These Illustrations are based on John 13:31-35
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John 13:31-35 – Love One Another

A junior high music teacher had just organized a band in her school. The principal was so proud of the music teacher's efforts that without consulting her he decided that the band should give a concert for the entire school. The music teacher wasn't so sure her young musicians were ready to give a concert, so she tried to talk the principal out of holding the concert, to no avail. Just before the concert was ready to begin, as the music teacher stood on the podium, she leaned forward and whispered to her nervous musicians, "If you're not sure of your part, just pretend to play." And with that, she stepped back, lifted her baton and with a great flourish brought it down. Lo and behold, nothing happened! The band brought forth a resounding silence.

Sometimes we in the church are like that junior high band, unsure of our parts, tentative in our roles, reluctant to trumpet forth the music of faith that God desires of us. And that's because we have trouble deciding what's most important.

Most of the choices we make in life are not between what is trivial and what is important. Rather, most of the choices we make are usually between what is important and what is more important. This morning's Gospel reading is so timely for us because it shows us what is most important. As we gather in worship today we affirm that the greatest blessing that God has given us is God's love for us -- God's love that forgives us our sins and makes us children of God; God's love that brings us together into a fellowship with one another…

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Known by Our Love - John 13:31-35

Jesus and the apostles were celebrating that last supper together. Because Jesus was aware Judas was going to betray him, the Lord confronted him. It is an especially uncomfortable conversation that Jesus concluded by telling Judas, “Do quickly what you must do” (13:27).

After the apostle of betrayal slithered out of the room, Jesus turned his attention to those who remained. After a few preliminary remarks, Jesus delivered one of his more familiar teachings. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you will have love for one another” (vv. 34-35).

It is often pointed out that the command to love one another, in and of itself, was not a new teaching. It had been a part of Jewish tradition for centuries. In explanatory comments on the Ten Commandments, Deuteronomy 6:5 says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might.” Leviticus 19:18 adds that “you should love your neighbor as yourself.” The call to love one another was not new to Jewish teaching and it was also present in the wider Greco-Roman world.

We cannot make a case that loving one another was a new idea; at least not in the sense that it was the first time anyone heard about it. On the other hand, it seems plausible to say the newness of which Jesus spoke was that by our love for one another we will be identified as followers of Christ to the wider world. As the church camp song puts it, “They will know we are Christians by our love.”

The early church took this new command of Jesus quite seriously...

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How Do You Know My Name?

I've always loved the little story about the boy who's trying to learn the Lord's Prayer, and one night as he knelt by his bed, these words came out:

Our Father, who are in heaven
How do you know my name?

Such individualized affection will always remain a mystery to us mortals, and at the same time, let us never forget we're made in the image of that extraordinary love. And doing what Jesus did in loving each one he ever met as if there were none other in all the world is at least an ideal toward which we can reach even if it always remains utterly beyond our complete grasp.

John R. Claypool, Loving as Jesus Loved

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Closer to Christ

God never intended God's boundaries to be less than the whole world. Therefore, none of us have a monopoly on God's love. We may feel like we do when we look down on someone different than we are, or when we snicker at someone's misfortune, or when we say, "Thank you, Lord, that I am not like them," or when we say, "It's too bad they do not believe as we believe." But woe be unto us whenever we reek of such arrogance! For when we try to restrict God's grace to ourselves, we cut ourselves off from that very grace. Why? Pierre Teilhard de Chardin may have said it best, "It is impossible to love Christ without loving others, and it is impossible to love others without moving nearer to Christ."

John K. Bergland, Love without Limits, One Heaven of a Party: Year C Sermons on the First Readings, CSS Publishing Company

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Remember You Are Brothers

I am the eldest of three very strong­-willed boys. When I was growing up we had all of the fights and arguments you can imagine of rambunctious boys. Sometimes our disagreements would get so intense we would go to mother to have our righteous indignation ratified. She would often say to us, "You boys go back and resolve it, but remember you are brothers." "But Mom," we would reply, "he took my ball; he said I was a liar." "Mom, he broke the rules." But all she would say was, "You boys go back and resolve it and, remember, you are brothers." It was eventually clear that what was most important to Mother was that we behave, in such a way that demonstrated our bond as brothers. This was even more important to her than our resolution (which she also expected).

I think this is what God says to the church. "I know you have differences, but you must struggle to resolve them as brothers and sisters. This is what I expect of you because you are my children."

Jesus said it this way in the Gospel of John: "By this, everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" [John 13:35].

Nathan D. Baxter, What a Christian Community Can Offer a Polarized Society

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A Sympathetic Gesture

Edgar Guest, a renowned American poet at the turn of the century, tells of a neighbor by the name of Jim Potter. Mr. Potter ran the drug store in the small town where Edgar Guest lived. Guest recalled that daily he would pass his neighbor and how they would smile and exchange greetings. But it was a mere casual relationship.

Then came that tragic night in the life of Edgar Guest when his first born child died. He felt lonely and defeated. These were grim days for him and he was overcome with grief. Several days later Guest had reason to go to the drug store run by his neighbor, and when he entered Jim Potter motioned for him to come behind the counter. "Eddie," he said, "I really can't express to you the great sympathy that I have for you at this time. All I can say is that I am terribly sorry, and if you need for me to do anything, you can count on me."

Many years later Edgar Guest wrote of that encounter in one of his books. This is how he worded it: "Just a person across the way--a passing acquaintance. Jim Potter may have long since forgotten that moment when he extended his hand to me in sympathy, but I shall never forget it--never in all my life. To me it stands out like the silhouette of a lonely tree against a crimson sunset."

[Suggestion for follow-up on this story]

I have wondered how it is that I want people to remember me when I come to end of life's journey.

[name some accomplishments followed by]

But I really don't care if someone remembers me for that. I really don't.

I do hope that people are able to say of me at the end of my life's pilgrimage: When we were sick he came to us; when we needed help, he was there; when I was down, he lifted me up. In short, I hope that my ministry is remembered for simple acts of kindness. For if that is the case, then my life would have been worth it and I might have come close to fulfilling the greatest commandment in life: Love God and love your neighbor.

Brett Blair and Staff, www.Sermons.com

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Didn't Look Like an Elephant

There is a story about a man who had a huge boulder in his front yard. He grew weary of this big, unattractive stone in the center of his lawn, so he decided to take advantage of it and turn it into an object of art. He went to work on it with hammer and chisel, and chipped away at the huge boulder until it became a beautiful stone elephant. When he finished, it was gorgeous, breath-taking.

A neighbor asked, "How did you ever carve such a marvelous likeness of an elephant?"

The man answered, "I just chipped away everything that didn't look like an elephant!"

If you have anything in your life right now that doesn't look like love, then, with the help of God, chip it away! If you have anything in your life that doesn't look like compassion or mercy or empathy, then, with the help of God, chip it away! If you have hatred or prejudice or vengeance or envy in your heart, for God's sake, and the for the other person's sake, and for your sake, get rid of it! Let God chip everything out of your life that doesn't look like tenderheartedness.

James W. Moore, Some Things Are Too Good Not To Be True

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A Lie

Now I want to tell you a lie. Hate is an emotion we can't help. Hate is a feeling we cannot overcome. If we hate someone, it is because we just can't help ourselves. We're human. We have no choice but to hate. That is a lie. Unfortunately, it is a lie many people believe. They believe this lie in order to excuse their hatred. After all, if we can't help but hate, if hate is a feeling we simply cannot help, then hatred is never our fault, is it?

But we can help it. Hatred is a choice. We choose to hate, just as we choose to love. Oh, I know, there are people out there who believe love isn't a choice, that love is primarily an emotion, a feeling, a stirring in the loins. These are the same people who stay married for six months, then divorce. These are the people who love the idea of love but seem unable to stay in it. Love is a matter of the will - something we decide to do. Love is a choice.

Philip Gulley, For Everything a Season, Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, p. 204

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The Sign that You Follow

The sign that you followed Abraham was circumcision.
The sign that you followed Moses was keeping the Sabbath.
The sign that you followed John the Baptist was that you were baptized.
The sign that you follow Jesus Christ is that you love one another.

Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, Baker Books

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A Great Inheritance

One of the great preachers of our time is Dr. Fred Craddock. Craddock tells a story about vacationing with his wife one summer in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. One night they found a quiet little restaurant, where they looked forward to a private meal. While they were waiting for their food, they noticed a distinguished looking, white-haired man moving from table to table, visiting with the guests. Craddock leaned over and whispered to his wife, "I hope he doesn’t come over here." He didn’t want anyone intruding on their privacy. But sure enough, the man did come over to their table. "Where you folks from?" he asked in a friendly voice.

"Oklahoma," Craddock answered.

"Splendid state, I hear, although I’ve never been there," the stranger said."What do you do for a living?"

"I teach homiletics at the graduate seminary of Phillips University," Craddock replied.

"Oh, so you teach preachers how to preach, do you? Well, I’ve got a story to tell you." And with that, the gentleman pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with Craddock and his wife.

Dr. Craddock said he groaned inwardly and thought to himself, "Oh, no! Here comes another preacher story! It seems like everybody has at least one."

The man stuck out his hand. "I’m Ben Hooper," he said. "I was born not far from here across the mountains. My mother wasn’t married when I was born, so I had a pretty hard time. When I started to school, my classmates had a name for me, and it wasn’t a very nice name. I used to go off by myself at recess and lunchtime because the things they said to me cut me so deep. What was worse was going to town on Saturday afternoons and feeling like every eye was burning a hole through me, wondering just who my father was.

"When I was about 12 years old, a new preacher came to our church. I would always go in late and slip out early. But one day the preacher said the benediction so fast I got caught and to walk out with the crowd. I could feel every eye in the church on me. Just about the time I got to the door I felt a big hand on my shoulder. I looked up and the preacher was looking right at me. ‘Who are you, son? Whose boy are you?’ he asked. I felt this big weight coming down on me. It was like a big black cloud. Even the preacher was putting me down. But as he looked down at me, studying my face, he began to smile a big smile of recognition. ‘Wait a minute!’ he said. ‘I know who you are. I see the family resemblance now. You are a child of God.’

With that he slapped me across the rump and said, ‘Boy, you’ve got a great inheritance. Go and claim it.’

The old man looked across the table at Fred Craddock and said, "Those were the most important words anybody ever said to me, and I’ve never forgotten them." With that, he smiled shook hands with Craddock and his wife, and moved on to another table to greet old friends.

And as he walked away, Craddock – a native Tennesseean himself – remembered from his studies of Tennessee history that on two occasions the people of Tennessee had elected to the office of governor men who had been born out of wedlock. One of them was a man named Ben Hooper.

Governor Hooper was able to find himself despite a father who had abandoned him. Thank God he had a mother who was devoted to him.

Brett Blair and Staff, www.Sermons.com, ChristianGlobe Network

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ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS NOT IN OUR EMAIL

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Time for Love

An ethics professor at Princeton Seminary asked for volunteers for an extra assignment. Fifteen students showed up. He divided the group of fifteen into three groups of five each. He instructed the first group of five to proceed immediately across the campus to a certain spot; if they didn’t get there in fifteen minutes their grade would be affected. A minute or two later he instructed the second group to proceed across the campus to the same spot; but they were given forty-five minutes to get there. After they left he instructed the last group to go across the campus to that spot too; but they were given three hours for the trip.

Now, unknown to any of these students, the teacher had arranged with three students from the Drama Department to meet them along the way, acting as people in great need: the first one they met covered his head with his hands and moaned out loud as though in great pain; the second, a little bit further along the way, was on some steps lying face down as if unconscious; the third, on the very steps of the destination, acted out an epileptic seizure. You know what the ethics professor discovered? Not one of the first group stopped, two of the second group stopped, and all five of the third group stopped. What the experiment tells us is that when we are too busy, with tight schedules and impossible deadlines, there is no time for love.

Keith Wagner, Words to Remember, adapted from Adrian Dieleman, Love One Another

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We are judged by our actions, not our intentions. We may have a heart of gold, but then, so does a hard-boiled egg.

Traditional

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Safe from Love

To love at all is to be venerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable...The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers...of love is Hell.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1960, p.169.

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Taking On Christ's Likeness

A number of years ago Henry Drummond wrote a classic sermon titled "The Greatest Thing in the World." He concluded his sermon by suggesting that if you put a piece of iron in the presence of an electrified field, that piece of iron itself will become electrified. And in the presence of that electrical field, it is changed into a magnet. As long as it remains in contact with that field of power, it will continue to attract other pieces to itself. We are like that piece of iron. In the presence of Christ, we experience his love and take on his likeness. We are changed, electrified by the Holy Spirit, to attract others to the same love of God that we experience.

Lee Griess, Taking The Risk Out Of Dying, CSS Publishing Company.

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Christian Love

A teenager came home from choir practice early one evening. His Dad asked, "What brings you back so soon?"

"We had to call off choir practice this week," the youngster replied. "The organist and the choir director got into a terrible argument about how to sing, 'Let there be Peace on Earth,' so we quit for tonight." A new command...that you love one another. Hmmm.

One thing to note - the Lord's command is not that we LIKE one another. That certainly would be nice, but to like or not to like is rooted in our emotions, and emotions do not respond to commands. The love of which Jesus speaks is NOT an emotion. It is a way of acting toward one another that says, "No matter what, I want GOOD for you, and I will do whatever I can to insure that you get it." Christian love is not something the Lord wants us to FEEL for one another but rather something he wants us to DO for one another.

As to how this love should be measured, our standard comes from the clause, "as I have loved you." That is a broad and lofty standard indeed! The love that Jesus had for his disciples began with a willingness to ignore the limits of society. He did not content himself with a little group made up of only his "own kind" - he reached out to ALL kinds, and especially to those whom the rest of the world would shun. The love of Jesus enabled him to take on tasks that would have been thought to be beneath him - servant work like washing dusty feet, for example. The love of Jesus was able to encompass the hypocrisy of Peter, the self-serving ambition of James and John, the vicious self-righteousness of Paul. It was a love that knew no limit. He loved them so much that he was willing to die for them. That became our standard for obedience. "As I have loved you...so you must love one another."

David Leininger, Sounds Just Like Mom

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Jesus Always Makes Us Better

This past week, I again read a quotation by Morris Niedenthal, who teaches and preaches at the University of Chicago. He says that Jesus accepted people just the way they were, but he never left people just the way they were because he loved them. Jesus always made them better. So often on Sunday morning, I say to a child at the communion rail as I bless them and trace the sign of the cross on their forehead, “Receive the sign of the cross upon your forehead so that you would know that you are baptized and that God loves you just the way you are.” But Jesus never leaves that person just the way they are. Jesus always makes people better. Jesus never accepts people just the way we are and leaves us just the way we are and always makes us better. Or to put it another way, Jesus sees beneath the soil to the seeds of human possibility. Or, Jesus sees inside the seeds to the possibility of what we can become.

Edward F. Markquart

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The Energies of Love

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Roman Catholic theologian, once wrote: “Sometimes after the mastery of the winds and the waves and the tides; after the mastery of the sun and the sea and the laws of gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And when we harness the energies of love, for the second time in human history, we shall discover fire.” … What if we harnessed atomic fusion? Wow! But what if we harnessed the energies of love? The world would then be transformed.

Edward F. Markquart

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Loving as Jesus Loved Us

Some years back neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote a fascinating vignette of an intriguing neurological difficulty. As some of you know, Tourette's Syndrome is a bizarre mental disorder that causes victims to have any number of physical and verbal tics. Some Tourettic people have constant facial twitches, others find themselves uncontrollably uttering verbal whoops, beeps, and sometimes also raunchy swear words. One man with Tourette's whom Dr. Sacks knew was given to deep, lunging bows toward the ground, a few verbal shouts, and also an obsessive-compulsive type adjusting and readjusting of his glasses. The kicker is that the man is a skilled surgeon! Somehow and for some unknown reason, when he dons mask and gown and enters the operating room, all of his tics disappear for the duration of the surgery. He loses himself in that role and he does so totally. When the surgery is finished, he returns to his odd quirks of glasses adjustment, shouts, and bows.

Sacks did not make any spiritual comments on this, of course, yet I find this doctor a very intriguing example of what it can mean to "lose yourself" in a role. There really can be a great transformation of your life when you are focused on just one thing--focused to the point that bad traits disappear even as the performing of normal tasks becomes all the more meaningful and remarkable.

Something like that is our Christian goal as we travel with Jesus. Our desire is to love one another—to love the whole world finally, I suppose—as Jesus loved us. To do that, we need an infusion of a kind of love that does not arise naturally from the context of the world as we know it. So as we lose ourselves in Jesus and in being his disciples, we find even our ordinary day-to-day activities infused with deep meaning as a love from another place fills our hearts. Because if sacredness happens to us at all, it happens among the pots and pans of the everyday and not just on Sundays when we feel particularly jolted by worship or on Tuesdays when we volunteer for some service project (vital though those things are, too). If we are to love as Jesus loved us, this becomes for us a daily reality that is possible if and only when the love of Christ fills us to the brim.

Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations

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The Most Powerful Word

Love is the most powerful of the potent four-letter words--hate, fear, work, life. And maybe love is the hardest of all to understand. Jesus says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another." This is absurd, if not impossible: how can anyone command love? I can hear my grandmother's voice enjoining my big brother--the only person I have ever bitten (but he had it coming!)--and me to love each another because God had given us to each other as brother and sister. We glared at each other and marveled at her naiveté. The idea of loving somebody because we were supposed to boggled our minds.

We have cheapened love by using the word carelessly. We have confused the sentimentality of the Hallmark card with the deep, dark mystery of love that is manifested for us in the incarnate Christ. Yes, love can be warm, enfolding and sheltering. Yes, love can feel good. But love can also be strong and difficult. It can be an impossible challenge.

Margaret Guenther, “No Exceptions Permitted," article in The Christian Century, May 3, 1995

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The Christian Nature of Glory

Jesus’ words in verse 31 about his NOW being glorified are properly odd-sounding considering what had just happened in the fact that Judas had fled the upper room to go forward with his dirty business. How strange that upon predicting his betrayal and upon seeing his betrayer exit the room that Jesus feels somehow “glorified.” No mother would claim that her parenthood had been fulfilled upon seeing her son get arrested for cocaine possession. No politician would declare victory upon seeing his country attacked by terrorists. Yet Jesus sees the specter of betrayal and loss and diminishment and so much else that is dire and yet feels glorified. Even in the glow of Eastertide we in the Church do well to remember what the true nature of glory is for us. We in the Church are not “glorified” when we amass political clout, business influence, or power and glitz as the world reckons those things. The nature of our glory lies elsewhere in sacrificial love, in service, and, yes, even in laying down our lives for the sake of the kingdom if it comes to that.

Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations

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It's People I Can't Stand

Lucy stands with her arms folded and a resolute expression on her face, while Charlie Brown pleads with her. "Lucy," he says, "you must be more loving. The world needs love. Make this world a better place, Lucy, by loving someone else." At that Lucy whirls around angrily and Charlie goes flipping over backwards. "Look, you blockhead," Lucy screams. "The world I love. It's people I can't stand!"

Lee Griess, Taking The Risk Out Of Dying, CSS Publishing Company.

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The Relief Pitchers

In these days of specialization, it is rare to see a professional baseball pitcher last through nine innings of a game. If he does, it is called "going the distance." More often than not, a pitcher will grow tired. His fastballs start to lose a little of their zip, and the curveballs are not as sharp as they were at the beginning of the game.

The manager will go to the mound and signal to the bullpen for a relief pitcher. Especially in recent years the strength of a professional baseball team has many times been judged by the strength and performance of those relief pitchers who come in and complete the game. In these days of selfishness and putting ourselves first, it is rare to see a love that lasts and lasts, that "goes the distance." More often than not, those of us who should be demonstrating this kind of love grow tired and weary as the "game" wears on.

Our demonstrations of love are not as caring, and the compassion grows a little less Christlike. Is it not time that we begin to love others with a love that heals, a love that goes the distance and finishes its work?

Unknown

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A Gofer in the Basement

Clearly the glory to which we are called is a strange kind of glory, rooted not in our goodness but in God's faithfulness, and characterized not by success but by servanthood. The desire for the things that mark privilege and success in this world and the quest for health are all dangerous temptations that threaten our ability to see the kind of life God in Christ has in mind for us.

This concept is illustrated cleverly in the story of Horville Sash. Horville had a very humble job in the offices of the largest corporation of the world. He worked as the gofer in the lowest reaches of the building doing what he could to help other people do their jobs, but often he wondered and thought about the floor just above his.

Then came a day when Horville found a bug scurrying across the floor. As the mail room clerk, Horville had only bugs to command - to bully. He raised his foot to flatten the helpless speck. "Spare me." The bug spoke. A speaking bug? Horville spared the bug. His reward: A wish. "I wish to be promoted to the second floor." Granted. Horville's boss told him that very day. Horville marched to the second floor like MacArthur and Patton rolled into one.

Wait. Horville heard footsteps on the ceiling of floor number two. There was a third floor. A higher level meant higher wages, more power. The next day, Horville rose to the third floor job of sales coordinator. But he wasn't satisfied, he now knew there were other floors, many others and the promotions were like kerosene to a flame. He went to the 10th floor, then to the 20th, the 50th, the 70th. Horville sat by the indoor pool on floor 96. The next day Horville discovered, and it was only by chance, a stairway leading up - to another floor? He scrambled up the stairs. He was on the roof. He was now the highest, the most powerful. Content. Horville headed for the stairway. Just as he turned to go back down to his office he saw a boy near the edge of the building with his eyes closed. "What are you doing?" "Praying." "To whom?" The boy answered, pointing a finger skyward, "To God."

Panic gripped Horville. Was there a floor above him? He couldn't see it. Just clouds. He couldn't hear the shuffling of feet. "Do you mean there's an authority above me?" "Yes." The bug was summoned, "Make me God. Make me the highest," he said. "Put me in the type of position that only God would hold if he were on earth."

The very next day, Horville began work as a gofer in the basement!

The glory of God is that he came to love us and serve us. His work was as a gofer in the basement of this world, as it were. For God came to identify with the lonely, the outcasts, the poor and the powerless. And it is our glory to live like him.

John M. Braaten, The Greatest Wonder Of All, CSS Publishing Co.

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Love of Christ

Legend has it that a wealthy merchant traveling through the Mediterranean world looking for the distinguished Pharisee, Paul, encountered Timothy, who arranged a visit. Paul was, at the time, a prisoner in Rome. Stepping inside the cell, the merchant was surprised to find a rather old man, physically frail, but whose serenity and magnetism challenged the visitor. They talked for hours. Finally the merchant left with Paul's blessing. Outside the prison, the concerned man inquired, "What is the secret of this man's power? I have never seen anything like it before."

Did you not guess?" replied Timothy. "Paul is in love."

The merchant looked bewildered. "In Love?"

"Yes," the missionary answered, "Paul is in love with Jesus Christ."

The merchant looked even more bewildered. "Is that all?"

Smiling, Timothy replied, "Sir, that is everything."

G. Curtis Jones, Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching, Nashville: Broadman, 1986, p. 225.

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The Cross Sends Us

A father overheard his two sons playing church. One of them was explaining to the other what all the parts of the liturgy were about. "Do you know what it means at the end of the service when the pastor does this?" he asked, making the sign of the cross. "It means some of you go out this way, and some of you go out that way."

The lad was right. The cross sends us and scatters us out into the world. Someone has said that the really important thing for any church is not how many it seats but how many it sends, with a strange-looking power, the greatest power the world has known, the power of suffering love. So we are sent, you and I, sent to live out our Lord's kind of whimsical and yet lavish grace and with the glory of being marked with the cross, a strange-looking glory sought by few, but which is glory indeed.

John M. Braaten, The Greatest Wonder of All, CSS Publishing Company

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The End of Solomon Grundy

Solomon Grundy,
Born on Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
This is the end of Solomon Grundy.

It is an old nursery rhyme that some of you may recall. It picks up one of the central themes of our text: the shortness of life on this earth. Jesus said to his disciples: "I am with you only a little longer."

Glenn E. Ludwig, Walking To...Walking With...Walking Through, CSS Publishing

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Cosmic Embrace

In his nearly incredible report out of South Africa, No Future without Forgiveness (New York: Image Doubleday, 1999), Archbishop Desmond Tutu's cosmic context of holy love is unmistakable: "There is a movement, not easily discernible, at the heart of things to reverse the awful centrifugal force of alienation, brokenness, division, hostility, and disharmony. God has set in motion a centripetal process, a moving toward the center, toward unity, harmony, goodness, peace and justice, a process that removes barriers. Jesus says, 'And when I am lifted up from the earth I shall draw everyone to myself' as he hangs from His cross with outflung arms, thrown out to clasp all, everyone, and everything, in a cosmic embrace, so that all, everyone, everything, belongs" (p. 265).

"Cosmic embrace." There's our answer to the sort of "purity laws" and taboos, even in Leviticus, that bear no gospel for man or beast. In cosmic embrace we rediscover the depth and scope of holy love.

John Gibbs

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Three-in-one Oil

A faithful Christian couple had some bad news from their doctor. They couldn't have any children. On the way home from the doctor they went to see their pastor to ask for prayer. Being a small parish, and not well off, the pastor worked part time for the church and ran a car repair shop on the side, so they dropped by the shop. After they explained the situation, the pastor prayed for them on the spot. He looked around, grabbed a can of three-in-one oil and quickly blessed it to anoint them for healing.

About 9 months later they had triplets! The couple once again showed up at the pastor's study and as soon as the woman saw the pastor she ran up to him, threw her arms around him and gave him the biggest hug.

"What was that all about?" He asked.

She replied, "I'm just glad you used three-in-one oil and not WD-40!"

We don’t know exactly what the pastor and the couple prayed for at the auto repair shop – healing comes in many different forms – but it sure sounds like they got an armful of answers. What we do know, and the point is highlighted in the story, is that prayer and motherhood are a necessary combination for us to begin, live, and successfully complete life.

Jef Olson

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Transmitting Love

Even when we are in mission we sometimes convey the wrong message.  A teen-aged boy informed his father of a wonderful activity that they were going to do at his church’s youth group.  They were going to hand out blankets to the homeless. This was in Cleveland, Ohio where warmth is a necessity during the ruthless northeast winter.  The young man exclaimed with fervor, “We’re passing out blankets so that we can tell them about Jesus!”  His father, simply and with certainty, corrected him.  He explained, “We don’t give blankets to the homeless to tell them about Jesus.  We give blankets to the homeless because they’re cold.” 

Do you understand the difference? If we are motivated by the idea that we’re going to make our church a bigger church, then our witness will ring false. If, on the other hand, we are motivated simply by the desire to transmit the love we have received from Jesus, then the world will gladly receive us. 

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com, story from "The Least of These” by Marc de Jeu

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The Law of the Spirit

We need our laws. Laws tell us what is acceptable behavior and what is unacceptable behavior. To be sure, society will fail if its people reject law. But law can only go so far. It can dictate to us what we can and cannot do but it is powerless to dictate to us what we think and what we feel. When Jesus says, "A new commandment I give to you," I want you to hear those words within the context of community law. When the disciples, or the Jews, talked about Commandments they were discussing laws for acceptable behavior in society. Now, I want you to hear how utterly strange these words really are, "A new COMMANDMENT I give to you: LOVE one another."

Did you catch it? A law telling us, no, commanding us to love. Rev. Richard Daggett says, this law invades the very depths of our beings; this law presumes to have jurisdiction over the way we think, the way we feel, over our opinions, our prejudices and biases, our concepts of superiority, over the way every fiber of our being, both inward and outward, responds to the world around us.

And then Richard says this: This law clarifies to us that while religion and law may exercise lordship over our actions, over the way we live, Christ wants lordship over everything we are. It is the law of the spirit and not simply the law of the letter.

And to whom does this new law apply? My brothers and sisters in Christ. It is to us.

Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com. Richard Dagget statements adapted from Minister's Manual, 1995, p. 188.

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Love One Another - The Hospice Movement

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (vv. 34-35) There is a special hospital in London for those whom other hospitals consider a lost cause. It is a hospital for those who are diagnosed as "terminal." Most people would consider such a hospital to be a very sad place, but it is not. Actually, it is a hospital filled with hope and a lot of life. The emphasis in this London hospital is on life and not on death. The truth is that several of the patients have seen remissions in the disease process instead of death. A great deal of the credit is given to the way the facility is run. The basic philosophy is different from most other hospitals. In this program the patients are expected to give themselves away in service to the other patients. Each patient is given another patient for whom to care. So, for example, a person who is unable to walk might be given the task of reading to another who is blind. The blind person would then push the wheelchair of the one who could not walk but who gives directions on where to push the chair. Is this not the new commandment to which Jesus referred? He calls us to be disciples who love one another. We are the ones who are healed and strengthened when we learn how to give and how to love. Source: Bruce Larson, Passionate People (Dallas: Word Publishers), p. 203."