LOVE IN ACTION - A REFLECTION ON 1 JOHN

These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

1 John 3:16-24

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us-- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

LOVE IN ACTION

If God is love and by that we mean God is constantly loving, constantly life-giving, and we are created in that image and are followers of our brother Jesus, who gave freely of himself in life and in death and in whom we are raised to new life, how can we say no to love?

In today’s reading, John asks a relevant question we must take seriously.  “How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”

It is a poignant question because while God loves all, the concern here is not whether God loves those who do no return God’s love but rather the concern is for those who do not make space for the type of love God has for all, the love that nurtures us and sustains all of us day by day.  

I have traveled enough through the subways of New York City to observe that it is often the poor who are quickest to help the poor; that those with little are more responsive to those who have less than they.  Those of us, and I include myself, who avoid looking at the face of poverty on the streets often excuse our behavior because of fear or rationalizing it as the right thing to do in order to prevent someone from using what little money we could give to enable a lifestyle of drug-use and begging off others instead of seeking a job.

I know my heart aches (condemns me) not because of their poverty but because of the poverty of my will to do what I feel is right in those situations. I have thought that when I’m in the city I need to keep dollar coins in my pocket to hand to those who need a buck or two at the moment.   It wouldn’t be much and I would certainly run out of coins in a very short time, but it would be something, an indication to whoever I am able to give it to that he or she is recognized as a brother or sister who is loved by God as I am loved by God.  

Poverty and human need is not a big city problem.  It’s a problem right here in rural America.  The difference is that here we don’t often see it on the streets in our rural communities where the poor and the marginalized are more likely to pass us by rather than ask for help.  We have good and helpful organizations in some of  our communities that will assist those financially strapped; that attempt to keep people clothed, fed, and housed, but often these organization are restricted by what finances are made available to them.  I am sure that most of us give what we can to such organizations from time to time. 

When we talked about God as love, we noted that God’s love is nurturing and gives meaning to our lives.  Love in action is more than merely meeting someone’s physical needs.  Merely throwing money at things might ease our consciences, but love in action requires us to do more than that.  It requires that we develop friendships and build meaningful trust relationships that value all as children of God.  

Churches and places of worship are best equipped or should be well-equipped to address the need to be loved and cared about; to be a places of healing where people can strengthen their ability to love and care for others; places that give meaning and purpose to all of God’s children.

The writer of today’s lesson makes another observation worth paying attention to:

“And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him?”

As a family of faith, we must meet the face of poverty head-on in all of its forms.  We must invite the impoverished and marginalized in so that each of our hearts and the heart of this parish is not condemned and found lacking in love.  In that love we can, with confidence, ask God for what we need both for ourselves and for others.

As a family of faith, we must seriously ask how we can use our worldly goods to meet the needs of others.  What will it take for us to brush off the alms box that has been a part of our church since the day it was built and shine a light on it?  Do we budget for the needs of others, in our personal lives and in the life of our church?  Are we willing to open the doors of our church home to invite the needy in, to make them feel at home, share the love of God with them, make them part of our family of faith, build them up, and nourish them in body, mind, and spirit?  

It is not a question of whether we should do these things, but rather a matter of seeking the best way to put love in action.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

CHILDREN OF GOD - A REFLECTION ON 1JOHN

These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

1 John 3:1-7

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

CHILDREN OF GOD

When reading today’s selection from 1 John, I can’t help but think how a rabbi at the time it was written might have responded to John’s statement, “Beloved, we are God’s children now.”  He might have asked, “What do you mean now you are God’s children?  You have always been God’s children.  Haven’t you read Genesis?”  

My fictional rabbi has a point.  Genesis clearly establishes, as do the psalms and the prophets, including Jesus, that all people are children of God, that all creation finds its source in God.  The Chosen People were not the only children of God  They were chosen to serve as a light to all of God’s children. This understanding of God’s Chosen People, the Israelites, being a light to the world calls to mind the Song of Simeon when Jesus was presented in the Temple as an infant: 

Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised; 

For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see: 

A Light to enlighten the nations, and the glory of your people Israel. 

