“It’s All About Love”

John 13:31-35

May 8, 2005

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Andrew Fleming

Rhonda Ann Whitley was one of the saints in the Harmony Grove Church, the first church that I served, right out of seminary. I participated in her funeral last spring when cancer got the best of her. I won’t soon forget Rhonda. Rhonda was about as traditional as anyone could be. She hardly ever missed worship services. She expected certain things out of them. She expected me to pick hymns that she knew and could sing. She expected to say the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. And she expected a good sermon that would help her live her life. She sat there, in the Harmony Grove Church, on the right hand side of the sanctuary flanked by her husband and three boys, Jamie, Tyler, and Courtney.

Rhonda Ann also expected things on certain days of the year. She told me more than once that on the Sunday closest to Christmas, she wanted to hear a sermon about the birth of Jesus. On Easter Sunday, she wanted to hear about the resurrection of Jesus. On Mother’s Day, I was to at least mention mothers. And on Father’s Day, I should talk about what the love of a father should be. Those aren’t high expectations. They are ones that most preachers can live with. I could live with them. They are the expectations that most people have when they come to a worship service.

I thought about Rhonda and what I might say this morning when I came across a story that Erma Bombeck tells in a book that she wrote about twenty years ago. The book’s title is: Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession. In the book, Erma tells of a memorial service for a mother who died after a short struggle with cancer. At the time of her death, the woman was only forty-eight years old. Sitting there on the front pew of the church, escorted in by their pastor and the funeral home directors were her husband and three sons. The church was packed. The woman was well loved. She had many friends. None of them were quite sure what to say to her survivors, especially her three boys, the youngest of whom was only fourteen. Little did they know that she had given them last words and lasting words. In the inside pocket of their suit coats, tucked neatly away in white envelopes, were letters, written by their mom, to each of them.

To her oldest son, Chuck, she wrote these words, or ones like them. I have taken some liberties with the story. “Dear Chuck, since this letter is for you and you only, for your eyes only I can now tell you that I always loved you the best. Maybe I do because you were the first miracle that stirred inside of me. You were a part of the lean years for me and your dad. You brought laughter to poverty, warmth to cold, and success to our failures. You were the original model. There would be ones after you who might blow bigger bubbles, walk sooner or burp louder, but you did all of these things first. You may have suffered from our inexperience, with clumsy baths, and overprotection. But you got something better. You got our stamina and our youth. You got the part of us that was the best that we had to give. You were six volumes of baby pictures. You were fresh grandparents who woke you up in the middle of the night so that they could play with you and then rock you to sleep. You were doctor’s house call for gas pains. You were the beginning. You were wanted and you were loved and I will miss you. Love, mama.”

In the pocket of her middle son’s suit coat were these words (or ones like them). “Dear Steve, you may have suspected this, but I will say it anyway. I have always loved you the best. You drew such a strange spot in our family, but instead of caving in, you became stronger. You wore faded clothes and played with chipped toys. You never did anything first, but that didn’t stop you from doing everything. You are the child that we relaxed with. You were the one who helped us to realize that a dog could kiss you on your mouth and you wouldn’t die from it. You helped us to know that a child could miss a nap without dying. You helped us to realize that if you sucked on a pacifier until age two, that your teeth would not be permanently formed in a circle. You were a part of our busy and ambitious lives, but still you reminded us of who we are all about. You were the checking account with twenty-seven cents in it. You were spaghetti and meatballs at eight months. You were the house that we could not afford. You were constant, and you were loved. I’ll miss you, Mama.”

To her youngest child, just 14 years old at the time of her death, this mother wrote (or words like these): “Dear Tim, a mother is not supposed to have her favorites. I know that, but I have always loved you the best. Just when your father and I thought youth had left our lives, you came along and reminded us that we still had a lot of love to give. You fell heir to broken bats, trains that would not run, and a refrigerator full of things like yogurt. Your baby book had almost no entries or pictures in it. You reminded us of our mortality. So with you, we threw away the rules and the experience of what a baby is all about. We started over with you. With you, it was as if we were seeing a baby for the first time. I loved you, Tim, for your thirty-five years of patience, for your ninety years of compassion and for your fifty years of practicality. But mostly I loved the fourteen year old boy who wore all of these things awkwardly, but proudly. You were the culmination of our lives, and you were loved.”

I don’t think that Rhonda Whitley wrote words to her children just before she died. Maybe she did. I hope that she did. She could have written such word. But the truth is that not every mother could write the words. I have been a pastor long enough to know that not everyone has had the experience of having a good mother. So for some, the idea of Mother’s day with its flowers and sentiments and phone calls and visits cause them to cringe and say, “Mother’s Day? No thanks!” To be honest with you, that’s not my experience. My experience was of a mother who loved me unconditionally and who was one of my two biggest fans. But still, there is something distinctive, or at least there is supposed to be, about a mother’s love.

There is also something that is supposed to be distinct and different about Christian love. The setting was not the church or a memorial worship service. The situation was not three sons with letters in their pockets written by their mother. But the setting and the situation was just as important. Jesus, too, before the memorial service wanted his disciples to have a lasting word from him. So on the last night that Jesus was with the twelve, he skipped the small talk, and began to do and to say important things, things that matter. It was sometime in the middle of the meal when Jesus got up from the table. He tied a towel around his waist, reached for a basin of water, knelt at his followers feet, began to wash them, while telling them that he was doing this to be exemplary. He wanted them, too, to learn that servant hood is what their lives should be about. While they struggled with that, and struggle they did, Jesus delivered the news that Peter would deny him three times and that one of them would betray him. Those words came out of his mouth and Judas quickly left the table and the room to do what he was going to do.

