Ride for the Brand

In a series called Not In It To Win It. How does following Jesus informs our engagement with our political system? How do we treat one another when we don’t agree? How can we participate in privilege while maintaining unity, remaining Christlike, and preserving our witness?

One way might be in remembering the brand you ride for. Anyone love old westerns?

Branding cattle - ownership

Range wars - marked which side your were on - rode for X brand

Title of Louis L’amour book “Ride for the Brand”

Marketing brands

Form of identity - who we are

What we represent - or at least want to portray that we represent. Marketers want to create an association between brand and certain characteristics or ideals.

Test knowledge of brands based on just their logo...

Have you ever thought about your own brand? Like what image do you want to create for others when they see your social profiles, what you wear, what activities will or won’t participate in etc.

What is Christian brand? Do we have one? We do, and how we treat others - especially people who don’t look like us, act like us, vote like us - reflects the brand we ride for. Let’s talk about what it means to Ride for the Brand.

Pray...

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Read John 13:34-35

John 13:34–35 (NRSV)

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Context: Jesus will be arrested in just a few hours and crucified. Preparing disciples for what to come. They’ve eaten Last Supper where Jesus defines the meaning of his upcoming death. Judas has left to betray him.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”

New? Already know Great Commandment - love God, neighbor as self.

Not just those who love you, love enemies.

Not new, but Jesus isn’t through. What came next changed the world.

“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

This is new. Calls disciples beyond loving others as you love self. Now, love one another IN THE SAME WAY I have love you.

As I have loved - we think of the cross. Not them. They’re thinking how Jesus has loved them personally.

Matthew - where were you when I found you… Give that same grace the rest of your life.

Nathaniel - what did you say when you heard about me? Dissed me, town, family, I invited you anyway. Give that same forgiveness to everyone you meet.

They’re thinking especially of this. John 13:3–5 “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.”

I want you to love each other in practice.

Maybe pause to ask what Jesus is asking of us. What is love.

Agape - prob heard word if any time in church

Unconditional - doesn’t depend on response of other

Selfless - seeks the others good above self

Sacrificial - costly, choose to lose, be inconvenienced, for sake of other

I like Bob Goff’s definition which is title of his book - “Love Does”. Real love is visible and active. It can only be expressed horizontally - how do we agape love a God who needs nothing? By loving others. Love that is only conceptual is not agape love.

In telling us to love each other AS he has love us, Jesus is not

Telling us to feel a certain way. We can love this way without a feeling. It’s a choice, and bc choice we can do it in spite of differences we might have.

Telling love those in world less, love each other more.

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Remember demonstrative pronouns? Used to point to something specific.

"By this” points to single behavior that would be THE identifying characteristic of his followers. Just as circumcision marked man in OT as belonging to covenant community, love will/ mark Jesus’ followers.

Interesting what Jesus didn’t say would be brand: not our beliefs - what good are they unless acted on. Not how we vote. Not position we take on climate change. None of these things should mark his followers.

He doesn’t ask us to love others bc he’s the boss - though he is - but bc this is how he loved us.

When the world looks at the church, they should know we belong to Jesus by our love - unconditional, selfless, sacrificial. Love is our brand.

If I’m you I’m thinking “this is overwhelming”. How even possible?

True - high bar. Be on guard against spiritualizing, turning into an ideal that is admirable but not expected. Jesus expects this.

How keep from being overwhelmed with what seems an impossible task? After all, there is no end to the needs of the world and the people around us. Let me suggest and give you hope that God doesn’t look to you to solve the needs of the world! What he asked each of us to do - and I know that this is simplistic - is to simply walk out our day in communion with HS. As Spirit brings us into various situations, simply ask, “What does love require of me?”. We can trust the Holy Spirit to not give us more than we can bear each day.

Remember how Jesus has loved you. When you at your worst. When you were on wrong side of argument. When you were in sin. When you voted the wrong way. When you held a wrong belief. When you remember how much Jesus has loved you, how much grace he has given you, it becomes possible to do the same.

Riding for Jesus-brand love is incredibly good news for us:

We know we never have to relate to God through rules but through love. Yes our love is demonstrated by our obedience, but our motivation for obedience has changed. We obey as a response to God’s love, not as a condition for it. We love God bc he first loved us.

We get to participate in a community that is marked by reciprocal, self sacrificial love. In forming the church under this brand, Jesus has made a place of safety and shelter for us in a very unloving world.

Joy. Do you feel like you have lost your joy? I want to suggest riding for Jesus brand kind of love you rekindle your joy. Something is awakened in us when we follow Jesus this way.

Jesus invites us to experience this love for ourselves. Not simply to know it conceptionally or intellectually, but to enter into the lived experience of it. How does blind person know there is a s-u-n? Can’t see it, but can step outside and feel it on face. Experience as lived reality. This is how we know the love of the S-o-n. Experiencing it as lived reality.

Christian mystics throughout the ages have called different names, but I like the simple phrase “sitting with Jesus”.

Marjorie Thompson, spiritual director, tells story of conversation between 18th century priest and an elderly peasant who would sit alone for long hours in the quiet of the church. When priest asked what he was doing, the old man simply replied: “I look at Him, He looks as me, and we are happy.”

When was the last time you just sat with Jesus and let him love you?

Jesus-brand love changed the world.

By the third century, Christians had captured the attention of their pagan neighbors through their character, morality, work ethic, and friendship. Their brand of love was spreading to such a degree that Emperor Trajan became concerned and asked one of his governors named Pliny to investigate. The only charge Pliny could bring again them was that they seemed “bound by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so.”

How horrible! Christians were known for being honest and good.

He asked Trajan for instruction on whether or not to punish them, “especially because of the number involved. For many persons of every age, every rank, and also of both sexes are and will be endangered. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but also to the villages and farms.”

I love that. Christianity was spreading like a contagion. How? Because of their brand. Let’s make Christianity contagious again.

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Ministry...

God has always been a god of love. There’s never been a time when he was not defined as love. His love was fully demonstrated to us at the cross, Jesus took our pain and shame and guilt and made it his own so that we could be free. God invites you into this relationship of love. Have you ever surrendered your life to Jesus, asking him to forgive you and give you new life?

If you’re a Christian, When was the last time you just sat with Jesus and let him love you? We’ll come to Table in a minute and remember the extent of Jesus’ love for us through the sacrifice of his body and blood. Before that, take a moment of silence and ask HS to remind you of ways Jesus has love you.

Some of you may get a specific word for someone else during this time. Take a moment to go and speak those words and pray for them.

Burdened for those who want to experience God’s love but have hard time receiving. Feel like your past is thrown in your face everything you try. Pray for deliverance and breakthrough.

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Communion

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*** Announcement reminders ***

We’ve been closing our worship times by praying prayers that remind us of who we are and that help form us to represent God well. During the next few weeks I’d like us to prayer a kind of Christian pledge of allegiance - the Apostles’ Creed - asking God to help us keep Jesus in the center of all we do and say.

*** Explain “catholic” church ***

I believe in God, the Father almighty,     creator of heaven and earth;

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.     He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit         and born of the Virgin Mary.     He suffered under Pontius Pilate,         was crucified, died, and was buried.     He descended to the dead.

    On the third day he rose again.     He ascended into heaven,         and is seated at the right hand of the Father.     He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,     the holy catholic Church,     the communion of saints,     the forgiveness of sins     the resurrection of the body,     and the life everlasting. Amen.

Now as we prepare to take this time of worship into the week ahead, the Lord who loves you says in Romans:

Romans 13:8 NRSV

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

GO BE THE CHURCH!!