“Just As…”

A Sermon Based Upon John 13: 31-35 , NRSV

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin.  

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Fourth Sunday of Easter, April  24thth 2016

When you saw the title of today’s message you probably thought of that well known invitational hymn,  “Just As I Am, Without One Plea.”   It’s a beautiful hymn, so beautiful and important to Billy Graham that he named his “Biography” after it.    

But what few recall about this great hymn is that it was written by Charlotte Elliot.  She was a handicapped woman living in 19^th century England,  made an invalid by illness and confined to her home most of her days.   As a wealthy daughter of a silk merchant,  Charlotte was not feeling sorry for herself, but she wrote this hymn to provide scholarships for the daughters of clergyman in England, so  they could gain a higher education.  

While Charlotte wrote the hymn about her conversion, coming to God as she was, she was also writing the song to help other women become more than they were.   It was not originally thought of as an invitational hymn, but a hymn of gratitude for ‘the Lamb of God’ who died for us all, just as we are, so we need not remain as we are..  We can become more because God’s love ‘hath broken every barrier down.’  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Elliott).

Thinking about how much ‘more’ we are because we are ‘loved’ is the ‘Just as…’ I’m thinking about in today’s message.    As Jesus was sharing his final meal with his disciples, just before his crucifixion, Jesus said,  “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (13:34).   Jesus believed that if his disciples would ‘love’ each other, just as he has loved them, they would accomplish much, much more.

I GIVE YOU A NEW COMMANDMENT… (34a)

Interestingly, Jesus does not call this a ‘recommendation’, but he calls love ‘a new commandment’.   That brings up a very important question; How do you ‘command’ love?  And if you have to ‘command it’ is it really love?

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet were star-crossed lovers commanded ‘not’ to love each other.   What made that story so powerful was that it was written when ‘arranged marriages’ were coming to an end.  It recognized that love by choice was better than love by force.   But have marriages freely chosen proven to be better, more durable?   Today most people marry for love, but ‘choice’ has not made ‘lasting love’ easier to find or define.   Few would want to go back to ‘arranged marriages’, but love is not as easy making a free choice. 

Perhaps it’s because love is more than a ‘choice’ that Jesus commands his disciples to love one another.  Jesus is give this as a ‘new commandment’, because it is a whole new kind or quality of commandment.  It is not a commandment of love that is intended to ‘force’ his disciples to relate to each other this new way, but it is a command they can freely receive and obey.  This ‘new’ way of relating to each other in community was not based upon social standing, upon rank, upon achievements, upon wealth, upon talent, nor upon any other sort of negative or positive qualification.  The only qualification for this ‘new commandment’ was to freely choose to obey this ‘command’ of having love for ‘one another’.  It is a command, but it’s a command that is freely given, freely received, never coerced, and never forced.

BY THIS EVERYONE WILL KNOW… (35)

It is through this ‘new’ command that ‘everyone’ will learn what love means.   The love among Jesus’ disciples is to be a love that radiates outward from his disciples to everyone else.   “They will know we are Christians, by our love….” the song rightly says.   This is not only the best way they know, this is the way they should know, and the only way they can ever really know that we are who we say we are.   They know we are Christians by our love.

Consider again, Jesus words: “By this everyONE will know….”  That’s a lot of ‘ones’ isn’t it?  My parents taught me how to appreciate “ones”.   When I wanted more than one dollar,  they taught me to appreciate the power of ones--- ones make fives, ones make tens, ones make twenties, ones make hundreds too, and so on.  You should not just only go for the big money,  only as if five makes tens, tens makes twenties and twenties makes hundreds.   If you only see the big money, you’re not seeing what’s really there; all those ones.   If you don’t have the ‘ones’ behind the fives, the tens, the twenties, even the hundreds, all you really have  is ‘nothing’.   Without the “ones” you have nothing.   Learn the value of the ones and you’ll eventually find the 5’s, 10’s, the 20’s, and so on.   “Don’t even walk over “one” penny on the ground”, that’s what they said.   In the same way, through loving each other by loving each one, we also find the way to loving everyone--one person-at-time.   This is how Jesus’ disciples know who we are, who he is, one at a time.   Only the loving of each one gives us the power to share love with ‘everyone’.  

