation be ripped about by a disagreement in doctrine. It was a major argument with a faction that didn’t believe Jesus was actually human. But that isn’t what grinds at the author. He thinks they’re wrong and he says so. But what really bothers him is the disdain, the contempt that this group has for the rest of the congregation. They violate the first commandment of Jesus—love one another.

 

“How can you lose sight of that when you have the clearest, most dramatic example possible staring you in the face?” he asks.  “Is the story of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus something you’ve heard so often that you don’t even hear it anymore, like a sock on your foot? Is anybody hearing the message anymore?”

“We don’t need any more theology lessons,” he says. “First, we need go back to basics. Start opening a door for someone. Share your food. Listen to their opinion. Because if don’t take seriously the command to love, that means you don’t take God seriously. And if you don’t take God seriously, you’ll never get to square one in life. None of the rest will matter.

 

Let me tell you a story of the greatest running back in NFL history. You may not have heard of him. His name was Joe Delaney and he played for the Kansas City Chiefs in the 1980s. As a rookie, he set the team record for rushing yards in a season and made the Pro Bowl.

Going into his third season, he was relaxing in Monroe, Louisiana before the start of training camp. He was sitting in the park, enjoying a peaceful June day, when he noticed three boys playing by a water hole. It was actually a newly dug quarry that had been filled with water from heavy rains. He called out a warning to the boys to stay out of it.

But they didn’t and a few minutes later, he saw them disappear under the water. Without a second’s hesitation, Delaney sprinted to the water hole and jumped in to get them.

Delaney could not swim, yet he never hesitated. He managed to fish one of the boys out and get him to shore, then went in after another. Somewhere in the muddy water, reaching out to give a youngster a second chance at life, Delaney left this world.

 

That’s not the way people normally act. That is the way God acts.

 

Joe Delaney heard the command to love. He never considered that command a burden. People who knew him said they couldn’t imagine Joe not doing what he did at that water hole. That was the way he was. You hear his story and you know that, even in the midst of tragedy, God is alive and active in this world. The example of Jesus, and the example of followers such as the early disciples, and later ones such as Joe Delaney are not there to guilt us or shame us into martyrdom. They are there to show us what is possible when agape love takes hold of a person.

 

Nobody wishes for what happened to Joe Delaney. We wish you a long life filled with peace and joy. But we hope for something more. We hope and pray that maybe God can be alive and active in us as well. If you believe that the key to happiness in life is for God to be close to us and alive and active in our lives, there is only one way that we can make that happen. That trite, overused word that has been battered and stretched and tied in knots and crumpled beyond all recognition: agape love. The giving of self for others.

 

We have to get that part right. We have to get that part right or there simply is no ultimate happiness in our lives. Your path may take you in any of a thousand different directions, but if you get that part right it will always be the right path. Our prayer for you, and for all of us, is that maybe by the time we’ve finished our journey in this world, someone just might see a glimpse of God in us.

Because if that happens, it is the most beautiful thing a human can accomplish.