remember when

1 John 3:16-24 Common English Bible (CEB)

¹⁶ This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ But if a person has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need and that person doesn’t care—how can the love of God remain in him?

¹⁸ Little children, let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth.¹⁹ This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and reassure our hearts in God’s presence. ²⁰ Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things. ²¹ Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence in relationship to God. ²² We receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. ²³ This is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love each other as he commanded us. ²⁴ The person who keeps his commandments remains in God and God remains in him; and this is how we know that he remains in us, because of the Spirit that he has given to us.

I don’t remember how we met her. I also don’t remember a time when we did not know her that appointment year. She might have come to the church office one day or it could have been when we were out and about in the neighborhood. Ms. Vivian lived just a few blocks from where my sister and I were renting a local parsonage together. We were serving as pastors in New Bern, co-associates at a church and co-pastors of a new neighborhood ministry. Ms. Vivian was one of the most faith-filled, joyful, stubbornly upbeat people I’ve ever met even though she had plenty of reason not to be. She loved to sing, she loved to hum as she walked, and she walked all over that town. Miles and miles every day. Unfortunately, she lived in a building that wasn’t fit to live in. All of her belongings were in one small bedroom. She cooked in a narrow kitchen that wasn’t finished. You literally had to watch where you walked. There were holes in the floor and the walls weren’t insulated or even covered in some spots.

When my sister and I met Ms. Vivian she was on the most diligent search for a job I had ever seen. She’d wake up, walk to the library, fill out resumes, and walk them all over town. She relied on government assistance, she couldn’t make it without that help. But there are lots of things you can’t buy with an EBT card, and one day she needed a dollar. One dollar, so that she could buy soap. She wasn’t able to afford it that month.

My sister and I became friends with Ms. Vivian. She would come over to our house and we would talk, sing songs while I played my guitar. At one point, she was even writing up lesson plans for us weekly as we had a little Bible study together. She would hand-write the lessons and make three copies, one for each of us. It wasn’t very clear early on that we were not leading this Bible Study- we were attending it.

Fine by us.

At Christmas time, she asked for a ride one day so she could do her shopping. She would do it all once for the month after the money loaded on her card. But this day, she told Laura and me that she had something for us. And we needed to make an extra stop. The first stop was to a local grocery store where she bought us a cake-Red Velvet I believe. I saw the price tag and tried to stop her, but she insisted. It was very clear that there was no arguing with Ms. Vivian on this day. The next stop was Walgreen’s where her coupons were good for. She filled a cart with soft drinks and snacks, all of it for us. She had been saving up coupons for weeks and weeks and she had it all planned out.

Ms. Vivian was using what she had to give us a Christmas gift.

Do you have any idea how much she needed that money for herself? We did. We knew. To think of the percentage of her income that she spent on us that month…I’ve never given money away like that. It’s humbling beyond words. You might be thinking, why in the world did you take it? Understandable. But when someone has planned something out for that long, put that much thought into how they can give you a gift, when someone is extending that kind of abundant generosity, the only thing to do is to accept the gift.

This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).

I could preach today about what we ought to do, what we should do, what we need to do as Jesus followers. It wouldn’t work.

Telling people what they need to do never works. 

So instead, I’m going to invite you to remember. A time when someone laid down their life for you. Remember a time when someone put your needs before their own. Remember a time when someone did something for you that was a sacrifice for them. Remember a time when someone gave you a gift that you could never repay. Remember a time when someone thought of you before they thought of themselves.

If we break it down, I think this is what’s at the heart of this text in 1 John. This is what it means to lay down our lives for one another. Most of us aren’t called to be martyrs. Most of us won’t find ourselves in the position to be burned at the stake, hanged, or shot for standing up for someone. The call to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters, though, is actually the simple, everyday, ordinary call to put other people first. To consider someone else’s needs before we consider our own.

I hope you can remember a time when someone did that for you.

How did it change you? How did it feel? What was different from that point on?

We are far more likely to give from a sense of gratitude than obligation or guilt. So I’m not aiming to tell what you ought to do. I’m asking you to remember the feeling of deep appreciation when someone laid down their own needs for yours. I’m asking you to move from that. Start there. Make up your mind of what to do- whatever it might be- from that place of gratitude.

Ms. Vivian changed me the Christmas of 2014. Her generosity, thoughtfulness, and love transformed me. It made me want to give like she gave and to love like she loved. Her selflessness made faith and discipleship come alive for me. I was given these gifts from a woman who couldn’t afford soap some months, who walked the soles of her shoes bare traveling by foot all across the city looking for a job no one would give her, who never stopped giving thanks to God in the midst of her circumstances even though they were so grim.

This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).

. . . let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth (verse 18).

