Latest / Belin Memorial UMC / Rev. Will Malambri - "Love Lifts Us"
Transcript
- Belin Memorial UMC: Let's hear now together the reading from Gospel of John chapter 14 where Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father and He will give you another advocate to be with you forever. This is the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him because He abides in you and He will be with you. I will not leave you orphaned. I'm coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me because I live, you also will live. On that day, you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me. And those who love me will be loved by my Father and I will love them and reveal myself to them. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. It's been said, don't ask someone's opinion if you don't want to hear it. I'm still learning. Some years ago, my sister and I listened to a sermon together. I thought it would be good for us to discuss it afterwards, get her take, dig in a little bit, some kind of theological bonding. So I her, what you ask each other after any sermon. What'd think? And she said it sounded pretty much like any other sermon you ever hear. Sermons always about trying to do a little better, work a little harder, yada, yada, yada. I didn't mean to be defensive. Sometimes it just happens. I said, preaching is harder than it looks, okay? You have to work with the material given, whatever the scriptures say, that's what you have to talk about. You have to work with the people you're given. And while we're on that, when people finally get the message, the primary basic message of the gospels, then we can move on to something else, okay? you asked, she said. I'm trying to learn. I thought about it more since my little outburst. There is a repetitive nature to preaching. And I was right, it does have to do with the scriptures which are littered with examples of and commands to love. Love is not a modern, sentimental invention to give us something to talk about on Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. Being loved is a gift we receive. to love is a command we are given. and it leads to action. When Jesus lifts us out of the depths of sin as we just sang about, he lifts us into faithful service as we just sang about, which is why Jesus says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. I think sometimes people hear the inverse. They hear, will love you if you keep my commandments. Can you imagine a new mother welcoming her child that way? Aw, he's so strange looking. But I'm sure he'll grow out of it. Clean that messy baby up and hand him to me so that I can tell him right here, right from the start, if you do what I say, I will love you. Some of you have been shopping for Mother's Day cards this week. Some of you will be shopping for Mother's Day cards in the next few hours. Some of you just made a note to go shopping today. If you went, please tell me if you came across a card that reads, Dear Mother, thank you for loving me in proportion to how obedient I have been. I'm grateful my parents and my Heavenly Father have loved me more graciously than that. Sadly, some parents have given the impression that their love is proportional to their child's obedience, but that's not what we celebrate on Mother's Day. What we celebrate is the ideal that though imperfectly, mothers seek to love fully, love unconditionally, and children seek to respond to that with similar love. We don't live into that perfectly. But we want to because we know that kind of love reflects the perfect unconditional love of God. We get that God's love is endless from Jeremiah 31.3 where God says, have loved you with an everlasting love. And from Isaiah 43.4, you are precious in my sight and honored and I love you from the countless Psalms that celebrate God's steadfast love. In the New Testament, First John tells us of the God who loved us before we loved God. It tells us of Jesus who we read in Romans, gave his life for us while we were yet sent. God loves us while we are sinking in sin. and loves us as God is lifting us out of that. Calling us to something better, which Jesus calls obedience. Maybe we could summarize it this way, Jesus loves me this I know, and because Jesus loves me this I do. Jesus' love for us lifts us to something better, to live better for him and for others, to obediently, actively care for and serve, to see others as he sees others, to treat others as he would have us treat them. As those loved by Jesus before, we knew who Jesus was. It is not this I do so that Jesus will love me. Because Jesus loves me this, I do. My parents have never said to me, if you love me, you'll do what I tell you to. I think they know that that can be an abuser's tactic. They did, however, make it clear that whether because of love or out of respect, out of obedience, or simply because of the room and board they were providing, there were expectations about how we treated each other. The message was, I love you regardless, but you don't get to live without regard. They would not have loved us well if they did not have expectations for how we treat each other. They had expectations. what relationship doesn't. As my sisters and I grew up, we had to be told less and less often about those expectations. And now the arguments are much more who gets to set the table and who gets to clean the table than who has to. Which begs the question, were we trained into obedience or were we trained into love? While we're jostling to get the dishes to and from the table laughing about our life together, are we being obedient or are we being loving? Can you separate the two? Aren't we showing our obedience? to our parents, our care for each other. that we love each other rather than hoping our obedience would garner the love from our parents and each other. My family loves me, this I know. And so these are the things I do. Might be nice if Jesus stopped there, told us to love him, told us to love our family, do the things for each other that demonstrate that kind of love, have a nice life. but not Jesus, he pushes us further. Loving him demands that we also love people who aren't as easily loved. We don't do this to... love, do this to return his love, to keep his commandments. And you want to know what those commandments are, what those expectations are, the things we do if we love him, then turn to Matthew 5 through 7, the Sermon on the Mount. Turn to Luke 6, the Sermon on the Plain. Turn to John 13, the experience when he washes the disciples' feet and then tells them to love one another as he has loved them. Reading in his teachings from Matthew 25 about how to care for those feet and clothes. and visit and care for the least of these and when we do so it's doing so to him. Read about his doings, how he touched people who were avoided, how he ate with tax collectors and those individuals who were lumped into a group called sinners, how he prayed for the very people who were killing him as they were killing him. Learn from Jesus how he lived his life, the stories he told, the instructions he gave and you'll see that his summary, the greatest commandments are these, love God, love neighbor, leads to sacrificially caring for others well beyond those we would choose to. Not to earn his love. but to return it. Check it out. then do it. Because when you practice sacrificial, generous acts of loving, you realize that Jesus' love isn't just lifting us out of sin, it is lifting us into a fuller, more consequential life. and to answer my sister's question. That is why preachers keep saying it. Because however much we have experienced of that, we want more. And however much you have experienced of that, we want more of that for you. Because we love Jesus, we want to keep his commandments, we want to live lives of consequence that are more consequential than just getting our way. We want to live lives that demonstrate we are trying to get his ways. One my mother's ways is what my Delaware native brother-in-law calls the Southern goodbye. He's learned we all have to begin our goodbyes about 30 minutes before we actually have to leave. Because the goodbyes will be said inside as you're walking to your car and while the car is backing out of the driveway. It's not practical or efficient. but it is effective in communicating that you are loved and that the time together is precious to her and she wants every minute of it she can get. It's good to be loved like that. And it is good to love like that.