Sunday, May 10, 2009
1st John 4:7-21
Senior Pastor
It
was a cold January day in Washington D.C.
It was during the morning rush that a man with a violin began to play
on one of the subway platforms. People
rushed by coming and going to predetermined destinations. Oh, a few slowed their pace, just listening
for a few steps as they passed on by.
After several minutes someone dropped a dollar in the open violin case as they rushed on by. He played for approximately forty-five minutes. Thousands of busy people rushed by. Only twenty dropped anything in the violin case. Only six had enough time to linger and listen for a while.
Can
you guess who stopped most often?
Children. Many children wanted to stay
and watch and listen. But their parents
pushed and pulled them along on their way.
No one knew who this fellow was. There were no signs or announcements. The average person did not recognize that he was playing some of the most intricate violin music ever written. Nobody noticed that he was playing a violin valued at 3.5 million dollars. Nobody even recognized that he was the same fellow who plays to sold out concert halls around the world. Nor did anybody know he was part of a social experiment about perception and beauty and priorities.
How
much beauty do we miss that is offered to us without price? How much joy do we miss that is offered to us without price? How much love do we miss that is offered to
us without price? I wonder – would I
have stopped? Maybe, if I was on
vacation, but not if I was on my way to work or on my way to an
appointment. Would you stop?
Are
we too busy? Have we become too
inattentive to beauty and joy and love in the world? Maybe we misinterpret the offer.
It could be a scam, or it could be a guy who doesn’t want to work and is
just looking for a handout. It could be
a set-up to slow us down long enough for somebody else to run into us and swipe
our wallet or something. Could it be that we miss these gifts offered because
we have never been introduced to great music or literature or even great love
in our lives. That could be it.
The
world is changing. I thought of this
story that my mother shared with me a few years ago; maybe you have heard it
too. It tells of a fellow who read
about the emerging drug problem because of methamphetamine. It seemed like to him just one more version
of the same story of how our young people are getting caught up in illegal
drugs. He asked his friend, "Why didn't we have a
drug problem when you and I were growing up?"
The
friend replied, “I had a drug problem when I was young.” The first fellow said with great surprise,
“What?”
“Yeah,
I was drug to church. I was drug to
family reunions and community socials no matter the weather. I was drug by my ears when I was
disrespectful to adults. I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my
parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with
respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher, or if I didn't put forth my
best effort in everything that was asked of me.”
“In fact, I was
drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a
profanity or talked back. I was drug
out to the yard to pull up weeds. I was
drug to the homes of family, friends, and neighbors to help out some poor soul
who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline, or chop some firewood;
and, if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this
kindness, she would have drug me back to the woodshed.”
“Oh
yeah, I am telling you, I had a big drug problem when I was young!”
So
maybe we miss the beauty and the joy and the love because we were not properly
socialized. I am not sure. But 1st John helps us think about
this very thing in our passage this morning.
Particularly he wants us to focus on making sure we do not miss the
love of God. He wants to be sure we
see it and heed it and abide in it.
Listen
again: God’s love was revealed to us
in this way: God sent his only Son into
the world so that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his
Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. (v. 9 – 11)
Not
that we loved God, but that God loved us.
In Christian theology, it all starts with God. Creation starts with God. Salvation starts with God. Goodness starts with God. Love starts with God. It all starts with God and then we respond
to God’s offering us all these good gifts of life and love and joy and
beauty. He never stops loving us, yet
you and I know that too often we allow other things in life to push out the
most important relationship, the one with our God and Father. And maybe even more prevalent is that we
stop responding in love.
1st
John really stresses this as he mentions it throughout this letter. Just today in these few verses he says it
over and over, because God loves us we ought to love one another. Perhaps it comes home the best in that very
last verse we read, verse 21: The
commandment we have from him is this:
those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. Or maybe even more simply said in verse
19: We love because he first loved
us.
Not
because it feels good, although it often does.
Not
because we like it, although sometimes we do.
Not
because we know the brother or sister, although we might.
We are commanded to love, that is to will the good of the other, to serve the other, because God first loved us.
I
heard this story the other day. It is a
fairly common experience I think. It
was about a mother and a daughter. The
daughter said: My mother came to
live with us when she became infirm.
She lost Dad some years before and had lived on her own quite happily,
in fact, for almost another twenty years.
But a couple of years ago, she had a heart attack. She survived but something was different. From that time on she was tired and cranky
and sometimes just down right mean.
Somehow she just never regained her sense of joy and zest for
living. It got to be a chore to go see
her because I knew she would want to complain about something or even worse
criticize me, to me.
But
she was my mother, and I knew I could never repay her for all that she had done
for me. I know she and Dad had
sacrificed for us kids when we were growing up. I know she endured my own period of sassiness and general anger
at the world, often times aimed primarily at her. So, I continued to go see her, but physically she was declining.
Finally I talked to my husband about having her move in with us. He is a good man; he agreed. It started off pretty well, but it was probably not two weeks in that I regretted my decision. She was depressed. She was mean to me. She was rude to my husband.
I
began to pray more than ever before, but the same old routine wore on for weeks
without a change. Finally I began to
call for help. Literally I began to
call places for help. The doctor’s
office said there was not much they could do, maybe up her medication. Several mental health agencies said they
didn’t have expertise in geriatrics.
Then one counselor said, “You know I recently read an article that
discussed some fabulous results a nursing home had when they introduced pets
into the environment.”
She told me more about it and I thought of our friends who recently had a litter of kittens. I hung up and called my friend right away. They were glad to help. I asked mom if she would like a kitten. I knew she had loved cats growing up. She told me she hadn’t had a cat for years and surely didn’t want to start up that nonsense again. I was deflated. That night I talked with my husband. He lifted my spirits, so we decided - you know what - it was worth a try.
The
next day I brought home a little black kitten, with a white nose streak and
white tip on his tale. I prayed and
then carried her into Mom’s room. I
said, “Look at this, I got us a new
cat!” She mumbled something about
not caring and waved me out of the room.
But that evening when I took mom her dinner, the kitten (we now were
calling her “Tips”) followed me. She
wandered around Mom’s room, rubbed up against her leg a time or two and then
took up residence on the end of her bed.
Mom didn’t comment, nor did I.
Tips
seemed to know her purpose in our household.
She took to following my Mom wherever she went, or maybe it was just
because my husband and I were in and out of the house so much and Mom was
always there. At any rate, she slept in
her room. She would sit near her in the
living room. Within a few days I
noticed Mom was letting her sit in her lap and she was stroking her. A relationship was blossoming. Mom seemed to calm down and act less
abrasive over the next days and weeks.
She began to smile more and really became more content with her life
than she had been since the heart attack.
Life settled back into a new normal, and Mom and I reestablished the
loving relationship we had known and shared in a sweet and beautiful way until
her death.
Beloved,
let us love one another because love is from God. (v. 7)
1st
John 4:7-21
It was during the morning rush that a man with a violin began to ________ …
Can you guess who stopped most often? ______________.
How much beauty do we miss that is offered to us without __________?
“I had a ________
problem when I was young.”
…he wants us to focus on making sure we do not ________ the love of God.
v. 9 – 11
In
Christian theology it ______ starts with God.
verse
21: The commandment we have from him
is this:
those
who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
verse
19: We love because he __________
loved us.
We are commanded to
love, that is to will the good of the other, to serve the other, because ______
first loved us.
My mother came to live with us… became ____________.
Finally
I began to call for ________.
“Look at this, I got us a new ______!”
Beloved,
let us love ______ ______________
because love is from God. (v. 7)
Kid’s Question:
Where does 1st John say that love comes from?