How many of you made New Year's
resolutions? How many have kept those resolutions and not broken
them? Isn't it amazing how easy it is to make resolutions or promises
and how hard it is to keep them? Eugene Peterson in his wonderful
book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, writes that he
loves to teach the Bible, especially to small groups. But he observes
"later as I would meet these same friends in their workplaces or
homes, I observed little, often no, continuity between the
electrifying insights of the Bible study and the conditions of work
or home. It is so easy to get excited and enthusiastic about the
gospel outside our gardens. But it is in our gardens that we have
been placed."
I thought of this as I read our Scripture lesson
in John's gospel. Now we need to look at the full context of John's remarks and
not take the text out of its original context (which we often do!). Jesus and
the disciples are gathered in the upper room. Jesus is coming to the end of his
earthly ministry. He now is numbering the hours and not the days of his time
with the disciples. In these final moments he has done some remarkable
things–he has taken the towel and basin and washed the feet of the
disciples. He has extended to them a common household courtesy, one usually
done by the lowest servant. This most menial task of washing the dirty feet of
tired travelers as they enter the home.
I remember the hardest challenge of the
Philippine X-treme team. We had made arrangements to visit a mountain village.
It was an uphill climb, difficult in the best of conditions. We were delayed
one day because of a typhoon so the path was literally a road of mud.
Occasionally we would sink about up to our knees and have to have our legs
pulled out of the mud hoping our shoe came up with our leg! It was somewhat
discouraging as young kids helped take our backpacks and jumped like gazelles
on the path as we trudged along. I heard more grumbling that day than on the
whole trip. However when we arrived the pastor had arranged for members of the
congregation to be present and they took off our shoes/boots, etc. and washed
our feet. It was a humbling experience but one that they insisted on doing. I
have a wonderful panoramic picture of all our shoes and socks drying on the
fence–they even washed them for us! while we rested from the climb.
Jesus has spoken of his betrayal, the difficult
days that are before the disciples. The betrayer has left. Survey a scene that
is difficult for us to understand. Why not just leave the city for the hills
for a few months? Go now under the cloak of darkness. In a few months this will
blow over and Jesus will have time to teach and heal. But this is not how the
story is to be played out.
I took a course from the Old Testament teacher
John Scammon on the book of Job. We would begin each class with a reading from
Job and then John would ask, "How would you write the story?" One member of the
class would always respond, rather frustrated at the question with, "But
Dr. Scammon we are not God!" And he would always get the same reply, "I know
you are not God and that is just my point. How God writes the story and how we
do are seldom the same." God writes in ways that we could not imagine.
Now comes our text of today, "I am giving you
a new commandment, love one another." It seems like a simple command on the
surface. After all the disciples have been with Jesus now for about three
years. They have laughed, learned, prayed and cried together. They have become
a family. They have been bound together by common experiences. However in the
coming hours one will betray him (he has already left the room), another will
deny him three times publicly and all but one will desert him. "Love one
another as I have loved you." Not an easy lot to love. There are
revolutionaries. There are those who want places of honor and prestige in the
coming kingdom they envision. And none of them ever seem to get it right. Yet
the words of Jesus come. If you want to build my church, love one another. |
This is really easier said than done. Some of us
are hard to love. We are friends with Phil and Nancy Gage. Phil and Nancy
served for many years in Thailand and back in the early 1970's we had Phil
visit us in Downeast Maine. We were able to get him into the schools, etc. to
share Thailand. I remember him telling of one of his first village preaching
encounters. He had arrived and as usual the whole village was there to greet
him and escort him to the church. He was wearing a new, white shirt. As he was
making his way to the church a young child came up to him and did something
that was really unThai, he wanted Phil to pick him up and hold him. He stretched
out his hands for Phil to pick him up… but he was dirty, naked and had a runny
nose! Now naked is not unusual… it is a warm climate with no diapers…
why wear clothes! And dirty, well he was boy! Thus Phil would ask, "What do you
do when you are on your way to preach at the church in your new white shirt and
you are asked to pick up this young boy?"
I laughed at the story and said I knew what I
would do. Twenty-five years later I was in the Philippines on my way to preach
at an evening service (I was alone, not sure where Diane was) and I found a
jeepney that was empty. I had a new barong (Philippine dress shirt) and was
wearing my newly tailored shirt for the first time. As we progressed we stopped
to pick up a mother and her two young children. There is plenty of room on the
jeepney I thought, no need to worry. But she sat as close to me as she could
and put one of her children, her son, on my lap! Now what do I do? Do I move?
Do I try to explain I am on my way to preach and this is my new barong? Then I
remember Phil's story. I smiled at her and her children and she smiled back and
let her son ride on my lap. I think I preached better than night!
It is by love that my message will be spread,
says the living Christ. For almost two thousand years we have gotten the
message wrong. We, the church, have tried to force people into God's kingdom.
Yet is not by all the sermons preached, not by all the twisted arms, not by all
the wars fought, not by all the legislation passed that the kingdom of God is
built. It is by our love for one another. Phil Yancey reminds us in his book,
The Jesus I Never Knew, that in Calvin's Geneva church, attendance and
communion were mandatory–is this love? It is not by the sword or by
legislation but by love… our love of one another.
It is a love that goes beyond human understanding.
A love that sees beyond faults and past history to future potential. A love that
sees beyond failures to success. A love that sees beyond differences to equality.
A love that kept Jesus in Jerusalem. A love that expressed itself beyond measure
at Calvary.
They would take the bread and eat it, take the cup
and drink in honor and memory of Christ's broken body and shed blood. In
repeating an ancient ritual, Passover, they would bring new meaning to a meal
of hope and expectation. They would betray, deny and desert in a few hours. And
yet days later after they had returned to the fishing nets, fished all night
and caught nothing they would meet the Christ of the upper room waiting for
them on the beach. They would see again the Lord who took the towel and basin
and kneeling before them washed their feet. They would learn in the most
powerful way the love of God for them. They would discover that the most
powerful force on earth is love. The most honored position is that
of a servant.
As we take the bread and cup today we are called
to remember: I give you a new commandment–not an easy one–"that you
love one another, just as I (Jesus) have loved you."
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