The Way and the Means

I knew God from a very early age. I just didn’t know that I knew God. I knew God the first time that my mother leaned over the bassinette that I slept in when I was tiny, and picked me up, and cuddled me. In that act of tenderness, I was touched by the tender love of God.

Perhaps you knew God from a very early age as well. In the love of your mother or father, you experienced the love of God. In the care of grandparents, you experienced the love of God. In the affection of friends, you experienced the love of God. Because, you see, God is love. That’s what this morning’s reading from the First Letter of John says: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16). If you want to know God, the first step is to reach out your hand to someone and say, “Good morning; how are you?” And then take the time to listen to their answer. If you want to know God the next step is to stop and chat with someone who’s asked you how you’re doing. It’s in such simple acts of caring that the love of God takes on flesh and dwells among us.

One of the reasons why I like John’s gospel and the letters of John is that they tell us about a God who is so down to earth. The church for which this literature was written experienced God right in the midst of their daily lives. They experienced God in their love for each other. They experienced God when they worshipped together. They even experienced God when they fought with each other. For them, God was in the very fabric of their community of faith. Indeed, God was the fabric of their community of faith. That’s what the vine and branches imagery in John’s gospel is all about. You experience the love of God most cleary when you live and work and play and fight together in a community which is rooted and grounded in the Risen Christ.

Not everyone would agree with me on this point. Some Christians would say, “No, no, no; it’s not primarily about acts of caring. It’s not primarily about being in community. These are important,” folks might say, “but knowing God is about believing. You don’t know God until you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” These folks can even point to this First Letter of John to argue their case. 1 John 4:15 says, “God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.”

Well, of course believing has something to do with it. But before we go any further down that road, we need to understand that the word “believe” as it appears in the Bible doesn’t mean quite the same thing that we mean when we talk about believe or belief. We tend to think of belief as mainly head stuff. We tend to think of belief as being what we think to be true, especially when there isn’t enough data to conclusively prove it. I believe that the universe is held together by a Loving Reality whom we call God. I believe that the nature of God has been most clearly revealed in a 1st century man named Jesus. I believe that God is guiding history toward a point where death and injustice will be absorbed into life and love. I believe these things to be true, and through that belief I know something about God.

So, yes, belief has a lot to do with knowing God. But belief isn’t just about head stuff; belief is also about heart stuff. Marcus Borg points out that in English there is a linkage between the roots of the words “belief” and “beloved.” The idea of belief as assenting to the truth of something with our minds is a fairly new idea, going back only to the 18th century. The linkage between belief and beloved, on the other hand, goes back more than 1000 years, since sometime before the Norman conquest. Belief and beloved have common roots, which means that belief also has something to do with trust and commitment. When you say to your beloved, “I believe in you,” you mean “I trust you; I am committed to walking with you, especially through rough times.” In English and, even more to the point, in Greek (the language in which John’s gospel and letters were written) “believe” (the Greek is “pistis”) has to do with trust and commitment at least as much as it has to do with assenting to the truth of a proposition.

Therefore, to believe that Jesus is the Son of God – to believe in Jesus – means to trust Jesus, to be committed to Jesus, to follow Jesus, to walk in the way of Jesus. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6). If you walk in the way of Jesus, you will know something of the truth of Jesus, and you will experience the fullness of life in Jesus. And what is the way of Jesus? It is the way of love. This first letter of John makes explicit the connection between believing and abiding in God and loving. It’s all part of following Jesus. It’s all part of walking in the way. It’s all part of experiencing the love of God in its deepest dimension.

But here’s the catch: you can’t walk in the way of Jesus, you can’t experience the love of God as revealed in Jesus, unless you are part of a Christian community of faith. Jesus’ love – Christian love – is lived out in community.

In other words, in order to be a good Christian, you have to go to church. You have to be engaged in the lives of fellow Christians within a community of faith.

Now this may strike you as being a rather narrow minded attitude. I can almost hear you all saying, “What do you mean, you have to go to church to be a good Christian? I don’t have to go to church to be good!” You know, lots of church members have told me that over the years. Especially on Christmas Eve, when they’re telling me why I haven’t seen them since Easter.

And they have a point. One can certainly do good and caring and loving things without going to church; without being a member of a community of faith. One of the most loving people I’ve ever know is a woman named Sarah. For most of her life, she has proudly called herself an atheist. But when it comes to looking after neighbours and caring for friends and seeking justice both locally and globally, she has most of us beat hands down. It is possible to love others without going to church. But there are different forms of love. And when we speak of Christian love, we are speaking of a specific form of love which, at its core, is all about being involved in a worshipping, believing, caring community.

It’s kind of like this: you can be a baseball fan without ever going to a game. You can watch the games on t.v. or listen to them on the radio. You can read about baseball in the newspaper and look at the action pictures in Sports Illustrated. You can be a baseball fan without ever going to a game. But you can’t be a Boston Red Sox fan without at least once in your life going to a game at Fenway Park in Boston. There’s something about taking the subway to the game, being part of the crowd at the park, cheering on David Ortiz and Kevin Youkilis and heckling the visiting team. You can be a baseball fan without experiencing those things, but you can’t be a Red Sox fan without experiencing them.

It’s kind of the same way with Christian love. You can go good works and take care of others and seek justice in the world without going to church. Those are all aspect of love. But Christian love is about being part of a community which gathers for worship and cares for each other and cheers each other on and works together on behalf of the most vulnerable members of society.

This is what Christian love is all about because this is what Jesus the Christ was all about. We don’t see him working solo. No, we see him sharing life with his 12 disciples, and sharing meals with friends and foes alike, and being engaged in dialogue with groups of people like the scribes and the Pharisees, and teaching groups of people both large and small. These are all expressions of community. When you’re engaged in group activity you’re engaged in community. That’s the way that Jesus lived and worked and loved. He took time out for solitude and prayer, of course, but afterwards he always returned to a community setting. And if he didn’t return fast enough, sometimes the community found him. If that’s the way that Jesus lived and worked and loved, then that’s the way that we who follow Jesus are called to live and work and love. And that’s what it means to be a Christian. A Christian is one who follows Jesus the Christ. There are many forms of love, but Christian love is by definition lived out in the context of a worshipping and caring and justice-seeking community. This is the way which Jesus invited us to follow, and the life which Jesus invited us to live.

Let me close with a story. Yesterday I got together with Hannah and Jim Mark and their two girls, Jesse and Chloe, to talk about baptism. Originally we were going to meet in my office, where we would’ve had a fairly short, kind of “heady” conversation about what baptism means. Instead, the Marks had me out to their house, where we shared a wonderful meal and sat around the dining room table and yes we talked about baptism, but we also talked and laughed about history and politics and language all sorts of stuff, and told stories, and listened to each other, and helped each other with various things, and just shared the fullness of spending several hours together. In short, we experienced community. Now baptism is about being initiated into Christian community. So I wonder, which format is the best way to learn about baptism: just talking about it in the pastor’s office, or actually experiencing Christian community; Christian love?

“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16). I give thanks that I can abide in God’s love by abiding with all of you, and with the Christ, in this community of faith. Amen.

Text: 1 John 4:15-16
Preached by Bruce D. Ervin
10 May 2009