It was both a tense and an intense evening. The seriousness of it did not change when Judas had left. Once he was gone (and this is where we catch up with our lesson for this morning) the spotlight was pointed toward Jesus. What he says in the next four chapters of this gospel have often been called The Farewell Discourse. In less than twenty-four hours, Jesus would be on the cross. His earthly life would be over, and the world that the disciples now knew would come crashing down. Among the things that he said, Jesus told the disciples that he would not be with them much longer. He said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” Let’s look at that verse for a minute. Jesus did not command his followers to love one another. That is often what we think that he says. But that is not it. Jesus tells his followers that they are to love as he loved. And to put an exclamation point on his words, he tells them that the world will know who they are by this love.

Jesus intended this love of his to be unique and distinctive. A preacher friend of mine wrote a great sermon on this text. She said this, “The love of Jesus is not an over the counter kind of love. It is something specially prepared with the particular ingredients of Jesus’ own spirit and character mixed inside of it.”

But before we go home this morning, on this Mother’s Day, I think that we should ask what this kind of love looks like, how it feels, and what, really, is all that different and distinct about it. We know what a mother’s love is supposed to be about. What is Christian love supposed to look like? Here is what I think. I think Jesus loved to a degree and a depth that most of us never experience in the relationships of our lives. His was a bold love. His was a courageous love. His was a get your hands dirty kind of love. His love did not beat around the bushes. His love was direct; it always hit the mark and it always spoke the truth, even when the truth was hard to hear. His love kept him in the faces of those who opposed him and my guess is that it kept him on his knees in prayer.

Do we love this way? Do we enjoy this courageous love? Do we participate in a confronting love? I don’t know about you, but I put on my jogging shoes and run from confrontation and the hard things in life. I don’t know why I do that, but often times I do. I am sure that Jesus did not enjoy the hard things in life, but his life was full of such things. This morning, let me lift up three things about how Jesus love was evident in three groups of people that he found himself being around.

First, let’s look at how Jesus ministered to those who opposed him. From the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus and the Pharisees clashed. Jesus confronted the religious laws and customs and saw people and their situations to be more significant. Jesus could have backed down from dealing with them. He could have kept walking and gone to the next town. He could have written a letter to a chief priest or a scribe to let them know how rudely he was treated by their field agents. He didn’t do any of that. He went right up to the ones who spoke out against him and said what he believed. On his way there, he did not share his frustrations. He never exclaimed, “I’ve had it up to here!” with anyone. He did not put anyone in the middle of anything as we often do. He said what was on his mind. He refused to be upset about what other people were thinking. He never wondered if he had hurt someone’s feelings. The truth is that he knew that he had hurt people’s feelings. He said what was on his mind, suggested that there was a problem and talked about what he thought was right. We would be better off if we did that sort of thing, wouldn’t we? I cannot tell you how many times I have been on the wrong end of a conversation about me. I can remember a time when a church member didn’t like certain thing that I did. He complained, but instead of doing so to me, he did it with someone else. It hurt more, I think, because he did that. It still would have hurt, but it would have hurt less if we had sat down together, one on one. Jesus loved by dealing with those who opposed him.

He also loved those who came to him seeking the kingdom. The gospels tell us the story of the young rich man who came to Jesus wanting to know what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asked him if he followed the commandments. The young man said that he did and that he had since his youth. Jesus saw something else in the man, though. He saw that his possessions kept him from a relationship with God. So he instructed him, to go and sell his possessions, to give the proceeds to the poor, and then to come back and follow him. Our Bibles don’t tell us whether or not he did that. My guess is that he did not. It is hard, I think, to be told that the life that you are living, the direction that you are going is the wrong way. We are strong and independent and think that we need no one. We resist direction. But the truth is that when such words have been spoken to me, they have always been right. They have saved me from a lot of trouble and heartache. The truth is that sometimes they have saved my life. Without these words, I do not know where I would be!

And finally, Jesus loved by reaching out to those who no one else cared about. Jesus was often accused of eating with tax collectors and sinners. He held leprous hands. He got involved in people’s lives. He heard their stories. He knew their struggles. And, when possible, he offered them healing. Since Jesus loved boldly, let me follow his example this morning. Friends, it is much easier to make a pledge or to write a check than to get involved in people’s lives. Instead of writing a check to help feed the hungry, why not join me and your fellow church members next Saturday at the Rice Depot where for three or four hours we help make food ready for those who wonder where their next meal will come from. Going there on Saturday mornings, once a quarter, is among the most important things that I do. Will you join me there next Saturday?

Remember the exclamation point that Jesus puts on this love. He told his disciples that the world will know who they are by their. In your hymnal supplements, The Faith We Sing on page 2223, there is a song whose third line goes like this: “We will walk with each other we will walk hand in hand, we will walk with each other we will walk hand in hand, and together we’ll spread the news that God is in our land. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love. Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” That is the way that it is. Let us pray.

(I am indebted to my good friend, Jeanie Burton, for an idea or two in this sermon. I am indebted to Erma Bombeck for the story of the mother who wrote letters to her three sons. I am indebted to Rhonda Ann Whitley for her legacy of love. May God give your family peace and healing).

- Let us pray...