Fellowship Among Believers: Love One Another

Let us pray…gracious and loving God, as we gather to hear a word of comfort and peace on this Sunday after Valentine’s day, we ask you to open our ears to clearly hear, our hearts to openly feel, and our spirits to receive your all encompassing love for us and for all, Amen.

Before we get into the serious nature of this piece from the Gospel of John this morning, I want to give us a little light humor...

PRAYER AND THE MOTORCYCLE

There was a woman at work when she received a phone call that her daughter was very sick with a fever. She left work and stopped by the pharmacy to get some medication for her daughter. She returned to her car to find that she had locked the keys inside the car when she went into the pharmacy and was now unable to get into her car to drive home. She didn’t know what to do and started to panic, so she called home and told the baby sitter what had happened and that she did not know what to do. The baby sitter told her to find a coat hanger and see if that would open the door. The woman looked around and found an old rusty coat hanger that had been thrown down on the ground, possibly by someone else who also had locked their keys in their car. Then she looked at the hanger and said, "I don’t know how to use this." So she bowed her head and asked God to send her some help. In so doing, she obeyed the command to never stop praying.

Within five minutes a motorcycle roared up and pulled into the parking space next to her car. A rough, dirty-looking biker got off and saw her situation. He asked if he could help her. The woman thought, "This is what you sent to help me, God?" She contemplated the man standing before her and finally decided to let him help, as she needed to hurry and get home to her sick daughter. He walked over to the car, and in less than one minute the car was opened. She hugged the man and through her tears she said, "Thank you so much! You are such a nice man." The man replied; "No, I’m not, Lady. I just got out of prison for car theft." The woman hugged the man again and with sobbing tears cried out to God, "You even sent me a professional."

Isn’t that just the way things work sometimes? We ask God to give us what we need and sometimes the answer is the least likely of answers. I know that God sends us people, events, and things in our lives when we have to just stop and ask the question…what on earth are you laughing at me for this time? At least that is often how I feel…this morning I want to spend some time talking about how God loves us so completely that sometimes, what we think is in our best interest, may not necessarily be what we thought God would send in our moment of need but rather, is truly what God intended for us to have in that moment...

Background

Just to briefly place in the moment, what we heard in the Gospel of John this morning is a conversation between Jesus and his disciples on the night in which he is betrayed, arrested, tried, convicted and sent to the cross. So, if you place yourself there, we see a long, but very short table in front of us. There are 12 men sitting around the table. Just a few moments before we enter this passage, there were 13 men who had just shared a meal and had fellowship. The one man missing is Judas Iscariot as he just left to go sell Jesus into the hands of the religious authorities for 30 pieces of silver.

As we are sitting here, we are intently watching Jesus to see what he would do next. I mean, he has already bowed before all 12 disciples, including Judas (and there is significance to this, so just bear with me) to wash all of their feet. He has shown them the greatest of humble service that he can muster in that moment. I can imagine that there is intense concern, fret, worry, and just plain old tension in the air. Jesus has just told them that he would be betrayed and die very soon.

Imagine that moment. Smell the aroma of the food they had just eaten lingering in the air. There is the sense that something major is coming and you have just witnessed Peter rebuffing Jesus for stooping to wash his feet…can you feel the palpable tension? We are in the midst of something wonderful and dreadful all at the same time. I am sure many of us can relate to the feeling of the room...

Now, that gets us through the first couple of verses and for the coming moments, I want to focus on the middle and end of the passage that we have before us because there is something else in the air of that room, something that I think we often forget to talk about when we open to this passage in our Bibles…there is immense and immeasurable love swimming through the air. Here’s what Jesus says after Judas leaves...

John 13:34 NLT

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.

Now, for many of us, this is a very familiar verse. We hear it often and we believe we know what Jesus means. This verse, however, holds so much more for us that just being loving to each other within this fellowship…remember when I said that it was significant that Judas had been a part of the foot washing piece of that night? Yep, well this is where we can truly understand what Jesus means by loving one another.

Let me ask you a very important question…do you currently have someone in your life that you just would not want to be with for any given amount of time? No one raise your hands but just keep that person in mind as we go along here and let me just interject something…what we are talking about this morning is as much a struggle for me as it is for everyone else. We have human hearts and when those hearts are broken by someone else’s actions, it is really hard to be loving or to show any kind of love toward them, right?

Glad we are all on the same page and that is where this verse comes into it for all of us today...

John 13:34 NLT

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.

Notice that Jesus does not say, Love only those you feel like loving or love only those who have never done anything to hurt you. He says love one another just as I have loved you. The significant that is jumping out to me this morning is this idea that Jesus clearly knew what was about to happen and let me remind you of what he says just before this...