We are church for a reason; God never intended us to live faith alone. God’s nature is community, the Trinity, Three in One. So when we consider the Scriptures and what they mean for us, we try and figure out how to live the faith both in an individual and collective way. What does it mean for us as a church, as a congregation, to lay down our life for sisters and brothers around us, following what Jesus did for us? How do we as community, as a congregation, put others first? Consider the needs of our neighbors, children of God, before we consider our own? What does that look like?

This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).

I was talking to my sister this week who is also preaching on this passage from 1 John today. We were discussing these questions. It’s almost easier to come up with individual examples, but how does a congregation lay down its life? She told me a powerful story of a Methodist church that used to exist near her. Even Laura hasn’t heard all the details of what happened, but I thought the main point was a story worth sharing.

Kerr United Methodist had dwindled in membership and attendance. The congregation was just simply dying. They had resorted to renting out their space to a Latino congregation who didn’t have their own building, but who had a thriving ministry. After awhile though, it was clear that Kerr UMC couldn’t maintain the financial or physical demands of keeping a church building. So what they decided to do was basically to surrender their space to the Latino church which was busting at the seams. I don’t know the ins and outs of the financial transaction that went down and that’s not even important.

The few remaining folks of Kerr United Methodist Church moved their membership to a nearby congregation, Pleasant Green United Methodist Church where my sister is pastor now. She said there’s a still a remnant from Kerr who worships with them, as members now of Pleasant Green.

Do you feel the power of this story?

A white church who put the needs of a Spanish-speaking, minority, non-United Methodist congregation above their own needs and desires to stay alive and stick it out to the bitter end.

This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).

We ought to do this and we ought to do that. . . I reckon that’s a sermon for someone to preach somewhere else.

Today, I’m just inviting you to remember. To remember when you received. To remember when you were the one for whom life was laid down. The truth is, this is where we all are, every last one of us, in relationship to God. This is what Jesus has done for us.

And so John says, . . . let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth (verse 18).

If we’re doing it because we ought to, then it likely won’t hold. The action might be good in the short term, even noble and right, but it won’t take root.

However. . . if we can remember. . . 

If we can remember how tender we were, how humble we felt, if we can remember how neither the ocean depths nor the nighttime sky could have held our gratitude in that moment when we received, and if we can move from that place. . . we will know how to lay down our life for one another.

And we will do it.

What do we do now and how do we live together?

1 John 3:1-7 Common English Bible (CEB)

 See what kind of love the Father has given to us in that we should be called God’s children, and that is what we are! Because the world didn’t recognize him, it doesn’t recognize us.

 ² Dear friends, now we are God’s children, and it hasn’t yet appeared what we will be. We know that when he appears we will be like him because we’ll see him as he is. ³ And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure.⁴ Every person who practices sin commits an act of rebellion, and sin is rebellion.⁵ You know that he appeared to take away sins, and there is no sin in him. ⁶ Every person who remains in relationship to him does not sin. Any person who sins has not seen him or known him.

⁷ Little children, make sure no one deceives you. The person who practices righteousness is righteous, in the same way that Jesus is righteous.

What do we do now? And how do we live together?

These are the questions of Eastertide. . .

We had a lively breakfast at Byrd’s this past week (the local cafe where I eat breakfast every Tuesday and anyone can meet up with me and others). We had a table full of folks and this isn’t about naming names or getting too specific, but we had discussion about some pretty edgy topics. It was pretty obvious that while we were talking calmly and with civility, we were not all on the same page. There was patience and real listening and Lord knows, we didn’t solve anything. But something happened in the course of our conversation. A woman was sitting by herself one table over. It’s kind of hard not to overhear stuff at Byrd’s, and at one point, she just said, y’alls conversation is fascinating me. And one second later it was easy- it was, “Well come on, drag up a chair and join us.” And she did. It felt like this microcosm of what might be, what could be. . . 

What do we do now? How do we live together?

These are the questions of Eastertide. I know the excitement is over to some extent. The hosannas and hallelujahs have faded a little bit, but the truth is we’ve only just begun. Things have changed because Jesus died and was raised. Our task as disciples, as believers, as followers of the way, is to figure out how to continue the ministry that Jesus began, and how to further the kingdom that he inaugurated in this time.

For the next few weeks, I’m gonna do something a little out of character: I’m going to preach us through the book of 1 John. There’s a text from 1 John for every Sunday of Easter. These little books tucked away near the back of our Bibles are probably often overlooked but they offer us great wisdom in how to shape our life together.

For one thing, John is writing to a community dealing with controversy and division. Not that we would know anything about that. . . There is schism: people are torn in their beliefs about Jesus and who he was. There were leaders in the community teaching different ideas (1 John 4:1-6) and the dualism and name-calling is thick. (Note: those who are given the unfortunate label of “children of the devil.” )So the purpose of the book is really to dispel these splintering ideas and to call for unity in the community.

To call for unity in the community. . .

