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Date: May 3, 2015 (Easter 5)
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Texts: Acts 8:26-40; Ps. 22:24-30; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8.
Subject: love.
Topic: genuine love requires genuine transformation.
Aim: provide hope, guidance.
Proposition: “God created us to love and to be loved—we must share in this ongoing creation.”
GOD’S LOVE AND HIS CREATION ARE NEVER-ENDING
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
you soul, and with all your mind…You shall love your
neighbour as yourself.1
This commandment is nothing new. The topic of love is nothing new. We all
know we are to love and to be loved. Nothing in this is new, just as nothing in
the First Letter of John is new:
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God;
everyone who loves is born of God and knows God…those who
love God must love their brothers and sisters also.2
We’ve all heard all this so many times before. There is nothing new about it.
So why is it all so hard? You know it is: the divorce rate is nearly 50%.
There is still much active racism and prejudice. Physical and sexual abuse still
occur in frightening proportions. People want and need to love. People want
and need to be loved. We all know we’re supposed to love and be loved, and we
all expend a lot of effort on both. So why is it all so hard?
This is a complex issue. We know that. But there is a quick doorway into
this theological vortex: original sin. I know it’s out of fashion to talk about sin,
but it seems to me to be fundamental to this issue. Here’s what I see.
God designed us to be loved and to love—and the order there is important.
He designed us to be loved by him which summons forth our love for him. And,
since we are created in the image of God, he designed us to love others and to be
loved by them. In this magnificent process of self-expression, God created the
moral, emotional, intellectual and spiritual space for us so that his loving nature
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Matthew 22:37-39.
From 1 John 4:7-21.
-We share in God’s love for us-
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might find its fullest expression. He is love and we were created to experience
that love. We respond by loving him in turn. We express our divine pattern as
we love others and are loved by them in turn.
Just hold on: I’m getting to the sin part.
Original sin perverts that original creation. We became predisposed
towards self which works against love. Instinctually we now choose to place
ourselves first, which is contrary to love. True, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection
remove the moral burden of original sin, but we still suffer the consequences of
its existence.
In addition, we also suffer the consequences of the actual sins we commit.
We actually make choices which work against our God-given nature. God
designed us to be loved and to love, but our choices frequently chip away at that
nature.
Being loved and loving are hard because of the role our self plays in them
and because of the consequences of sin, both original and committed. We are
predisposed and in some ways fundamentally trained to live contrary to love.
We actually work against our own creation and God’s intent, as if a dolphin were
to try to crawl on land or as if a chimpanzee were to try to live on ice flows like a
polar bear.
I don’t think that all the instruction in the world is really helping. Like we
said earlier, there’s nothing new in all this. The NRSV Bible uses various forms
of the word “love” more than 760 times and a lot of those are in command forms.
But commanding us to love doesn’t seem to make us love.
Our parents tried to teach us about love, especially through the lenses of
apology and forgiveness, but each member of every family still struggles with
this.
While we preachers hope that sermons like this one have a meaningful
impact on listeners, even faithful Church-goers still have difficulties with being
loved and loving—faith itself is no cure-all for these problems. Instruction
doesn’t seem to be the solution.
-We share in God’s love for us-
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I think the problem points the way to the solution.
We were created by God in the image of God to be loved and to love. That
divine image then propels us towards loving others and being loved by them.
But we’ve become predisposed to make choices contrary to that image. We also
damage that image by actually choosing to work against being loved and loving.
Since the whole issue revolves around our nature and our self, it seems that
transformation might be the solution.
When we talk about transformation, we are talking about the recovery of
our divine image. We have to become more what God designed us to be. The
original template has been marred and must be restored. If we are to cope with
this reality, we have to be transformed back into what God intended. It’s what
St. Paul was pointing to when he wrote,
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of
God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—
what is good and acceptable and perfect.3
God the Holy Spirit will have to do the greatest portion of this work. After
all, it is his job to do so. But each of us must cooperate with the Spirit as he
transforms us.
Step 1: admit to your need for transformation. It is not as if you don’t
know that being loved and loving are problems. But admitting to it is crucial in
cooperating with God’s work.
I encourage you to make that admission as specific as possible. Narrow
your focus: “Lord, I know that I’m judgemental against so-and-so. I know I reject
any thought that I might need this-or-that.” The more specific you can make your
admission, the more accurately the Spirit can aim his surgical laser.
Step 2: ask the Holy Spirit to transform the specific area of concern.
“Lord, I’m tired of rejecting love in this or that area. I accept your love of me even
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Romans 12:1-2.
-We share in God’s love for us-
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in this.” “Lord, I choose to give up this or that prejudice and ask that you
transform me into a more loving person even in this.” “Jesus, make me more like
you in this area.” Be honest and open to transformation and then ask God to
transform.
Step 3: cooperate with your own transformation. Sin is as much habit as
choice. Be aware when you are entering situations that will work against your
transformation. As you need to, cling more tightly to God and be more aware of
his work in your life. Celebrate God’s victories in your life and his recreation of
his divine image in you. Share in the work that the Spirit is doing to restore your
original creation.
Cooperating with our own transformation is as difficult as being loved and
loving. In fact, aren’t they all the same thing? God’s love of us is surely meant to
transform us and our love for him likewise. Our love for others surely transforms
their lives and you all know what difference the love from someone else has made
in your lives. Love from and for God transforms our very nature. Love from and
for others transforms our experience. In order to genuinely love God and others
we must be transformed. It’s all a package.
And it is all good news. We don’t have to resign ourselves to the struggle
with love. Jesus came that we might have genuine life and have it abundantly.4
Such abundance is primarily defined by the image of God in which we were
created, an image that includes loving and being loved. Do not resign yourself to
this struggle. Rather, rail against it. It is wrong and unjust that love should be a
struggle. Hatred, prejudice, abuse and violence of any kind are crimes against
God and against our own creation. We don’t have to accept this seemingly
inevitable state. God is love and we are loved by him. God is love and he created
us to love. Each one of us can have this original, divine state restored as we
cooperate with our own transformation. This is our gospel, our good news.
AMEN.
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John 10:10.
-We share in God’s love for us-