WHAT CAN LOVE DO HERE?
Text: John 13:34 – 35
I John 3:18
John 13:34-35 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. (35) By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (NRSV).
1 John 3:18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action (NRSV).
At our district meeting back in August our new Columbia District Superintendent Fran Elrod shared the same devotion that shared with us at Charge Conference. It was both a memorable and valuable ideal to practice in everyday life.
In that devotion, she shared that she had an uncle and an aunt from the hippy era who spent their lives in witness and ministry based mainly on one thought. Her aunt daily posed the question every where she went “What can love do here?” Her aunt and uncle often ministered to prisoners with that same idea. What makes love contagious in the way we share it?
Didn’t Jesus command us to make His love contagious so that others will know that we are His disciples? Aside from germs, viruses and sickness, have you ever wondered what is contagious in a crowd? How many of you answered, laughter, bitterness or a yawn? Certainly, love needs to be the most contagious!
LAUGHTER
At the District meeting when I first heard her give this devotion, I couldn’t help but to notice the baby carriage three pews up on the opposite side of the aisle. I thought to myself, “That baby is being so good.”
Then, I did a double take when I saw a raccoon stick its head out o the carriage.
By the second time I saw the raccoon stick its head out. “I tried to quickly squelch my laughter to as silent of a snicker as I could get.
My daughter, who was sitting beside me, elbowed me and whispered “Dad, why are you laughing? What’s so funny?” I motioned for her to look at the baby carriage and right on cue, the raccoon stuck his head out and then his paw. Now, she’s trying to laugh silently as well.
Then my wife and elbows Lilly and quietly scolds us until she discovers why we are laughing. Then, Susan, too, was trying to silence her laughter to a quiet snicker.
While the new DS was talking about what her aunt’s creed was, “What can love do here?”, I couldn’t help but to think of Ray Steven’s “The Day the Squirrel Came to Church” thinking what excitement might happen if that raccoon got loose!
Soon she finished her devotion, and we ended the service with a closing hymn.
Think about laughter and how it can sometimes be contagious in a crowd. Wouldn’t it be great if love could be as contagious as laughter in a crowd?
YAWNING
Have you ever noticed how contagious a yawn is? A yawn might be contagious among those your pew, but it is even worse from the viewpoint of a choir during an anthem or a cantata. Please don’t let a soloist see that yawn during a solo.
What if the yawn becomes like the “wave” at a ballgame? Theni It could make its round through all the pews couldn’t it?
BITTERNESS
What is an enemy of joy? What about bitterness?
What happens when we get bitter? According to the Bible bitterness causes pollution to one’s spirit (Hebrews 12:15): See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many (NIV).
In his book Effective Small Church in the Twenty First Century, Carl S. Dudley, makes a profound observation about things that can cause bitterness in a church setting. His observation is this: “If we define church by the “business B’s” of religious institutions---budgets, buildings and bodies---the small church comes on the short end. But the small church appears much stronger when measured by human relationships”. (Carl S. Dudley. Effective Small Church In The Twenty-First Century. Nashville: Abingdon Press,2003, p. 53). . How well is our measure of human relationships?
How tuned in are we to answering our call to be loving----asking “What can love do here?” What are the things that keep us from answering that question?
Doesn’t bitterness hinder our ability to witness? How many flies will we catch with vinegar?
In the late 1800s, there were just two deacons in a small Baptist church in Mayfield County, Kentucky. The two deacons hated each other and always opposed one another. On a particular Sunday, one deacon put up a small wooden peg in the back wall so the minister could hang his hat. When the other deacon discovered the peg, he was outraged that he had not been consulted. The church took sides and eventually split. The departing group formed a new church, called, “The Anti-Peg Baptist Church.” (Raymond McHenry. ed. McHenry’s Quips, Quotes and Other Notes. [quoted from: Doyle L. Young. New Life for Your Church, 1989, p. 63]. Third Printing. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004, p. 270). Whether the element of divisiveness is between two individuals or those that choose which party to whom they will be loyal, it is still divisive and destructive to building up fellowship within of the Body of Christ! Bitterness never leaves a positive legacy!
Bitterness never leaves a godly legacy because God adds and multiplies and bitterness is a tool used widely by Satan today to divide us.
LOVE
How often do we hear about the theme of love in popular music? Even though the music secular, there are some song titles that serve like pithy one liners. Consider Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” Or, Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name”. Or the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love”. Christ calls us to share God’s love even when we do not feel like others are very lovable! Our goal as Christians is to think “What can love do here?”
How far should our Christian love go to be contagious? Jesus answered that question with His cross because His love sacrificially goes the distance! Shouldn’t we, who call ourselves Christians exhibit that same kind of love? The world’s love has conditions and falls short. Christians are commanded by Christ to share agape love---- love that is the “greatest” as 1 Corinthians 13:13 points out because it goes the distance---because it never ends (1 Corinthians 13:8)! It is also the greatest and contagious when we “pay it forward”.
God adds and multiplies! Satan subtracts and divides. Bitterness is divisive but Christian love always adds and multiples and furthermore it never ends!
The next time you arise in the morning to begin your day, ask yourself “what love can do?” in all the places that you can share it. Make God’s love contagious!
God wants us to define the Church by love, not by studies or by statistics like the rule of the three b’s bodies, budgets and buildings, but by word and deed! The Church is more than a building where we worship. The Church is the Body of Christ in the world contagiously sharing the unconditional love of Christ in word and deed!
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
