Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
May 1, 2005
John 14: 15-21
This is an old story. A pious man, faithful church-goer, was driving home when he saw someone lying in a ditch next to the road, someone who was clearly injured. Unlike those who passed by in the Good Samaritan story, this man did stop. He got out of his car, looked over at the injured man in the ditch, and said, “Smile, God loves you and so do I!” Then he got back in his car and drove away.
That old story reminds me of an even older story about a flight that was not going well. The plane rolled and lurched, caught in the midst of a violent storm. The passengers sat silently, anxiously, with seat belts tightly fastened. Suddenly the door to the cockpit opened and the captain emerged, wearing a parachute. He smiled and announced to the worried passengers, “Everyone keep calm. Don’t worry, I’m going for help!” I could be wrong, but I do not believe either of these stories demonstrate the love Jesus is talking about in our text.
Closer to Jesus’ love is this true story coming out of the killing fields of World War II, a story told by Bernard Haring, a German soldier who fought on the Russian front. He writes, “Illiterate Russian peasants once communicated a great truth to me about God’s love and care. After the battle of Stalingrad, in an effort to escape captivity I, along with sixteen gravely wounded and sick men, arrived at the house of a poor Russian family. We were taken in as cordially as if we were Christ himself. The family sheltered us in spite of the grave dangers involved; the highway on which the Russian army kept moving back and forth was very near.
“These poor Russians fed us and cared for us through the night. The next day, before leaving I asked what could have motivated them to such a courageous manifestation of love for enemies of their country. The mother of the household replied, “We have four sons in the Russian army and each day we pray that God will bring them home safe and sound. How could we go on praying if today we had overlooked the fact that your mother, your father and your friends are praying to the same God for the very same thing?”
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments… They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” I find this to be a fascinating text. Love here is not a feeling, not a sentiment, not something that we fall in and out of, it is not even a choice. Love for followers of Jesus is not optional. Love is a command. We hear Jesus in John speak of obedience. He orders his disciples – and us – to love. How do you like that? How do like being ordered to love? Jesus has obediently followed the commands of God and now he tells us to be obedient to his command to love. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Love and obedience, love and command, linked together in the teaching of Jesus. What are we to make of that? I suspect that when we first hear it, we don’t like it much. It is a difficult idea for us 21st century, western Sonoma County, independent-thinking disciples to wrap our brains around. Commanded to love? “I’ll decide for myself when and were and whom I will love, thank you very much. No one commands me to love. Love isn’t about obedience.”
A pastor writes, “’Oh, how I love Jesus! Oh, how I love Jesus! Because he first loved me!’ We loved to sing that at revival services when I was growing up. Yet, we sang that song in a racially segregated church. We failed to link love with obedience. Love of Jesus was mostly a feeling, a deep religious feeling to be sure, but mostly a feeling, not an act of the will, a mode of obedience.” In that segregated church, something was missing.
I think what we have in our text is a recognition that, in spite of our best intentions, our Christian love, our love for others, can become rather mushy and sentimental, the projection of some vague religious sentiment. Love becomes what we say it is. It may or may not demand much of us. It gets pretty easy to say, “God loves you and so do I,” and then drive away.
Then Jesus comes along and says, “No, love is what I say it is. Better yet, love is how I live, it is what you see lived out in all that I say and do. Look at my life. Look at my love. That is what I want from you. And this is my promise. If you will dare to keep my commandments, if you will dare to love me by following me, your love will grow and deepen as it is tested and proven in life’s daily challenges. You will become a loving person by faithfully following my command to love.”
A couple of weeks ago, Kristen and I took our confirmation class to the Friday evening service at Congregation Beth Ami, a synagogue in Santa Rosa. Following the service the rabbi talked with us and asked if we had any questions. We talked about the singing, he showed us the scrolls, and then one of our kids noticed that there was no offering. He said that they never take an offering during the service. (Thinking of converting already!) No, in the Temple each family is sent a bill – they are told what they ought to give in support of the congregation. What they feel they can give, or what they might want to give, are not considered. Giving is an obligation. It is what each family is “supposed” to do. Reflecting on the giving of money in Jewish synagogues, one Protestant pastor has said, “I’m sure there may be feelings behind the sense of obligation – warm feelings for the community of faith and its people – but feelings alone are a rather thin foundation for a faithful life. Sometimes the best things we do are out of simple obligation, because we are supposed to.” It was more than warm feelings that led that Russian family to risk everything to care for wounded German soldiers. They were doing what Jesus expected of them, what he had told them to do. In following his command to love they had become loving people.
When I think of the strongest, best marriages I know, it occurs to me that they began with an obligation, a pledge to remain faithful to a promise, yes, to obey a promise. In the words of William Willimon, “One of the things that most of us learn in marriage is that love – real, deep, abiding love – is the result of marriage rather than its cause. Strange but true. A couple, standing before God and the church at their wedding, may think that love is the reason for their wedding, the cause of the marriage. They are here, in the church, having a wedding, because they are in love.
“But one of the wonders of marriage is that, in making and keeping the promise to love one another – for better or worse – your love deepens, you become more in love than you were when you began keeping the promises of marriage. You’ve heard married couples say, ‘We didn’t know a thing about real love when we got married. We were young and silly. But over the years, we’ve learned what real love is.” One thing we discover in marriage – in any committed relationship – is that the more you work at keeping the promises, the more faithfully you hold on to what you promised to do, the less you have to consciously keep those promises. It just becomes a part of you. You become a faithful person through your faithfulness.”
And that, says Jesus, is how it is with love. If you love me, take some time every day to reaffirm your love of God and God’s love for you. And if you love me, you will keep my commandments. There’s a little work to be done here, such as telling the truth, serving someone else, and making someone else’s life better, fresher and more abundant because you came by, left a note, made a call. It’s so easy and so difficult to do. But, if you obey my commandment to love, if you keep the promise, you will become a loving person; you will become, says Jesus, more like me.