I am looking forward to my return to Peace on June 10. I have, however, enjoyed this time to meet other brothers and sisters in Christ in Northern Ohio. I was invited to preach at Faith Lutheran Church in Lakewood on May 13. What follows is the sermon I preached there.
What does love look like? Is that a puzzling question or does an answer come immediately to mind? What does love look like?
We’ve been listening to readings from 1 John all through the season of Easter. And it has struck me this year just how important love is in this little book. The word is used over and over again. Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.... Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God.... God is love.... Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.... And today, by this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. Combine this with Jesus’ pronouncements in the Gospel of John, “Just as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love” and “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” and we have a pretty powerful reminder that love--God’s love--is at the center of this life of faith. So what does that love look like?
I don’t remember who first taught me about God’s love. I do know that since before I could remember my parents have told me they loved me, and my grandparents. I know that skipping stones in the Mississippi with my grandpa and going to visit grandma at the nursing home where she worked are some of my earliest memories, along with climbing into my dad’s lap to read story after story and remembering my mom staying up late to sew doll clothes or paint individual tulips on the wall of my childhood bedroom. All of them, each in their own way, helped me understand what it means to love and to be loved.
I don’t remember the first time I sang “Jesus Loves Me,” but I know that by the time I was in Kindergarten, I was so confident in that love that I stood in front of a group of sixth graders and scolded them, with hands on my hips, “How many times do I have to tell you, when you’re singing about Jesus you should have a smile on your face?” Folks at my home congregation who remembered that story were not surprised when they learned that I was headed to seminary.
A pastor friend once told me that every night, he traces the cross on his children’s foreheads and says “Jesus loves you and so do I.” Not long ago, he and his teenaged son had an argument that resulted in the son stomping off to his room for several hours. But when it came time for bed, he emerged and came upstairs to tell his dad he was going to bed. He leaned down to receive the blessing he had received nearly every night of his life. “Jesus loves you and so do I.”
Maybe your story is different. Maybe you remember vividly the day that you first learned about God’s love. That you first experienced it and took it in. Maybe you remember the first time someone spoke those amazing words that are so full of grace and hope and promise, “Child of God, you are loved.” Whatever the story we have to tell, isn’t that promise still absolutely amazing. You are loved.
We love because God first loved us. And, as you all know well, God’s love moves in us, through us, and around us. When we really stop and take it in, we can’t help but be moved. And it gets us moving, right? Whether we speak of God’s love or show it, when we really take it in, we can’t help but to share it. And since God gives us a variety of gifts, we use those gifts to the best of our ability to let light of Christ’s love shine in a world that so often needs to hear it again that love is more powerful than hate, that God is love, that you are loved.
So what does love look like? I took a look at your website and it looks to me that love at Faith looks a little bit like a community clothes closet or a community meal. It looks like a place where “a church for all” is taken so seriously that there’s even a place for pets every once in awhile. It looks like a place where quilts are created with love and resources are shared in the neighborhood and around the world. It looks like a place where God’s people understand that love is active. It looks like a place where generations have been nurtured and joys and sorrows shared and where strangers are welcomed as brothers and sisters.
My husband moved last August to teach for the year at Oberlin. I joined him at the end of November. During our time in Ohio, we’ve enjoyed the opportunity to visit many different churches--ELCA, Episcopal, UCC, and Baptist. This is what we’ve witnessed again and again: God’s love takes on many different forms. We’ve stumbled into congregations that are tiny and some that are quite large. We’ve seen confirmation students excited to share God’s love through service and college students who have experienced God’s love in places near and far. We’ve watched as brothers and sisters in Christ washed one another’s feet and have knelt at many a communion rail. I heard last weekend at the South Central Synod of Wisconsin assembly stories of congregations reaching out to show God’s love in various ways in their own communities--through community meals and outreach to immigrant communities. I heard stories from around the ELCA of the ways God’s love is being shared with folks who have heard about it for years and folks who have just recently heard the promise for the very first time.
And when we stop and think about it, this love of God that is steadfast and encompassing and sure, we realize that that love surprises us and delights us and fills us with awe. That that love works in many and various ways in and through the people around us--friends and family and strangers. That God’s love is something to be shared. That God’s love is engrained in us deeply and yet entirely new. That God’s love empowers us and fills us and renews us and refreshes us.
Today, like we do most every Sunday, we gather at the Lord’s table, where we take in the body and blood of Christ. Where we hear the words of promise “This is my body given for you.” Words that are so full of love. Words that change us. Words that charge us to share that love, not just within these walls but out into the world. The authors of a book on Lutherans and immigration called They Are Us put it this way “In the eucharist, we not only eat at the altar table of our congregations, but we follow the real presence of Jesus into the world to connect with the community.” God’s love changes us. It frees us to serve. It sends us out into the world to use the gifts we have been given to the best of our ability, all in the name of Christ, whose love is so strong it conquers death. That is a stunning and empowering reality for us, isn’t it? In Christ, we have a promise of love so amazing it conquers even death. So what have we to fear? We lay down our burdens and follow the one who is love. We are freed to love and sent out to serve.
It never ceases to amaze me when I hear the promise at the end of Matthew’s gospel. “Remember, I am with you always until the end of the age.” God calls us to love and promises to be with us through the joys and the sorrows and challenges that an active love brings. At Christ’s table, we are nourished once again to go our many different ways to love--neighbors and strangers and enemies and friends. We love because God first loved us. We do our best to obey Christ’s command to love one another. We abide in Christ’s love, so amazing, so divine and we rest deeply in the promise that God is love. Amen.
