Abiding in Love
5th Sunday of Easter, 2009
One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother making bread in the kitchen. She suddenly
noticed that her mother had several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast to the otherwise
dark hair on her head. She looked at her mother curiously and asked, "Momma, why are some of
your hairs white?" Her mother replied, "Well, every time you do something wrong and make me
unhappy, one of my hairs turns white."
The girl thought about this for a moment and then inquired, "Momma, how come ALL of grandma's
hairs are white?”
Well, Happy Mothers’ Day! The lessons in today’s scripture readings blend well with what we value
in the self-giving love of a mother. Because that selfless love that in the Greek is called “agape” is a
major theme of John’s First Letter and his Gospel.
We’ve discussed before how confused our society is about love. Say the word “love” and most of us
will see a cascade of different images. Love is that feeling that makes your heart beat a little faster
when that person of the opposite gender makes eyes at you. Or love is that emotion that, at least in
Hollywood and Nashville and Motown, conquers all. You know, “Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t
no valley low enough, and all of that. (Indeed, it’s my love and compassion for you all that
constrained me to speak rather than sing those words to you.) Or maybe love is that thing that
gives us the warm feeling of making others happy by seeing to their wants and needs.
As you may know, the Greek language has no fewer than four different words that translate into that
English catch-all word, “love.” They all have their own nuances of meaning. There’s eros—romantic
love, phileo—brotherly love, storge—more of a friendship love, and finally, agape. We tend to stir
romantic love, brotherly love, friendship love and selfless love into the same warm, happy kettle.
While it’s possible to separate the different types of love a little too neatly, agape definitely has its
own flavor.
The word “love” is used 27 times in today’s reading from 1 John, and in each case agape is the root
word that’s used. John uses the word to tell us about loving God and loving each other. I find that
maybe the most helpful way of distinguishing agape love from the others has to do with who benefits
most from it. You know, who it’s really for.
If you look at it closely, many of our ideas of love are not necessarily geared exclusively toward the
good of others, but may be thinly veiled ways of getting our own needs met. For instance, romantic
love, eros, is a wonderful and beautiful thing, but is it not often motivated by the words, “I want”? We
all generally enjoy mutual, romantic love. It gratifies something in us. It makes us feel good. That
certainly doesn’t make it a bad thing. And if we analyzed all of our motivations to make sure they’re
absolutely pure and selfless, I think we might go crazy.
But the agape love Jesus talks about is a special kind. It’s a love that gives to others, not one that
grasps something for oneself. I think F. F. Bruce does well to describe agape as “a consuming
passion for the well-being of others.” A consuming passion for the well-being of others. My
thunderously comprehensive and oppressively expensive Greek-English lectionary defines agape
as “the quality of warm regard for, and interest in, another.” So it’s surely not an unfeeling type of
love. It’s not just action without emotion. Rather, it’s a love that emphasizes the other rather than
oneself.
So when Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” he’s saying we should love
Him for who He is and what He stands for, not just for what we can get from Him. Selfless love. It’s
the love that inspired Philip to respond to the Holy Spirit and share the good news of Jesus with the
Ethiopian eunuch in our Acts reading. It’s the love that then indwelt the eunuch, prompting him to
bring the gospel (as tradition says) to Ethiopia. It’s the love that gloriously flies its colors in a mother’
s stretch marks, aching back and proliferating gray hairs! (I long for a time when gray hairs are
once again considered a badge of honor and a cause for respect. And not just because I’m getting
more of them.)
And ultimately, this love is the willingness, John says, to lay down our very lives on behalf of those
we love, as Jesus did for each and every one of us. We heard John say last week, “We know love
by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”
Does anybody else here feel that this is kind of a tall order? Half the time I don’t even notice when
Michele or the boys need attention without being prompted. I find myself at times wanting to avoid
some of the people who have the greatest need, because it will tax me in ways that will leave me
drained. Sometimes I whine about people not understanding my needs when the great majority of
the population of the world have needs that I can’t even begin to imagine. Agape love doesn’t come
easily or naturally to me. I wonder if you’ve felt the same way. Yet it’s this very love that Jesus
commands us to have for God and for each other.
Some of you know that apologetics is one of my favorite Christian Education topics. Apologetics is
that area of study in which we examine the objective evidence for the truth of the gospel. F. F.
Bruce writes, “The love of God displayed in His people is the strongest apologetic that God has in
the world.” It’s quite probably the best way to lead others to Jesus. We’re expected to live loving,
Christ-like lives. We’re directed to live this way by our Lord. The kind of love Jesus commands in us
is indeed a tall order. Under our own power I don’t think we can even hope to be successful.
