May 21, 2017 – The 6th Sunday of Easter
© 2017 Evan D. Garner
Audio of this sermon can be heard here.
The hardest part about
unconditional love is the unconditional part. As an absolute, unconditional
love crumbles into dust as soon as we put any limits or restrictions on it. You
can’t love someone unconditionally as long as he loves you back. You can’t
pledge someone your unconditional love if there’s ever a chance that she’ll do
something to make you change your mind. You can’t tell your children that you
love them unconditionally and then show them with your actions that your love
is something that disappears as soon as they screw up. Well, you can tell them
that you love them unconditionally, but they’ll know better.
I believe that God loves
us and the whole world unconditionally. I believe that there is nothing that we
can do to make God love us any more and that there’s nothing we can do to make
God love us any less. God doesn’t love us because of the prayers we say,
because the good deeds we do, or because of the faith we hold in our heart. God
loves us because that’s who God is. And Jesus Christ, the one whom humanity crucified
yet whom God raised from the dead for our sakes, is the ultimate expression of that
unconditional love. Even when we actively refuse God’s love and do our very
best to thwart it, God still loves us exactly the same.
Because I believe in
God’s unconditional love, I have had a hard time this week with the opening
line of today’s gospel lesson: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Even a single “if” has the power to eviscerate unconditional love. As a
fragile, anxious, ego-centered human being, I crave unconditional love, yet I spend
most of my time inventing ifs that threaten to undo it. If I were a better
husband, my wife would be happier. If I were a better father, my children would
be more likely to reach their full potential. If I were a better priest, think
of how great this church could be! If I were a better friend… If I were a
better boss… If I were a better son… When I hear Jesus say, “If…,” I go into a
panic. Not him, too! What if this truly unlosable love somehow depends on me
and my faithfulness? I’ve spent the whole week reading and rereading these
words, continually reminding myself to pay attention to what Jesus actually
says and not what my fears have invented. Jesus doesn’t say, “If you keep my
commandments, I will love you.” He says, “If you love me, you will keep my
commandments.”
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. For what it’s
worth, I think we should take Jesus at his word. Not only does the conditional
part of that statement have nothing to do with whether Jesus will love us, it
also doesn’t have anything to do with whether we do the kinds of things that would
make Jesus smile. The keeping of the commandments is the conclusion. It’s the part
that is always true as long as the condition is met. And, in this case, the
condition is as simple as love. If we love Jesus, we will keep his
commandments. And that sounds to me like we’d be better off spending less time
worrying about whether we’re doing what Jesus wants us to do and more time focused
on whether we’re loving him the way he invites us to. If we love Jesus, we will
keep his commandments.
But can it really be as
simple as that? What about the parent whose last words to her teenage daughter
when she drops her off at college are, “If you really love me, you’ll behave
yourself?” Is that really a no-strings-attached kind of offer? Does that mother
really mean that if her daughter loves her then she’ll stay out of trouble?
Well, I think it depends on whether that mom is inviting her daughter into the
kind of mutual, self-giving love that Jesus has for the world or merely using
love as a poor disguise for her parental expectations for “lady-like” conduct.
With Jesus, however, the offer is genuine. He knows that if we love him—and the
word here for “love” is “ἀγαπᾶτέ”—we will have given ourselves over to the kind
of transformative, selfless love that has the power to change us and the world.
Maybe it’s worth stopping
for a moment to review just what those commandments are anyway. What are those
commandments that Jesus has given to his disciples—the commandments the
completion of which seems automatic for anyone who truly loves Jesus? In John’s
gospel, there is really only one commandment that Jesus gives to his disciples,
though in chapters 13, 14, and 15, he gives it to them several different times
in a few different ways. We hear of this commandment when he is sharing his
final meal with his closest friends. After he washes their feet, he says to
them, “For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to
you…I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have
loved you, you also should love one another.” That’s it. Even the commandment
itself is an invitation to love. (Yes, it’s worth noting that Jesus tells
Nicodemus that he must be born again, but that seems like the kind of new,
Spirit-led life that he envisions when he tells his disciples to love each
other just as he has loved them.)
If we love Jesus, we will
love others just as Jesus himself has loved us. And why? Because that kind of love
automatically begets more of itself. It’s as automatic as the if-then
statements that tell our computers and smartphones how to operate. Jesus has
loved us, and he has invited us to share in that love. And we cannot
participate in that love without reflecting it back to everyone else in our
lives. You can’t encounter unconditional, no-strings-attached, self-giving love
without feeling the pull to enter into that love, and, once you’ve shared that
love with the one who first gave it to you, it changes you. Love without limits
is the single most powerful force in the universe. Once it grabs a hold of your
heart and mind and soul, it sets you free to love other people recklessly,
vulnerably, without conditions, and without limits. If you learn to love Jesus,
you will learn to love others with that same love. It always happens.
Most relationships in
this world are built upon the logic of quid pro quo. If you do this for me, I
will give you that in return. But that’s not how unconditional love works.
Unconditional love says I have something to give you no matter what you will
give me in return. Think about that. Think about how powerful that is. Think of
all the ills in this world that are ripe for the precise transformation that
only unconditional love can give. That is the work that Jesus has given us to
do. But we’ll never get any of it done if we place our emphasis on the wrong
side of the equation. If we spend all our energy trying to do the thing that Jesus
has commanded us to do, we’ll always come up short. That’s because
unconditional love can’t start with an agenda. It always starts as a response
to love. Our job is simply to love Jesus. We must love him as much as he has
loved us. We must let his love awaken in us a reciprocal love that spills out
in ways that change the world. Unconditional love is the only thing that has
the power to make that possible, and that is exactly what we have been given by
God in Jesus Christ. May his love shape us into the love-filled, love-sharing people
whom God has made us to be.
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