Perfecting Love
May 10, 2009
7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
14And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 16So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
17Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19We love because he first loved us. 20Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
1 John 4:7-21
Molly and I have a running joke about my sermons. Whenever I haven’t thought of a good sermon topic by about Wednesday or Thursday, I’ll ask her, “What should I preach about this Sunday?” And inevitably Molly will say, “Preach that God loves you.”
It’s funny, because out of every sermon that’s ever been preached in the world, “God loves you” is probably the most common. In fact, it’s so common it’s become a cliché. We have “God loves you” cross-stitched on pictures hanging over our toilet, and we see it on t-shirts, and billboards, and bumper stickers. The phrase “God loves you” has almost become synonymous with a simplistic theology that bypasses all the big questions in favor of trite sentimentality.
Let me explain what I mean--If I got up here this morning and all I said were the words “God loves you” and then I sat back down again, you probably wouldn’t be too pleased. You might agree with what I said. But here’s what you’d been thinking—“God loves you? That’s all he came up with this morning? Shoot, I’ve known that for 80 years. Where’s the sermon?”
You see, I don’t think anybody in here is going to argue that the phrase “God loves you” isn’t true. Of course, it’s true. But in our minds, it just doesn’t seem to be enough. It’s too easy. It’s what we call a children’s church answer. We’ve heard it so many times before that it’s hard to imagine there’s anything new to say about it. What else can we say about love this morning that hasn’t already been said?
In my search for an answer to that question this week, I came across a website that asked children to describe love. And this being Mother’s Day, I thought it would be appropriate to share some of their responses with you.
Kari, age 5, said that “Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.” Right now, I want you to turn to your neighbor in the pew and give them a good sniff. Go ahead, don’t be shy. Get a good whiff. Do they smell like love? I didn’t think so.
Well, then there’s Emily, age 8, who said that “Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My mommy and my daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss.” You know what? Emily’s right. It is kind of gross to see old people kiss, which is why I’m not going to ask all of you to kiss this morning.
Those of you who are gastronomically inclined will probably like this next statement from Chrissy, age 6. Chrissy says that “Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.” I want Molly to keep that one in mind next time I treat her to a big meal at Burger King.
But this last response is my favorite. Tommy, age 6 said that “Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.” Isn’t that good?
Those are cute answers, and I believe there’s some truth in each of those statements. But here in this passage of Scripture, John gives his own description of love. This text from 1st John is one of the most famous passages about love in the entire Bible, right up there with 1st Corinthians Chapter 13. And it’s very fitting because the disciple John was known as the “apostle of love.” One of the early Christian writers told a story about John that explained how he got his nickname. It was said that in his extreme old age, when he could no longer even walk by himself, John was carried into the church mumbling only “Love one another.” Over and over, John kept repeating “Love one another.” And when asked why he talked of nothing else, John replied, “Because it is the Lord’s command, and if this only is done, it is enough.”
The apostle John took love seriously. And in this passage from 1st John 4:7-21, he presents us with an idea of love that gives us a lot to think about. In verse 8 and again in verse 16, John makes the claim that God himself is love. Now, that’s something you and I have heard many times before, but I want to spend a few minutes unpacking that statement so that we can be clear about what John is trying to tell us.
First of all, if God is love, it means that love is not just a thing but a person. Y’all follow? In some of those children’s answers we heard before, love was described as a feeling or an action. And I think that love can be expressed in those ways. But real love, perfect love, is not just an emotion. It is the very essence of who God is.
I think that’s important for us to understand. Saying that God is love is not the same as saying that Aaron is cute. Both statements may be true, but the first statement is about an identity while the other is just a description. In other words, saying that God is love is not just describing one out of many of God’s characteristics, like saying that God is our Creator or God is good or God is powerful. Saying that God is love encompasses all those other things. Everything and every part of God is love. We may use other titles and words to describe God, but all those things are really just a part of God’s love. So, God is our Creator because God is love. God is good because God is love. God is powerful because God is love. To use the words of the hymn, love is the theme.
And in this passage of Scripture, John suggests that everything we know about God can only be understood through that one central experience. Love is not just one thing out of many that God does, it is everything God does. In a way that nothing else can, love is what defines God. And if we had to describe who God is to somebody, there’s a lot of words we could choose that would be true, but the one word to sum God up would be love.
That’s a fabulous claim, and it’s worth stopping to think about how incredible it really is. Because I’m convinced that although we’ve heard this message many times before, some of us have forgotten what it means. Some of us in here have been talking like God is first and foremost concerned with condemnation. And so, we spend all our time railing about the sinners in our world who don’t live up to God’s standards. There’s a lot of Christians I know who focus on nothing else. And some of us have been believing that God is a cosmic Santa Claus who’s constantly tallying up a list of who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, so that he’ll know who to roast at the end of time.