John 13:31–32 NLT

As soon as Judas left the room, Jesus said, “The time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory, and God will be glorified because of him. And since God receives glory because of the Son, he will give his own glory to the Son, and he will do so at once.

Notice that John wanted us to be aware that Judas had just left the room…after Jesus washed his feet, which for John is more important than the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. John’s Gospel is the only one that records this idea of stooping before one another in service to each other. John does not include the meal but only includes the foot washing.

Before I get too far ahead of myself…what did that foot washing represent again? It was the ultimate sign of humility for those gathered around that table. Only the lowest servant in the household would wash the feet of those who entered the home. Remember too that we are not talking about a time when the roads were paved or even made of cobblestone (for the most part). This was a time when shoes were not closed either and people did not wear socks. This is the era of sandals if you want to call them that, dirt roads, and very dirty feet. For someone of Jesus’ stature in society and what he had been come to be known as, this was well beneath him to do so.

For Jesus to stoop at the feet of ALL of his disciples, including the one who would sell him to die, it is extremely significant. Judas received the same amount of love that the rest of the disciples had received. Now, let me say this again, I struggle with this just as much as the rest of us but on this Sunday after the love holiday, it is good to be reminded that what Jesus asks of us is to not only love those who love us but by his very own example, we are to love even those who act as if they hate us. That is what this commandment is about.

So what does it look like to love one another…here are just a few ideas of how we show all those around us that we love them...

Sharing in the fellowship of a common devotional life

By being together on a Sunday morning, we are showing those around us that our lives are about much more than just ourselves. Being here, whether physically or showing up virtually through Facebook, we are saying that the lives of those in this room and on that site mean something to us. By studying scripture together, we are saying that we care about what it means to live a life devoted to the teachings of Christ and then leaving here and exemplifying that for all to see. Loving others means that we care more about them than we do about our own personal needs.

When we gather to worship, it is about God and those with whom we are surrounded. But worship is just the start of showing that love...

Praying together

A piece of worship is praying for those who are in our fellowship. But that prayer should not only be in this space. Prayer should be done, according to Christ, without ceasing. We should, every time we say that we are going to do so, stop and do it often. For me, my life should show others that praying without ceasing is a life lived as a prayer. Doing for others is a small part but so is saying a few words for or about someone to God. That’s why prayer is such a big part of our worship…if nowhere else, our hearts are all engaged as we bow our heads, clasp or raise our hands to heaven, and say the words that speaks what is in our hearts to God and before one another. Prayer should not be only about our needs but the needs of others. If we open our hearts and allow the words about those who despise or persecute us leave our lips, chances are you are showing love to even those who hate you...

Breaking bread together

When we gather and share a mean, whether that is around the communion table or around the tables in the fellowship hall, it is about sharing a piece of us with each other. Have you ever noticed that the vast majority of Jesus’ significant teachings happen around a meal. I don’t know if that’s because when our bellies are full, our ears open wider or if we are just more open to the love circulating through the air, regardless as to what it is, sharing a meal almost always results in open and frank conversation. Being vulnerable in those moments is what I think Jesus desires of us. Really, this piece of being open and vulnerable around a table is truly only a small part of why we celebrate communion as a corporate/worship event.

True fellowship means sharing with those in need

Here’s the thing though, our fellowship should extend beyond just those we know in church…notice I said, ‘those we know in church,’…for the vast majority of us, I have to wonder if we truly know each person who is sitting in this room. If we don’t, we should be getting to know each other a whole lot better. We need to be sharing with one another so that we can go into the world and show others what love truly means. We do this by...

Showing hospitality

Sharing money and possessions

Being open to new people and their new ideas, not expecting those who join us to just conform to us, we too should conform to their needs as well

Humbly expressing a desire to help.

If we can do these things then there really is only one result...

Strengthening one another in fellowship together

If we can succeed in showing genuine love to one another then there would be no doubt that we are Christians. If we can show love to even those who rise up against us and persecute us, then there can be no doubt about who we follow. Listen gang, I get it. I live in the reality of this world too. There is no such thing as Utopia. There is no such thing as the ability to love unconditionally everyone we meet. If that expectation were there, I would not be able to stand before you. That is a bar way out of my reach but we can all try to do just a little bit better so that everyone can be bolstered and strengthened to get through the next few moments, seconds, days, etc. I have to say this…our political climate today, and I am not just speaking about the governmental climate here because it is permeating all levels of society and even the church, but that climate is one that highlights our differences not how we can work together collaboratively to make things better. This is not loving in any form or fashion. WE need to be working to make things better, not making things worse. I don’t honestly think that Jesus would walk through our doors and say you are complete by any stretch of the imagination. What I do think he would say is...

John 13:34–35 NLT

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Amen.