The Ones God Brings Along--July 15, 2020

The Ones God Brings Along--July 15, 2020

"Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child." [1 John 5:1]

I was talking with a friend once whose nephew was getting married, and I asked what it had been like for the extended family to get to know his fiancée. "I don't know her that well," my friend said, "but he loves her, so bottom line, I will love her." That's often how family works, isn't it? In time we may come to love new family members on our own, "directly," you could say, but sometimes we start loving through someone else. We say, "Well, I love my nephew, and so based on my trust in him and love for him, I will commit myself to loving his wife-to-be." And we steer our will to do that, knowing that love is more than just a feeling that happens to us, but is a conscious choice reinforced by habits and practice. 

And, like I say, quite often, in time we come to love the new person for their own sake, even if at first, we loved them for someone else's sake. It can be a risky thing, and without a doubt an act of faith, but that is part of what love does. It pushes out from the familiar to the unfamiliar, from the well-worn paths of routine to new territory, as it follows the beloved. We trust the ones we love, and we risk loving the ones they bring into our path, too, because of that trust. 

Well, it's the same with us and God, John says. If we are going to claim that we love God--or even if we admit we don't love God as fully as we want to, but are indeed seeking to love God more deeply--then we are going to have to love those God brings along for the ride. This means two things for us: first of all, it means that we Christians believe that we cannot really love God fully if we want nothing to do with Jesus. The Father and the Son (and the Spirit, of course, although John doesn't specifically mention the Spirit here) are a package deal, as it were. "Everyone who loves the parent loves the child," John says. In other words, even if it seems risky getting to know Jesus and where he will take us and how he will rearrange our lives, God the Father loves Him (Jesus, the Son), and so bottom line, so do we. We realize that it may sound strange or peculiar to others that we would stake our futures on the way of life charted out by a first-century rabbi from a backwater part of the empire who got crucified outside of Jerusalem one Friday, but we are willing to do it because God has pointed us to Jesus and said, "This is my Son, my Beloved--listen to him." We are trying, as well as we know how, to love God the Father, and God the Father directs us to love Jesus the Son. So even when we are not so sure where this Jesus will take us--and even if his teachings of love for enemies and a radical sharing of our possessions sound like they will push us too far--we dare to follow after Jesus, because God the Father, whom we trust, has pointed us to Jesus the Son. 

The second half of all of this is that we are not only called to love Jesus, but all the others whom God has claimed as children as well. Just before our verse for today, 1 John tells us that if we claim to love God but hate fellow members of the Christian community (John's term is "brother"), we are showing ourselves to be liars. For God's sake--literally--we are called to love those whom God loves. That of course includes Jesus, as the Father loves the Son. But it also means the whole gaggle of people whom Jesus brings along with him--and they are without a doubt a motley crew. Jesus brings with him arrogant, quick-on-the-trigger Peter and insecure-about-his-authority Paul, along with tax collectors Matthew and Zacchaeus, impulsive Mary and tedious Martha, and a long line of prostitutes, lepers, and others--all of whom are treated as beloved of God...and so are to be beloved by us, too. And it's not just first-century characters that Jesus brings along--it's the nerdy and awkward pastor and the curmudgeon who sits in the pew next to you, along with the screaming toddler and his mother who won't quiet him to your satisfaction. It's the couple you thought were not nice enough to you when they greeted you last Sunday, the woman whom you still hold a grudge against, and the man you are sure was in the papers last month for driving under the influence. It's the people you don't like, the people who have never come to church, the people who frustrate you with the things they post on Facebook, and the people who have been told a hundred times before that they're not worthy of love. Jesus brings them all along, and God looks at every last one of them and says, "This is my son, too. And this is my daughter." And of course, John chimes in then and says, "Whoever loves the parent loves the child." 

Let's be truthful here--it is a challenging thing to love the people God brings into our lives. It will mean being stretched in one way by loving Jesus, who reserves the right to up-end our lives and our livelihoods for the sake of following him, and it will mean being stretched in a different direction by loving the people Jesus claims, too, even if they test our patience or seem unworthy. God loves them, and so, bottom line, so will we. That is the challenge in front of us today... 

Lord God, we will be honest with you and say out loud that sometimes we wish your love were not as deep or wide as you insist on making it. We would like it to stay vague and abstract and faceless, and yet you keep bringing Jesus into the picture, and all of those whom Jesus has claimed for himself, too. When we would rather have a me-and-God religion, you keep reminding us that you bring your Beloved with you. So as hard as it will be for us at times, let us trust you on this, and risk loving those you have called us to love, even Jesus, and even his motley crew of disciples, to which we belong.