Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 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. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
”I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples."
We half way through the season of Easter as we move toward Pentecost. It is in this season of Easter that we are asked to consider very deeply the nature of God revealed in Jesus Christ. God revealed in Jesus was not the God that many expected. This God of Jesus brought inclusion. The God of Jesus did not lightening bolt bad guys. This God revealed in Jesus suffered. This God revealed in Jesus got impatient. This God revealed in Jesus loved with a love that cuts you to the core because it is a love that genuinely knows you and still loves you - fully.
This loving God has tried through the story of our faith to come closer to us. God in the Hebrew Testament tried to draw closer to the people of Israel. But they put God off saying that God was too scary so let only Moses talk with God. Okay, God agrees and gives them 10 rules to govern their society. They create 600 and more to protect the ten. God draws close and humans push God away.
What would God be like if God were to come in person. Well, our faith testifies that this God who created all that is did so out of a steadfast bond that we describe as love. It is a love that cares for people above rules. It is a love that you tap into when you experience this way of Jesus.
The reading from 1 John teaches that to love God we must love one another. God is here with us. In the teaching of Pace e Bene workshop some of us attended yesterday, there are two hands of love. One hand is up to protect ourselves and the other hand is out to welcome the humanity of others. One hand says, I recognize we are connected. by our common humanity we walk this Earth together. We are interdependent. And the other hand says, and I am fully human and recognize that I am to stand fully upon this Earth even as you stand fully upon this Earth. Hopefully we can find ways to stand together. And when we cannot, we love one another enough to say, "Peace and Good" to you as we take separate paths. This kind of love sometimes called tough love might also be called radical love. It is love that gets to the roots of who we are.
In the Gospel, who we are is understood as being part of the body of Christ. In this gospel that body is a grapevine. There are parts of the body, the vine that have no sap. The love that is the sap in the body of Christ is all dried up and some of the branches are dead and dry. They are pruned by God and burned away. For the Gospel writer this had a lot to do with the experience of the people of his community. They had lost members. People had turned away from this Jesus and they broke off from the community. This was the pruning of God, the Gospel writer tells us. Not only that, but even those who bear fruit, those who really live this way of Jesus, they suffer. They are cut back that their faith and life might even more fully reveal this Jesus. That as suffering cuts us back, the love of God is more intensely needed to cause us to bear fruit, the outward signs of the love, peace, and the goodness of the Christ within us.
Our study this week of the Shack dealt with chapters 6-8. This novel, this fictional story, tries to impress upon the open reader that God’s love is beyond our imagination. It is not a door mat love. This is a love that confronts us and causes us to face ourselves. It is in the purity of that love that we let go of our pain and embrace our possibilities. It is in the purity of that love that hate and hostility evaporate so that a relationship that is intimate and personal can grow.
In this weeks chapters, Mack is just beginning to get exposed to this radically loving God. God keeps reminding Mack that he doesn’t really know God. Mack has come with a box that God is supposed to fit in and this God doesn’t. God takes a form that will challenge Mack. As a white man, Mack always pictured God as a white man. God thus, appears as a black woman. More, as Mack had great issues with his father, God appears as a motherly figure but goes by the name Papa, just to keep the metaphors in tension.
God teaches Mack that sometimes “when all you can see is your pain, perhaps, then you lose sight of me?” (page 98)
Further that humans are created to be loved and pain can make us feel that we are unloved and if that pain goes on unresolved long enough we can almost forget that we were ever lovable. (p.99)
“ Love and relationship. All love and relationship is possible for you only because it already exists within me, within God myself. Love is not the limitation; love is the flying. I am love.”(p.103)
This God, this one revealed in Jesus, cannot act apart from love.
The scripture asks us to abide in that love. Let it fill us up. Let us open ourselves and welcome in that healing. Even in adversity, even as our old ways are pruned away from us, even then we more fully abide in that love. And that love will heal us. That love will actually allow us to be a healing presence to others. Abide in my love and reach your fullest potential as my creatures of whom "I am very fond."
Footnote:
The Revised Common Lectionary is © Consultation on Common Texts. Texts are from the New Revised Standard Version of Holy Scripture, © 1989 by The Division of Christian
The Shack by Wm. Paul Young, Published by Windblown Media, Newbury Park, California. Copyright 2007.
