This week we complete the series of messages titled The Great Commandments.
Next week we begin a series of messages titled I Love the Church Because…
I’ve done a lot of funerals over the years, and
one of the most touching was several years ago. The person was someone I had known a long time and she asked
me some months before her funeral if I would officiate. I said I would and then she had an interesting
request of me; she was going to write her own eulogy and asked if I would mind
reading it. That was the first and
only time I officiated a funeral where the deceased had written their own
eulogy. It was really beautifully
written, and made everyone there, I imagine, wonder, what would be my final words?
This morning’s Scripture text is that kind of
passage. It comes from the latter
part of John’s gospel, at the Last Supper, and these are some of the “last
words” of Jesus. When you get down
to your last words, they are words that matter. You don’t talk about the weather at that moment, and Jesus
took his opportunity to share the core of his message with his disciples; it
was a summation of everything he had sought to instill in his followers.
Today’s
message is The Greatest Commandment. Our Scripture text is two portions of
John’s gospel, both taken from a long passage devoted to the Last Supper. In that longer passage Jesus is
offering his final words to the disciples. As it is the final moments that he has with them, and the
final opportunity to offer teaching, Jesus uses that time to share what is at
the heart of his mission, and that is, unsurprisingly, love. So I have saved the greatest command in
all of Scripture for the final message of our series of The Great Commandments, with today’s message The Greatest Commandment.
Follow along with me as I read this morning’s
text –
John 13:34-35
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so
you must love one another.
35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one
another.”
John 15:9-17
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I
loved you. Now remain in my love.
10 If you keep my commands, you will remain
in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
11 I have told you this so that my joy may
be in you and that your joy may be complete.
12 My command is this: Love each other as I
have loved you. 13 Greater
love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I
command.
15 I no longer call you servants, because a
servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you
friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you
and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and
so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.
17 This is my command: Love each other.
Anyone who has heard me preach for very long
knows that I, like any other minister, has particular themes that I favor. One of my regular themes is that of the
primacy of love, which was a theme of Jesus, thus it is mine as well. In these final words that he offers to
his disciples, love is the theme that Jesus really emphasizes.
1.
You Can’t Command Others to Love, But Sometimes You Have To.
I know that sounds strange, and contradictory, but
doesn’t it also sound strange to command people to love? In
these passages Jesus refers to love as a command. In 13:34 he says, a
new command I give you: Love one
another. In 15:12 he says, My command
is this: Love each other as I have
loved you. Jesus uses
the word command six times in that
passage. Issuing a command is an interesting way to encourage people to love one
another, isn’t it? Is it possible
to command people to love one another?
Can we be coerced into love?
Isn’t love, by its very nature, something that must come about through
free will, and not a command? By
its very nature, love is voluntary, not commanded or coerced. I am not disagreeing with Jesus,
certainly, but I find issuing a command to be an interesting way to talk to
people about love. Imagine if you
had to command your family to love you.
If you have to issue a command for them to love you there are some very
serious issues in your family that must be addressed.
Here’s
what I believe Jesus means, and it goes back to the passage that was our text
last week, where Jesus said in Matthew 5:46 – If you love those
who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing
that? Obviously, there are
people we love, and people who love us.
No command is needed to encourage that love; we just naturally and
easily love some people and they naturally and easily love us in return. But what about the people for whom our love
does not come naturally or easily?
And what about the people who have no interest in loving us? That’s where the command comes in. That’s where we need a command that
becomes a push to encourage or compel us to step out of our safety zone, out of
our area of security, out of what is known. Sometimes love needs a bit of a nudge; sometimes love needs
more of a push, and that’s why Jesus issues a command. We don’t need a command to love some
people, but we certainly do for others.
If Jesus desires that we love our enemies, we probably need a push to do
so.
When we consider the events in Charlottesville,
Virginia this weekend I think we understand the necessity of a command to
love. Do those white supremacists understand
the harm of what they are doing? Do
they understand how their bigotry diminishes the humanity of others, as well as
their own? It takes blunt language
to counter that level of bigotry and hatred, and certainly we must say don’t ever use the name of God to justify
your hatred and bigotry! If we
ever hope to see such bigotry and hatred disappear in the world it is going to
have to come from a command, and this is why Jesus issued a command. Left to our own ways, it is rare that
we will cross the boundaries that must sometimes be crossed in order to counter
hatred and bigotry with love.
