Our Definition of Love
a sermon based on John 15: 9-17
by Rev. Brian T. Flory

As Christians, Jesus demands our love. In a nutshell, that is what faith in Christ is all about. The gospel text that we just heard carries with it an image of Jesus summing up love very succinctly. He said, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” From the Epistle of First John we find much the same thing. The writer says, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”

There it is. That’s it. The sermon is finished. We hear Jesus and then John speaking about a new kind of love, a new definition of love that we as Christians are commanded by Jesus to follow. All we need now is for everyone here to sign this paper committing their lives to abide by the love of Jesus everyday in every way for everything we do and we can skip right ahead to the next hymn. To make it easier, I’ll even be the first one to sign.

You know, maybe we ought to think about this for a moment. To love as God first loved us means I can never justify hanging up a telemarketer again. It also means I can’t honk my horn at someone who cut me off on the highway or be irritable towards another person ever again. It means that I’ll have to start thinking of others before myself all the time and that there may be moments where I’m forced to face humiliation because someone else who mistreats me hasn’t signed this credo.

Hmmm. This commanding love that Jesus describes is harder than we think. In fact, it sounds a bit absurd. After all, romantic or even platonic love tells us that we cannot command it. As humans, we assume that love is a feeling and nothing more. We assume that we cannot command feelings any more than we can command the wind and the rain. Yet commanding love dictates that we love people who we dislike as well as or better than people we like. Commanding love instructs us to put aside our egos for the sake of others and for the sake of the gospel. Hmmm. Perhaps there’s more to this new definition of love than meets the eye.

American author Mark Twain once said “Most people are bothered by those passages which they cannot understand, but as for me, I’ve always noticed that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those that I do understand.” I’m sure this is one of those passages that Twain meant, where we think…we believe…we know what it is that Jesus wants from us. This is a pretty simple, straightforward passage using words that are easy to understand. Why then, is it so difficult for us to obey what Jesus says about love? Why do we find loving others such a challenge?

For one thing, human beings, including Christians, often show ignorance and great loathing to view love in this way. Commanding love often requires great humility and an abandonment of what we think is fair or just. Also sometimes, our ego simply gets in the way. As a result, sometimes we Christians can be accused of doing for Jesus only what we like to do, as long as it fits into our own agenda. Sometimes our religion takes the form of a strange hybrid, a weird combination of Biblical, spiritual and human ambition.

Recently, I found a farcical work that attempted to put the human response to Jesus’ love commands in greater perspective. From “Chapter One” of the “Book of Ego,” we find these “tongue-in-cheek commandments: 1) Tolerate your enemies. Do not retaliate, but gossip all you can, and count on the grapevine to inform them of your thoughts. 2) Seek ye eventually the Kingdom of God and his modified righteousness, and he will be obligated to add all the things you demand. 3) Let your light so shine before everyone that they may be intimidated and act like you want them to act. 4) If any one would come after me, let that one take up his or her cross on weekends, and follow me, as long as it's convenient.

And, according to the Book of Ego, this is how we should pray: “Our Father I appreciate you. Your kingdom come . . . eventually. My will be done . . . immediately. Give me this day what I want. Get even with those who have sinned against me, even as I have sought to get even with them. Allow me a little enjoyment in temptation, but deliver me from any problematic consequences. For thine is the kingdom, but mine is the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

Hmmm. Obviously, we don’t want to think about our faith and its practice using such harsh and condemning tones. Yet I wonder if Jesus’ words, while not nearly as pointed, are no less direct. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. And you are my friends if you do what I command you. I am giving you these commands, so that you may love one another.”

Notice the pattern here. If this kind of love doesn’t make us feel uncomfortable about the ways that we lead our lives, then nothing will. That is because the love to which Jesus calls us is not natural to our beings typically. Our natural instinct is usually to look out for our own preservation or the preservation of loved ones first. It is also not a love based upon feeling or belief alone. It is an action-based love, a love that transforms the world upon the basis of its very being and core because it is true and pure.

And true love is hard work, as we all know. Jesus calls us to act in loving ways even if we don’t feel very loving or lovable. After all, it is much easier to be loving to stranger and friend on the days that all is right with the world and we feel good about ourselves. It is a much different story on those days when we feel isolated, hopeless, worthless, and undeserving of anything good. Those are the tough days and the tough times that certainly no one wants to go through, but there’s also a reality that accompanies Jesus’ command and our new definition of love. Our feelings, good or bad, do not enable us excuses to inhibit or accentuate Christ’s love from transforming the world. Our feelings towards others, like or dislike, do not allow us to be selective in sharing God’s love according to our own whim or fantasy.

A few years ago, a friend of mine interned at a church where part of my job was working with a youth program. It was not a large church, but there were a fair number of youth who attended meetings. Early in his time there, the youth had formed several little cliques that caused tremendous tension among the advisors, their families and even the larger church. Finally, a widely respected member of the church agreed to meet with the youth to listen and mediate their disputes.

He came to this meeting where fifteen or so youth looked at him with similar expressions of boredom and defiance on their faces. It was almost as if they dared him to try to change the ways they interacted. He began by writing the word “love” on a chalkboard, then he sat down and looked at each of the youth. For the first few moments, there was silence. After a minute, several of the youth began to giggle nervously and whisper uncomfortably. When he determined that they were ready to do something, anything, instead of just sitting there in silence, he continued.

He asked them to share some of their frustrations with one another, with the advisors, with the group and the church as a whole. That process started off well, but slowly dissolved into the same bickering and cliquishness that was typical of the group. It didn’t seem like he was getting anywhere with them. Finally, the member stood up and motioned for the youth to quiet down. He said, “I think you’ve got to put all your negative feelings aside now and do what Jesus told you to do. You’ve got to love one another.”

There were some giggles and snickers to that remark, but one brave youth took the bait. She said, “How can we love each other? We don’t even like one another!” To this honest response, the wise member responded, ”Who said you had to like each other? All you have to do is love one another. To like someone is based upon feelings. To love someone like Jesus commanded means that we respect and honor each other as a fellow child of God. What I’m saying to you is this – give each other some slack and try to respect one another. Stop worrying so much as your hurt feelings and come together to do something good for someone else. You might be surprised how much this will help you as a group.”

It was a turning point for this group. The youth decided that they should do some service projects and they promised to be civil to one another. They also made a covenant to pray for one another. They got involved with their church’s VBS and even sponsored an evening barbecue for the neighbors as part of an outreach ministry. Amazingly, as they began to focus more and more upon their service to one another and the larger community, their differences and hurt feelings mattered less and less. Their attitudes and behavior changed as well. Their joy of service and being together shone much brighter than ever before, to the point where the member who addressed them observed to my friend one day at a service project, “Look at those Christians loving one another.”

My friends, love practiced despite our feelings leads us paradoxically to the place of sheer joy. This joy is none other than Christ with us. Jesus promises the joy of his eternal presence when we resolve to love one another and serve in his name. The joy of God comes to us as we forget ourselves long enough to become focused on giving ourselves away for the sake of God. That is our true definition of love and it is glorious in God’s eyes. Amen.