Easter 4B, 2024

4th Sunday of Easter, Year B

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Today is known as “Good Shepherd Sunday”, as reflected in our Gospel lesson for today. In each year of the 3-year lectionary, we take a different segment of John 10. Last year, it was verses 1-10. Next year it will be verses 22-30. All of the chapter together give us the whole picture of Jesus as our “Good Shepherd.” This year, it focuses on the Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.

This phrase, to “lay down his life” is a phrase that is only used by St. John. There are a number of ways to translate it. The most accurate way is to say “to hazard one’s life.” I think the easiest way to understand this is that it “means to go into death voluntarily.” [Lenski, 471] In other words, when you do this, you expect to die as a result of this action, and you’re doing it willingly. Knowing what we know of Jesus, that’s spot-on.

We also see this phrase in 1 John 3, as the evangelist uses it to explain what love really means. As we discussed with the children earlier, love is seen in its action. We might go so far as to say that love is only seen in its action. John’s explanation in this letter is that there is no stronger evidence of love than the action of laying down your life for someone else.

St. Paul tells us in Romans 5:7 (“For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—”) that there are rare occasions when someone might die for a good person. What makes Christ’s love so amazing is that he died for ungodly people, people who were and are God’s enemies… people who reject Him. In what other story - fiction or non-fiction - has this kind of love of enemy happened? I don’t know of any.

After John has explained this superior act of love, he then backs off to a more realistic expectation. How many of us will ever be put in a position where we have to decide whether to give up our life? Realistically, very, very few of us. I hope none of us have to. It’s much more likely that God will put us in a position to love a brother or sister in Christ in a much less dramatic way - helping someone in need. And that is likely to come up much more often.

Luther tells us that “there are several degrees of love: an enemy must not be offended, a brother must be helped, a member of one’s household must be supported. You know Christ’s commandment concerning love for one’s enemies. But you owe more to a brother who loves you in return. He who has nothing to live on should be aided. If he deceives us, what then? He must be aided again. But you owe most to those who are yours.” [Luther, LW, Vol. 30, p. 278]

I find that really interesting, that Luther would tell us to love those closer to us more than we would a stranger. Doesn’t seem very Christ-like, does it? But it acknowledges our shortcomings (none of us can love as truly as Christ loves) and helps us to follow Christ’s command to “love one another” in a realistic way.

I also appreciate Luther’s take on someone taking advantage of our Christian love. “If he deceives us, what then? He must be aided again.” When we help, we help *because* we love. We don’t help because we want to get something out of it. If that help is received dishonestly, or it is wasted or abused, that does not change our motivation for giving. And to follow Christ’s command means we’ll continue to help. And that means we’ll probably get taken advantage of at some point again.

C.S. Lewis offers a wonderful explanation here: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable...The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers...of love is Hell. [C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1960, p.169]

The last two Sundays, we’ve heard other parts of this first Epistle from John. In the first one, John explained that you can’t be close to the light and still walk in darkness. It’s simply not possible. Now in this chapter, he’s using a similar comparison. Instead of dark versus light and sin versus obedience, now he’s using love versus inaction, love versus greed. Just prior to today’s reading, John explains how vastly different love is from hate. I think it would be safe to say that you can’t hate your brother or sister and love God at the same time. (Guess what we’re going to hear next week?)

So we know what love is because Jesus showed us. He showed us on the cross what love is. When we come to His Table shortly, we will taste what love is, when we receive His body and blood, given and shed for us. We are able to love because God loved us first. And God loved us best. And God loved us most. God loved us sacrificially, and we ought to love our brothers and sisters sacrificially… if I may paraphrase St. John just a bit. What does that look like when we do it?

1 John 3:17–18 “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” We said earlier that it is much more likely that we will be called upon to help out a neighbor than to actually put our life on the line for someone. So how do we react when this opportunity presents itself?

It’s easy to be jaded and cynical in this day and age. We see people on the side of the road with their cardboard sign, asking for money. Some of them will decide to quit for the day, and they fold up their sign and walk over to their very nice car and drive away. I’ve seen this happen. I’m not saying it’s everyone who’s asking, but there are some like that.

There are people who think they’re entitled to your help. I had a fellow come here a couple of years ago and got downright nasty with me when I told him I would help him, but not with cash. I later found out he had been doing this to churches all up and down Springs Road. He went into one church, interrupted the sermon, and demanded a love offering. And that church did it. We were one of the few who did *not* just give him cash. He was later arrested. So yeah, it’s really easy to get jaded and cynical and not want to help anyone.

