Love Out

John 3:14-21

Mark 12:28-34

I will be reading from two passages today.  First, the Gospel of John is one that is likely very familiar to you.  It might in fact be the most popular and public piece of Christian scripture.  And the second reading will come from the Gospel of Mark, toward the end of Jesus’ life as the end is in sight and Jesus ramps us his efforts to share his message.

Last conversations tend to have a sense of urgency about them.  Final stories and words, concluding thoughts and last expressions as someone prepares to die, tend to have a way of sticking with us.  It’s almost as if there is a last attempt to get love out.  Some people feel a need to make sure that what is important to them is known and held by the next generation.  And this seemed to be true for Jesus too.  He was really only engaged in his ministry for three years and so he had a short amount of time to point us to God and to illumine God brightly for anyone that found their way to this curious messenger from Nazareth.  He said and did a lot in a short amount of time.  And we can assume that he knew what was coming or that at least he had an idea that it would be brutal and that the political and religious leaders would want his death to make a statement and to serve as a warning to anyone who thought they might try to stand up to the Empire.  Perhaps because he knew that he wouldn’t have decades to teach and preach and love the people whom his culture had declared unworthy, Jesus was succinct.  He didn’t sugar coat any of his words and he wanted whoever would listen to know that he was serious.  He wanted his friends and followers to take his words to heart.

And so in just the third chapter, the Gospel of John cuts right to the core of things. We read, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  Most Christians have focused on the first part of this passage, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”  This passage has been present at sporting events, concerts, protests, newspapers, billboards, church signs and the list goes on.  But it seems to me that the second part of this periscope in John is the part that reflects fully what Jesus’ life was really about.  “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  Jesus life was not about narrowing the scope of God’s live, but in fact widening it.  The authors of the Gospel of John wanted to be sure that its readers would be really clear:  Jesus came not to condemn but to save.  Faithful throughout the course of human history would have been well served to remember this core truth:  Jesus’ life was about love.  Lest we lean into condemnation, Jesus rights our eyes to love.  He used the short time that he had to exude love, to share love, to ground even his harshest words in love.  And even with all of his intensity and fervor, with all of his preaching and teaching, traveling and healing, somewhere along the way, the Gospel writers managed to capture the particularities and nuances of the love in which he grounded his life.

The Gospel of Mark, the oldest Gospel and closest to the events of Jesus’ life makes sure to include his most important commandment.  We read of a discussion between Jesus and a lawyer about what is in fact the most important piece of his message.  It doesn’t surprise me at all that it would be a lawyer that would try to pin Jesus down.  And Jesus doesn’t hesitate, even for a moment.  Jesus, says, Listen Up! Hear, O Israel!   First, let me tell you that the Lord our God is one; and that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.  The second is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 

But as much as I understand Jesus’ commitment to love of all kinds, I have always found this commandment to be quite curious.  Why neighbors?  Why wouldn’t he find it more important to ask us to love our family (something that in my experience can be far more difficult than loving our neighbors)?  Or why didn’t Jesus ask us to love our children or those depending on us for care?  Of course, Jesus’ profound immersion in his Jewish faith would have assumed that family would come second only to God and thus he put his energy into asking something far more radical for his time.  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

I grew up in a place where, for the most part, each home sits on a generous plot of land, at least big enough to avoid thinking about what the neighbors are doing or not doing.  We were friendly with all of our neighbors, with the exception of the house across the street that had a wolf for a dog.  Champ became the arch nemesis of all of our childhood scenes that played out on Cottonwood Road.  On occasion a neighborhood skirmish would emerge and there would be periods of time where the adults would avoid one another, while we would continue playing, blissfully ignorant of whatever had ensued.  We had neighborhood BBQ’s and potlucks, neighborhood Christmas parties and first day of school photo shoots while we pretended to hate our parents as the bus pulled up.  Neighbors were family but we had enough space between us to make loving them possible.

But last spring, when I ventured to the Middle East on a pilgrimage, I realized for the very first time the importance of Jesus’ request.  One of our side trips took us to the town of Nazareth in the region of Galilee where most scholars believe Jesus was born and spent his childhood.  We visited a church that celebrates Jesus’ mother Mary as it sits almost on top of the caves that served as home to generations of people who lived there.  The area was under excavation and was partially exposed for public viewing.  Our group was invited to spend some time examining the cave from above.  And while it was difficult to make out much in the way of details, I was mesmerized.  As I stood their trying to imagine what it would be like to live in a cave, one of the museum’s archeologists told us that it was not just family that lived in the cave, connected to another cave, connected to another cave, it was a neighborhood.  Families stacked upon families.  While the women boiled water on the fire, if there was a need for a spice, a holler would be all that was required for it to arrive.  The whole village lived in the caves and there was little more than a wall a few inches thick to separate them from one another.  It turns out that in Jesus’ time, loving ones neighbors would have been both extremely difficult and extremely necessary.  If you didn’t make an effort to love your neighbor you might not be able to survive.  Neighbors meant support in protecting the village, help with the care and nurture of children; neighbors meant sharing in the work of food preparation and maintaining the structural integrity of the shelter. 

But for some reason, even with the reality of cave living, it must not have been assumed that people in Jesus’ time found it easy to love their neighbors.  If that were true, why would Jesus go to great lengths to speak and teach of its importance?  Why would Jesus put this commandment second only to loving God? 

It seems to me that Jesus put these loving God and loving our neighbors together because we can’t do one without the other.  Welcoming the stranger and loving people who frustrate us and play their music loud or leave their dogs outside to bark is not easy, but it is a way that we grow in love and a way that we love our God.  I wonder if Jesus asked us to love our neighbors for the simple reason that he knew that we would meet God.  Jesus’ whole life was about love, but not the easy love, instead it was the love that is required in the act of welcoming the stranger and making room for all those whom the world cast aside.  It would have been easier if Jesus had asked to tolerate our neighbors or to be nice enough to ensure that they would bring us soup when we are sick, but instead he asked to love them.  He asked us to love not just those we know, but those we don’t know in an attempt to know God. 

As we continue to journey together in the wilderness of Lent, I wonder what steps we might take to love our neighbors.  Do we even know our neighbors?  Do they know us?  Is there something small we might do to show them that we worship a God who welcomes us all?  Friends, if we believe that Jesus’ life was about love, then our life should be as well, but not just the easy love.  We are invited to love God, to love ourselves, to love our neighbors.  Jesus asks us to love our way in and to love our way out into the world, even the world that awaits us right next door.  Amen.