Like the Wind Fills A Sail--April 25, 2024

Like the Wind Fills A Sail--April 25, 2024

"We know love by this, that [Jesus Christ] laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 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?" [1 John 3:16-17]

When I fill up my car's gas tank, the gasoline doesn't get any say in where I go once I've got it.  It is merely an object under my control.  I can do something wonderful in my car, like delivering a bouquet of flowers to the volunteers at the puppy hospital... or I can be a selfish jerk and drive myself alone to a casino where I could blow all my family's grocery money and college savings on slot machines.  The fuel can't stop me, because it can only give the car motion--but not direction.

By contrast, if I am navigating a sailboat, the wind that carries my ship has both.  It pushes in a certain direction as well as with a certain force. I can adapt my sails' position or adjust the rudder, but the wind definitely blows in a particular direction. The wind's force is what science-minded people call a "vector" rather than a "scalar" reality--it has both magnitude and direction.  We don't just say that the wind is blowing 10 miles an hour, but 10 miles an hour to the east, or to the west.  The gas in my car doesn't have a direction, but the wind that fills my sails does.  

And that difference is important when we think about the Christian life.  In fact, it's the key to understanding our life of discipleship and keeping us from imagining that Jesus is just along for the ride while we take the wheel.

Here's what I mean: I believe it is accurate to say that Christians are filled with Christ's own life.  And I believe that when we say it, it is more than merely a metaphor or a figure of speech.  But, just to be clear, when we say that we are filled with the life of Jesus, it isn't the same as saying you have filled your car up with gas for your next road trip.  Jesus isn't just a source of energy for us, to be burned up and consumed traveling in any direction we please.  Jesus gives us direction, too--his own life within us also comes with his kind of living.

The words from 1 John that many of us heard this past Sunday point to the same reality, as well.  Because we abide in God's love, that love will direct us to act in ways that are consistent with God's care for others in need.  Because we abide in Jesus' living presence, we will act increasingly in ways that offer glimpses of Jesus to the world.  Because we are filled with Jesus' own life like the wind fills a sail, we have both Jesus' power AND Jesus' direction--leading us toward neighbors, rather than away from them, and prompting us to give ourselves away for others rather than hoarding.

There is something profoundly contradictory, then, when people who call themselves Christians pride themselves on knowing that Jesus "laid down his life" for them but then who refuse to do the same for someone else in need.  It's a misunderstanding of Jesus' presence--it's like thinking Jesus just gives us gas for our spiritual engines, which we can then use to drive ourselves away from the needs of others, when Jesus is really like the wind that carries us on a certain course.  We can't NOT care for neighbors and have Jesus' life within us, because Jesus' kind of life is always concerned for the needs and well-being of those around us!  It's simply not an option to say, "I'm filled with Jesus!" and then say, "...but your troubles are NOT my problem!" to anybody--that's not the direction in which Jesus' life moves.  If you want the perks of divine life but not the particulars of divine love for all people, you're going to need to find a different savior, because Jesus insists on making us into people who lay down our lives for others precisely because we are filled with his kind of life.

Sometimes Christianity gets caricatured as just a ticket-to-heaven, or like Jesus is simply fuel for our spiritual gas tank in a car that we can then drive in any old selfish direction we want.  But Jesus himself doesn't think that way, and certainly neither does our old pal John here.  It's rather like the old line attributed to Saint Augustine: love God, and then do whatever you please.  Sometimes people hear that sentence and assume the old Bishop of Hippo meant that if you claim to love God, then you've got a free pass to do anything, no matter how terrible, rotten, mean, or selfish. (And given how many hateful Christians I've known over the years, I know we give the world plenty of evidence to think that's the case!)  But Augustine meant something more--he meant that when you love God, God's own love changes us, fills us, and re-directs us so that, more and more, the things we want to do become shaped by that love. When we love God--at least the God we have met in Jesus, who cares for the vulnerable and feeds the hungry--we will become people who do the same.  When we are formed by love, we become loving--and our love takes the same direction, the same trajectory, as the self-giving, life-laying-down kind of love of Jesus himself.  He gives us not only the power of his presence... but the direction.

So today, it is good and right for us to talk about being filled with the life of the risen Jesus--but let's also be crystal-clear about what that kind of life will do to us from within.  Jesus' risen life, which abides in us as we also abide in him, will make us into people who love like Jesus--neighbors, strangers, and enemies.  We will be people who can no longer just drive away from the faces of those in need, or ignore the heartaches of those who suffer.  Apathy is not an option for the followers of Jesus--his own life moves us like wind in our sails.

Lord Jesus, fill us with your own life and love, and then lead us where you will.