The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
uses Mother's Day each year to begin a week of celebrating
the Christian family. While this celebration obviously is meant
to look at families who dwell together in the same home, it is
also meant to be an occasion to consider how all Christians are
called by God to live together with one another not only within
the family of faith but with the whole human race.
In John 13:34, Jesus says He gives us a new commandment to
love one another. In reality, the command to love one another
was not new. Love of neighbor is at the heart of the Old Testament
Code of Law. In Leviticus 19:18b we read, "You shall love
your neighbor as yourself." What makes what Jesus is saying
in John 13 new is that He adds a new qualifier. "Just as
I have loved you, you also should love one another." To
love like Jesus loves is the command and the challenge.
There is nothing more difficult for a Christian to do than
to follow this commandment. Were it not for the help of God's
own Holy Spirit, it would be impossible for us to even attempt
to do it. I certainly do not need to create a litany of events
or situations in our world today to substantiate how difficult
loving like Jesus seems to be. Yet Jesus commands us to do it
and there must be good reason for His doing so. Quite frankly,
I believe that loving like this is what we are created to do.
Loving like Jesus loves ought to be the goal of every human regardless
of what they believe about Jesus.
It is obviously a tremendous understatement to say that we
have a long way to go. In fact, there are many learned scholars
who believe it impossible for our human society to ever love
like this. Those like myself who believe it is our human calling
are often dismissed as being totally naive. The reality around
us suggests we will never love this way. Not only do nations
go to war with each other but the violence individuals bring
upon other individuals seems to have no end.
Where then does this direction get changed? Let me humbly suggest
that it begins with you and me. Two weeks ago we read the passage
where Jesus asked Peter if Peter loved Jesus more than anything
else in life. Today that question is being asked of us. We need
to think carefully of our response and consider the cost and
the lifestyle required if our answer is "Yes!" Likewise,
we need to count the cost if our answer is anything else than "Yes!"
Attempting to have a loving, fulfilling and successful marriage
and family is one of the greatest challenges of contemporary
society. We are as a nation and as a denomination embroiled in
a battle to define what is meant by marriage. Regardless of how
we feel about homosexual unions we need to admit that these unions
have little or nothing to do with the divorce rate among heterosexual
couples. They have little, if anything, to do with unwanted pregnancies
or single parent families.
Rather than being so concerned with what others with whom we
disagree are doing we need to look at our own lives and situations
and answer Jesus' question, "Do we love Him more
than anything else?" If we do love Jesus more than anything
else, we need to understand and accept the correlation that is
then involved in loving others.
We are presently involved in securing nominations for elders
for next year. The Nominating Committee has been turned down
by some whose talents we would love to have as part of the leadership
of the church. However, some of the responses were from individuals
who said their family commitments had to come first. And, I applaud
them for their decision. Hopefully another time will come when
they can accept. And, just to be clear, this does not mean that
the present elders do not care about their families.
Whether we want to admit it or not, most of what controls the
quality of our marriages, our families and our friendships are
a matter of personal choice influenced by what we hold to be
our personal priorities. With some exceptions it is almost always
a matter of what we choose to be most important in our lives.
Sonja Lyvbomirsky of the University of California Riverside,
says "the greatest predictor of happiness is the existence
of intimate relationships." (The Holland
Sentinel, March
4, 1999) In our thousand mile per hour world where do we allow
the time and the energy for intimate relationships to develop
between spouses, parents and children and among friends?
While we deeply yearn for such relationships we have hardened
ourselves through rationalization and other mind games to believe
we can somehow survive without them. One of the greatest problems
this creates is that we become convinced we can survive without
this intimate relationship with God as well.
Stanley Haverwas states, "We can risk loving as passionately
as God loves. For we know that the love God makes possible is
no scarce resource that must be hoarded so that it can be distributed
in dribs and drabs—a little here and a little there.
Love is not a rare commodity; rather, the more we love with the
intense particularity of God's love, the more we discover
that we have the capacity to love."
There is an important key to being able to love like this.
In Revelations 21:3, we read, "See, the home of God is
among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God, they will
be His peoples, and God Himself will be with them." This
is God's chief desire—to be with those He has created.
The key to all of this is how much we are willing to allow ourselves
to be with God.
C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, in the chapter titled "The
Shocking Alternative" the following: "Satan has caused
us to believe we can somehow be happy apart from God. This can
never succeed because God made us. God designed the human machine
to run on God Himself, on the Love that is God. God is the fuel
we humans were designed to burn, the food our spirits were designed
to feed on. God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from
Himself because there is no such thing."
As long as we humans continue to believe that happiness is
to be found apart from God we will continue to experience the
violence and lack of relationship all too common in our world
today. The command of Jesus has not changed nor is it really
optional. What we seek is found in loving others just as Jesus
loves us. The ability to do this comes from the relationship
we are willing to have with God. What does love have to do with
all of this? The answer is, "Everything!"
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