The problem is - I think these kinds of behaviors are the exception. It’s my experience that the majority of people who ask for help are sincere in their need. Many of them are super polite and even apologetic for having to ask. And that’s what the church is called to do. The ancient Christian Church worshiped in very much the same order we do - sing, pray, read Scripture, a sermon, take up an offering, celebrate the Eucharist, sing, and depart. But the departure was the priest taking the offerings and going out into the community to help the poor. It was directly to those in need, and it was immediate. That was the role of the early Church.

It’s sad that today we had to come up with an agency like Cooperative Christian Ministries - they have a system for weeding out those who try to take advantage. It’s sad that we needed that. The saddest part is that it removes the Church from direct interaction with the needy. We don’t get to see Christian love in action. We just send a check and pray that it’s used appropriately. I visited ECCCM (who took over as community food pantry after the Hickory one shut down) this week, and I’m pleased to tell you that they DO love our neighbors very well. They changed their name to Ashure, but it’s still doing Christian ministry to the needy in our community. I definitely think we should continue to support them, so long as we don’t get too far away from our neighbors.

We have also been supporting Strong Life Homeless ministries. Those of us who have been there have seen the need, and we know whatever support we give is going directly into the hands of someone who needs it. I like this because when we go over there, we look our needy neighbors right in their eyes. Now it’s not just a dollar figure of what we’ve given. Now it’s a human being. It’s a brother or sister - another one of God’s children.

1 John 3:18 “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” To put it in modern parlance: we can’t just talk the talk; we need to walk the walk. And if we follow the lesson from the children’s message this morning, love is evident only in its action. We need to put this Christian love into action. What that action looks like is going to be different for each one of us. If you don’t know what you’re going to do, but you want to do SOMETHING, find someone else who’s doing something and tag along. You might have to do this a few times, but eventually you’ll find where your gifts can be best used. There are a variety of opportunities. And, if we’re to believe Luther, we should love our brothers and sisters inside the church more than those outside… but we must not neglect either one.

If you’re not already doing so, I want to ask all of you to pray about our lake property, and ask God’s blessings on what we’re doing and how we’ll get it done. I think we have a HUGE potential for good in our community and right here in our church family. And I think by turning it into something usable and practical, we can use it to love our neighbors in a number of different ways. We’ve made great strides so far. Pray that God would help us keep the momentum going.

Each one of us has a different way that God calls us to love our neighbor. I don’t know what your way looks like. I’d be glad to help you discern that, if you’re unsure. Pray about it, and stay in God’s Word - He will show you. Until then, I want to leave you with a short example of the kind of love we’re talking about, from a Dad who took his 2 children to the mall:

...I took Helen (eight years old) and Brandon (five years old) to the ...Mall ... to do a little shopping. As we drove up, we spotted a Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler parked with a big sign on it that said, "Petting Zoo." The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, "Daddy, Daddy. Can we go? Please. Please. Can we go?"

"Sure," I said, flipping them both a quarter before walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking for a scroll saw. A petting zoo consists of a portable fence erected in the mall with about six inches of sawdust and a hundred little furry baby animals of all kinds. Kids pay their money and stay in the enclosure enraptured with the squirmy little critters while their moms and dads shop.

A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking along behind me. I was shocked to see she preferred the hardware department to the petting zoo. Recognizing my error, I bent down and asked her what was wrong.

She looked up at me with those giant limpid brown eyes and said sadly, "Well, Daddy, it cost fifty cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter." Then she said the most beautiful thing I ever heard. She repeated the family motto. The family motto is "Love is Action!"

She had given Brandon her quarter, and no one loves cuddly furry creatures more than Helen. ... She had watched both [my wife and I] do and say "Love is Action!" for years around the house… She had heard and seen "Love is Action," and now she had incorporated it into her little lifestyle. It had become part of her.

What do you think I did? Well, not what you might think. As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo. We stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it.

Because she knew the whole family motto. It's not "Love is Action." It's "Love is SACRIFICIAL Action!" Love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits accrue to another's account. Love is for you, not for me. Love gives; it doesn't grab. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and wanted to follow through with her lesson. She knew she had to taste the sacrifice. She wanted to experience that total family motto. Love is sacrificial action. [Dave Simmons, Dad, The Family Coach, Victor Books, 1991, pp. 123-124]

I pray that all of us would get a chance to love like Helen loved her brother. Love is sacrificial action. It most certainly is. And we know that because...

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!