In Truth and Action
A sermon by Brent J. Eelman
Abington Presbyterian Church
May 3. 2009

I John 3: 16-24
    ¹⁶We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. ¹⁷How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
    18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. ¹⁹And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him ²⁰whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; ²²and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.
    23 And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. ²⁴All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

This past week I was walking through an antique store that carried all types of novelties and memorabilia from "ages past." To my horror, I discovered that many of the “antiques” were made during my adolescent years. There were a few Rolling Stones albums that were wrapped in a sealed plastic holder and referred to as "vintage". I remembered that I was 18 when the album was released... But there was one thing that caught my attention that seemed to capture the theme of the 1960’s . It was a poster with the word "LOVE" on it. One of the letters was stylishly tilted. It reminded me that "love" was the buzz word of my youth. 1967 was the "Summer of Love". A rock band called the Youngbloods sang a song with this chorus, "Come on people now, smile on your brother, let's all get together and love one another, right now." The Beatles sang "All you need is love. Love is all you need." Ministers preached from the pulpits about "love" and how it could transform society. There was something wonderful and innocent about that age but it was also naive. There was something missing from the language of love. That something missing is what John wrote about in his first letter.

The bible passage that I just read to you from John's first letter should bring to mind Thursday of Holy Week. We often refer to it as Maundy Thursday, and the word "maundy" comes from the Latin, mandatum which means command. In John's gospel, Jesus washed the disciple's feet and gave them a new commandment, or mandate that they love one another. That command is repeated again in this section of John's first letter. In this passage, John gives some content or meat to the command to love. He wrote: "Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action

This morning I want to speak about love. First, the difficulty of addressing the topic of love, because I believe that we trivialize it. And second the 21^st century challenge of being Christian lovers.

I

The problem with speaking about love is we regard it as a feeling. In romantic terms we think of it as feeling deep affection for another. In human relationships we use the world love to describe feelings of compassion and concern. Christian love is not merely a feeling. Love is an action word, not merely a feeling. The actions that love requires are not always easy. In fact they are risky, sometimes downright dangerous. In short, the love that John wrote about is sacrificial in nature. I think that is what was missing in the 60's. We talked about love, we sang about love, we marched in the streets about love, but we rarely acknowledged the sacrifice that is at the very heart of love.

Jesus spoke about love. He preached about love. He commanded his disciples to love one another. But most importantly, Jesus practiced love. John wrote: "We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another." And there we have the essence of the message. John goes so far as to muse, "How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? " In other words we are not only to do as Jesus said, we are to do as he did

We have the world's goods...we do. One of the things that has been on my mind lately is the Sunday offering and in particular the Doxology. "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." We are all aware of the recession. The 24 hour news cycle is inundating us with all kinds of messages from flu to climate change; from credit crisis to bankruptcy. Yet each Sunday we rise and sing that God's blessings flow to us... But more than that, they flow through us to others.

We spend a lot of time whining about what we don't have and what we want and need.... But for that magic minute we are able to sing, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." We have received so much.... And we have so much to give. We are loved richly and we are called to love others. Not feel kindly toward others... Love them. Christ gave his life for us... Our lives find their purpose, their meaning, and ultimately salvation as we sacrifice in service to others.

II

We are challenged to open up the floodgates and fill this thirsty world with the living water of Christ's love. We need to practice it in truth and action and not hold back. We need to do it now.

One of the temptations during difficult economic times is to hunker down and try to merely survive. Churches and Christian also struggle with this. I struggle with it. One of the things that we desperately need in this area is a faith based social services agency that can minister to the needs of those who are homeless, recently unemployed, those who are down on their luck, those who need help. I recently caught myself thinking, "as soon as we get through this recession, we can start something like that." NO! Now is the time to put that kind of love into action. Now is not the time to hoard the love and bounty that God has given... It is the time to share it... To express the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ in truth and in action.

On that night when Jesus gave his disciples the commandment to love one another, he didn’t go to the garden and pray, “O God, when things settle down a bit, when I am sure that the 12 disciples are sufficiently ready to lead, then I will give up my life for humanity. No! He prayed: “not my will, but thine.”

The good news of the Gospel is this: That Jesus loved us and laid down his life for us. The challenge of the gospel is this: we ought to lay down our lives for one another. Believe it... And live it in truth and in action. Amen.