Saturday, May 1, 2010

Accepting love 5-2-10

Spirit of Acceptance
Reinbeck UMC
May 2 2010
·                     Since I was called into the ministry, I have probably written about 800 sermons and preached about 1500 times.  That is almost 3 million words.
·                     Since I arrived in Reinbeck in July 2007, I have written somewhere around 150 sermons: and preached about 300 times.  That is somewhere around a half a million words.
·                     If you have been attending church for 20 years you have probably heard about 1000 sermons.  That is about 2 million words you have heard preached.
·                     The Bible has only 750,000 words.
·                     Jesus boils it down to 11
Jesus said, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”  . . . AMEN.
I got to thinking about all the words that have been preached - all the books that have been written- all the class discussions that have been held . . . and Jesus pretty much says it all in 11 words.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”  In fact, we could boil it down to six words “As I loved - you love.”
It is pretty humbling to a preacher who spends his career trying to write and interpret and teach from the scripture, that Jesus just wrapped up the whole thing in six words.  “As I loved - you love.”
I was tempted to quit right here.  Retire and move to Tennessee.  After all what more can I add? 
·                     It is like the saying, “It is as clear as the nose on your face.”  Well, take just a second here; take a look at your own nose.  You cannot see it very well can you.
·                     It is like when Dian lays a piece of paper on my desk.  I can sit there and look at my desk for 10 minutes.  I can walk away and come back to look at it some more and still not see it.  When I ask her, “where did you put that” . . .  she can walk right in a pick it right up.  “As clear as the nose on my face.”
·                     Or in today’s advertising culture, we might say it is so easy, even a caveman can do it.
“As I loved - you love”
Let’s be honest it is easy to love some people.  Like me.  And you too.  On the other hand, there are some people who are just really hard to love.  So today, I want to think of God’s extraordinary love for those hard to love people.  And Jesus command for us to love them too.

From God’s divine perspective, we can hardly even be specks of dust.  We can hardly be more than a gnat buzzing in the celestial ear.  From the heavenly perspective, humanity as a whole let alone one individual must be so insignificant as to be barely a blip on the radar.  Like an amoeba to a whale, a drop of water to the ocean, or a single ant to a to a highway project.
·                     Yet even for that insignificant amoeba, that drop of water, that ant; God became flesh, lived, and died.
·                     Who are the most insignificant people you can think of?  Who are the almost invisible?  Who are the forgotten, the ignored, or the powerless?
·                     God loves and accepts even them.
AS I HAVE LOVED . . . YOU LOVE

From God’s perspective, our sinfulness must be like a plague.  Our sinfulness must be like a gaping wound.  Our sinfulness must be like the elephant on the dining room table.  Our alienation from him must be like missing a limb or at least a digit.  Our selfishness must be an affront to God’s generosity.  Our guilt is an ugly black stain on an otherwise unadulterated perfection.
·                     Yet God accepts us in our ugly, guilty, stained, unlovable brokenness.
·                     Who are the most unlovable people you can think of?  The most distasteful?  The most offensive, the most repugnant?
·                     God loves and accepts even them.
AS I HAVE LOVED . . . YOU LOVE
From God’s perspective who could be more undeserving than us?  How many times have people thrown away God’s love?  How many times in the story of salvation history did God try to love people into relationship, and people threw it away.  Adam and Even had a good thing going and threw it away.  Noah had a fresh start and threw it away.  They threw away the Promised Land, they threw away the kings, and they threw away the prophets.  And then they threw away Jesus.  Like an alcoholic keeps throwing away their chance at sobriety, we keep throwing away God’s love because we are addicted to sin.  Could there be any one less deserving of God’s love than this hardhearted people?
·                     Yet God keeps loving us and accepting us again and again and again hoping that we won’t throw it away this time.
·                     Who has betrayed you and thrown your love away over and over.  Who is the most undeserving of your love?
·                     God loves and accepts even them???
AS I HAVE LOVED . . . YOU LOVE
From God’s perspective, can there be a more ungrateful people?  He gives them a garden and they eat themselves out of house and home.  He gives them freedom and they melt down their wealth to make an idol.  He provides them an ark to worship and they cry because they don’t have water, he provide them water and they cry because they don’t have bread, he provides the manna and they cry because they can’t keep it in the cupboard.  God gives them a land and they want a king like everyone else.  God gives them prophet after prophet and they don’t listen.  God gives them chance after chance and you would think they would be grateful, but they only want more.  It makes me think of Noah’s Michael’s book, If you take a mouse to the movies he’ll want popcorn and if you give him popcorn he’ll want a drink , and if you give him a drink he want something else and something else and something else.
·                     You know what?  We are still demanding and ungrateful.
·                     Who is the most demanding ungrateful, person you know?  Who do you know for whom you can never do enough?
·                     God loves and accepts even them???
AS I HAVE LOVED . . . YOU LOVE

When we think about those who are hard to love--
Jesus love comes from God’s love that is an accepting love.  Accepting the unimportant, accepting the unlovable, accepting the undeserving, and accepting the ungrateful.  Accepting the tax collectors.  Accepting the prostitute and the adulteress.  Accepting the Samaritan woman at the well and the ritually unclean woman with a flow.  Accepting the Pharisees and the high priests.  Accepting the fishermen and accepting you and me.
·                     Jesus says, AS I ACCEPTED you when you were considered unimportant.  .YOU MUST ACCEPT AND LOVE the ones you consider unimportant even when no one else does.
·                     Jesus says, AS I ACCEPTED you when you were virtually unlovable.  .  YOU MUST ACCEPT AND LOVE others even when it is hard because they smell bad or are hard to look at.
·                     Jesus says, AS I ACCEPTED you when you were undeserving.  .  YOU MUST ACCEPT AND LOVE others even when they are demanding and manipulative.
·                      Jesus says, AS I ACCEPTED You in spite of the fact that you were ungrateful.  .  YOU MUST ACCEPT AND LOVE others even when you know you will not get a medal, a pat on the back or even a thank you.

Jesus said AS I HAVE LOVED . . . YOU LOVE

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