Christians can become so focused on salvation as being one’s ticket to heaven that we fail to see that salvation involves what Simeon refers to as opening the eyes of the world and shedding the light of God not only on who God is but also on who we are.   

Referring to the resurrection of Jesus as the reset of creation to God’s original script of love constitutes a reset of understanding who we are in this world.  My rabbi was right, we have always been God’s children, all of us.  The trouble is and has been that when we start writing our own scripts, we start losing sight of that truth and begin acting as if some of us are children of God and others not or that there isn’t such a thing as a child of God.

Simeon’s song of praise to God reveals the important reason Jesus was presented to the world as a saving light.  Jesus served the world by opening our eyes to what we have forgotten since the archetypal pursuit to be gods unto ourselves, what is known as the Fall.  What was established on the first day of creation has been lost to us and largely lost on us. We still struggle to break free of the script of our making; a script promoted as the only reality there is or can be, a script whose plot line always ends in death.  

What John is saying in today’s lesson is that God’s original script of love is like a breath of fresh air; that what was lost on us appears as something completely new to us.  In the light of Christ, we recognize ourselves and all others as God’s children.  This rediscovered understanding that all are God’s children should instill in us a deeper sense of love for all that God loves.

Those continuing to work under the script of their making don’t get it; in large part, because they don’t want to.  They don’t see people they don’t want to recognize; those they perceive who are not like them, those who have a different social status, skin color, gender identity, religious affiliation, political persuasion, etc.. They don’t see them as being on equal footing with them in the eyes of God, and because they don’t, they feel entitled to treat them disrespectfully in thought, word, and deed.   

If we’re honest, we all struggle with abandoning our tendency to write our own scripts; trying to have things go our way.  John addresses this struggle by describing sin as lawlessness. We need to understand lawlessness in the context of the one commandment Jesus left with his followers, to love one another as he loved them or as Jesus explained in his Sermon on the Mount, to love our neighbors as ourselves, including, those perceived as one’s enemies.  

Sin really boils down to selfishness; to not being true to the loving person God made us to be.  Selfishness boils down to not honoring the presence of God in others and a failure to recognize the presence of God in one’s self.   If and when we can let go of selfishness and let God define our moments, righteousness (doing the right thing) stands a chance to come through. 

When the writer of John’s letter says, “No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him,” he is not saying we can’t sin or won’t sin, but rather that in Christ our sins are covered.  The second half of that statement, “no one who sins has either seen him or known him” is simply saying that we are not to become presumptuous about sinning; that we can do as we please with a sense of impunity. Freedom from sin does not mean freedom to sin.  It is not that God will punish us, but rather that we will end up punishing ourselves and our neighbors.

As followers of Christ Jesus, we are called to continue his ministry of redemption; of reclaiming for all and proclaiming to all the message that all are children of God, redeemed by the love of God expressed through one of our own, Jesus.  Redemption proclaims that we don’t have to be fettered to the way things are but rather together, in the diversity of all of God’s children, we can by God’s grace re-establish God’s original script of love.   Amen.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

 

GOD IS LIGHT - A REFLECTION ON 1JOHN

 

THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

April 11,2021

1 John 1:1-2:2

We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-- this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us-- we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

GOD IS LIGHT

On this Sunday, we begin a series of reflections on the First Letter of John.  In today’s reading, we encounter one of the most intriguing definitions of God, God is light.

When you think of the two most popular one-word descriptions of God (God is light and God is love) what becomes apparent is that God is a life-giving and life-nurturing action and given these descriptions, God is defined as a verb.  When we say God is love, we’re not describing the mere concept of love, we’re describing God as constantly loving. When we describe God as light, we are describing God as constantly giving light and thereby constantly creating and sustaining life. 

There is no life without light and there is no life-nurturing meaning to life without love.

This morning, I invite us to spend some time with this description of God as light. What we know of the connection between light and life makes it clear that God is also Life.  In truth, by definition God is the fullness of life.  As mind-bending as it sounds, given the premise that in God there is no darkness at all, non-existence doesn’t exist where God is concerned; that God is the unbegotten and the unending source of life or, simply put, God IS.  This is more than mere metaphor.  The resurrection of Jesus gives witness to it and to what one might call a greater, a clearer, a brighter reality. 

