Sermon 7th July 2013

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker continues our look at the book of 1 John.  The reading is from 1John 4 verses 13-21.

No, I don’t either. Just as Adrian did last week, I too must confess that I don’t tweet – even though some people tell me that they’d quite like it if I did. But I do like a challenge! So when Adrian said that John, the writer of this letter, couldn’t express himself in less than the 140 characters of a tweet, I set out to prove that he could do that: very easily, and very well. And so, with the help of my favourite Bible commentator, I have not 1 but 2 potential tweets to offer you today. And either, or both, of them sum up the whole of John’s first letter – according to Tom Wright!

Now the first one does require a bit of modern-form communication, in terms of abbreviation and the like, to restrict it to exactly 140 characters. It then goes like this: “Christian faith grows directly out of & must directly express the belief that in Jesus the 1 true God has revealed himself 2b love incarnate”. That is, perhaps, rather more dense than your average tweet, so it’s worth reading it again ...

I think that’s very good and helpful, and so I plan to keep it in our minds throughout today. But maybe that doesn’t do it for you. So here, with 12 characters to spare, is my second proffered potential tweet: “Love incarnate must be the badge that the Christian community wears, as a sign not only of who they are but of who their God is.” Again, it’s excellent, and very helpful stuff, I’d say, if also still quite dense. Hear it again, then, as a fine summary of all that John has used rather more words in his letter to say. Also again, we’ll keep coming back to the content of this twee throughout. But first I want to add 2 more helpful potential tweets, whilst being on this contemporary roll.

These too are both quotes: but are neither from John, nor from Tom Wright. Their sources might just surprise you. I’m sure you’ll be happier to know that they are less dense, and are shorter too, at about 80 and 40 characters respectively. First is JK Rowling: “It is our choices ... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” And now it’s the turn of Friedrich Nietzsche, who once wrote: “To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.” Well, I’d certainly hope that anyone who’s been listening this series won’t fall prey to that commonest form of stupidity! We can’t say that Jesus’ friend and disciple John has ever let us forget what our purpose, what our calling, is. In his letter he has made it clear – over and over again – what it is. It is precisely about living out what we believe about who God is. And of course the way that we are to do that – as John has written (again and again) – is in the choices that we make.

Now today isn’t the occasion to try and summarise the whole of this letter. That’s what we’ll be doing in 2 weeks’ time, when this series concludes. But today’s passage simply won’t make sense unless we acknowledge it for what it is. Tom Wright says these verses are the high point of thought in 1 John; and surely nobody could argue with that. Everything that John has written so far has been another step along the road that has brought us to here. Everything that will follow it in this letter is the direct result of having arrived at this point. To summarise, then: in Jesus, God has revealed himself to be love incarnate, to be love. That must then be the badge that we wear, as individuals and as a community of God’s people. It is in the wearing of that badge, and in the making of those choices, that we show who we truly are. More importantly, it shows who God is, and what He is like; and that is our key purpose that we must never be stupid enough to forget.

Now John has tried very hard to make sure his readers can’t miss his point. To dip briefly back into the end of last week’s reading, there are no less than 27 uses of the root-word for ‘love’ in verses 7-21. Guess what this part of the letter is about then! But it’s crucial that we understand what John, what the Bible, means when they talk about love. As another of the commentators I read helpfully put it, the Bible teaches that God is love: not that love is God! And there really is a vast difference between those 2 statements. Just think of the last time that someone said to you, in whatever context, “If you really loved me you would – or wouldn’t ... ” Remember what came after that piece of attempted emotional extortion; and then contrast it with these words that you’re likely familiar with, if not necessary as they sound here, in the Message version:

“Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.

Love doesn’t strut,

Doesn’t have a swelled head,

Doesn’t force itself on others

Isn’t always “Me first”,

Doesn’t fly off the handle,

Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn’t revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.”

Yes, that is an extract from 1 Corinthians 13; and yes, that is what God’s love looks like – on the cross.

Here, as he has time and again throughout his letter, John points his readers to the cross. In verse 14 John (who saw all this with his own eyes, remember) testifies to the facts: that God “the Father sent His Son Jesus to be the Saviour of the world”. Whenever we want to know what God’s love looks like, what God’s love does, what God’s love makes possible, here is where to look John says – to the cross. This is a badge that we can wear with great pride, and great honour – as long as we remember that it doesn’t say too much about us! This is what God’s love is, and does; it’s not about what we deserve, or earn. But the amazing thing is that if, with God’s help, we do live out this same love then we live in God, and He lives in us, John assures us here!

There’s a key word that John uses in the Greek, which doesn’t always appear in English. The meaning of it is at least implied, but it needs saying out loud so that we don’t miss it. The word is ‘abide’, which may sound a bit old-fashioned but the concept is very current. We could say instead ‘make a home’, and we’d probably all know what that means. But it’s the implication of applying that idea to our relationship with God that is so staggering. It may be that we’d be quite content, we think, with us making our home in God. We’d probably be happy guests, letting Him look after us, and do all the work for us. But John writes about this very much as a mutual process, note: God wants to make His home in us too; and it may be that that is a matter of a rather different order!

Now of course there are huge positives to God abiding, or making His home, in us. John spells just some of those out here – though he does so with the kind of simplicity of faith that we may find breathtaking. I mean: can you face the Day of Judgment completely without fear because God has made His home in you by His Spirit?! And are you sure of the fact that He has done because it shows in your love for God and for all other people? Well, says John, that is the acid test for anyone who claims they love God: how are you at loving the people around you? Not to put too fine a point on it, anyone who fails the latter test by definition fails the former one. Don’t make yourself out to be a liar then, John says. If you love God, you love people too – or you don’t!

While we’re on that tricky subject, let’s not kid ourselves in any way about the reality of Godly loving. God’s kind of love must be expressed in deed because that is what God himself has modelled for us on the cross. As I’ve said before, love isn’t a concept, a nice idea: it is a verb, a doing word. God’s kind of love is for doing, both in big gestures of this sort that John has so often referred to in his letter. It is also just as much for doing in our everyday life: in each and every choice that we make: in what we say; in what we do; and in what we think, even. In all of those our purpose is to be to make God’s love perfect.

Well, there’s a challenge – once we’ve understood what it means, that is! Us? Make God’s love perfect? Whatever does John mean by that? Well, we need to return to that second potential tweet, I think: Love incarnate must be the badge that the Christian community wears, as a sign not only of who they are but of who their God is.” The only way that people are going to encounter God’s love is through those who love God. How does God show His love for you? Yes, we can read about it in the Bible; we have signs of it when we come to Communion. But in your everyday life do you not know God’s love not through the people around you? And are you not the main way that God shows His love for the people around you? it should be so, because John is saying here that this is indeed how God’s love works.

You see, as that first potential tweet put it, Christian faith grows directly out of & must directly express the belief that in Jesus the 1 true God has revealed himself 2b love incarnate. And that comes down to the choices that anyone who calls themselves a Christian makes: day in and day out; costly; difficult; selfless; gracious; giving; that is to say, loving choices; modelled on God’s own example in the person of His Son. Those are the choices that show who we truly are; what we truly believe; and how we are wise enough to keep on living out the purpose which God has given us: loving Him, and one another, because He first loved us. And so how better to end today than to listen again to John’s words, again from the Message version:

“This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him – and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we’ve seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Saviour of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.

God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day – our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life – fear of death, fear of judgment – is one not yet fully formed in love.

We, though, are going to love – love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.

If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.”

And so now let’s pray for God’s help to do just that, then ...