Love Lessons

Love Lessons I John 4:7-21 Last Sunday, Rosalie had this big Valentine’s Day Heart and she passed out little, red, blank cards upon which we were to write our favorite verse of Scripture that had a loving message in it to put on her heart. So I thought I’d write a whole sermon on one verse. 1 John 4 is a verse where God is defined as love, period, and we who profess to know God should love each other. Each other — who all might that be? People of different faiths may see the need for more love in the world, but can we agree that God is love? No one would argue that Islam and Christianity are essentially the same. No, they are not. Not everyone agrees that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. True, Muslims and Christians do share some common affirmations. They even have a common ancestor in Abraham. But the apostle John proposes a huge litmus test for anyone who would call him or herself a Christian. Got a true story… Twelve American men boarded a plane for Honduras with the goal of doing a week of work at a Youth for Christ camp, a Christian boarding school, and a mountaintop medical clinic. There were eleven Christians and one Muslim. In addition to daily construction work, their schedule included nightly Bible study and prayer. But what Scriptures could they discuss together? The team was eleven Christians and one Muslim. Where was the common ground? Although Muslims do not consider Jesus to be the Son of God, they do revere Him as a prophet. Because of this, the group's Bible study for the week focused on the parables of Jesus. Rather than debating His divine nature, the team dug into His teachings. The men listened to Jesus say, "You are the light of the world," and considered how they might let their light shine before others, so that others might see their good works and give glory to God in heaven (Matthew 5:14-16). Responding to the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1-9), the men talked about how they could improve the quality of soil in their own lives. The lost sheep (Matthew 18:10-14) taught them that everyone matters to God, and that no one is expendable. Reflecting on the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), they discovered the importance of taking risks and using their time and abilities to expand God's work in the world. And when Jesus said that He could be found in the hungry, thirsty, naked and sick of the world (Matthew 25:3146), the men talked about where they had seen the face of Jesus in the people of Honduras. Were there disagreements in the group? Of course. Conflict is the norm, not the exception -- especially while experiencing the stress of foreign travel, the clash of strong personalities, and the strain of manual labor. But the wisdom of Jesus did not drive the men apart. Instead, it brought them together. 2 Eleven Christians, one Muslim ... one community. "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God," says John to the Christians of the first-century church, "everyone who loves is born of God and knows God" (1 John 4:7). This is a word that our fractured world desperately needs to hear, especially as tension continues to exist between Christians and Muslims in a post-9/11 world. "Whoever does not love, does not know God," John goes on to say, "for God is love" (v. 8). The dozen men in Honduras discovered that the command to "love one another" is one that Muslims and Christians can agree on. In fact, a Muslim chaplain named Bader Malek says that the moral teachings of both Muhammad and Jesus "impel us to be kind to weak people, respect them, and serve them as much we can and never ask for a reward." Muhammad, the founder of Islam, didn't actually think he was starting a new religion: at least not at first. He was simply calling his fellow Arabs to a new, single-minded devotion to the one God. As a young man, Muhammad had studied both Judaism and Christianity. In his day, Jews lived throughout Arabia, particularly in the cities of Mecca and Medina. There were Byzantine Christians there, too, in significant numbers; the cousin of Muhammad's wife, a leading figure in their household, was a Christian. So desirous was Muhammad of honoring these other traditions that, when he came to political power, he insisted that Jews and Christians were to be, not only tolerated, but protected. If they wished to convert, they could do so; but in his view, there was already sufficient wisdom in each of these traditions to lead people to the one God, the one he called (as did all Arabs), "Allah." Allah, by the way, is the standard Arabic word for God and is used by Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews as well as by Muslims. The name Allah is probably a contraction of the Arabic al-Ilāh, “the God.” He called Jews and Christians "People of the Book" -- a phrase that some have suggested can be translated, "People of an Earlier Revelation." In those earliest days, Muhammad taught that Muslims should bow, in their daily prayers, not toward Mecca, but toward Jerusalem. Obviously, something went very wrong in later centuries. The tolerance that Muhammad had proclaimed lasted only slightly beyond his lifetime. Political rulers put many Christians and Jews, many Buddhists and Hindus, to the sword. In those scheming political rulers, we can glimpse the roots of the violence that is the terrorist's stock in trade today. Yet, that sort of thing is no more a part of Islam than a bomb blast in Israel or planes flying into the twin towers. So how about the assertion of John that "God is love"? That's a different story. 