THE LOVE CONNECTION
John 15: 9-17
Psychiatrist Victor Frankyl, had many
things change in his life during the three years he spent in Nazi Concentration
Camps. His famous book,
“As we stumbled on for miles,
slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and time again, dragging on
another upward and onward, nothing was said, but we knew: each of us was
thinking of his wife …. My mind clung to my wife’s image, imagining it with
uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, and her frank,
encouraging look …. A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I
saw the truth as it is set into song by many poets … the truth that love is the
ultimate and highest goal to which [a person] can aspire. Then I grasped the
meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief
have to impart: The salvation of all is
through love and in love.”
Through the horrors of his
experience, Frankyl stumbled on a living truth in a most profound way. He had
arrived at his conclusion only after grappling with the meaning and purpose of
life, struggling for existence, and living only with a glimmer of hope. The
thing that kept him going was love. But what was so important about love in his
time of despair? Just this: in an environment of hate and indifference, he had
a focus; a radically different focus: he had someone who loved him and he loved
that person back. Love kindled the will to live of a dying man.
We will not look at the subject of
love naively. Sometimes those who are dying, or who are away for a long time,
find that the love of another drives or renews them. But on our days of
distraction, of human nature, of bad attitude, of hurt feelings, or when
passion for life has run dry, we can do quite a poor job of showing love, and
even of experiencing it. Some here have
been hurt by love and hurt in love; some have contributed to the hurt. Some I
have known has just given up on love because they got hurt in a relationship.
Victor Frankyl, Jesus Christ, troops across the miles, dying spouses or friends
pull us back on solid ground: love- with
all the ways it makes us vulnerable, foolish, and risk-taking- is vital for the
existence of life, for meaning in life, and even for the desire to keep living.
Some here today, who are immersed in bitterness, hurt, or apathy, will not see
that. I will pray for you, that you move through your cold and isolating
experience, and I invite you to remember me and others when we do thoughtless
and hurtful things. We really can’t get passed needing love.
Listen to the words of Jesus: “Abide
in my love … this is my commandment:
that you love one another as I have loved you.” Listen to the words of others:
“Love is the fire of life; it either consumes or purifies.” Another said, “To
be loved, love.” Many of you know that
in the Greek language in which the New Testament is written, there are three
kinds of love; passionate love, brotherly love, and Christian love. Although
Jesus’ words describe selfless, “Christian” love, all of the above mentioned
“loves” are part of our lives: we either embrace them, or we are influenced by
not having or showing them. Love is that much a part of life. Our Lord starts
with those who may feel unloved: it is an invitation to remain in his love; in the knowledge that he loves you. On the days when you don’t feel like you have enough
love to give, there is a source from which love comes: it is God; the Bible
actually equates God with love. “God
is love.” Love has its source with God: now and forever. That love is given to
you and to me, not once and for all, but in a continual flow that never ceases.
“As the Father has loved me,” Jesus says, “so have I loved you; remain (or
abide) in my love.” It’s worded as an imperative, or an authoritative command.
Jesus doesn’t say “think about abiding in my love,” or “you may abide in my love.” He says “abide in
it” almost as if to say “you can’t help but to abide in my love.”
Scientists know that power of
love. They have done studies that show
that love- a little good attention- could lift up and even change prisoners,
patients, and all broken people. Just a month ago, I saw retired Presbyterian
pastor Bill Chegwin at Indigo Manor. He was coming in to the care center with a
dog! I asked about it. He said since his father was in there, he asked
permission to bring his dog in because it brought joy to his father and his
father’s friends to have a soft animal that liked attention and gave attention.
“Now” Bill said, “I bring him around to visit lots of residents here. The
nurses say our visit changes their day!”
So we now come to the second part of
our text: Jesus had already said the greatest commandment was to love God and
to love neighbor. Now he reinforces the second part: “love one another.” Jesus’
words carry a lot of weight. He had loved those who were scorned by others. He loved tax collectors, beggars, and those
accused of “loose living.” He even loved those considered unclean, including
Samaritans. His love and his words straightened out the Pharisees’
misinterpretation of the great commandment. Pharisees carried such authority
that when they “Loved their neighbor but hated their enemies,” other people did
it too. That tragic distortion of the Bible is still going on today: people
hating others when they suspect them of dreadful sinning. Jesus at one point
told those who were judging to take the log out of their own eye before they
judged the splinter in the eye of another. It is freeing to remember that the
job of judge is already taken.
A retiring usher in a church was
instructing his youthful successor in the details of ushering. The instructions
concluded with these words: “And remember, my boy, that we have nothing but
good, loving Christians in this church- until you try to put someone else in
their pew.” When does love stop flowing from you to someone else? Often it is after someone offends, hurts, or
betrays us. Unfortunately for the grudge we seem to nurse, Jesus had an answer
for that too. “How often do we have to forgive?” Peter asked him. “Seven
times?” a number with a limit. “No” was the Savior’s overwhelming reply:
“seventy times seven”- an unlimited number. And in today’s text Jesus pins us
down even tighter: “”Greater love has no one than this: if you lay down your
life for your friends.” Just as Abraham was a friend of God according to Isaiah
in 41:8, those who are children of God are also friends of ours; friends as in
neighbors, sharing the same planet, work space, or home. Jesus chose disciples
to bear fruit and, when done properly, the work carries on to the next
generation. Jesus trusted twelve ordinary men, some special disciples who were
women, and a crowd of healed people who went back to their villages and told
others about him. Now he’s trusting you, as he trusts me, to show love, to show
remorse and repentance when we hurt others, and to be in relationship with one
another. With that we can change the world. I’ll close with the words Coleridge
used at the end of his epic poem “Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “He prayeth best
who lovest best, and things both great and small; for the dear Lord who lovest
us, He made and loveth all.”
Jeffrey Sumner