Love is Everything
Rev. Lee Ann Bryce
Community Christian Church
May 13, 2012
As the God has loved me, so I
have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments,
you will abide in my love, just as I have kept God’s commandments and abide in
his love. I have said these things to
you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.“ This is my commandment, that you love one
another as I have loved you. No one has
greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command
you. I do not call you servants
any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I
have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I
have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I
chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so
that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one
another. John 15:9-17
On June 25, 1967 the
very first live, international, satellite television broadcast was watched by
over 400 million people, at that time the largest television audience ever. The broadcast was called “Our World,” and it
had a simple purpose: to bring the world
together through music. Fourteen
countries contributed live music for the 2 and a half hour program. The United Kingdom commissioned the Beatles
to write and perform a song that contained a simple message that could be
universally understood around the world.
Beatles manager Brian Epstein said that they really wanted to give the
world a message that could not be misinterpreted; a clear message that would
communicate that love is everything. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4p8qxGbpOk]
As usual, the Beatles come
through with a terrific exegesis, this time on our gospel passage from John
15. Here’s the setting for this
text: Jesus and his followers have just
shared their last Passover meal together.
Soon Jesus will walk to the Garden of Gethsemane where he will be
abandoned by his followers and left alone to be captured. Later he will be tried and executed.
However, in spite of all that is
to come, in that ordinary upper room in the Holy city of Jerusalem, Jesus bends
over each one of his trusted followers and does something shocking. With a wrenching poignancy that redefines
their relationship in a most visceral way, Jesus gently washes their feet. Now, as John reports Jesus words in our text
for today, they are friends, not master and slave, not teacher and
student. Any former status between them has
been wiped away right along with the dust between their toes.
As David Ewart writes, “They are
friends – they are equals who have a solemn obligation to look out for each
other’s good – even to the point of laying down their lives for one another
(something one would normally only do to defend the honor of a blood
relative).” And they are not just
friends with Jesus. Jesus is commanding
them to be friends with each other since that is how he will soon love
them.
And so in this single unassuming
act of washing their feet, Jesus illustrated a new model of spirituality. In contrast to the patriarchal paradigm that
the disciples had always known, Jesus demonstrated in that upper room a new
covenant theology of communion and community.
Jesus turns things upside down for them with his simple yet radical
message of friendship and love. And what’s
more, he turns things upside down for us because he asks us to do the same.
It’s not always easy to love as
Jesus loved. Dr. Peter Storey, a South
African spiritual leader who worked alongside Archbishop Desmond Tutu and
President Nelson Mandela in dismantling apartheid said, when we invite Christ
into our lives, he insists that we let him bring along his friends. With a clear message that could not be
misunderstood (the Beatles would have approved!), Jesus says, you cannot truly love me and not also love
the ones I love. You are to love one
another as I have loved you. You are to
love one another as friends.
In the end, we are called, we are
challenged to look everyone – everyone – in the eye and think to ourselves, you are my friend. There is still something about friendship
that strips away the layers of cynicism from even the most jaded among us. There’s such simplicity in the feeling of
friendship.
Many of us give of ourselves
through volunteer work – soup kitchens, mission trips, service agencies. All of our efforts are good and important,
but if we are able to consider the people we encounter in those efforts to be
friends, it’s especially meaningful. For a couple of years now, I have
volunteered once a month or so at Dimitri House, an overnight shelter for
men. Dimitri House is very small - only
7 beds. As they say at Dimitri House, we don’t try to do it all, but what we do is
done well and with great love and care.
I love my work there because I have conversations with people I would
not otherwise encounter. Through the
years, I’ve gotten familiar with some of the guests and know them by name. A few weeks ago, Lisa and I were at public
market and we passed a man playing an accordion. We stopped for a moment to listen and I
realized, “Hey, that’s Andrew!” I was so
excited to see him. I had no idea he
played the accordion. And he’s
good! We stood chatting a while. He showed me his CDs and then parted ways. I realized Andrew isn’t some guy that needs a
place to sleep. Andrew is a friend.
Another man I’ve met through
Dimitri House is Phil. The last time I
was working at Dimitri House, Phil and I were discussing another regular at Dimitri who was having a
particularly hard time and Phil said, “You know I think as all of us guys get
older, it gets harder. Earlier in our
lives, we figured we didn’t have a place to live because we were just going
through a rough few years. Now, we’re in
our fifties or sixties, and we’re realizing that we might not ever have homes.”
When I am sitting in our
beautiful home I think about Phil and Andrew and all the homeless right here in
our city. And when it’s time for my
overnight shift at Dimitri House and I’m getting my stuff ready to go, I look
longingly at our comfy bed and think about the futon I’ll have to sleep on
overnight at Dimitri and I think, do I
really have to do that tonight? And
I know the answer – yes. I need to do my
part because my friends need me.
Since Jesus loves us with an
uncompromising love, we are called to love one another in the same way. But
when we are able to look at the other as friend, the work is easy. When we get it right, the work of love is
hardly work at all.
The Bible, with all 66 books, comes
down to eight little words from our text today – love one another as I have loved you.
Love. There is no other. There is no compromise. Think of the other as friend. Love one another.
And you know what? We can do it.
We really can. We can do it
because we are loved by one who will not give up on us no matter how far off
track we’ve gotten. We can do it because
in Christ there is more than enough love to go around.
In Romans 13:8-10, the apostle
Paul, not to be confused with Paul McCartney, wrote a similar message:
Owe no one anything, except to
love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not murder, you
shall not steal, you shall not covet,” and any other commandment are summed up
in this word: “You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.”
All you need is love.
All you need is love.
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.
Amen.
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