3 At the very heart of our Christian faith is the bold assertion that God is love. Not simply that God loves, but that God is love. That's a claim about the nature of God that does not appear in the writings of Islam. Some scholars agree that our Gods are the same, but that we understand God in different ways. In our distinctive views of God, there are four significant similarities and two important differences. First, Christians believe that God is One God. Muslims believe the very same. Second, Christians believe that God created the world out of nothing. Muslims, ditto. Third, Christians believe that God is radically different from the world. God is the Creator, the world is His creation, and the two should never be confused. Muslims agree. Fourth, Christians believe that God is just, merciful and a giver of commandments. Muslims have the very same view. These are significant similarities, for sure. Because of this, we should not be surprised that a group of eleven Christians and one Muslim could travel to Honduras and do construction work to help the poor. Nor should we be shocked that they could agree on the teachings of Jesus about helping the hungry, thirsty, naked and sick. But let's not fall into the trap of thinking that Christianity and Islam are the same or parallel roads to God. There are at least two important differences. First, Christians believe that God is a Trinity. We are monotheists, but also Trinitarians. We believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Muslims believe that God is fully one, not three in one. Second, Christians believe that God is love (1 John 4:8). Muslims may nod at this assertion, but more importantly to them is the mercy of God. That "God is love" is not found among the 99 Muslim names for God. So Christians and Muslims should have an honest dialogue on love to see if there can be agreement on the belief that "God is love." To begin such a conversation, we need to be crystal clear about our own convictions about the nature of God. Love is who God is. There's nothing in God that can be separated from love. In his first letter, John does not simply say that "God loves," which would mean that God expresses love along with a number of other possible emotions: anger, pride, jealousy, joy. No, John says, "God is love," which means that love is the solid center of who God is. John backs this up by saying that "God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through Him." This echoes the verse from the gospel of John, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16). We know that God is love. Not because God says it, but because God does it -- He shows His love by sending His only Son into the world, so that we will not perish but have eternal life. 4 But what do we mean by the word "love"? Is this just a human description of a warm and wonderful feeling? Not at all, insists John. "In this is love," he writes, "not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins." John makes the case that God is the source, the author of love, and that this love is seen most clearly in the death of Jesus on the cross -- a sacrifice designed to bring us forgiveness of sin. So God is the very core of God's being. God reveals that He is the source of love by sending His Son to bring us forgiveness and new life. As recipients of such amazing love, there is really only one response we can make: To show love to one another. And this is precisely what John recommends: "Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another" (v. 11). Love is who Christians are. These are challenging words. After all, John is not talking about an emotion here, but an act of the will. "If we love one another," promises John, "God lives in us, and His love is perfected in us." If we take the bold step of loving one another -- friends, enemies, blacks, whites, gays, straights, Muslims, Christians -- God will live in us and bring His love to completion in us. Love is at the core of what it means to be a Christian. John tells us that God lives in those who love, and at the same time, God lives "in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God." Loving one another and believing in Jesus are two sides of the same Christian coin. Such a powerful love can change our lives, giving us "boldness on the Day of Judgment." It can eliminate fear, for "perfect love casts out fear." It can also be a test of our integrity, showing that our words about love are matched by our actions. "Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars," insists John; "for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen." And who is our brother and sister? Anyone who God loves, and Jesus would say, those who don’t. Archbishop Desmond Tutu told the story of a drunk who crossed the street and accosted a pedestrian, asking him, "I shay, which ish the other shide of the shtreet?" The pedestrian, somewhat flummoxed, replied, "That side, of course!" The drunk said, "Shtrange. When I wash on that shide, they shaid it wash thish shide." Where the other side of the street is depends on where we are. Our perspective differs depending on the things that have helped to form us; such as our faith and religion, which help to determine how we operate in our own walks of life. Change your point of view, shift your standpoint, and the whole picture changes! As hard as it may be sometimes, we are to love one another, find a way, and have God help our hearts to find a way.