Jesus certainly knew this. Jesus faced a great deal of hatred as
well. His enemies had no love at
all for him. No, they had only
hatred for him, and that’s why Jesus was so often very blunt with them. When you confront hatred of that
magnitude a command must be put down as a marker that says I’m not suggesting that you love the people you hate; I’m commanding
it!
2.
We Must Choose Love Over Law.
When Jesus talked about love, which
was so often, I also think he meant that we need to choose love over law. There are two elements within faith,
and often those two elements are in conflict with one another. Those two elements are love and law,
and we must always tip the scale in favor of love. Laws and commandments, as
important as they are, must not be the preeminent aspect of our faith; that is
reserved for love.
That is the message at the heart of
the conversation Jesus had with some Pharisees when one of them asked, teacher, which is the greatest commandment
in the Law? In answering that
question Jesus gave his famous answer, love
the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind. This is the first and
greatest commandment. And the
second is like it: love your
neighbor as yourself. All the Law
and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matthew 22:36-40; a text I
referenced two weeks ago). That
last sentence is particularly instructive, as Jesus says that all the law and
all the words of the prophets are filtered through the primary command of
love. In other words, laws and
commands are not of much meaning if they are not subservient to, and based
upon, love. Jesus never intended
to diminish the importance of the Law, but he did seek to put it in its
rightful place. In Matthew 5:17 he
says do not think that I have come to
abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill
them. The Law, unfortunately
for some, was raised to a level above love. This is seen in the exchange Jesus had with some Pharisees,
when they criticized the disciples for picking grain on the Sabbath. Jesus reminded them that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for
the Sabbath. When we forget
the intent of the Law and elevate it to a place where it is place above love,
we have become trapped in legalism, and Jesus always railed against legalism.
Paul echoes this sentiment in the
book of Romans, as he struggles with the way in which the Law does not bring
righteousness to him, but merely demonstrates how unrighteous he is. He reminds us that Abraham was
justified not by his works but by his faith, saying that whatever we do, in
terms of trying to fulfill law, is only what we should have done in the first
place (Romans 4:4 – when a man works, his
wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation). This highlights the difficulty for
those who fall into legalism and who want to raise laws and commandments above
love – there is never enough that we can do in order to satisfy laws. Laws, commands, and regulations, as
helpful as they can be in giving us a framework of how to live, will ultimately
fall short because we can never do enough to satisfy those commands. Love, however, is the better guide,
because it does not makes us subservient to rules and regulations and all of
the frustrations and failures that come with trying to be perfect in following them. Seeking to follow laws ultimately
becomes a dead end for us because it does not lead us to love, but only into
legalism. Jesus wants us to act
out of love, not legalism. Paul
highlights this in his letter to the Galatians, when he writes in chapter five
about not being so bound to the law that love is forgotten. In 5:6 he writes, the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love,
and in 5:14 adds, the entire law is
summed up in a single command:
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
It is a
great tragedy that some churches are known more for their pronouncements about
law than about love and their attitude of judgment than acts of mercy. Such behavior and attitudes are
absolutely contrary to the way of Jesus.
I understand the temptation to make those pronouncements about laws and
commands, because we like the security they offer in times that are anything
but secure. The more uncertain our
world becomes, the more we crave certainty, and laws and commands can provide
us with a sense of certainty. Laws
and rules also make life simpler in some ways, as they attempt to give an
answer for what to do in every conceivable situation. Read the Old Testament and you will find the laws there
cover a multitude of possibilities.
Love does not do that. Love
says, basically, work it out. It’s easy to prefer the specifics and
the security of a law over the complications that come along with love, but
that is not the way in which we are called to live.
Our church is not a legalistic, law-bound church. We are not a church that pronounces
judgment upon people; rather, we emphasize love. Where some churches desire uniformity, we do not. Some churches want everyone to be a
square peg, and if you are not a square peg you will not find a home
there. Some churches want everyone
to be a round peg, and if you are not a round peg you will not find a home
there. We’re not a church of only
square pegs. If you are a round
peg, that’s okay; you are welcome here.
