Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "The Only Commandment You’ll Ever Need"

Text: John 13:31-35

"I give you a new commandment,

that you love one another.

Just as I have loved you,

you also should love one another."

As if the other several hundred commandments found in the Jewish Law weren’t enough,

Jesus adds another one, a new one:

Love one another … just as I have loved you.

But this one may be as difficult

as all the other 613 put together.

After all,

you can make yourself not steal.

You can make yourself not kill.

But how can you make yourself love someone?

In truth, you can’t.

At least, not in the way that

our culture chooses to define love.

You can’t make yourself fall in love with someone

even if "logically," they seem to be a good match …

You can’t somehow force yourself into a friendship

if that other person’s priorities and values are vastly different from your own.

Many years ago, now,

I attended kindergarten in a Lutheran church.

And one of the rules we were supposed to live by was

"In this school, we’re all friends."

I didn’t understand that at age five.

In fact, at times I thought it was pretty stupid!

I mean, we had a couple of bullies in our class of about 50 kids …

The kind who would come up and sock you in the arm

for no apparent reason,

call you names,

pick on the smaller kids,

cheat at games,

you know the type.

How could my teachers say,

"In this school we’re all friends,"

with junior terrorists like Debbie and Brian running around?

They certainly weren’t on my list.

I understand now what my teachers meant …

And five years old isn’t too early

to start learning it.

Even more than friendship, though,

our society idealizes romantic love.

We still operate with a controlling fantasy that

we will grow up, fall in love, get married or the equivalent,

and live happily ever after,

just like in the fairy tales!

But it doesn’t happen like that …

some of us get married and it’s a disaster …

others stay single and are perfectly content …

even those who get married and stay married

know it’s no fairy tale!

"Happily ever after" is hard work,

and some days there’s no "happy" about it.

But we still harbor the fantasy;

we treasure it;

we can be tempted by it.

Why do you think that romance novels

are still such hot sellers,

even though they all have basically the same plot?!

We have all been taught – especially women, but everyone to a certain extent –

that romantic love, and the relationships we build from it,

is what gives our life purpose and meaning.

But you can’t command yourself

to feel that kind of love for someone.

Even less can you command them

to feel that kind of love for you.

(If we could do that,

we’d probably put Dear Abby out of business!)

The kind of love that we as Christians

are commanded to have,

is not like that.

It’s not a "warm fuzzy" feeling toward someone …

in fact, it’s hardly a feeling or an emotion at all.

It’s more like a thought process,

at least to start with.

The kind of love that Christ is talking about

is one that you can will –

that you can command yourself to have,

with at least some degree of success.

Sometimes we call this Christian love

by its Greek name, agapé.

I have heard it described as "disinterested love,"

which is a little misleading, I think …

but what it means is,

not being interested in the differences you have with someone,

but loving them without regard for those details.

It means not being interested in whether a person is

Presbyterian, or Baptist, or Hindu;

whether they are wealthy or impoverished;

whether they speak English or not;

whether they are gay or straight;

whether they voted for the right person in the last election;

whether they are for or against a stadium in Fair Park;

etc.

It means a choice on our part,

a conscious decision, an act of will,

to love those other persons no matter what.

The agapé love that we are commanded to have

is as simple and as complex as this:

we are to try to see that other person through God’s eyes.

Wanting and praying for

whatever is God’s will for him or her or them.

Whatever will bring to their life fulfillment,

and meaning, and wholeness.

Not what they say they need,

but whatever God says they need …

remembering the difference between wants and needs,

as Van pointed out to us last week.

I remember very vividly the first time

that I began to understand that kind of love,

and to realize that I was capable of it,

and how much it surprised me.

It was 1972,

and the presidential race was in full swing …

As I recall, I was a Nixon supporter,

but then what can you expect; I was only 11.

The disturbing thing to me about that election

was the presence of George Wallace.