But it I hope it won’t surprise you too much at this point to realize that the Lord doesn’t simply leave
us with steep expectations and no way to meet them. We’d be in sad shape if He did. There is a
remedy for our weakness, and it’s found in today’s Gospel passage. Once again Jesus uses
metaphors of nature. He describes himself as the vine, and us as the branches. He says, “Abide in
me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine,
neither can you unless you abide in me.” And the very next verse after today’s Gospel reading says
this: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”
Abide in my love. Live in my love. This is the way we can be successful in exercising Christ-like
love. We stay connected to the vine in such a way that the love of Christ flows into us like sap into a
branch, and then right into the fruit that we bear for Him. And that sweet sap, that juice of life has a
name. That name is the Holy Spirit. The Helper. The One who walks beside us and even dwells
within us to help us. That which is virtually impossible in our own power becomes possible through
the power of the Holy Spirit living within us. We have the very power of God himself to help us to
love!
So why do I fail so often? Why can’t I keep the commandments? Why don’t I consistently exercise
love of God and neighbor? I can only answer for myself. For me, it’s because I try all too often to
exercise agape love in my own power, and not in the power of the Spirit. Sometimes I simply forget
that His power and His presence are available to me at any time of day or night. And sometimes I
have doubts as to whether He’ll bring victory or success in any given situation. I suspect that all who
strive to do God’s will struggle with this at least at times.
The reality is, all of us are caught all the time in the tension between success in the Spirit and failure
in the flesh. Paul wrote about this. Remember he lamented, “I seem to do what I don’t want to do,
and don’t do what I want to do?” Mothers (and fathers) know this as well as than anyone. They live
into God-birthed agape sometimes and experience failures at others. But God’s love for us gives us
doubly good news. Because our failures have already been nailed to the Cross. Our sins have
been defeated in the victorious resurrection of Jesus and they no longer hang threateningly over
our heads.
If, like me, you ever get bogged down by frustration and shame because of not being able to live up
to the standards you know are right, there’s no better news in the world than this. If, like me, you
ever fail to love God with your whole heart, soul, and mind, or love your neighbor as yourself,
know this: You are forgiven. By the power of the Cross every sin of commission or omission, you
know, things done or left undone, is removed from you as far as the east is from the west. The
same St. John who wrote the passages we’re studying today also wrote: If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
So our motivation to live out the kind of agape love that Jesus commands us to, comes not from
fear, but from gratitude for what He’s already done for us. And that agape love is powered by the
Holy Spirit who flows into us and through us for the asking. This in and of itself is a gift of
unimaginable love. As I see it, the solution to the great dilemma Paul wrote of in which we struggle
between what is right and what we actually do, is simple, but by no means easy. It’s simple, because
all we need to do is trust that the Holy Spirit can and will generate the power to love from inside of
us. It really is a matter of childlike faith. But it’s not easy because we’re so thoroughly soaked in an
atmosphere of doubt that this doesn’t come naturally to us. We become numb to the simple miracle
of God living within us.
This leaves us with a curious irony. Rather than becoming more and more sophisticated; rather
than advancing up some ladder of spiritual advancement like some kind of Jedi mastering “the force”
or something, the Holy Spirit’s power within us is accessed by simple, childlike faith that Jesus has
kept His promise to come and dwell in us. It’s not a matter of struggling or striving, but trusting. It’s
not a matter of trying to become a spiritual giant, but becoming as a little child.
And this brings us full circle. Do you struggle to give the kind of love the Lord wants you to give? Do
you wrestle with yourself to maintain a passion for the well being of others?
If so, perhaps it’s time to give up the struggle. Maybe it’s time to just relax and soak in the warm,
joyous reality that Jesus’ work on the Cross and has given you a future of unending joy in His
kingdom. “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” he says.
Perhaps it’s time simply to trust that, when Jesus said he’d come to live within each of us, he meant
it. And that if we just settle down and ask Him, he’ll restore the flow of life-giving Spirit, that sap of
life, that perhaps we’d begun to pinch off by virtue of our unbelief.
May we all learn to be like children again, trusting the Lord incessantly just as we trusted in our own
mothers to love us and provide for us. For His love never leaves us, forgets us, or fails us. Jesus
said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.”
