Preached by Michael Cheuk
May 17, 2009, Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B
John 15:9-17
Love and obedience. In our day and age, it is hard to see at first glance how these two things go together. In popular culture, we mostly understand love as a deep feeling of affection and desire, an intense emotional attachment toward someone or something. Obedience, on the other hand, describes an act of will to submit to the commands of someone in authority. It may even imply being compelled to meet an obligation regardless of how one feels. For many, the word “love” suggests wanting to do something in freedom, while “obedience” implies having to meet a duty in servitude. That’s why in so many wedding ceremonies, many couples drop the promise “to obey” even as they say the rest of the traditional wedding vows.
It reminds me of a story about the time a groom approached the pastor during the wedding rehearsal with an unusual offer.
“Look,” the groom said as he slipped a $100 bill in the minister’s hand, “I’ll give you $100 if you’ll change the wedding vows. When you get to the part where I’m to promise to ‘love, honor and obey’ and ‘forsaking all others’ I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave that part out.” And with that, the young man walked away feeling satisfied.
The next day, during the wedding service when it got to that part of the ceremony where the vows are exchanged, the pastor looks the groom in the eye and says: “Will you promise to love her, by obeying her every command and wish, by serving her breakfast in bed every morning, and swearing eternally before God and your lovely bride that you will not ever even look at another woman, as long as you both shall live?”
The groom gulped and looked around, and said in a tiny voice, “Yes.”
Then he leaned toward the pastor and hissed, “I thought we had a deal.”
The pastor put the $100 bill back into the groom’s hand and whispered back, “She made me a much better offer.”
Love and obedience seem to go together as badly as oil and water. But in our scripture lessons this morning, both Jesus and John taught that love and obedience are intimately related to each other. In our Gospel Lesson, John recorded Jesus as saying: “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” And in the New Testament lesson from the first letter of John that Deborah read this morning, John wrote: “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands.” So how are we to understand what Jesus and John are saying? Well, in my sermon this morning, I want to explore four things found in John’s Gospel passage: the meaning of obedient love, the source of obedient love, the motivation for an obedient love, and the result of an obedient love.
First, the meaning of obedient love. The word “love” found in this passage in John is the Greek word “agape,” which is one of several Greek words translated as love. Many have thought that this word represents divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love.[1] In other words, agape love is not an emotional feeling. Instead, it is a thoughtful action; it can be willed, and it manifests itself as an intentional and self-sacrificing action to promote the well-being of another. Because agape love is something that we can do even if we don’t feel like it, this love can be commanded of us. And we do have to a choice to either obey Jesus’ command to agape love or not.
When it comes to “love,” we tend to wait for a feeling of affection before we act lovingly toward others. When we have been hurt, we tend to react emotionally either by hurting those who have hurt us or by withdrawing and running away from them. We see this in troubled family relationships, where relatives either attack each other or try to stay as far away from each other as possible. We see this in churches, where members will drop out of church so that they don’t have to deal with people who have intentionally or unintentionally hurt their feelings. In either case, we’ve let our feelings dictate what we do. But this morning, Jesus is telling us, “Don’t let your feelings dictate what you do. Let me dictate what you do, and this is my command: Love each other.”
We all like to think that we already love people, but in reality, we have a hard time getting along with particular individuals. It was Lucy who once said to Charlie Brown: “I love humankind. It’s people I can’t stand!” Unconditional, self-sacrificial love for others does not come naturally to us. Obviously, it didn’t come naturally for Jesus’ original disciples either; otherwise, Jesus would not have needed to issue this command to them. Most of us are familiar with another of Jesus’ commands in His Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love—agapao—your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). When we hear this, we often think of our national enemies like Iraq, al Qaeda or North Korea. But before we even go there, it is much more helpful to think of “enemies” much closer to home, like our manipulative parents, our distant spouse, our bickering siblings, our rebellious children, our oppressive boss and our critical neighbors. If Dorothy Day is right when she wrote, “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least,” then the way we love others is a direct reflection of our love for God.
So how do we live out an unconditional, self-sacrificial love toward each other? I believe that agape love cannot be learned in isolation apart from others. I believe agape love can be experienced and mastered only within a community. And the church is precisely a community where disciples of Jesus can learn the skills to live out an unconditional and self-sacrificial love for others. So, if you have someone in the church that you dislike, that you have problems with, who has criticized you and hurt your feelings, who makes you uncomfortable, then that is all the more reason why you should come to church more often to address these issues in the Spirit of the love of Christ! I would even hazard to say this: the more that you can learn the skills to live out an unconditional love within the Christian community, the greater the ability that you’ll have to unconditionally love the other difficult people in your life and your family.
