This is an edited version of today’s theme in worship. We spent the earlier part of the service considering our love is statements. Love is...family, friends, being owned by a beagle, being wakened by a cup of tea and so many more which will being going up as part of our valentines display. My current favourite though was: Love is growing old together disgracefully! Photos of our display will appear shortly!
However, us spiritual types like to talk about God-incidences. As we considered with the young people present how much God loves us we heard the passage from Romans 8, and this afternoon as I did my QT, the page of my journal which is a book I have been using for a very long time and isn’t dated had the verse from Romans 8:39 - Nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God and my reflective writers were both about love - one about love is a risk and the other about being love like Christ, so that people see Christ before they see you! God loves you - what does that mean for you? As one person said in Church today, knowing that God loves you means ‘You are the apple of his eye.’.
Continue below for an edited version of the sermon...
God bless you, and know that God loves you, as you are, where you are.
Love Sarah x
Sunday 3rd Feb 2019
Theme: Redeemed/Rejoicing/Reunion/Revolution/Reborn
When we say that God is love, or God loves you what do we mean by that? We were reflecting on that a little with the young people. And there are so many statements we can come up with, but what do we actually believe? If our most basic statement of faith is that God loves us then how can we put the rest of our faith into that context.
We all have experiences of love although it is often tarnished because of our imperfections. Some are heard to say, especially to children - I have to love you but I don’t have to like you.
Continuing to explore this concept of love for a moment – the tarnished variety. Many people justify their grudges, saying that an individual has hurt them so much that they cannot bring themselves to value or love that person. Now I know that for many there are a lifetime of hurts that make it difficult to love someone. Yet we are loved by the Holy One, who we have hurt on numerous occasions. We let God down constantly, we hurt him with our rejection of his grace, mercy, gifts, blessings, discipline and more. Our relationships with him or his people are often superficial and lacking any real effort in the busyness of the modern world. Many of us know more about our favourite sports or tv show than we do about God or the Bible. Jesus said: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”.
Yet we expect to be loved by God, even on our worst day. And he does love us.
What is this love of God? How does understanding it help us to grow in our faith and challenge our behaviour? Let’s look at three love is… statements.
Love is taking a risk: Risking a commitment of love to another human being whether it be a life partner, a child given or adopted, the friend of all friends, a new church family – love means taking a risk. A risk that we might get hurt, or let down or betrayed or abandoned. I have lost dear friends over the years both through death and through breakdown of relationships.
Love is taking a risk and we see that in the story today, highlighted in the vulnerability of Jesus’ early days on earth. (Read Luke2:20-40) Once the period of time of purification was up, then Mary and Joseph could go and present an offering. And it is in this wee story that we pick up another risk that God took. Jesus was born into a poor family, and the offering of two doves or pigeons proves it.
So the risk that God takes is to allow his child to be carried by Mary, born in less than sanitary surroundings but in a place accessible to all, and then looked after by a couple with barely two brass farthings to their name. But this risk is important. If God is for the people, then he needs to be with the people. And the majority of the people in Jesus’ time and indeed ours are not the ones with money to burn or ivory towers to reside in. He has to take a risk that ordinary people will be able to raise his son.
Sometimes we too are called to take a risk. In fact, in faith, we are often called to take a risk, which goes against our heavily risk-averse world. Not just in our everyday relationships, but in those that are yet to be established. We must risk ridicule if we are to truly love, just as Mary and Joseph did over being pregnant outside marriage. We must risk loss of status just as Jesus did by leaving all his glory behind and being born as a baby. In fact, love often entails us swallowing our pride and being humble – or as Paul puts – love doesn’t boast, it isn’t proud. We risk it all and trust that God will provide. A common criticism of faith is that we preach a God who provides but then take no risks, and have become boring. Why is Church so boring? And by extension, why is our faith more concerned with buildings than mission, with the faithful than those with no faith? Because we are no longer risk takers, yet love demands we take risks.
Let’s try another one:
Love is without boundaries. Sometimes we say love is unconditional, but in a way I like the idea that it is without boundaries. We live in a world just now that seems to care rather too much about boundaries. Might be walls in the states, or hard line borders in Ireland or EU/UK lines in the sand, or indeed in the Church of Scotland, parish boundaries. So love is without boundaries. It supersedes them – whether it is a Protestant and a Catholic getting married, or children of all races playing together in the park, love doesn’t have boundaries.
And when God sent Jesus, he sent him for the whole world. John, in that now famous verse, says – For God so loved the world he sent his one and only Son. Simeon meeting Jesus in the temple speaks of his arrival as salvation for the world, a light for the Gentiles, redeemer of Israel. Throughout the Old Testament the focus is on the Israelites but with the Messiah promises there are hints and more that God cares not just for one group of people but for all. Simeon and Anna are people of deep deep faith, very pious and both live in hope, in faith of the promised redemption. And both, moved by the Spirit, meet baby Jesus in the temple which was a huge place, and know that he is the one. Their response is to praise God. Love without boundaries overcomes fear and doubt, and they celebrate the fulfilment of the promises made.
God has done away with boundaries. There is no more jew or gentile, male or female, slave or free – God has no boundaries on his love. Even on the cross, Jesus forgave the robber.
What boundaries have we imposed on God’s love? Deliberately or accidentally? We naturally want to protect God and we can be heard to try and limit his love. We don’t want him to be taken advantage of and somehow think that the Church should act as a buffer between God and people. We should be anything but a buffer. We must point people to the God who loves them, through our welcome, through our hospitality, through our willingness to step back to let another step up, through laying down our traditions and needs to make faith accessible to all, through love, compassion, generosity, living and loving through the fruit of the Spirit. The more we love, the more we trust God’s love, the more we let God love us – the more love there will be. Love will never run out.
Love is eternal – love cannot be held back by death or time. God is love and God is eternal. And it is in that love that we find salvation or forgiveness. We have the gift of hindsight, and know that the love of Christ which culminated in his death on the cross, brought us salvation and life. Love could not be defeated, even by death. Therefore love is eternal.
What we know of love, as Paul would say, is like looking in a mirror. We know love, we experience love but it is not the full thing. Yet we can nurture love in our hearts and in our lives, in the same way that we can nurture bitterness or envy or greed. John says that we love because God loved us first. God is the source of our love, but we have to choose how we will love him or not as the case might be. Simeon might not know the details of what will happen to Jesus, but he knows it will be tough. That people will reject him and that Mary his mother will have her heart pierced by a sword. And it won’t be a wee sword, the word used is one for a large sword.
To love anyone isn’t any guarantee of being loved in return. But as disciples of Jesus we are called to love everybody always. Faith, hope and love will remain but the greatest of these is love. Perhaps if we put more effort into loving we might actually start a revolution. A love revolution.
Actually, that’s wrong. The love revolution has already begun – its leader is Jesus Christ, and we are his body. Perhaps we need to join the revolution. Whose signing up today? Amen!
