LOVE FROM THE
OUTSIDE IN
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 11:1-2, 7, 18-21
On this Sunday we mark some important landmarks in
the life of our congregation: the end of
another year of church school, graduation from High School and College, even,
in a few minutes, the celebration of a life filled with service. We mark this landmark in church because what
we’re really doing is tracing the movement of the gospel from children to youth
and from young adulthood to ripe old age.
What we’re doing this Sunday is asking ourselves if
we’ve been faithful. As we look into the
faces of all those who have come forward, all those recognized and honored, we
are asking ourselves: have we taught
them the way of love recommended to us by Moses, exemplified for us by Jesus? Nothing, absolutely nothing is more important
to us than this question of our faithfulness to the great commandment of Jesus
Christ. Has love worked its way from the
outside in to take up residence in us?
Last summer, I went to my 30th High School Graduation Anniversary gathering. I drifted from nametag to nametag at the gathering, finding these age-worn faces vaguely familiar and asking them questions so as to refresh my memory. I’m sure they were doing the same thing of me.
Suddenly there was one face I remembered; that of Steve Wick. I was glad to see him. I remembered that he and I, back in ninth grade, were both back-ups on the football team. We were blowing out the other team in one game so the coach put all us back-ups in. The other team, however, kept in their first team defense. And they all had anger issues. I was the quarterback and Steve was the wide receiver. After being crushed two plays in a row before I could even hand off the ball, I took the snap on third down and ran away from the other team as fast as I could. As they were jumping on top of me and hauling me down, I threw the ball as hard as I could in the general direction of Steve. Miraculously, he caught it and ran in for a touchdown.
That was the highlight of my competitive athletic career. So when I saw Steve Wick, I gave him a huge hello, a big smile and a man hug. You know, one of those shake with the right hand and put the left arm around and pat a couple of times on the back. I’m not sure, but what’s the acceptable number of back pats in a man hug? One, maybe two? It’s possible I may have given him three because Steve seemed taken aback by my reception. I asked him how his dental practice was. He told me he wasn’t a dentist, he was a car salesman. Then it dawned on me: the guy I threw the touchdown to wasn’t Steve Wick. It was Greg Weiss, Greg Weiss the dentist, not this guy in front of me. Then just as suddenly I remembered who Steve Wick was. Steve, in the sixth grade, was my rival for the affections of Kay Martinson. I didn’t like this guy. In fact, I had made it a personal policy to be unpleasant to him ever since sixth grade. But, unfortunately, I had forgotten all that and had given him this big friendly, man hug greeting. I couldn’t take it back and start snubbing him now. So Steve Wick and I had a pretty nice talk and we parted on good terms.
It was a strange experience. My faltering memory had caused me to inadvertently act like a Christian. I had loved my neighbor, even, in a small way, loved my enemy, in spite of myself.
That’s what we’re trying to teach here. That’s what we’re trying to learn. I want you to practice it with me:
Using one finger, write LOVE – on your heart
Now write THE – on your right hand
Now write LORD – on your head
Repeat the writing – LOVE THE LORD
Isn’t this what we’re trying to teach, trying to learn, trying to do here? Isn’t love the discipline we practice again and again in hopes that we might one day forget ourselves and act in a truly loving manner?
We are about to take part in communion. In our workshop yesterday, Kara, Georgia and I talked with the families there about how communion means remembering Jesus, remembering how he shared his last supper with his disciples, remembering how he freely gave his own life for his friends, remembering that he promised to come again. As we talk about love this morning, I wonder if communion isn’t our ultimate practice of love. In communion, I wonder if we’re practicing our love for perhaps the hardest person for us to love: Jesus.
Does that seem surprising to you, that it’s hard to love Jesus? But remember – loving Jesus means loving the example he set for us, a difficult example of selfless service. Loving Jesus means loving the one who frequently comes to us in the least of these; the homeless, the hungry, the hurting, the criminal. Loving Jesus means loving the one the world despised and so risking being despised by the world ourselves. Now do you understand why I say it’s hard to love Jesus?
n It’s hard to love Jesus when he is sitting by himself in the lunchroom and we know we’re called to go sit by him;
n It’s hard to love Jesus when we see him in the guise of our teacher as she’s handing out the blue books for our final exam;
n It’s hard to love Jesus when she’s riding along in the car ahead of us, the one that just cut us off in traffic, the one with the bumper sticker that drives us crazy: Pagan and Proud, God Is Still Speaking, Yes We Can, W 04.
n It’s hard to love Jesus when he’s walking down College Avenue, homeless, ill, and distraught;
n It’s hard to love Jesus when Jesus is calling us to love him in ways that involve great risk and great cost on our part.
It’s hard to love Jesus. It’s hard to love Jesus. That’s why we need to write those words on our heart and hand and forehead – write them with me: LOVE THE LORD. That’s why we need to practice. That’s why today, with this bread and grape juice, with the body and blood of Jesus, we are practicing loving Jesus, we are writing that love not just on heart and hand and forehead – we’re taking it in, we’re loving Jesus here so that we might love him in the world, no matter the risk, no matter the cost, no matter the danger.
A
whole neighborhood of Jews was executed in a small Polish village in World War
II. Their bodies fell into a shallow
grave and the Nazis covered their bodies
with dirt. But one little boy was still alive.
None of the bullets had hit him.
As he fell into the ditch he only pretended to be dead.
When darkness fell, this 10-year-old boy crawled out of his grave. With blood and dirt caked to his body, he made his way to the nearest home and begged for help. A woman answered the door and immediately recognized him as one of the Jewish boys marked for death by the Nazis. So she screamed at him to go away and slammed the door. The little boy limped from one house to the next begging for help. But he always got the same response. People were afraid to help.
Finally in desperation, he knocked on a door, and just before the lady of the house could tell him to leave, he cried out: “Don’t you recognize me? I am the Jesus you say you love!” The woman froze in her tracks for what seemed like an eternity to the little boy. Then with tears streaming down her face she threw open her arms. She picked up the boy, and took him safely… inside.
(writing – LOVE THE LORD)
Amen.
Sermon preached by Reverend Steve Savides at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Appleton, Wisconsin on June 1, 2008.