On this Second Sunday of Easter, we continue to ponder the mystery of the resurrection; that death is not the final end of life but rather that from death comes life. The apostle Paul put it this way in his first letter to the Corinthians: 

“So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable…. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed…”

When these letters were being written the tendency for the people living at the time was to think that this change would happened in their life time. Both John and Paul tempered their expectation without tempering their hope.  Paul, in particular, reminds us that our flesh and blood existence is linked to the first Adam, our first parents and takes us back to their story to remind us that we are still living in a world that continues to follow the script started by Adam and Eve; that we continue to follow and contribute to its original plot line which always ends in death.  

Perhaps the greatest lie of the serpent was, “You will not die.”  As with all effective lies, there was a grain of truth in it.  There was always the Tree of Life available to Adam and Eve, but as the story goes, God, out of mercy, drove them out Eden and guarded the Tree of Life until it emerged as the Vine of the risen Christ, the new Adam.

God knew what Adam and Eve were not able to comprehend, that with the ability to write our own script, we would inevitably have created not only a living hell on earth but also a perpetual hell in which faith, hope, and love could not have existed and where life would have been utterly meaningless.  

Death remains a fact of this life for us as well as it was for Jesus.  Death is not only a tragic reminder of the frailty of this life, but as we see in the light of Jesus’ resurrection, God, in his mercy, made it serve as an entrance into the fullness of a new life in Christ, and not for us alone, but as Paul says, “we will all be changed.”   

Paul’s use of “all” literally means all, everyone and everything will be changed.  In God there is no waste and since we are all part of that being in which we live, move, and have our being, we are assured that the script of our making will not effect the original script of God’s creation.

Science tells us that while physical life emerged as a byproduct of the Sun’s light filtered through our planets atmosphere and hydrosphere, should our living flesh ever be exposed directly to the Sun’s pure unfiltered radiant light, it would be destroyed.  It is interesting and perhaps not so coincidental that God is often depicted in scripture as a pure, radiant light; that no one could look into the face of God and live.  

Moses was one notable exception and after being in God’s presence, he had to cover his own face because it radiated with the light of God that no one could look him in the face.  Jesus in his transfiguration radiated with light.  Paul was blinded by the light of the risen Christ.  Perhaps it was his encounter with such a light that caused Paul to write,  “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.  The perishable cannot inherit the imperishable.” 

John reminds us as does Paul, that while we are living into Christ in this world, we remain very much the offspring of our first flesh and blood parents.  As such we are not entitled to say we are no longer sinners or that being freed from the effects of sins, we are free to sin, quite the opposite. 

In the light of God’s mercy and grace, we need to acknowledge that we are sinners; that we do not always love God or our neighbors, that we do things that we shouldn’t do, and fail to do the things we should. While we remain very much the flesh and blood offspring of our first parents, by God’s grace, we are called to follow our brother Jesus and walk in the light of God.

Walking in the light of God means living in humility, acknowledging who we are and whose we are.  

Walking in the light of God means allowing the light of God to filter through our lives, to be a life-giving and life sustaining source for all God’s children. 

Walking in the light of God means to shed the light of God in those dark places where hope, faith, and love struggle to survive, so that those who have lost hope, faith, and love may be drawn to it.

So, let us walk with Jesus; walking in the light and in the love of God.  Amen.

LET US EVER WALK WITH JESUS

                    Let us ever walk with Jesus, follow his example pure,

                    through a world that would deceive us and to sin our spirits lure.

                    Onward in his footsteps treading, pilgrims here, our home above,

                    full of faith and hope and love, let us do the Father’s bidding.

                   Faithful Lord, with me abide; I shall follow where you guide.

(Sigismund von Birken 1628-1681)

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

EASTER - A REFLECTION

 

EASTER

Mark 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint Jesus. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

SIEZED BY TERROR AND AMAZEMENT

The Gospel lessons from the lectionary for this Easter Sunday offers two options, the more familiar one from the Gospel of John in which Mary Magdalene is seeking Jesus whose body she believed had been removed from the tomb and one from the Gospel of Mark, which I have posted above.  Each of the gospels vary to some degree in their telling of the resurrection of Jesus.  My favorite account of this mysterious event is the one from the Gospel of Mark. 

