Sermon 5th May 2013

Today, our Assistant Minister, Gill Tayleur, continues our look at the gospel of John.
The reading is from John 2 verses 1-11.

I wonder if you’ve seen the film, The Karate Kid. It's about an American boy who moves to China with his mum and he gets bullied and beaten up at school. He meets an old man

who’s a karate master and asks if he can learn karate to defend himself. The master agrees to train the boy, but only if the boy will promise that he will listen to whatever he is told, and obey him, and do whatever he’s told, to learn well. The boy promises. Then, what’s the boy asked to do? For days on end the master tells him to wash and wax cars and floors, and to clean and paint walls. And even though the boy gets very sore muscles, he isn’t allowed to take a break. Finally, the boy can’t stand it anymore, and complains, "I came for karate, but you’re teaching me nothing!"It looks like he’s not learning karate at all. He complains he’s being used and treated as a worker and a slave. He feels he’s being tricked. But the master asks him: "How do you wipe the car? Show me.” The boy begins to wipe an imaginary car in the air and the teacher attacks him, but the wiping movement the boy is doing actually blocks the attack. Then the teacher tells him to "wipe the walls with both hands," and attacks him again. The same thing happens – the boy blocks the punch while he’s "wiping the walls". The teacher keeps on attacking him, but he keeps blocking by moving in the same way as he had done those chores. So the things his teacher had told him to do were not just ordinary tasks, but were training for karate movements. And the boy becomes proficient in karate in only two months and he goes on to be a champion. All because the boy obeyed the master in the first place, even when it seemed silly to him.

We’re on to the next part of John’s 1st letter, with some of the same themes we’ve heard before from the first chapter, like light, having fellowship with God or knowing him, sin and forgiveness, and some new ones. It has been said that John often seems to write that way – rather than in a linear A then B then C then D type way, he says A and B, then A and B and a little of C, and then A C and D, then B and D and a little E and so on, developing his ideas

in interconnected ways... And in the verses we’re looking at this morning, John builds on what he has already said and introduces his next idea, obedience. And he relates obedience to the knowledge of God, and to the love of God.

Loving God, knowing God, and obeying God, all go together. They’re all intertwined.

And they all encourage one another, and grow together, making a kind of virtuous circle:

the more we know God, the more we love God, the more we want to obey God, the more we know him, and so on...

In John’s gospel chapter 14, John – this same John – tells us that at the Last Supper

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

Loving God, knowing God, and obeying God, all go together. And here in John’s first letter,

again we hear about how they’re interconnected. In verses 3, 4 & 5 John says: “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says I know him

but does not do as he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him.”

In other words, John says that if we don’t obey God, it shows we don’t really know God.

But if we do obey him, it shows we do know and love him.

In the Good News version of the Bible used at St Saviour’s, it says But whoever obeys his word is the one whose love for God has really been made perfect. In the NIV used at St Paul’s, it has been translated to say God’s love is truly made complete in him. The verb used here isn’t crystal clear which it is, our love for God or his for us. But what matters is that obedience and love are intertwined in our relationship with God.

My point is this: Unless our obedience springs from knowing God, and his love for us, and loving him in return, then that obedience will be nothing more than sheer determination, just willpower, effort, incredibly hard work and we’ll have to try harder & harder. It’ll be exhausting and draining, and probably not very effective.

BUT if obedience to God springs from a personal knowledge of God and of his extraordinary love for us, his mercy and forgiveness of our sin, then our obedience will flow from gratitude

and love for God – and it will be life giving!! Just as difficult, still needing lots of effort, but life giving, even joyous!

Back to Jesus’ words in John’s gospel: “As the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

So obedience flowing from love can be joyous!

That goes against the grain I know, as obedience is not a popular idea – at least not for ourselves; we’re happy for our children or dogs or other road users to be obedient! – But being told we’re to be obedient to God is not so comfortable.

So I’d like us to look at it a little more closely. What is obedience? Why might we obey? And how might we obey?

First then, WHAT is obedience to God? Obedience to anyone is surrendering my will to theirs.

It’s doing what they want rather than what I want, often because I recognise their authority.

Sometimes we can easily see good reason for this, like when we obey the red traffic light,

because we know that if we don’t there’ll be chaos on the roads and people will get hurt

and the rules of the highway code are for everyone’s benefit. So we obey. We stop and wait at the red light even when we want to get going.

