You’d
think talking about the Gospel is an easy thing, right? Well... talking about
the Gospel, well, sometimes it’s not an easy thing. Then there’s that whole
thing of living out the Gospel... I think the church is entering a time where
we’re going to have a lot of hard conversations about racism. About sexism.
About gender orientation. About ability. There’s a lot of stuff that is uneasy
to talk about in the world today, and there are issues that as a church, we
will have to talk about them! I’m going to be honest, there are a lot of truths
that we will have to face. We will have to face them together. Scales may fall
from our eyes and we will see a new world and a new reality. We will have to
learn (and maybe even relearn) how to be in community with one another. The big
question comes, “How are we gonna do that?”
Let’s
start with why we’re here, with our theme for MYLE. We’re have two verses from
Mark’s Gospel:
“you
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and
with
all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your
strength.”
The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor
as
yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Boom.
With these two verses, I could just say sermon done, see ya. But let’s talk
about love. Easy, right? I mean, it’s a four-letter word. There are so many
things to be said about love, but defining this four-letter word... not so
easy! A lot of times, I wonder if we know what we’re talking about when we talk
about love; like, I love my family, but I love... a taco? Is that the same kind
of love? Sure, we could talk about the movies we love, the music we love, the
clothes we love, the games we love and do that easily... but the Gospel, the
good news of Jesus Christ, love incarnate? To
tell people about something that is well, challenging and beautiful and
difficult that definitely involves love... it sure isn’t easy.
I
want to tell you a story about love.
I
didn’t grow up in a church community; I grew up in a devout Hindu family. There
isn’t anything wrong with that; I love my parents and brother (and I love them
more than tacos). But either I was too Indian to be American or too American to
be Indian, so I lived my life in this “in-between” space, not knowing where I
belonged. I didn’t know if I had a place where I actually, really belonged,
which is where church comes into my life. I started going to church when I was
in college in rural South Carolina because 1) a friend invited me to go and 2)
she told me there was going to be free food. My friend knew that I grew up in a
Hindu family and she took a risk in inviting me. She knew I didn’t want to go
to church because I was scared to hear that God didn’t love me because I was a
Hindu living in the buckle of the Bible Belt. But I took a risk, too, and I took
her up on her invitation. And I went back to that church week after week; it
wasn’t awful! I thought I was being fed physically, but I was also being fed spiritually.
But
there’s one Sunday I want to tell you about. I was minding my own business at
that church in rural South Carolina on a Sunday morning at an 8:30AM service. I
say this because I was an oddball at this service. Youngest person by a couple
of decades. Darker skin than most people there. Oh yeah, and a Hindu. I was getting
ready to stand up to sing a hymn. As everyone around me in church is singing
this hymn... I’m sure God’s in church. I mean, I know, God’s supposed to be in
church, right? But this was God. In church. Like God’s presence being so
massive, like the presence of the Holy Spirit filling the place up, I was
really thinking the roof was just going to come off the building because that
church. was. full. with the Holy Spirit’s presence. I was
freaking out, crying. It was at that moment that I knew I was loved. That God,
by way of the Holy Spirit, was coming to me, yes, me, and letting me know, I
LOVE YOU. For everything that I am. For who I was created to be. As this
complete outsider on so many levels, it just didn’t make sense. But there are
just some things that don’t make sense, like God’s love, grace, and mercy being
extended to all of us and we don’t have to do a single thing for that. When I
felt God’s presence, God’s love, and can you guess how I felt? Excited?
Thrilled? Happy?
I was
terrified. Scared. To. Death. Because while I was minding my own business in
church singing a hymn, God comes to me and tells me that hey, I love you. But God revealing God’s self to me in
that moment wasn’t only just about God loving me. No, this is where it gets
scary and complicated; if God is real and loves me, that means I’m called to
love others. There’s this term called imago
dei, it means the image of God, and we are all created in that image. There
is no exclusion, there is no in or out crowd. God’s not just some old white
dude with a long, flowing beard. God... is in the face of the person standing
next to you. Really look at the people around you. You are looking at the face
of God. In that moment at that church service, I realized that God loved me for
being me, and in turn, God was calling me to love others as God created them to
be. From that moment on, my life changed forever; I was being folded into God’s
agape love story.
What
is that agape love story? Agape love is the self-pouring out, the self-emptying
love. The loving entirely for the neighbor. The other. Even the enemy. But I
also want to be clear, this is not to be a doormat, not to be taken advantage
of, not to be abused. Agape love is far from that. We have the most incredible
example of agape love. Agape love is the love shown to us in Jesus Christ in
his life, death, and especially his resurrection.