Those are interesting ideas, and they are quite popular among many of our Christian brothers and sisters. But let’s get it straight this morning—our God is in the business of love. Sure, there’s lots of other important things. But love is the most important. No matter what else may be true about God, love is God’s primary concern. It’s not just something God does; it’s who God is. And we in the church should never make the mistake of thinking that it’s possible to talk about love too much. Because if we stop talking about love, we stop talking about God.
Once we get that, I think there’s another point John is trying to hammer home in this passage. John argues that we cannot say God is love without also saying that love is God. See how we can flip that statement around? John says that “if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. And we are only capable of loving because we have been loved first.” That means when we love somebody else, it is really God loving within us. When we kiss our spouse, that love is coming from God. When we rock our children to sleep, that love is coming from God. When we share our French fries with a good friend, that love is coming from God.
Do you see what I’m getting at? It is impossible to love without experiencing God. Because love is God. And that means that even the most hardened atheist in the world who loves his family and friends is connected to God. The only difference is that the atheist hasn’t realized it yet. But that’s where the love is coming from. Love is just another name for God. We may choose the who, the where, and the when of love, but the why is God. Love is God abiding within us, and pushing to get out.
Because that’s the way love is. Since God is love, and since God cannot be contained or confined, that means that love cannot be contained or confined. God as love exists to be shared. The other night, Molly and I went to a wedding that Neal performed and he talked about that idea during the ceremony. When two people are married, it’s not just about the individuals who love each other; it is about two people who share in God’s love for them. Isn’t that a beautiful idea? Not only that God loves us, but that God allows that love to be shared. When we love a relative, or a friend, or a colleague, or even a pastor, we are making God more present in this world. Because when we love, we are the most like God that we can ever be.
In 1955, a 14 year old African-American boy named Emmett Till went to visit his uncle in Mississippi. And on the night of Sunday, August 28, two men kidnapped Emmett from the home where he was staying. Three days later, the body of Emmett Till was found. He had been beaten and his eye had been gouged out, before he was shot through the head and thrown into the Tallahatchie River with a 70-pound cotton gin fan tied to his body with barbed wire.
You might wonder, what terrible thing Emmett had done to warrant such treatment. Well, just a few days earlier, Emmett had the audacity to whistle at Carolyn Bryant in the general store. And since Emmett was black and Carolyn was white, her husband and half-brother decided that he needed to be taught a lesson. Both men were arrested, despite their obvious guilt, it only took 67 minutes for a jury of all white males to acquit the defendants of all charges.
The brutal murder of Emmett Till in 1955 was one of the key events that sparked the civil rights movement. But it is not the death of Emmett that I want to focus on this morning. What is more interesting to me is what his mother Mamie had to say about his murder. When asked if she harbored any bitterness towards the two white men who had beaten and killed her son, this is what she said:
“It certainly would be unnatural not to hate them, but I’d have to say I’m unnatural. The Lord gave me the shield, I don’t know how to describe it myself…I did not wish them dead. I did not wish them in jail. If I had to, I could take their four little children—they each had two—and I could raise those children as if they were my own and I could have loved them…I believe the Lord meant what he said, and try to live according to what I’ve been taught.”
On this Mother’s Day, we might question a woman like Mamie Till, who expressed compassion for the very men who had brutally murdered her son. As Mamie said, any natural person would have hated those men. And yet, Mamie was able to love.
Why? It’s wasn’t because she was somehow sweeter than anybody else in the world. And it wasn’t because she was a better person than anybody else in the world. Mamie Till was able to forgive and love, because God is love. And Mamie knew it. If love is about us and how we feel, there’s no way that Mamie could have said what she said. How could she, after what had happened?
But as John gently reminds us in this passage, love is not first and foremost about us. It’s about God. And the good news is that while we might never be able to express the kind of love that Mamie Till did on our own, we don’t have to. God is already at work perfecting that kind of love within us. We love, not because we choose to like somebody or because we have such big hearts, but because God first loved us. We love because we believe that the Lord meant what he said, and so we try to live according to what we’ve been taught.
God loves you. It’s been said many times before. So, maybe this morning there really isn’t anything new we can say about love. But perhaps, we don’t need to hear anything new today. Perhaps, we need to be reminded of a simple truth that still manages to comfort us and challenge us no matter how many times we’ve heard it before. God loves you. God loves me. Enough said. AMEN