Two "Weddings" And A "Funeral" Series

We really need to connect. We are made for fellowship, and

if we do not connect with one another, we will dry up and die.

We need to connect with God; and we need to connect with

one another.

When I was the Baptist chaplain at Howard University, it

seemed that my students only knew two hymns. Every time

we met, they wanted to sing either, “What a fellowship, what

a joy divine” or “What a friend we have in Jesus”. I

concluded that these were their choices because, as young

people, most of them away from home for the first time, they

needed to connect. They knew, down deep, that they were

made for fellowship, and that if they did not find fellowship,

they would dry up and die. So they sang about connecting

with one another and with God.

We really do need to connect. And yet we do not know how

to do it. We do not know how to bond with one another in a

healthy way. Over and over again we hurt one another and

hurt ourselves. I’ve seen people who do not know how to

form healthy relationships go into hibernation, staying off to

themselves, obsessing on Internet surfing or television

watching. Just do not know how to connect.

Or worse, I’ve seen people who did not know how to create

healthy relationships go into explosions of hostility, lashing

out at everyone. For some hurting souls, nobody is any

good, nobody is right, nobody is up to par, everybody is out

to do them harm. Some folks see demons in every closet.

And in that deep-rooted hostility there is the potential for

great harm to themselves and to others.

We really do need to connect. We are made for fellowship,

and if we do not connect with one another, we will dry up and

die. We need to connect with God; and we need to connect

with one another.

In the most personal of his three letters, John shows us the

elements of bonding. He teaches us how people can truly

connect with one another, and at the same time points out

how we can so easily kill relationships. If you want to

connect with others, or if you want to see what will destroy a

connection, look at the little third letter of John.

I’ve called this message two “weddings” and a “funeral”, with

apologies, to the movie called, “Four Weddings and a

Funeral”. In that movie, Charlie, played by Hugh Grant,

spends his days trotting off to huge weddings. But the notion

that he might get married never crosses his mind. He never

commits o anyone. At several wedding Charlie repeatedly

sees Carrie, played by Andie MacDowell. The two of them

flirt, they romance, they do everything except declare their

true feelings. They do everything except make a

commitment. But there comes a bit of over-indulgence at

one of the weddings, and one of Charlie’s friends dies. He

has to stop going to weddings for a while and go to a funeral.

Then and only then Charlie begins to think quite differently

about connections and commitment.

“Four Weddings and a Funeral”. Well, the third letter of John

does it in only two weddings and a funeral. Not literally, of

course, but two descriptions of people who know how to

connect and commit; and one picture of someone who does

nothing but kill the bonds of love. Two weddings and a

funeral.

Let’s go to the first wedding – Maestro, a little Wagner, if you

please.

I

We need to connect with one another, and we can do it if we

learn how to be open-hearted. Connecting is, first of all, a

matter of faith. It is an issue of trust. If we meet others on

an open-hearted basis, we’ll be on the way to establishing

strong connections.

John addresses his letter to a person named Gaius. We

know very little about Gaius, although I am going to make

some educated guesses in a moment. For now, however,

look at how John speaks to Gaius, and how John recognizes

this open-hearted quality in Gaius:

Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the friends, even

though they are strangers to you ...

“You do ... whatever you do for the friends, even though they

are strangers.” Isn’t that an interesting contrast? They are

friends, but they are strangers. Gaius, you do what you do

for these folks, and you do not even know them, but you trust

them anyway. You are an open-hearted person. You

assume the best about them. You do not assume that they

are criminals or that they are out to get you. You assume

that they are friends, even though they are strangers.

Gaius is that wonderful sort of person who trusts others until