But Michael, you say, learning to love each other in obedience to Christ’s command is not an easy thing. You’re right. Which leads me to my second point: the source of this obedient love. We don’t have the power, the strength or the resources to love unconditionally and self-sacrificially. The ultimate source of this love is from God the Father, which flows to God the Son, which then flows to us His disciples. That’s why Jesus said in verse 9: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” It is only when we remain in Christ’s unconditional love that we are able to love others unconditionally. Furthermore, in verse 12, Jesus said this: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” And how has God in Christ loved us? Paul wrote in Romans 5:8: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were still sinners, while we were still God’s enemies, Christ loved us unconditionally and self-sacrificially by dying for us. As Jesus says in verse 13, referring to himself: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus obeyed His Father’s command and remained in Him; therefore, Jesus was able to live out an obedient love in his own life and death for us. And if we follow Jesus’ command to remain in Him, then He will be our source to live out an obedient love for others.
I am coming to the conviction that I am able to love unconditionally only to the extent that I truly believe I am loved unconditionally by my heavenly Father. In life and in love, I cannot give away something that I don’t have myself. In my life, when I have not been secure in my heavenly Father’s love and my identity as a child of God, I tend to seek approval, love and acceptance from substitute sources like success, financial security and material things or from people like members of this church, my spouse, my children, and yes, even my parents. These sources are not necessarily bad, but they cannot be my ultimate source of love and acceptance. Yes, my parents and my spouse love me, but they are not God, and only God loves me unconditionally. And it is only when I remain in God’s love and begin to gain some clarity regarding who God wants me to be and what God wants me to do, that I am freed to love others more unconditionally.
Now, what do I mean by that? Well, that takes us to the third point of this sermon: the motivation for an obedient love. For most of my life, I’ve noticed that when I performed a “loving deed” for another person, usually there were conditional strings attached. Most of those strings were nearly invisible, but nevertheless they are there. I did loving things for people because I wanted them to like me, to return my love, to acknowledge and thank me for being a good person, to build up capital so that I could ask a favor in return later. My “loving actions” were motivated by a need to be accepted by others. It bothered me when people did not respond to those conditional strings. When they seemed ungrateful and did not reciprocate my affections, I felt used and rejected. But I’m learning that an obedient love is a response to God’s love already in my life. In verse 16, Jesus said: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” Therefore, I am already accepted by God, and while acceptance from others is nice, it is not necessary. Now, I’m learning that as long as my loving actions are motivated by my love for God and God’s love for me, I’m free to love others without expecting them to meet my own conditions.
Furthermore, I’ve also noticed that many times, I have felt a need to meet other people’s conditions in order for them to love me. I think a great danger of this passage from John as we consider unconditional and self-sacrificial love is that Jesus’ words, “You are my friends if you do what I command” can be so easily used as a manipulative tool. That’s because too many times, we’ve heard things like: “Well, if you really loved me, if you really cared, you would sacrifice your goals and desires, and give in to what I want.” What is often overlooked is that Jesus freely chose to sacrifice His life for His disciples first, before asking his disciples to do the same. Jesus never asked anyone to sacrifice anything that He Himself hadn’t sacrificed first. So, if you’ve ever been put on a guilt trip by a spouse, or a parent, or a boss who is commanding you to make a sacrifice while not making similar sacrifices himself or herself, please think twice before doing it! Remaining in God’s love and God’s will for your life may mean disappointing some important people in your life. But obeying Christ’s command to love is not a call to be a doormat. The “love” given by a person who’s a doormat is still conditional; only this time, the conditions are set by another person – a parent, a spouse, a boss -, either because of the doormat’s need to be accepted and loved, or because of his fear of the other person’s power over him.
When we are rightly connected to Christ and obedient to His commands, the result of an obedient love is joy. Joy in knowing and believing that we are chosen by God to be His friend. Joy in being freed from all conditions that manipulate, coerce and guilt us into obeying God’s commands. Joy in experiencing the life-giving source of God’s love. Love and obedience are not antithetical to each other. In Christ, love and obedience come together to produce joy. Listen once more with fresh ears to Jesus’ words: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” May God help us to live out this obedient love to produce joy in our lives and joy to the world. Amen.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape.
