Sunday Sermon - "Passionate Love"

May 2 sermon.mp3

John 13:31-35

Passionate Love

James Sledge -- May 2, 2010

Unless you’ve been on a desert island for the last several months, you can’t have missed the uproar in the Roman Catholic Church over abusive, pedophile priests. I don’t want to join the debate over how well or poorly the pope has handled this, but there is no doubt that, at times, church hierarchy turned a blind eye to abuse, exposing the most vulnerable to horrible crimes, all in order to protect the reputation of the Church and the priesthood.

Of course this didn’t protect the Church’s image. It had the opposite effect. It sullied and tarnished the church. Worse, it sullied the faith and therefore its namesake, Jesus. How could it not? Followers of Jesus allowed children to be abused. What does that say to non-Christians about the nature of our faith?

But sullying the faith is hardly restricted to Roman Catholics. We Presbyterians may be less susceptible to the particular abuses seen in the Catholic Church, but in the past we have moved around male pastors who preyed on vulnerable women in their congregations. Beyond that, when we fight in the church, we often fight dirty. In our recent battles over whether or not gay and lesbian members can be elders, pastors, or deacons, we often engage in the sort of partisan nastiness normally seen only in politics. And if you ask a non-church person what they know about Presbyterians, it’s not uncommon to hear, “Aren’t they the ones always fighting about gays?”

Jesus said… “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Jesus says that one of our most powerful witnesses is when we embody his love, when we love one another as he loved us. This is how people will understand what Jesus and the faith is about. So what sort of witness are they getting? Far too often it is church institutions concerned primarily with self-preservation. It is denominations and congregations that fight about everything from who can be ordained to what music we sing to what color the carpet should be. By this everyone will know that we are Jesus’ disciples?

Of course the Church’s failings and fights are not our only witness. There are countless acts of love and kindness done within this congregation alone. Some members diligently visit those who are sick, in the hospital, or confined to home or care facilities. Many people have told me how much love and care they received from members when they were going through some great difficulty, be it an illness, the loss of a job, or the death of a loved one.

And beyond this congregation, church groups and denominations continue to work rebuilding the devastation from Hurricane Katrina and other such disasters long after the novelty wears off for the general public. As Nicholas Kristof wrote in a NY Times editorial the other day, there is a Church beyond what people see in the headlines of abuse and fights.

But before we get too smug about how good we regular church folks are at loving one another, it might be good to remember just what Jesus means when he says to love one another. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Jesus defines our love for one another by his love for us. And the love we see in Jesus totally and completely gives itself for us. It risks ridicule and abuse. The love we see in Jesus is even willing to die for us.

One of the more hopeful signs I see for the mainline Church in our day is the movement away from faith as simply believing the right things and toward the idea of faith as deepening spirituality nurtured through particular practices and behaviors. I think that this move opens the door to a much deeper sort of faith because it is inherently more relational.

Love is not about belief; it is about relationship, and in Jesus we encounter God’s passionate love for us. The idea of God or Jesus as a passionate lover is an ancient one in the Christian faith. But many modern, Protestant churches gave up such notions in favor of theologies rooted in rational understandings of God and Jesus. All we can do with a rational idea is accept it or not. But the love given by a lover is something altogether different.

When someone loves another deeply and passionately, it is amazing what she will do for the one she loves. She will put her desires and needs on hold for the sake of the other. She will sacrifice for the sake of the other. She will forgive terrible pain and hurt caused by the other. But none of this will really matter if that other has not fallen in love with her.

Jesus has loved us deeply and passionately. Jesus put his own desires and needs on hold for our sake. Jesus sacrifices for our sake. Jesus would forgive even the pain of the cross out of love. But none of that really matters if we do not fall deeply and passionately in love with him. And when we do, Jesus says that it will be visible in how we care deeply and passionately for one another.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in the spring of 1968, he was not the universally revered figure he is today. Much of the country was still segregated. I was in elementary school at the time, but I still knew many folks who thought of Dr. King as little more than a rabble rouser and trouble maker. And when he had come out against the Vietnam War in 1967, that only intensified their dislike.

I can recall some of these people rolling their eyes when President Johnson declared a national day of mourning following Dr. King’s murder, as well as when Atlanta schools closed for the day of his funeral. It can be difficult to recall now, but it was a terribly tense time and racial divisions were high, especially in my native South. President Johnson did not even attend the funeral over fears that his presence might spark riots or violence.

As thousands of African Americans, civil rights workers, politicians, and dignitaries streamed into Atlanta for funeral events, lodgings were scarce. And at that moment, Central Presbyterian Church, a mostly white, upper middle class congregation, knew they had to help. Led by Pastor Randy Taylor, they provided meals and lodging for as many as they could. Members brought food. Nine hundred cots were set up, but more people than that came. Folks were sleeping on the floor, and the church stayed open round the clock for days.

Given the times, it would have been easier to have done nothing. But Central Presbyterian had realized years earlier that Jesus’ call to love one another just as Jesus has loved us meant getting involved in the civil rights movement, even if it invited insults and threats, even if it put them in danger.

American Christianity has often had a tendency to become mostly about ideas and beliefs, and about very individual, personal decisions to embrace those beliefs. But Jesus came to love us passionately with a love so fierce he would even die for us. And when that passionate love truly moves within us, we cannot help but respond with love of our own. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples.”