Spring reveals many things. When the snow melts, garbage; when buds start, sprouts. Animals come out of hibernation, and on top of that, people wind down the windows of their cars and blast stereos while driving up and down Yonge Street. This last week, I was sitting alongside one of those who had come out with his roof open and windows down, and a very large stereo blasting away. He was playing a piece that took me back to my youth – quite a while ago! Who Are You? by The Who. The whole of Yonge Street from Eglinton to Richmond could hear it. It was something! Of course that song has become epitomized, I suppose, in the CSI Series’ theme song. Who Are You? is about finding the real and the authentic.
I remember as a budding guitarist trying to play the riffs of Pete Townsend of The Who, one of the rock gods for me, as I worshipped at the altar of Townsend’s riffs. I remember the pounding beat, but I also remember that the words should never be repeated in a Church! It’s a great song, and I can see why CSI used it, because it is seeking to find the authentic.
I was reading the First Letter from John last week, and thinking that if John would have had a theme song, it would be Who Are You? What the first letter of John is about is discovering the real nature of the Christian community. What makes it? What gives it its power? On what foundation does it rest? How should it live its life? It is as if John is holding up a mirror to that early Christian community and saying “Who are you? What is your identity? Who are you, really?” He answers it in this most incredible passage – Chapter 3 in this letter – by suggesting that what we are is a community of love, and that the motivation, the power, the source and the end result is love.
The problem is when you look at that word “love” it is often misunderstood. By misunderstood, I mean turned into sentimentality or pure emotion. It is a word that often has no content, no guts, no power, no change within it. It is Pablum. Of course Christianity is about love! Just recently, Stanley Hauerwas, a very brilliant theologian from Duke University has written a groundbreaking essay suggesting that Christianity isn’t just about love. It has shaken people because addressing the problem of the Pablum of love, of the content-less love, of the love that has no sacrifice or no power to it. He suggests that when you look at the life of Jesus, love was not a sentimental thing, it was not a passive thing, but rather it was something that manifested at times a great challenge to people. It had content to it, it was not a passive simplicity, but a deep confrontation with things that were wrong and evil, and needed to be addressed.
The way that Jesus addresses these things is by bringing about a new era, a new world. It is not a matter of passivity, and saying “I love you and therefore everything is okay.” On the contrary, the power and the content of Jesus’ love was to create a new world. This is what Hauerwas wrote:
Jesus gave the disciples a new way to deal with offenders by forgiving them. He gave them a new way to deal with violence by suffering. He gave them a new way to deal with money by sharing it. He gave them a new way to deal with problems of leadership by drawing on the gift of every member, even the most humble. He gave them a new way to deal with a corrupt society by building a new order. He gave them a new pattern of relationships between man and woman, between parent and child, between master and slave, which made concrete a radical new vision of what it means to be the human person. He gave them a new attitude toward the state and toward the enemy nation. He gave them a new world.
Hauerwas is right! It is not that love is not at the core of the Christian faith; it is just that love needs to be redefined in the light of the One who was the source of that love, Jesus Christ.
I think the writer of John 1 would echo the words of Hauerwas, for he says quite clearly in this passage, love is not about words, but it is about deeds, and about the truth. Love is not an idea; love is something that is lived. Love is not a speculation or a feeling; love has a concrete way of dealing with relationships and how those relationships are fostered. John is clearly writing because he is concerned about the community. He is concerned that they have no confidence anymore in that love. Maybe they are drifting back to paganism, back to their old ways and their Greek religion. In fact, you get this sense of deep, concern for the community that he was writing to. They were lost and were losing their confidence and their passion.
In this most beautiful letter, he wants to assure them that their faith and love is based on the truth. He makes it abundantly clear that it is only by living a life of love that you come to know the truth. It is only by action and by manifesting the Gospel in your life that you come to know the way of truth. You see, he is writing mainly to a Greek audience that was always obsessed with knowing the truth, and then having determined what the truth was, acting upon it. He reverses this by saying that you act in obedience to Christ and then you will find what the truth is. Then he makes this incredible statement: “If you know what love is, then you see it in Jesus Christ who laid down his life for us.” That is what love is!
Love is that Jesus Christ laid down his life for us: love is not a sentiment; love is a sacrifice. Love isn’t an idea; love is an act. Love is not ethereal; it is incarnational; It is grass-roots! It is borne on the Cross! You want to know what love is? Love is the giving of Jesus Christ himself. Throughout the rest of the book he tries to show clearly who Jesus is. He shows him to be the Son of God, the One who gives us eternal life, the One who answers our prayers, the One who forgives us, the One who gives us power and protection from evil. This Jesus that you see unfolding in John’s letter is in fact a Jesus that is completely and totally self-giving. The nature of love is rooted and grounded in something concrete: in an action in a person; not in an idea. John wants the people to whom he is writing, and I believe every subsequent congregation that has ever gathered in every generation, to understand that that is the power of love. Who are we? We are people for whom Jesus died. Who are we? We are people who share in that. Who are we? We are people of love, who live out our faith in the light of Christ.
I know we live in a day and age where sometimes people want those who follow Jesus to be perfect: to have a perfect church, a perfect spirituality, a perfect world, and if there is any imperfection, then somehow there is something wrong with the love of Jesus. They make a correlation between the perfect and the body of Christ. The fact of the matter is, the way that the body of Christ deals with that is to recognize that it is not perfect, but neither is it just a body of words; it is a body of deeds. It reveals who Christ is, not out of its own perfection, but out of its own devotion. That is why at times Christians not only need assurance, they need reassurance. John is addressing a problem. The problem is that the people are down on themselves, they are condemning themselves; they are not perfect. Their consciences are bothering them. They know they are not living up to the standard, and they are challenged by the nature of that love. While John clearly, throughout the whole of his letters, suggests that the conscience is a good thing, a conscience that does not rely on God can become an inhibiting thing.