We are not a church of only round pegs. If you are a square peg that’s okay; you are welcome
here. You are welcome if you are
an octagonal peg. Or any other
kind of peg. Or even if you’re not
a peg. And, to be honest, sometimes
that costs us, and that’s okay.
Not everyone wants a church like us. Some people want a church of all round pegs. Some people want a church of all square
pegs. Some people come and check
us out and decide we are not what they are looking for in a church, because we
recognize that not everything is black and white; sometimes there is a good
deal of gray. Some people want
more certainty than what we offer.
We sometimes ask more questions than we offer answers.
I am growing more and more disturbed with two developing
trends in our society, the first of which is that we seem intent upon tearing
ourselves apart and the second is that we are dividing into factions and groups
that insist upon accepting their particular orthodoxy and their group to the
exclusion of other groups and other ways of thinking. Too many people are succumbing to the pressure to align with
a particular group and not veer from it, and once a part of a group one cannot associate
with someone in another group.
Love, however, does not divide us in that way. Our orthodoxy should not be the Republican
or Democratic parties. Our
orthodoxy should not be liberal or conservative. Our orthodoxy should not be urban versus rural, or north
versus south, or east coast versus west coast, or, if I could be so bold, UK or
UofL, or any other. Our orthodoxy
should always by Jesus and his love.
And I’m not saying that if you favor any of those aforementioned
categories you are not following Jesus; what I am saying is, don’t put any of
them above Jesus; don’t let them become points of division.
3.
Love Is Super Tough.
When I’m driving in my car, which is quite a
bit of the time, I am always listening to the radio. I used to spend a lot of time pushing the buttons to see
what songs were on. I might like a
song, but perhaps there is a better song on another channel, so I would keep
pushing buttons. Now that SiriusXM
radio has a Beatles channel I push the buttons a lot less. I love the music of the Beatles. Yesterday evening, as I was driving,
one of my favorite Beatles songs came on – All
You Need Is Love. Isn’t that a
great song? I love that song. But let’s be honest, on one level it’s
not really true, is it? Try taking
love to the bank when you’re behind on your mortgage and see what happens. Try applying some of that love to a
down payment on a car and see what happens. Will it work?
Of course not. Obviously,
love isn’t all you need.
But we understand what the sentiment
means. But here’s also a problem
with that sentiment – we’ve arrived at a point, I think, where we have so
over-sentimentalized and so over-romanticized love that we forget just how
tough love can be. I Corinthians
13:4-7 says that Love is
patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It
does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it
keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but
rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always
hopes, always perseveres. Love
never fails. There is nothing
easy about those qualities of love.
They are tough. They are
super tough.
Love
never fails, that is true, but sometimes we fail love. Sometimes we fail love because love is
tough. Love is super tough. Love is incredibly super tough. Love is really incredibly super
tough. At least it is if you want
to step beyond only those who love you.
Here’s how tough love is.
Love can get you killed. It
got Jesus killed. That’s a scary
thought to consider, isn’t it?
My older brother Ed, and his wife Jodi, are co-pastors
at Old Union Church in Jamestown, Indiana. Back in the 80s, Ed was the pastor at a church in Lafayette,
Indiana. I still remember a
newsletter he wrote back in the mid-80s.
He wrote about our tendency to see faith and love as a bit like a vaccination
against a disease. If you are
familiar with biology, you probably now that a vaccination actually gives us some
of the cells of the disease that the vaccination is designed to prevent. Be receiving a little bit of the
diseased, our body’s natural immune system can prevent us from receiving the
full blown disease. Ed compared
this to how we can be about the power of God’s love. We want a bit of that love, but not the full blown effects
of God’s love. We prefer an inoculation;
enough to give us a bit of God’s love but not enough to make us do anything
crazy, such as love our enemies or pray for those who persecute us.
Love is tough. Love is super tough.
That makes it understandable why we only want a little bit of it,
because we don’t want our lives made more difficult by living love in the way
that Jesus did; it would simply be too difficult and too complicated to live
love to that extent.
But God wants to give us the full measure of
his love, and he wants us to live the full measure of that love. That is, after all, his greatest
commandment.
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