In Layman's Terms

Beloved, thank you for being here today. Today 3 separate Lutheran Congregations have come together to worship, hear the good news, and share in a feast to come. It is truly a joyous day.

Since the late 70’s 1 John 4:7-8 has been my favorite Bible verse. I was a camper at Fortunate Lake Bible Camp, a Lutheran camp in Crystal Falls, MI, when I first heard these verses. But I didn’t hear them as eloquently as we did with today’s readings. I heard them in a song:
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone who loveth is born of God and knowth God. He who loveth not, (clap clap) knoweth not God for God is Love, Beloved, let us love one another. 1 John 4: 7&8

We used to sing it at lunch with the whole camp. Imagine 120+ teenagers and their counselors singing that song, without realizing how much that song would impact us and likely without understanding exactly the depths of what these verses mean.
As you might surmise from my t-shirt, the depth of these verses is directly tied to the word Agapan

Scholars tell us that 1 John was part of a group of 3 letters written to a congregation what was going through some struggles. These letters written to address these struggles and to prevent the division that was being caused by false teachers who had left the church. Written in Greek the author exclusively used the verb agape and words based on this word throughout our reading today.

You see the Greek have 4 words (or more depending on who you talk to) that mean Love. There is Storge – which is familial love between a parent and a child, there is Philia- which is love between very close friends, brothers/sisters, there is Eros – passion or intimacy love and there is Agape – the unconditional/sacrificial love. That is the Love we are talking about today. That is the love the author exclusively uses in this chapter of 1 John.

This is why I personally don’t like some of the “translations” of the Bible these days. In my preparation for sharing today’s message I read some translations that start off 1 John 4: 7 “Dear Friends”. Dear Friends misses the boat. It misses the main connection of this whole reading.

1 John 4:7-21 describes to us what LOVE (capital L, Capital O, capital V and capital E) what true agape love is, where is comes from and how we can LOVE the same way.
For love is of God. For God is Love. The author is telling us that love (Agape Love) is not an emotion that God has. It is not something that God thinks about “hmm do I love this tree, this rain, these people”. No God IS love. It is an integral part of who God is. You cannot separate God from Love. And if we Love (agape love) then we are born of God and know God.

But how do we know this…. Because God’s love was revealed by Jesus coming into the world so that we might Live through him. Sending Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Because God is Love and because God sent us Love in the Jesus Christ we can love one another. Because God is Agape and because God showed us Agape in Jesus Christ we can share agape love with one another. God has modeled love for us. Jesus modeled love by living among us and dying to save us. God loves our brothers and sisters. God loves all the nations. In Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. There should be no division.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples (and aren’t we all his disciples) that “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, abide in my love…. You did not choose me, but I chose you. Jesus has chosen each one of us to be go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. Love – Agape Love. Agape Love is a Top Down kind of love, because God Loved us, because God loved Jesus, Jesus loved us and that love flows from God so that we can love Jesus, so that we can love God and so that we can love our fellow human beings.

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friend. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you (as Jesus has loved us).
Well this Agape love just got hard didn’t it. Almost uncomfortable. I mean, we’re only human. Just look at society today, there are divisions everywhere. What keeps us divided, is it ideological differences, cultural misunderstandings, skin color, our favorite baseball teams, our level of education, political party, where we live, where we get our news… I could go on and on. And yes these distinctions have the potential to divide us. There is a common element to all of this divisiveness. Fear. We fear what is different, what we don’t know, what makes us uncomfortable. But 1 John 4:18 reminds us that “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not reached perfection in Love.

If only it were that easy. But in a way it can be. One of the books I’ve often quoted before, “Practicing, changing yourself to change the world” by Kathy Escobar, reminds us that Love grows when we accept others unconditionally, with no “if, ands or buts”, if we help others realize their worth and value, make relationships more important than opinions, give and receive in a two way relationship, are “with” each other and put relationship and connection with each other above all, share our own vulnerabilities and weaknesses, show up consistently over the long haul, offer ourselves self compassion.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer summarized this lesson: “God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is ,for God, the ground of unfathomable love.” Those things we fear, we despise, the tyrants of the world, the bullies, are all interconnected pieces in God’s Agape Love and we are called to live in a way that funnels God’s love through us to one another and the world in it’s entirety.

Loving God and loving our neighbors and ourselves will never truly be mastered but as we practice loving and receiving love, we will challenge and transform ourselves and others. To paraphrase Mother Theresa, If you can’t love 100, love one and it can make all the difference.
Beloved, let us love one another for God is Love. Join me in living to share God’s love with a new person each day.