5th Sunday of Easter, 2009
One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother making bread in the kitchen. She suddenly
noticed that her mother had several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast to the otherwise
dark hair on her head. She looked at her mother curiously and asked, "Momma, why are some of
your hairs white?" Her mother replied, "Well, every time you do something wrong and make me
unhappy, one of my hairs turns white."
The girl thought about this for a moment and then inquired, "Momma, how come ALL of grandma's
hairs are white?”
Well, Happy Mothers’ Day! The lessons in today’s scripture readings blend well with what we value
in the self-giving love of a mother. Because that selfless love that in the Greek is called “agape” is a
major theme of John’s First Letter and his Gospel.
We’ve discussed before how confused our society is about love. Say the word “love” and most of us
will see a cascade of different images. Love is that feeling that makes your heart beat a little faster
when that person of the opposite gender makes eyes at you. Or love is that emotion that, at least in
Hollywood and Nashville and Motown, conquers all. You know, “Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t
no valley low enough, and all of that. (Indeed, it’s my love and compassion for you all that
constrained me to speak rather than sing those words to you.) Or maybe love is that thing that
gives us the warm feeling of making others happy by seeing to their wants and needs.
As you may know, the Greek language has no fewer than four different words that translate into that
English catch-all word, “love.” They all have their own nuances of meaning. There’s eros—romantic
love, phileo—brotherly love, storge—more of a friendship love, and finally, agape. We tend to stir
romantic love, brotherly love, friendship love and selfless love into the same warm, happy kettle.
While it’s possible to separate the different types of love a little too neatly, agape definitely has its
own flavor.
The word “love” is used 27 times in today’s reading from 1 John, and in each case agape is the root
word that’s used. John uses the word to tell us about loving God and loving each other. I find that
maybe the most helpful way of distinguishing agape love from the others has to do with who benefits
most from it. You know, who it’s really for.
If you look at it closely, many of our ideas of love are not necessarily geared exclusively toward the
good of others, but may be thinly veiled ways of getting our own needs met. For instance, romantic
love, eros, is a wonderful and beautiful thing, but is it not often motivated by the words, “I want”? We
all generally enjoy mutual, romantic love. It gratifies something in us. It makes us feel good. That
certainly doesn’t make it a bad thing. And if we analyzed all of our motivations to make sure they’re
absolutely pure and selfless, I think we might go crazy.
But the agape love Jesus talks about is a special kind. It’s a love that gives to others, not one that
grasps something for oneself. I think F. F. Bruce does well to describe agape as “a consuming
passion for the well-being of others.” A consuming passion for the well-being of others. My
thunderously comprehensive and oppressively expensive Greek-English lectionary defines agape
as “the quality of warm regard for, and interest in, another.” So it’s surely not an unfeeling type of
love. It’s not just action without emotion. Rather, it’s a love that emphasizes the other rather than
oneself.
So when Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” he’s saying we should love
Him for who He is and what He stands for, not just for what we can get from Him. Selfless love. It’s
the love that inspired Philip to respond to the Holy Spirit and share the good news of Jesus with the
Ethiopian eunuch in our Acts reading. It’s the love that then indwelt the eunuch, prompting him to
bring the gospel (as tradition says) to Ethiopia. It’s the love that gloriously flies its colors in a mother’
s stretch marks, aching back and proliferating gray hairs! (I long for a time when gray hairs are
once again considered a badge of honor and a cause for respect. And not just because I’m getting
more of them.)
And ultimately, this love is the willingness, John says, to lay down our very lives on behalf of those
we love, as Jesus did for each and every one of us. We heard John say last week, “We know love
by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”
Does anybody else here feel that this is kind of a tall order? Half the time I don’t even notice when
Michele or the boys need attention without being prompted. I find myself at times wanting to avoid
some of the people who have the greatest need, because it will tax me in ways that will leave me
drained. Sometimes I whine about people not understanding my needs when the great majority of
the population of the world have needs that I can’t even begin to imagine. Agape love doesn’t come
easily or naturally to me. I wonder if you’ve felt the same way. Yet it’s this very love that Jesus
commands us to have for God and for each other.
Some of you know that apologetics is one of my favorite Christian Education topics. Apologetics is
that area of study in which we examine the objective evidence for the truth of the gospel. F. F.
Bruce writes, “The love of God displayed in His people is the strongest apologetic that God has in
the world.” It’s quite probably the best way to lead others to Jesus. We’re expected to live loving,
Christ-like lives. We’re directed to live this way by our Lord. The kind of love Jesus commands in us
is indeed a tall order. Under our own power I don’t think we can even hope to be successful.
