March 20, 2008 Sermon
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March 20, 2008
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Gary Sanford San Angelo
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14
A preacher's 5 year-old daughter noticed that her father always paused and bowed his head for a moment before starting his sermon. One day, she asked him why.
'Well, Honey,' he began, proud that his daughter was so observant of his messages. 'I'm asking the Lord to help me preach a good sermon.'
'How come He doesn't do it?' she asked.
Just as this minister, and all of us for that matter, asks God's help and guidance when we prepare and later deliver a sermon, we as Christians look to Jesus to teach about the mysterious wonders of God and his love. This evening’s Gospel, taken from the Revised Common Lectionary, has been expanded by five and a half verses. In past years it was all about servitude and only suggested that this act of washing feet was an expression of Christ's love for us. But more than an act of love, it was a reaffirmation of who he was.
The disciples recognized that this was a great man, the messiah, and surely a great teacher, but they also looked to him as a leader. Many times Jesus told them that he was not sent by the Father as a ruler, but as a servant. Not as one to lead, but as one to teach them in the ways of God. By doing this most demeaning of chores, Jesus reminded them of who he is and why he was sent to us--and just how much he really loves us.
John tells us of Jesus' commandment to "...love one another." This is not a new concept, and this commandment actually goes back much further than Jesus. Throughout the Old Testament, the theme of loving one another is cited again and again. Jesus himself had repeated the words over and over as he walked the ways of the earth during the time he was with us in the flesh. I believe that what made these words different this time was the context in which they were spoken. When Jesus added the qualifying phrase, "Love one another as I have loved you," he made it very specific. The disciples, and that includes each of us, were to love each other in the manner that Jesus had shown them: Unconditionally. And that poses the question of how did this one, who became what we are so that we could more fully understand who God is, really love?
St. Augustine once observed that Jesus loved each one he had ever met as if there were none other in all the world to love. In other words, Jesus' affection for every person was almost radically individualized. Jesus never saw a group of individuals, he saw individuals standing in a group seeing each as unique. This would have required a great amount of discipline and commitment on his part. In his short time on the earth, Jesus would have come across a great number of people and it would have been very easy to start categorizing them, just as we tend to do, by gender, race, color, creed, religion, denomination or sexual orientation. But he didn't, he remained open to the genuine uniqueness of every human being and loved each equally. I am not so naïve as to believe that any of us can accomplish this ideal, but it is a goal that we should strive for, committing ourselves in our capacity to individualize our love.
This sort of individualized affection will always remain a mystery to us mortals, yet we must not forget that we were made in the image of that extraordinary love. To reach out to others and try to love them in such a manner may be an ideal that will always be just beyond our reach; nevertheless it is something that we can reach for by embracing God’s passion in our hearts.
St. Augustine further tells us that as Jesus loved each one as an individual he also loved all the same. His love was universal, as incredibly universal as it was individualized. Jesus never looked upon anyone with contempt of disdain and when his words did take on an air of harshness, it was not out of anger, but of concern for those he cared about. His was truly a love for all as well as a love for each.
C.S. Lewis examined all of the Greek words for the concept of love and concluded that they came down to two concepts that he calls "need love" and "gift love."
Lewis says that "need love" is always born of emptiness. Every loved person or object is seen as a value to covet or possess. It is a reaching out to the beloved to transfer value back to itself. "Need love" sucks essence out of another and into itself. Lewis contends that many times when we humans say to one another, "I love you," what we are really saying is, "I need you, I want you. You have a value that I very much want to make my own, no matter what the consequences may be to you."
Lewis contends that the other reality is dramatically different. It is what he calls "gift love." Lewis says, "Instead of being born of emptiness, this form of love is born of fullness. The goal of "gift love" is to enrich and enhance the beloved rather than to extract value. "Gift love" moves out to bless and increase rather that to acquire or to diminish." Lewis concludes that God's love is "gift love" rather than "need love." He states, "We humans are made in the image of such everlasting and unconditional love." This agrees with the way Augustine described the love Jesus had for us and also shows us that this is our deepest identity. It is a way we all can chose to live our lives.
The theologian Karl Barth once said, "Jesus is the name of our species, in relation to whom we are still subhuman but nonetheless, called ultimately to become." Jesus would not have given this commandment to his disciples, or to us, if it had not been possible.
With God's unfailing grace, we all can grow into the commandment Jesus gave us to "love one another as I have loved you," moving toward a world where we love each as though there were none other and loving all as we love each.
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Revised: 03/31/08