Joel D. Kline
Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren
May 1, 2005
Two summers ago the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference was in Boise, Idaho, and on our travels west Janice and I happened through the town of Fort Laramie, Wyoming, which had a welcoming sign that read,
WELCOME TO
THE TOWN OF
FORT LARAMIE
250 GOOD PEOPLE
AND 6 SORE HEADS
My guess is that the number of “sore heads” varies from day to day—perhaps even hour to hour and minute by minute—but what I most liked about the sign was its recognition that life in community, by very definition, involves relating with one another, warts and all.
And life in Christian community, life in the church, can be even more challenging than merely relating to those who live in our neighborhood, for Jesus minced no words in asserting our central calling to love one another. “I give you a new commandment” (John 13:35), said Jesus on the eve of his arrest and trial and crucifixion. And what is that new commandment? To love one another, just as Jesus himself loves us to the end, to the uttermost.
This morning’s Gospel lesson comes from the heart of a section in John’s Gospel that biblical scholars label as the final discourse of Jesus—words of instruction spoken as Jesus faces impending arrest and death. Jesus is attempting to prepare the disciples for life when he is no longer physically present among them, a time when their love for Jesus will not cease, but clearly will take a different shape. Their love will be expressed, not merely by clinging to their cherished memories of Jesus, nor by retreating into a private “me and Jesus” kind of thing. Instead, commands Jesus, the disciples are to continue their love for Jesus by embracing life in community with fellow believers, by putting their love into practice.
It is no easy task, loving the “sore heads” among us; it is no easy task, loving one another, warts and all. And yet, truth be told, who among us doesn’t have our own times when we might readily be labeled “sore head,” times when we ourselves are appalled at our own behavior? And who among us, much like the characters in the chancel drama, does not wonder whether others would accept and care for us if they really knew us, warts and all—if they knew our deepest struggles and hurts, our innermost questions and doubts, our most profound times of emptiness and of loneliness?
Presbyterian pastor Bruce Larson writes,
The hardest job of all is to love the people in the household of God. It [may be] easier to seek out some stranger on the street, to find some poor soul in need and take him home for a night or two, or give him some money, or pray with him. But how about that person who has been sitting in the pew next to you or in front of you for the past thirty years, with whom you always seem to be at cross-purposes? To love one another can be the hardest task of all.
And then Larson continues, “When we in the church can do that, the world will beat down our doors.” Why? Because there is within all of us this universal hunger for a place of deep and abiding relationship with one another, a place of acceptance and care, a place of self-giving love. When Jesus urges us to be a community of love, he is not just talking about a “feel good” kind of place. Jesus is talking about a place where we can be honest with one another, a place where we can be real in the presence of each other, a place of openness about our struggles every bit as much as our hopes, our fears as much as our successes.
Anne Lamott has a chapter in her book Traveling Mercies entitled “Why I Make Sam Go to Church.” Sam is Anne’s son, age seven at the time, who is less than enthusiastic about church attendance. If you’ve read any of Anne Lamott’s writings, you will know that she frequently writes tongue-in-cheek, an intriguing mixture of reverence and irreverence. Listen to these words:
I make him because I can. I outweigh him by nearly seventy-five pounds.
But that is only part of it. The main reason is that I want to give him what I found in the world, which is to say a path and a little light to see by . . . . When I was at the end of my rope, the people at St. Andrew tied a knot in it for me and helped me hold on. The church became my home in the old meaning of home—that it’s where, when you show up, they have to let you in. They let me in. They even said, “You come back now.”
Lamott recalls that the day when she announced, as an unwed mother, that she was pregnant, people cheered, while she had feared rejection. And then, Anne shares, the congregation set about providing for her and her soon-to-be-born son. Writes Anne, “They brought clothes, they brought me casseroles to keep in the freezer, they brought me assurance that this baby was going to be a part of the family.” She recalls how some of the poorer members would nevertheless sidle up to her and slip bills into her pockets—tens and twenties. And then Anne writes,
I was usually filled with a sense of something like shame until I’d remember that wonderful line of Blake’s—that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love—and I would take a long deep breath and force these words out of my strangulated throat: “Thank you.”
There are far too few congregations like St. Andrew, and far too many prone to offer judgment and rejection rather than love. United Methodist bishop William Willimon reminds us that the kind of love Jesus talks about—and models—is not simply the love of momentary feelings, something we fall into and out of. No, Jesus’ love is a counter cultural sort of thing, an act of the will, a promise, something we decide to do. It is this kind of love as an act of the will that Jesus envisions when asserting, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. In The Message those words are paraphrased this way: If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you (John 14:15). And what is it that Jesus commands us to do, but to live in such a way that the grace and compassion, the peace and loving kindness of God are manifest. It is a matter of living in such a way that Christ’s love is made known.
Henri Nouwen in his book Compassion reminds us,
To follow Christ means to relate to each other with the mind of Christ; that is, to relate to each other as Christ did to us—in servanthood and humility. Discipleship is walking together on the same path . . . as fellow travelers . . . . We have become a new people with a new mind, a new way of seeing and hearing, and a new hope because of our common fellowship with Christ.
The compassionate life is community life. We witness to God’s compassionate presence in the world by the way we live and work together. Those who were first converted by the apostles revealed their conversion not by feats of individual stardom but by entering a new life in community . . . . God’s compassion became evident in a radically new way of living, which so amazed and surprised outsiders that they said, “See how they love one another.”
You and I are under similar tough orders—the orders of Jesus to embody, so far as humanly possible, the ways of self-giving love—recognizing and affirming the truth that one another speaks, celebrating the presence of Christ within one another, appreciating one another’s gifts, being real in one another’s presence.
This morning we offer opportunity to be anointed. It is a time to acknowledge our need for the healing and strength of God’s gracious Spirit. It is a time to embrace anew the good news that, even at those times when we act like “sore heads,” God loves us. And it is a time for celebrating the promise of Christian community, the calling to love as Christ loves, to serve as Christ serves, to embrace the tough order of living and proclaiming God’s grace. May we experience anew the touch of Christ’s love and the courage to be a compassionate presence in the world around us. Amen.
Gracious God, what treasures we have been given—the gift of your remarkable love that takes us as we are and empowers us to become more than we could ever have anticipated; the treasure of your peace that passes all human understanding; the gift of joy that sustains us even in the midst of uncertainty and struggle, even in our times of fear and despair.
God, strengthen us with your Spirit, that we might be bearers of your love and peace to one another. Thank you, God, for calling us to be the church—to be a faith community that supports and challenges one another, that experiences peace at its heart and seeks to proclaim peace to a hurting and broken world.
Forgive us, holy God, when we are tempted to go our own way and lose sight of your calling. Forgive us when we make too easy a peace with the world’s lack of peace. Forgive us when we fail to share the peace of Christ, when we do not look closely into the hurting eyes of a brother or sister in need, when we are not gentle with your gift of creation. Forgive us, God, and renew us with your transforming Spirit.
Loving God, hear our prayers as we hold in your arms those struggling with depression and anxiety, those yearning for a deeper taste of grace and peace, those who feel lost and alone in life. And hear us as we remember those among us in special need of your healing mercies. We pray for . . .
God of peace, grant us courage to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, who came living and proclaiming the way of peace. May your kingdom come, your will be done, among us. May swords be beaten into plowshares, and may all creation come to embrace your glorious and gracious presence. In the name and spirit of Christ Jesus we pray. Amen.