Loving ‘each one’ is certainly not easy to learn in a world filled with so much hate, so much violence, so much fear, so much selfishness, and so much self-centeredness.  We live in a world where it is much easier lock our doors, close our minds, and close our hearts out of fear for what might happen.  Some time ago, with great insight into human reality, the United Methodist church came up with a wonderful slogan for their churches; “Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Doors”.    This slogan must had a lot of forethought because it goes straight to the core about what church is supposed to be.   The order in this slogan rightly suggests that the church will not have ‘Open Doors’ until we also have “Open Minds” and we do not have “Open Minds” until our “Hearts” are open, both toward the world and toward each other.     Here’s the catch.  We cannot remain open to those OUTSIDE of the fellowship, unless we also keep our ‘hearts open’ to each other INSIDE the fellowship?   When we have an open door policy, if we don’t first love each other, people will find the door again, so there will remain no one left to witness to God’s love.   

JUST AS I HAVE LOVED YOU….YOU SHOULD LOVE  (34b)

To love each other on the inside is hard too, sometimes even harder than loving those on the outside.  This is why love is a ‘command,’ not a recommendation.  Love takes work, hard work. As the gospel reminds us very well;  loving can kill you.  Think about Jesus.  Love was not easy for him. It was not easy for him to love his disciples at times.  It was not easy to love his people who rejected him.  It was even difficult to love his family, who did not always support him. 

You’ve no doubt had relatives that are hard to love.   As a kid, I had and aunt.  I loved her but it was hard to like her at times.  I tried once to stay with her on the farm overnight.  She never married and was all alone.  I felt sorry for her, but I couldn't stay overnight.  I had to call my parents to come and get me.   It wasn’t simply that I was homesick.  She complained too much.  She got old before she was old.  She liked Oral Roberts, who I thought was a little weird.  It was more than a little fellow could stand.  Sometimes I'd try to tell her she should stop complaining, but mom would tap me to stop.  I'm sorry for that now, but it was sometimes difficult to like many things about her.  I loved her, but liking was hard.

We’ve all known people who are hard to like or love.   They may be relatives, fellow church members, or neighbors, who are difficult to love.  Love is never easy. It is not easy because people are people.  It is not easy because people are sinners and because we are sinners too.   But still, where else do we learn the hard work of love unless it is at church?  Before we can speak about God’s love for the world, we must learn to love those we are with.  

Why must we learn love?  Because this gospel that saves us is a gospel based upon the saving and redemptive power of love.  It is the power of saving love that is being exemplified right here in this Jesus who, in our text, is about to die for love’s sake.   I find it remarkable the commandment to love comes on the heels of Judas being told by Jesus, “Do quickly what you are going to do” (13:27).   We all know what Judas is going to do, but now we see what Jesus does next?   Our text says, “When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him….’” (13:31).   God is being ‘glorified’ through Jesus’ obedience to God’s love.  And it is this obedience to love that Jesus now passes on to his disciples:  “I give you a new commandment….JUST AS I HAVE LOVED YOU, YOU SHOULD LOVE ONE ANOTHER” (13:34). 

Now, there is no mistaking what this ‘just as’ means.   Just as Jesus is willing to die to reveal God’s love, so we are to ‘love one another’ and keep revealing God’s love to the world.  This is how God’s glory gets into the world, through Jesus’ disciples who glorify God by loving each other first of all.  “By this everyone will know you are MY disciples, that you have love for one another.”  They know who you are and they know who I am, when we have love for each another.   The revelation of a loving God can only come through love.  This is why we are to love ‘just as’ God loves us through Jesus Christ.   Amen.