Jesus is God made flesh, God loving us, showing us that love is more than a
mere sentiment, but a way of life and of love that is open to us all. To
let that agape love be genuine... and how we are called in our own ways to
manifest that agape love in the world is us coming together in Detroit. To love
our neighbor. To see God in the face of the person we work with. To being open
to being folded into that agape love. All so that we may bring God’s kingdom
come on earth as it is in heaven. That’s where Jesus’ call of “Hear, O Israel”
comes into this agape love story. Our God is not an exclusionary God who says,
okay, you here, but not you here. God doesn’t work like that. This is a world
that desperately needs to see, experience, and feel God’s agape love, to truly
know what that love does. This is a
call for you and me, all who are baptized in Jesus Christ, to come together,
our hands and feet and hearts and voices to live out that petition of the
Lord’s Prayer, “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done... ON EARTH AS IT IS IN
HEAVEN.”
So
what’s love got to do with it? Well... a lot.
Out
of the over 600 laws of Torah, part of the Old Testament, Jesus responded by
quoting Moses, stating, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
Those four, the heart, soul, mind, and strength, that is all of who you are. God loves you enough to create you to be the
beautiful being you are; the entirety of
who you are. But Jesus isn’t done responding to the scribe. Jesus quotes
the Old Testament AGAIN, using words out of Leviticus, saying, “And a second is
like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” This is a love that is
expressed in action. Not just “be nice to the person sitting next to you” kind
of action, but to be holy to one another, to see the face of God in one another,
and to see God in yourself. Others
cannot deny your identity in the entirety of who God created you to be; others
cannot deny your identity tied to the promise of resurrection and love in
Christ Jesus. We are all tied together; we are accountable to one another as
siblings in Christ. If our neighbor is in need, we’re called to respond to
them; if our neighbor sees us in need, they’re called to respond to us.
But
that love... it can be tricky. Loving someone as God loves us is not easy. Sometimes
loving ourselves as God loves us sure isn’t easy. Sometimes we take a risk in
our active choice to love one another, to make our neighbor holy. But we’re not
the only ones to take a risk in loving one another. Our neighbor takes a risk
in loving us too. What does this look like? Jesus showed us time and time
again; he didn’t hang with what we would call the “popular crowd.” He loved the
sick, the weak, the poor, the Samaritan. People that didn’t have power. People
that were deemed as on the outside, the other. Like “that kid.” The one who doesn’t seem to fit in; the one
who is not a part of the “in-group”? That kid, who is not accepted for who they
fully are. Maybe you make fun of that
kid. Maybe you watch others make fun of that kid. But to take the risk, to
reach out to that kid... that risk can change someone’s life, especially if you
are that kid. It may be uncool. It may be unpopular. It’s a risk to do
something not cool, to go against the in-crowd.
But
then, God took the biggest risk in loving us.
Risking
God’s own son.
Risking
life.
Risking
our rejection.
But
that is how much God loves us, to risk the possibility that we will reject
God’s suffering and ultimate sacrifice. But God does it freely anyway because
God loves us. That is what love does, it uses its freedom love our neighbor, to
risk for our neighbor, and to be open enough for our neighbor to risk for us,
including risking loss and rejection.
God
so loves us that God sent Jesus, God’s beloved Son.
God’s
love for us is so incredible, so unfathomable, that God’s love was nailed to a
cross and resurrected on the third
day so that we may live... and love.
God
so loves us that God created us in God’s image. How radical is that, that we
all resemble an amazing and diverse God?
God
love for us is so amazing and so radical, it comes to us in these words at the
altar at our churches, “This is my body, broken FOR YOU. This cup is the new covenant in my
blood, shed FOR YOU.” That’s one of the best parts of being Lutheran;
God meets is in ways we can actually experience. God loves us so much that God
comes to us in ways we can hear, see, taste, touch; through communion, through
baptism, through the Living Word. God comes to us in the means of grace we can
grasp on to so we can feel and experience God’s presence with and among us.
When
our hearts are broken, when we are discouraged, we come to the altar time and
time and time again to become whole again, to be restored, to be in
relationship with God and one another, being in communion with one another. We
do this with the recognition that we are loved by God, and our broken hearts are
mended to take the risk to love neighbors, to be loved by our neighbors, and to
love ourselves... By living out this agape love for God, for one another, and
for ourselves, the world will know we are one in Christ. This is living into
God’s agape love story.
So...
what’s love got to do with it?
If
love is about our relationship with God and each other, it’s everything.
In
love, let us take a moment of silence for those we take a risk on loving in God’s
image…
In
love, let us take a moment of silence for those who risk loving us seeing us as
created in God’s image...
In
love, let us take a moment of silence for those who have gone before us, for our
ancestors, for those who have risked everything before us (even their lives) so
that we can be here today, for the communion of saints that uphold us and
uplift us for the work we need to do as Christ’s hands and feet in the world
today...
Amen.