I may hav been only 11,

but it scared me to know that someone

as racist and as narrow-minded as Wallace then was,

could go so far in national politics.

And then he got shot.

Oh, I had wanted him out of the race,

but not like that!

I remember being worried sick about him, and whether he would survive,

just as if he had been a friend of my parents’,

someone I went to church with.

He may have been a meanie,

but nobody deserved that!

It had never before occurred to me

that I could feel anything but fear or hatred

for someone that different from me.

Someone who opposed so much

that was important to me.

God expects strange things of us …

and gives us the grace and the strength to do them.

"I give you a new commandment,

that you love one another.

Just as I have loved you,

you also should love one another."

Love is commanded of us.

We can love even people we don’t much like,

like that person over there in the other pew who drives you crazy,

or the co-worker who takes credit for stuff you did,

or the neighbor who plays music too loud and too late.

We can learn to love …

and we must.

But Jesus goes on to say that,

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,

if you have love for one another."

Love is the distinguishing mark of the Christian.

Not memorizing scripture verses,

not prayer,

not coming to church every Sunday,

not putting money in the offering plate!

        -- though all of those are important.

You are known to be a Christian

by whether you love.

Which leads to an interesting conclusion:

Ultimately, love is the only commandment we need.

It includes all of the others

that we might ever need to worry about.

If we act out of love,

our behavior will be right …

or at least, as close to right

as we human creatures can approximate!

So, we don’t need the kind of artificial regulating

that some Christian groups try to impose.

It simply is not true that "good Christians"

must speak in tongues,

and must not dance, or drink, or smoke, or play cards.

It also is not true that "good Christians"

cannot divorce, and cannot use birth control,

and must confess to a priest or it doesn’t count.

For some people, those are meaningful definitions and constraints;

in which case, more power to ‘em.

But to suggest that, because it works for them,

all Christians must do it or be considered "not Christian"

… is simply wrong.

That’s law, not gospel.

Even worse is the notion that

because such rules and regulations work for some Christians,

they should be applied to everyone.

Thirty years ago,

I thought segregationists in national politics were scary …

That’s nothing compared to the agenda

of many Christian fundamentalists

currently trying to make the rest of us over in their image.

Now, I am not suggesting this morning

that we ought to throw out the rest of the Bible

except for these few verses.

There is much else in the Bible that is extraordinarily helpful

in putting flesh on the bones of this stark and simple commandment.

It is not always easy, in the world we live in,

to determine what is the most loving thing to do.

Modern medicine has surrounded us with questions

that our ancestors didn’t have to deal with:

Parents constantly have to question

what the most loving thing is do with their children.

Especially teenagers.

Adult children have tough decisions to make

about the most loving thing to do for

parents who can no longer care for themselves.

Add to that the fact that

sometimes love has to be tough.

Jesus never let the disciples off easy,

even though he loved them fiercely.

We too have to make tough-love choices:

disciplining our children,

confronting friends and loved ones about destructive behaviors,

and so on, and so on.

Sometimes, it does seem that life would be a whole lot easier

if we just had a bunch of rules to follow.

But that’s not the way God decided it should be.

God has given us lots of guidelines,

and we probably ought to give those the benefit of the doubt,

the vast majority of the time!

But God has also given us free will …

We can decide for or against those guidelines.

And we can decide for the wrong reasons, or for the right reason.

God has also given us the law – the commandment – of love.

Our new commandment.

The only one that we need.

That we love one another,

just as Christ has loved us.

And act, and live, in the light of that love.

By this, everyone will know that we are his disciples,

if we have love for one another.

Not the easiest commandment anyone ever wrote –

in fact, in comparison, "not dancing" is easy!

But by far the most rewarding,

and the only one that has a hope

of bringing peace and justice to the world.

Love one another.

Not just each other, here in this place …

but even the kindergarten bullies,

even the segregationists and the fundamentalists,

even those who refuse to love you in return.

Love one another,

as Christ has loved you.

Amen.

© 2004 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)