See what kind of love the Father has given to us in that we should be called God’s children, and that is what we are! Because the world didn’t recognize him, it doesn’t recognize us (1 John 3:1).

Photo by mauro mora on Unsplash

Everyone wants to fit in- somewhere. It feels good to be recognized and understood and appreciated. It feels nice when people accept us. There’s nobody who doesn’t like that. It’s not fun to stick out or be excluded or misunderstood. Sometimes, we go to great lengths to be accepted. I bet we all have a story of something stupid we did to try and get somebody, some friend, some crush, some group to like us. I would imagine that we have some pretty embarrassing examples of stuff we did to try and fit in.

The problem is that the writer of 1 John reminds us that the world didn’t recognize Jesus, and if we are living in the way of Jesus, we won’t be recognized, accepted, or understood either. Our values, our behavior, our choices will be so foreign and strange to those around us. And the source of that, the reason for our oddness, our weirdness is God’s extravagant love which has made us into God’s children. This love of God has taken such deep root inside of us, it’s pulsing through our veins with such fierceness, that the love we’ve been shown affects everything we think about, every person we interact with, every political issue we debate, every conversation we have.

The systems and structures of the world did not recognize Jesus. If we live in the way of Jesus, they won’t recognize us either. In a society that says individualism and independence is everything, we say, we belong to community. We work for the good of the whole. In an age where violence is used to obtain security and settle disputes, we are peacemakers who work for forgiveness and reconciliation.

In a culture that has corrupted the gospel message by saying God helps those who help themselves, we call bull. Because we know that we are helpless to save ourselves and that it is only by the grace of God that we go.

We are God’s children, God’s love has made it so. Part of God’s family. Claimed as God’s own. It’s a loving, gentle reminder that we are connected to all people. Everyone has been given a new family name and it is, “child of God.” We don’t choose the families we’re born into. We don’t get to pick that part of life. It might as well be a lottery. But in this post-resurrection letter to a community of believers, any struggle that we have had with people of different cultures, races, ethnicities, people from different towns, counties, or countries, has been settled. We can forget about ever trying to call anyone outsider or alien ever again. See what kind of love the Father has given to us in that we should be called God’s children. . . Everyone has a new family name and it’s “child of God.”

Here’s how you test if you believe it: picture someone you don’t like. Picture someone you’re holding a grudge against. Picture someone you are not interested in forgiving. Picture someone who makes your stomach turn when they walk in the room. Picture someone you do not want to be in relationship with. Picture someone you have no interest in sharing a meal with. Picture someone who you feel doesn’t belong. Picture someone who’s story you have no desire to hear.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us in that we should be called God’s children. . . 

I’ve been in Pink Hill for six months. I really do love it here. I am making it my home. Over the past few months, you have told me of the division in this town, how it’s truly astounding. And I’ve noticed it for myself. It’s not anything new, it’s actually very old. It’s humanity living into the worst parts of themselves instead of the good and beautiful parts. And I have no concern that it’s beatable. God defeated death itself in Jesus, and I believe that there is nothing that we can’t overcome with God’s help and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Humans created division and separation. Humans created race so that racism could operate. Humans created the structures that have us competing against one another instead of working together. Humans created the conditions that compel our mindset to be that of scarcity instead of abundance.

And if humans could create those harmful systems, then humans can create the systems that work for unity. We are capable of arranging things differently. We are capable of dismantling that which drives us apart. We have the power to come together and make something different. Something beautiful. Something good. Something that includes people. Something that works for everyone, not just the few. God has given us a way. Jesus has showed us the way. The Spirit is our heartbeat. The good news of the gospel gives us a way to be in relationship with everyone. We are God’s children. There is not a person who does not have the stamp of the divine on their soul, there is not a person who is not worthy of Christ’s own death.

Letting God’s love take hold of our lives has to change everything. If everything hasn’t changed then God’s love might not have taken hold. . . That kind of love changes us so much that the world won’t understand or recognize why we do what we do. And if what we’re doing and how we are relating to people is exactly the way everyone else in the world is doing it, then we might need to ask if we have traded social acceptance for the radical love we are called to embody. To let God’s love take hold in our lives is to sign up to being unrecognizable and misunderstood.

We can choose to enjoy the respect of our peers and the benefit of being in good standing with the powers-that-be (ya know, the ones who crucified Jesus), or we can choose to let God’s love reign in our lives, take over our lives, and change our lives from the inside out. This is what disciples do; this is how we find eternal life.

The good news is, God is still working on us. God doesn’t give up on us, never ever ever. And even though Jesus has been raised, he is not gone. Jesus is still appearing to us (at Byrd’s, the IGA, Food Lion, the Friendly Mart, on the streets, in the fields, at your home, everywhere. . . ), teaching us, and showing us the way.

Dear friends, John writes, now we are God’s children and (thanks be to God) it hasn’t yet appeared what we will be…