 

Mark’s Gospel, considered to be the earliest Gospel, is noteworthy for having two versions of the resurrection.  The earliest known manuscripts of Mark stops at the end of todays lesson, with the women leaving the tomb both terrorized and amazed by what they encountered.  It is this shorter version that prompts one to imagine and ponder what went through the minds of these women when they encountered the empty tomb and told that Jesus had been raised. 

 

What I like about this particular version is that it doesn’t attempt to give any explanation for what happened.  We are left with their reaction to something they could not explain; a reaction to the wholly other, that had no reference in this life; a reaction that the theologian and philosopher, Rudolf Otto described as a “ mysterium tremendum et fascinans,” a mystery that both “terrifies and fascinates.” (Rudolph Otto in “The Idea of the Holy” ).  In fact, so shocking was the mystery that confronted the women that Mark says they told no one about it, and yet here we are talking about it, which means that at some point they did what they were told to do.

It is easy to lose the mind-blowing edginess of their experience that first Easter.  In fact, it is near impossible to comprehend it.  Ironically or perhaps predictably, one of the ways that exemplifies our difficulty with comprehending it is to treat it as if it was a one-off historical event like Christmas.  Jesus may be the reason for these seasons, but that is pretty much where the importance of these holy days ends for most people, including Christians.

Please don’t get me wrong.  I’m no Grinch when it comes to celebrating the seasons of Christmas and Easter.  Our house is decked out in lights, has the obligatory tree, Santa Clauses, Gnomes, along with a smattering of angels, and a nativity Scentsy Pot at Christmas.  These are replaced at Easter with Easter eggs and Easter rabbits.  I’m not advocating that we don’t celebrate life during these holidays. In fact, love of life is indeed part of these celebrations.

For those of us who follow Jesus, we find in the celebrations of these holy events profound implications for our lives and for our world.  For us, the story of Jesus’ birth, the Incarnation, contains an answer to the question, “Why are we here?” We see in the Christmas story that our lives are meant to be like Jesus, incarnations of God’s presence in this world; to be loved by God, to love God, and to love and recognize God’s presence in the being of others.  After two thousand years, however, the story of Christmas has lost much of its amazement.  Many don’t give it the thought it deserves or take the time to ponder the edginess contained in its telling.

On the other hand, the resurrection of Jesus, as depicted in the story of the women encountering Jesus’s empty tomb and being told he had been raised, ultimately gives way to the more rhetorical question, “Why not?”  “Why” implies an assumption that there is answer to why something happened.  “Why not” dismisses a need for any explanation; conveying a sense of abandonment to whatever is occurring or has occurred.  Frequently, this rhetorical question emerges as a profound response to a life-changing experience.

  

Jesus’ death was tremendously terrifying and tragic. It really doesn’t make sense to any of us today.  His crucifixion remains a terrifying tragedy.  It was something that none of his disciples were expecting, even though Jesus tried to prep them for that possibility.  What ends up more terrifying and disturbing, however, is Jesus’ empty tomb; terrifying and disturbing in the sense that in our concrete understanding of the our world where dead means dead, death is shown to be  permeable, that death gives way to life.  

We need to reclaim the edginess and the terror of the empty tomb that has the power to shake us out of the complacency of our concrete views of this life.  We need to encounter with these women the terror of the unexplainable and unimaginable which shakes us from the the primal temptation to know as God knows and instead allow ourselves to be lost in the abandonment and the amazement of why not?  Why not resurrection?  Why not turning our sorrows into joy? Why not to God’s immeasurable, unending, and life-giving love for all?

On this Easter Day, let the edginess of Jesus’ resurrection sink in and allow the “why” of the crucifixion give way to the “why not” of the empty tomb.

JESUS LIVES!

                     Jesus lives! thy terror now can no longer, death, appall us;

                     Jesus lives!by this we know thou, O grave, canst not enthrall us,

Alleluia!

                      Jesus live! Our hearts know well nought from us, his love shall sever;

                      life nor death, nor powers of hell tear us from his keeping ever.

Alleluia!

(Christian Furchtegott Gellert 1715-1769)

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm