St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday sermon – Fourth Sunday of Easter, May 3, ’09
“Know Love! Life Lay Down!”
Text: 1 John 3:16-20
When it comes to doing business, most business people will tell you, “Business is business. Sometimes business is good, sometimes business is bad.” The bottom line to most businesses is offer a product or products people need, make it pay off, make money, and don’t forget to provide good service.
What the two banks in Minden are about is the business of handling money in order to make money. Other businesses we need around us deal with selling cars, selling farm machinery, real estate; selling clothes, selling groceries, excavating, land-leveling. And to that I can add it’s no longer out of the ordinary to hear farmers today referred to as businessmen -- and farming & everything related to farming described as “agri-business”. Growing corn, growing beans, buying & selling cattle, raising sheep, raising chickens to eat, raising chickens for eggs, it’s all business, hard work – providing needed income for farm operations and farm families.
But as for churches, churches are different, aren’t they? Churches are not what most people would call a business. Large mega-churches may have Business Managers, Boards of Directors, large facilities to maintain, huge budgets, financial responsibilities, pay-rolls to meet, but that’s not what churches are for.
The business of churches is not to be businesses but to be communities of faith. The business of churches is not for those who belong to a church or go to a church to be in it for themselves. It is not the chief business of churches to be survival-minded or to be avid supporters of the status quo.
Rather the chief business of churches is to be about the business of being servants, being servant-minded, servant-motivated, servant-directed, actively carrying out Christ’s new commandment to love one another as God in Christ has loved us, or as the author of 1 John says, the business of churches is to announce the Good News of the Gospel, to provide Word & Sacrament ministry that enables us to believe in the risen Lord Jesus Christ as Savior & Lord, and (last but not least) as Jesus Christ laid down His life for us, in love we in Christ’s church ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
How do we know love? How do we grow in love? How do we show love? How do we build each other up in love? In this little letter at the back of the New Testament called 1 John, written by the apostle John, we hear in the Epistle reading for this 4th Sunday of Easter, This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
Since this 4th Sunday of Easter is traditionally called Good Shepherd Sunday I have to tell you a story about a shepherd that made me smile when I first read it, then made me humble when I applied it to us in the church knowing or not knowing what the main order of business is for us in Christ’s church in today’s post Christian-world.
A shepherd’s business is to know his flock, know his sheep.
The story I have to tell you is of a shepherd herding his flocks in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand new Jeep Cherokee comes roaring toward him in a cloud of dust. The driver, a yuppie, (a young upwardly-mobile professional person) wearing a custom-made suit, loafers with tassels, wrap-around sun glasses, silk shirt & silk tie, leans out the window and asks the shepherd:
“If I can tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?”
The shepherd looks at the yuppie, then at his large, peacefully grazing flock and answers, “Sure!”
The smartly dressed yuppie parks Jeep Cherokee, whips out his Blackberry, connects to the Internet, surfs to a NASA page where he calls up a GPS navigation system, scans the area and opens a database to view spreadsheets with complex formulas. Finally, he prints a 10 page report on a mini-printer & says: “You have exactly 1,586 sheep!”
“That’s correct!” says the shepherd, “As agreed, you can take one of the sheep.” The shepherd watches the young man make a selection and lift it into his Cherokee.
As the Cherokee starts to pull away, the shepherd calls out: “If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me my sheep back?
“Okay, why not?” answers the young man, stopping his car.
“You are a consultant” say the shepherd.
“That’s correct,” says the yuppie. “How did you guess?”
“Easy,” answers the shepherd. “You turn up here without being asked! You want to be compensated for information I already have. And you don’t know anything about my business because you just took my dog.”
Do you know anyone like that who doesn’t know anything about the business of being Christ’s church, anyone who thinks that the business of being Christ’s church involves nothing more than just belonging to a church or counting the people who go to church?
Do you know anyone who thinks all the church is interested in is your money?
Do you know anyone who says they believe in God and they can be Christian and raise their family Christian without going to church or just reading their Bible at home?
Do you know people who think “Christians are hypocritical, un-loving, judgmental, boring, and too political?”
What do you and I know about the business of the Good Shepherd?
What do we know about love? How do we know what love is?
According to 1 John 3, vv. 16-18, it’s one thing to know stories about the Good Shepherd, and another thing to know the Good Shepherd.
Better than knowing about . . is knowing the Good Shepherd.
It’s one thing to say you believe in the goodness of the Good Shepherd, say you love the Good Shepherd, sing praises to the Lord Jesus Christ for being the Good Shepherd who cares for you, but it’s another thing to follow in the footsteps of the Good Shepherd.
Do you know the Good Shepherd well enough that He abides in You and You in Him?
Do you know the Good Shepherd knows you better than you know yourself and still He loves you. Do you know, do you believe with your whole heart & mind & body & soul that Jesus Christ laid down His life for you that you might know & be sure of God’s love for you?
Do you know the Good Shepherd well enough to go out of your way for others; to lay down your life in love for someone else?
When will we learn? If we know true love, do we show what true love is?
If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
When will we learn?
Love in Christ is strong and living,
Binding faithful hearts in one:
Love in Christ is true and giving.
May His will in us be done!
Love is patient and forbearing,
Clothe in Christ’s humility,
Gentle, selfless, kind, and caring,
Reaching out in charity. (LSB, no. 706, vv.1,2)
When will we learn? When will we learn? Can we tell a sheep from a dog? Can we tell a live tree from a fence post? We can talk the talk of Christian love, but can we walk the walk? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “When a chap is in love, he will go out in all kinds of weather to keep an appointment with his beloved. True love can be demanding; in fact, true love can be more demanding than law. The law of Christian love has its own imperatives
Think of a mother sitting by the bedside of a sick child through the night, impelled only by love.
Think of a little old man, a retired farmer, a widower in his 80’s still showing up to give blood at the Red Cross Bloodmobile.
Think of the folks who volunteer to visit the elderly in care homes; who deliver “Meals on Wheels”, who help provide & serve food for funeral dinners; people who work with Habitat for Humanity; who make themselves available to help with Vacation Bible Schools and Youth Camps and work hard to support Special Olympics.
The challenge of laying down our lives for brothers is focusing away from self and on others
Leo Tolstoy, historian, author went so far as to say, “The only true happiness in life is to live for others.” True happiness in this life is to see the world from a larger perspective than what’s in it for me. It is when we become concerned with others that we discover the depth of God’s love for our lives.
If we are lacking in such love, if we in our hearts know we are guilty of self-oriented vision, guilty of short-sighted vision, if our hearts do indeed condemn us that we fall short of loving as Jesus loved, then 1 John 3 also assures us,
“When our hearts condemn us, God is stronger than our hearts.”
When we confess we are unable to believe and love, know that God’s love is stronger than our condemning hearts.
In the world of business, business is business, but in the world of being Christ’s church in the world but not of the world, may the Spirit of God live in us and help us to lay down our lives for one another.
Amen