Or there’s when we really REALLY don’t want to drag ourselves out of bed the morning after a late night, and everything in us says no, it can’t be good for me to get up! I need more sleep! But we do get up, because we don’t want to lose our job. Obeying our boss by getting to work on time and keeping our job is even better for us than an extra hour in bed!

Other times it’s even harder, like when we obey a gym trainer or coach, or diet advice.

In those situations, our bodies may be crying out to stop exercising, or eat more, but we override what we want and instead obey what we’re being told to do, because of who’s telling us. Another ten sit ups, another glass of water rather than a creamy hot chocolate.

But to do that we have to trust the person we’re going to obey. And that may often be the crunch. Can we really trust God, enough to do what he says even when we want to do

something else? Even when it feels all wrong to us (like getting out of bed, or doing yet another lap of the park even though I’m already aching and breathless)?

Yes we can trust God. God is our creator, maker, designer. He knows us inside out. And he knows exactly what’s best for us, what’s the best way for humankind to live. Even those who don’t believe, recognise that the 10 Commandments are a good blueprint for happy and effective societies. And that Jesus’ command to do to others as you’d have them do to you, is a good rule for life. We can trust that God knows best.

This leads on to the WHY or reason for obedience – it’s down to our relationship with God. Why might I do what my husband Trevor wants rather than what I want? Because I love him

and know he loves me! And I know I can trust him. God’s love and trustworthiness is a million times better than Trevor’s. (Even Trevor’s – it’s our 29^th wedding anniversary today and I can tell you Trevor is a loving & trustworthy husband! But not as perfectly loving & trustworthy as God!)

In order to trust God, and grow to love him, we have to get to know him personally for ourselves. Nothing can replace this; no amount of knowing things about God will be the same as actually knowing him. I can read a book about Nelson Mandela, can read his own books and speeches, get to know a lot about him – but that’s not the same as meeting him for tea!

As we get to know God better and deeper, we’ll want to obey him more and more fuelled by gratitude and love. This is why finding time & space & quiet to pray on a frequent regular basis is so crucial. It’s how we get to know God and his love for us, personally. David Benner, a North American professor of psychology and spirituality, draws out the difference between obedience based on sheer determination and on love, saying: “Love-shaped willing-obedience has a softness that teeth-gritting determination & discipline can never mimic.

Love opens us up and makes us more alive, whereas determination makes us more closed and less vital. God wants to touch our heart with love, and if we genuinely allow divine access to our depths, obedience will flow out of us like water from an inner spring. This is discipline turned on its head – not the result of our effort but the fruit of God’s action in us.”

More like that in his short book, Surrender to Love, which I recommend as a real help and encouragement to get to know God more personally.

So WHAT is obedience? It’s surrendering our will to God’s because we know and love him,

in response to his wonderful gracious merciful love for us. And HOW do we do it, how do we obey? In this passage, John uses 3 ways to describe how we obey God: We have Jesus’ commands to follow, we have his example and we have his word. They all amount to the same thing, a way of life that’s Christ-like and Christ-centred. A way of life that’s selfless

and serving. And that’s loving. The one thing John spells out here about how to obey

relates to LOVING. The command to love God and love others is the summary Jesus gave,

of all the Old Testament Law. And here John calls it both a new and an old commandment. 

It’s as old as the sun, but newly given and empowered in Jesus Christ.

John talks of living out this commandment to LOVE one another and God, in terms of walking in light or darkness. Last week Anthony Buckley spoke about choosing between

two paths in the woods, one dark and one light. The dark path may be quite attractive, as people can’t see what we’re up to, and we don’t have to see much of anyone else or their needs. But if we walk in the light, we can see others, and respond to them, and love them.

 “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light... but whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness...”

So let’s pause and think, how loving are we? How well do we love those in our lives who aren’t easy to love? Oh we all have people around who we naturally warm to, find it easy to like and to love – but what about those who are difficult? Those we disagree with? Those we find irritating?! Those who have wronged us or let us down? Do we secretly harbour resentments, or unforgiveness, or feelings of superiority? ... Remember love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it is not proud; it’s not rude, it’s not self seeking, it’s not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Ouch.

We can choose to come in to the light, to recognise and repent of our lack of love, and receive God’s forgiveness. And then choose to love better – not only based on determination and willpower, valuable as they are in their place, but flowing from the great

fathomless wonderful love and mercy of God.

We see that love and mercy most clearly at the cross, as we’ll remember at Holy Communion in a few minutes’ time. Let’s do that – and let’s pray that we’ll grow in the wonderful intertwining knowledge, love and obedience of God. Starting now; we pray as we sit...