Love Urges Us On - Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
June 16, 2024
When our daughter and son in law moved overseas to
Finland for Alex to pursue her master’s degree, Landry’s family in Texas
thought that was just about the wildest thing they could ever imagine. Not only
were they not moving to Texas which was a sore spot, but jumping across the
pond of the Atlantic. And to think he would “up and leave all this behind.” He
as the husband would do this for his wife? What you do for love. Can you think
of something you have done for love, that was maybe out of your comfort zone,
or something that felt wildly illogical at the time, or seemingly out of step
with the world around you? I’ve been
asking that question a lot lately and have heard about people who married
young, sure they knew everything they needed to, only to realize later looking
back they didn’t know so much but look how good it turned out anyway. Or maybe
it’s been an adventure in parenting, or an adventure you said “yes” to because
of what it meant to someone else you loved and love urged you on.
Maybe you can understand in one sense what Paul writes
about to followers of Jesus and what they should do because love, the love of
God, urges them on. Paul will go on to say that we are given a ministry of
reconciliation. Because that’s what urged Jesus on. We are to be ambassadors
for Christ as though God were making God’s plea to the world through us. We can
be a reflection and a witness in the world for Christ, not for ourselves. We
can be a witness to the love God in Christ has for others who may not see God
as a loving God.
You know, our world is so loud these days. “Loud” and “love”
are each four letter words, but my, what a difference. There’s a lot going on
in our popular culture, media, the news swirling around us, where loud people
say and do a lot of things claiming to be followers of Jesus Christ. From the
person with the Christian bumper sticker on the back of their car who gives you
the “one finger salute” in the construction zone when you have to merge, to the
words and deeds that people engage in that heap judgment on others. It sure is
hard to then to see that it is rooted in love.
And yet, 2nd Corinthians clearly says that it
is love that urges us on. The love that so loved the world Jesus came, not to
condemn but to save. The love from which nothing can separate us from God, we
hear in Romans. The love that Jesus says is the way everyone will know we are
Jesus’ disciples. Now I don’t want to encourage us to stop the story here and
just get loud about what others are getting wrong.
Yes, people can be loudly engaged in things that sure
don’t seem like Jesus’ love, both in small but harmful and large and
destructive ways. If we get stuck there, the only story we are telling is our
own.
That was true in the city of Corinth who boldly had a
statue of unity, while they were all pocking at each other constantly, and it
is true in a country calling itself united. God’s words tell us what love is
urging US to do-to tell God’s story. Because love is not found in mere
critique, love is found in how we choose to act, not how we react.
I wonder, what love is urging us to do as followers of
Jesus Christ? How are you being “evangelical”? Maybe from our human point of
view we hear that word and we think we know what it means. But from God’s point
of view, that word, “evangelical” means “to be a messenger of the good news of
Christ.” Our life’s grounding and purpose, the thing love urges us on to do, is
to go into the world to witness to the love of God in Christ and its power to reconcile.
So let’s reclaim this word “evangelical.” We are, after all, the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America. Let’s stop using our human point of view that has
developed. Love urges us to use God’s point of view- the lens of love,
reconciliation, and a new life to reclaim, restore, and redeem.
When in the face of “loud,” we do not “love,” we can suggest
that we’re OK with the human point of view of discord and deception, and even
destruction. Love is urging us on. I know many of you live this love. Some of
you here give out food with love, not judgment. Others of you quilt and make
fleeces giving comfort to others, no matter who they are or how they came to be
in a place of struggle. There are more ways than time allows and to speak of
tangible ways of loving that point people to God. But I also want to talk about
another way to love that is less tangible, and more about presence. This past
weekend at the Pride Festival, we had a table with a Grace Lutheran banner and
we were in the parade wearing bright blue shirts that said, “Grace for Every
Body.” We had this table with stickers, fuzzy yarn balls that are like mini
hugs, and candy and a photo station for selfies. Small tokens of joy and love
in the world, but also of connecting, having conversations with people we did
not know who sought us there as a church, even as much of the world claims our
time is “post- Christian.” Where maybe their own friends would say “I don’t
know if I would approach that group.
One woman saw me wearing a pastor collar with my blue shirt and all of us around and she said, “My friends were asking if I knew a church
where we would feel loved. And I was looking for them (and for me). I wasn’t
sure but the answer was to open my eyes and here you are! Can I take a picture
of all of you wearing your shirts? I want to tell my friends, ‘I think I found that
church!’” Out of comfort zones, wildly illogical things, seemingly out of step
with your world goes both ways, you see.
Another person wants to deepen their faith life, but
they’ve been hurt and they’re skeptical. But they hovered around us for awhile
and I finally learned it was one of their friends goes here. That one small
caring relationship mattered to them and love urges us on.
You see, the ways that most people get here, in the room
and on livestream and the radio, are not often because they saw an ad for Grace
in the newspaper although that does sometimes happen. It’s often small conversations,
where love urges us on to be ambassadors for Christ. Love urges us on, changing
not only our viewpoint but that of others. Not by force, but by being witnesses
to the love that builds bridges, heals wounds and knits the fabric of the world
back together. It matters that we help others see there is more capacity int
his world for “love” than there is for “loud.” It can be asking someone having
a rough time, “Can I pray for you? Can I pray with you?” It can be asking them
if there is a community of support, maybe because it will remind them that they
do, or it will show them that this does
matter and that maybe that community is this one right here at the corner of
Beaver and Garner.
It can be telling people that God loves them. You’d be
amazed how many people don’t hear that.
We don’t do this to be seen or even to draw people to
Grace Lutheran Church. We do it because true love settles for nothing less than
everyone being drawn to God, the God who loves them. Our world needs this love.
Our times may look different from those of Paul and of Jesus, but the heart of
the message is still the same. And our foundation is love.
So, now since I talked about getting out of our comfort
zone, I’m going to ask you to join in singing. Many of you who are my age or
older are familiar with the song, “How Firm a Foundation.” This is new words
written by a hymnwriter, Carolyn Winfrey Gillette and we’re going to sing it a
cappella, meaning on our own steam. Please join me:
The love of Christ Jesus is urging us on,
For we find our life in what Jesus has done.
He died and is risen; now we're dead to sin!
No longer our own, we have new life in him.
The love of Christ Jesus is changing our view;
In valleys of death, we see God's reign break through.
Where others seek vengeance, Christ calls us to live
Forgiven in him — able, then, to forgive.
The love of Christ Jesus leads Christians to care;
When people are hungry, he calls us to share.
He gives us a job — to get out of our pews,
To work for God's justice and live the good news.
The love of Christ Jesus is urging us on
When others grow weary or say hope is gone.
He calls us to serve him again and again;
No longer our own, all our life is in him.
May it be so- Amen!
“The Love of Christ Jesus is Urging Us On,” Text: Copyright © 2012 by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. All rights reserved. Used with permission. www.carolynshymns.com/
Sermon Text: 2
Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
6So we are always confident;
even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the
Lord—7for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8Yes, we
do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with
the Lord. 9So whether we are at home or away, we make it our
aim to please him. 10For all of us must appear before the
judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been
done in the body, whether good or evil.
14For the love of Christ urges
us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have
died. 15And he died for all, so that those who live might live
no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.
16From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of
view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him
no longer in that way. 17So if anyone is in Christ, there is a
new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2024 All rights
reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
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