I noticed after my hip replacement that every time I travel I spend a lot more time in the security departments at airports than I ever did. I go through the whirly machines and the pat downs, and the “Are you carrying drugs” questions, and I know that it is my hip that is causing all these sensors to go off, so I was reading with great interest – and this is fascinating – that hundreds of years before our technology, in Cheng Dan in Thailand, the princes in their castles used to have huge lode stones put at the doors of the palaces. Lode stones – as many of you know – have a magnetic power to them. What would happen is, if somebody tried to enter the palace with a weapon or a blade, the lode stone would attract the metal and pull. When the person would reach down to try to stop the pulling, they would reveal themselves and get arrested. It was brilliant! There was actually a system in place hundreds of years ago that knew how to do that. It blows my mind!
I think our consciences are like that lode stone: We have our insecurities, our imperfections, our sins, and our consciences reveal them. It is like that lode stone pulling something within us, and it taking us off our current route and onto another path. John knows this happens, and he is not suggesting that conscience is a bad thing. He is just saying that at times when we allow our consciences to condemn us for no reason, when we become obsessed with ourselves, we lose our convictions, and we become paralyzed, and our faith is often reduced to words, because we are frightened to do anything, because of the conscience we have condemning us. He uses this beautiful phrase, “You need to rest in Him for God is greater than your hearts.” Our hearts might condemn us and we might feel unworthy before God, but God knows us better than we know ourselves. So, rest in him for the purposes of love.
Reassurance is only one part of this. There has to be a sense of confidence that comes out of it. John says, and it is an interchangeable word, that because of Christ you should act with boldness or with confidence – I prefer the word confidence. You shouldn’t shrink from your obligations or that you are not as loving as you think you should be or that you are not perfect. After all, Christ has borne that imperfection, and has removed it on the Cross. You need to be at peace, rest in that, be confident and walk out in faith. You see, John was concerned about the facility of his people. I think they were probably groaners, I think they were probably disenchanted, and I think they were worried about what they should do next. John challenges them to allow Christ to work in them through his Spirit, and they will be able to do the things that are love.
You see, we do not have to change the world, we don’t! It is not on our shoulders. Rather, we participate in God’s change. We take part in what God is doing. We are not the source; we are the instruments through which God uses the Church to bear witness in the world. Love is manifested not by us deciding that, but by us following it and being committed to it. The pressure is off us, but the commitment is on us. It is not us; it is Christ working through us.
I got a most incredible letter this week. It started out as a personal letter, and then I realized that it was going to be picked up in a Christian news agency, and then it became an article in a magazine. The letter had originally come out as sort of a blog and a letter to friends from Brian Stiller. He has been visiting Iraq and Syria and Egypt and Lebanon. As a Christian, the former Principal and President of Tyndale College, he went to see what was happening on the ground. He was flabbergasted. He said, “It is like an earthquake that is moving the foundations of the Middle East.” It is not like Nepal, a physical one, which was so devastating, but one that is shaking up people spiritually, because what he saw on the ground was unbelievable and almost miraculous. He gives a number of examples. He went to Lebanon where there are hundreds of thousands, even maybe a million or more, refugees who have come from Syria and northern Iraq, living in tents in camps. It is like a whole city of tents. Many have come from insurrection and war, yet there they are with their families in Lebanon.
He talked about a Christian organization called Heart for Lebanon, actually going around to all of these camps and providing them with food, support and nurture. There is this incredible outpouring of affection for the people who are in these camps. People are putting their lives on the line and in some cases, giving their lives, helping people. They are doing it out of their Christian concern. People maybe of other faiths are the recipients, but the Christians are giving, and they are giving in an environment where people have experienced hatred. He said that it was incredible to see the power of love. He talked to twenty-one parents whose children had been beheaded by ISIS. These parents were trying to figure out how they can practice forgiveness when there has been such horror brought upon them.
This theme of forgiveness was picked up by The Bible Society. It decided to print 1.3 million copies of a brochure that addresses nothing else but forgiveness. These are being disseminated and picked up with incredible speed. People want to read this. They have had enough of the hate. They have had enough of the violence. It is not winning anyone over. You can’t create a society on terror. At some point, something greater has to kick in. What kicks in is love and love is forgiveness. To hear these families is an example of it.
Then he talked about people in deep need and that love is healing in the midst of a broken world. He concludes his letter – God bless Brian for this! – and I quote him: “As you read of the tragedies in the Middle East, stop what you are doing and ask the Holy Spirit to continue to open minds and hearts to the loving presence of the Risen Lord.”
Therefore we need to stop, rest, be at peace, but act in love. Lord knows, that is needed, because violence begets violence, hatred begets hatred, envy begets envy, and in the end no one is saved. But, love has a conscience. It is not an idea. It goes into the heart of evil, and it transforms it. It changes people’s lives. And the more the hatred, sometimes the greater the contrast with love. It is what this world needs.
It is what you and I need, and it is why we believe. We need to know who we are and if our identity is that which is found in this Scripture, if it is rooted and grounded in the One who gave his life for us, then it is the most pure, confident, assuring thing imaginable. May you have that today, and may the world come to see its power! Amen.