But it I hope it won’t surprise you too much at this point to realize that the Lord doesn’t simply leave
us with steep expectations and no way to meet them. We’d be in sad shape if He did. There is a
remedy for our weakness, and it’s found in today’s Gospel passage. Once again Jesus uses
metaphors of nature. He describes himself as the vine, and us as the branches. He says, “Abide in
me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine,
neither can you unless you abide in me.” And the very next verse after today’s Gospel reading says
this: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”
Abide in my love. Live in my love. This is the way we can be successful in exercising Christ-like
love. We stay connected to the vine in such a way that the love of Christ flows into us like sap into a
branch, and then right into the fruit that we bear for Him. And that sweet sap, that juice of life has a
name. That name is the Holy Spirit. The Helper. The One who walks beside us and even dwells
within us to help us. That which is virtually impossible in our own power becomes possible through
the power of the Holy Spirit living within us. We have the very power of God himself to help us to
love!
So why do I fail so often? Why can’t I keep the commandments? Why don’t I consistently exercise
love of God and neighbor? I can only answer for myself. For me, it’s because I try all too often to
exercise agape love in my own power, and not in the power of the Spirit. Sometimes I simply forget
that His power and His presence are available to me at any time of day or night. And sometimes I
have doubts as to whether He’ll bring victory or success in any given situation. I suspect that all who
strive to do God’s will struggle with this at least at times.
The reality is, all of us are caught all the time in the tension between success in the Spirit and failure
in the flesh. Paul wrote about this. Remember he lamented, “I seem to do what I don’t want to do,
and don’t do what I want to do?” Mothers (and fathers) know this as well as than anyone. They live
into God-birthed agape sometimes and experience failures at others. But God’s love for us gives us
doubly good news. Because our failures have already been nailed to the Cross. Our sins have
been defeated in the victorious resurrection of Jesus and they no longer hang threateningly over
our heads.
If, like me, you ever get bogged down by frustration and shame because of not being able to live up
to the standards you know are right, there’s no better news in the world than this. If, like me, you
ever fail to love God with your whole heart, soul, and mind, or love your neighbor as yourself,
know this: You are forgiven. By the power of the Cross every sin of commission or omission, you
know, things done or left undone, is removed from you as far as the east is from the west. The
same St. John who wrote the passages we’re studying today also wrote: If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
So our motivation to live out the kind of agape love that Jesus commands us to, comes not from
fear, but from gratitude for what He’s already done for us. And that agape love is powered by the
Holy Spirit who flows into us and through us for the asking. This in and of itself is a gift of
unimaginable love. As I see it, the solution to the great dilemma Paul wrote of in which we struggle
between what is right and what we actually do, is simple, but by no means easy. It’s simple, because
all we need to do is trust that the Holy Spirit can and will generate the power to love from inside of
us. It really is a matter of childlike faith. But it’s not easy because we’re so thoroughly soaked in an
atmosphere of doubt that this doesn’t come naturally to us. We become numb to the simple miracle
of God living within us.
This leaves us with a curious irony. Rather than becoming more and more sophisticated; rather
than advancing up some ladder of spiritual advancement like some kind of Jedi mastering “the force”
or something, the Holy Spirit’s power within us is accessed by simple, childlike faith that Jesus has
kept His promise to come and dwell in us. It’s not a matter of struggling or striving, but trusting. It’s
not a matter of trying to become a spiritual giant, but becoming as a little child.
And this brings us full circle. Do you struggle to give the kind of love the Lord wants you to give? Do
you wrestle with yourself to maintain a passion for the well being of others?
If so, perhaps it’s time to give up the struggle. Maybe it’s time to just relax and soak in the warm,
joyous reality that Jesus’ work on the Cross and has given you a future of unending joy in His
kingdom. “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” he says.
Perhaps it’s time simply to trust that, when Jesus said he’d come to live within each of us, he meant
it. And that if we just settle down and ask Him, he’ll restore the flow of life-giving Spirit, that sap of
life, that perhaps we’d begun to pinch off by virtue of our unbelief.
May we all learn to be like children again, trusting the Lord incessantly just as we trusted in our own
mothers to love us and provide for us. For His love never leaves us, forgets us, or fails us. Jesus
said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.”
Abiding in Love
Fifth Sunday of Easter, 2009
Fifth Sunday of Easter, 2009
May 10, 2009
Fr. Dan Tuton
Fr. Dan Tuton
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |