Former President Reagan told a humorous story during the last days of his administration. It was about Alexander Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.
It seems that Dumas and a friend had a severe argument. The matter got so out of hand that one challenged the other to a duel.
Both Dumas and his friend were superb marksmen. Fearing that both men might fall in such a duel they resolved to draw straws instead. Whoever drew the shorter straw would then be pledged to shoot himself.
Dumas was the unlucky one. He drew the short straw. With a heavy sigh, he picked up his pistol and trudged into the library and closed the door, leaving the company of friends who had gathered to witness the non-duel outside. In a few moments a solitary shot was fired. All the curious pressed into the library. They found Dumas standing with his pistol still smoking. "An amazing thing just happened," said Dumas. "I missed."
I am amazed how many Christians have been in the church all their lives and still have missed the Gospel. So many folks still live in the Old Testament, bound by legalisms, restricted by the "Thou shalt nots" without being empowered by "Thou shalts." Some are experts at the Ten Commandments, but absolute failures at the eleventh and most important of all.
Jesus said, "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 shall know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another." (RSV)
NOTE, FIRST OF ALL, THAT THIS IS WHAT CHRIST MOST DESIRES OUT OF US--THAT WE LOVE ONE ANOTHER. We may tithe. We may teach Sunday School. We may sing in the choir, serve on the official body of our church, even make visits on behalf of our church. All of these are wonderful. But if we do not love, we have missed the Gospel.
Back to that theologian of the comic strips, Charlie Brown. Lucy stands with her arms folded and a resolute expression on her face, while Charlie Brown pleads, "Lucy, you MUST be more loving. This world really needs love. You have to let yourself love to make this world a better place in which to live!"
Lucy whirls around angrily causing Charlie Brown to do a backwards flip and screams at him: "Look, block-head, the WORLD I love. It's PEOPLE I can't stand."
Some of us RESEMBLE that remark. We love the world. It's people we can't stand.
Love who? Why everybody. Nothing could be clearer from the Gospels than that. If a Jew could love a Palestinian--I believe if Jesus were telling the story today it would be the story of the Good Palestinian rather than the Good Samaritan--if a Jew can love a Palestinian, then there is no limit on love. We are to love not only our immediate neighbors but also the cashier who checks our groceries and the cop who stops us on the expressway as well as the obnoxious people who cross our paths every day.
We are to put our faith into action through loving deeds. As someone has said, "We are judged by our actions, not our intentions. We may have a heart of gold--but so does a hard-boiled egg."
Comedian Jerry Clower tells a story about Christian love in action. Two Christian businessmen were having lunch in a downtown restaurant. The waitress serving their table dumped a bowl of hot soup right over one of these businessmen.
Everybody gasped and stared. As Clower tells it, "They just couldn't wait for the manager to run out and fire this lady. They just couldn't wait for this man, standing there, dripping, with his suit ruined, to cuss this waitress out, but the fellow looked at that waitress and said, `Young lady, I'm so sorry this happened to you. I know it embarrasses you.'" (1)
How would you have handled that situation? Can you love as the Master would have us love? Can any of us do that? How?
We must examine our text carefully. Note that Jesus says, "As I have loved you, love also one another." If you took all the psychology texts, boiled them down to their essential truths and from that extensive effort sought to produce one statement about the character of humanity that would be the most profound statement ever uttered, you could not improve on this simple statement. "As I have loved you, love also one another."
Most authorities tell us that we learn to love by being loved. Just as the abused child may become an abuser, a loved child learns to express affection.
The psychologist Harlow demonstrated that love is a learned phenomenon years ago in an experiment that every first-year psychology student is exposed to. He used baby monkeys and artificial mothers constructed out of wire and cloth. He discovered that baby monkeys deprived of a mother's love were not able to love either. Subsequent studies have generalized this result to people--we love because we are loved.
This brings us to our second point. THE SOURCE OF OUR LOVE IS CHRIST. The commandment to love is not merely a legalistic requirement. Rather, it is the natural response to the love we receive from Christ. That love is an unconditional love.
"Just as I am without one plea," we sing. When we understand that we are loved just as we are, with no strings attached, it can transform our lives.
How desperately human beings need to be loved unconditionally. Often we see this truth demonstrated in the lives of prominent people whose acceptance, or lack of it, is magnified tremendously due to their public life.
There was an article years ago in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. It was about a basketball player with the Seattle Supersonics named Tom Chambers. This article detailed his career and reputation as being a very unhappy man, in spite of his enviable position as a star in professional basketball.
The title of the article was, "Hey, Tom Can Smile," which suggests how rarely he does smile. The author writes, "The great expectations others have for him produced frustrations. His limitless potential has yielded limitless disappointment."
Tom comments about himself, "I guess I'm not really happy. I have to put on this crust. I have to be a hard guy. It's the only way I know to protect myself. I strike first, so they don't hurt me . . ."
Here is the really interesting sentence in the article: "My father was always critical of my play. There were times, I guess, I played just to impress him. He could be very, very critical, even after wins."
The author concludes, "Perhaps that's one of the reasons why Tom etched a scowl on his face early in his career and kept it there."
There are two tragedies here. One is that so little unconditional love has been offered this young man, and how that has affected his life. But the other is even worse--the fact that he has looked for acceptance in the wrong places. For in the long run, fathers and fans will never give us the unconditional love we seek. Only Christ can offer that.
We love because he first loved us. We sing, "Love came down at Christmas . . ." and that's true. Not that love was not already in the world, but until Christ we did not see it walking, talking, and serving others.
You see, everything we need to know about right and wrong is in the Old Testament. The problem is that the emphasis is on the negative. We are told what we should not do, but not as clearly what we should.
As one sweet young thing commented about the Ten Commandments, "They don't tell you what you ought to do. They just put ideas into your head."
You can take that a number of ways, but she is right. The Old Testament includes the commandments to love God and to love one's neighbor. However, we did not see a loving God walking, talking and helping people until there was Jesus. He showed us the content and the character of love. Then he went where no one has ever gone before. He gave up his own life on Calvary to show us just how far the Father will go to win back His lost children. When we understand that love and make it our own, then we are able to love as Christ calls us to love. But there is one more thing which must be said.
OUR LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER IS OUR PRIMARY WITNESS TO THE WORLD. Jesus said, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another."
Educator Jeffery Holland tells about a preschool teacher who faced what she thought was "burnout." She was a committed teacher whose heart particularly went out to the so-called "disadvantaged child." She had begun to despair over some of the children who seemed so lost, so limited--and in some cases, so neglected at home. In her growing frustration she vacillated between the feeling that there was something wrong with her, or that there was something wrong with "this current crop of preschoolers. They just don't respond like they used to."
Then her mother died.
It was necessary for her to take a week off from her teaching duties to attend her mother's funeral. She was very close to her mother. Following the funeral she needed some time alone to deal with her feelings. Her frustrations at the preschool seemed like an even heavier burden at this point in her life.
After a weekend of aimless shopping, puttering in the garden and watching TV, she realized she must return to her classroom. She felt more like a soldier going into battle than a teacher of preschoolers.
The first day back was about what she expected. Her hurt and despair produced resentment which she kept carefully hidden. She went through the paces like the competent professional she was. She smiled at the right times and was admirably patient considering the environment and her raw feelings.
But then it happened. She had come around the corner to discover Rachel picking the last chrysanthemum from the pot in the hall. Rachel, by the way, was the most distant, most disruptive child in the class.
In a stern, trembling voice the teacher demanded, "Rachel, what are you doing?"
Rachel held out in her little hand the flowers she had already picked. "Mrs. Terrell," she said, "You used to be like a mother. Would these flowers help you to be like a mother again? I know you are fussed in your mind. Wouldn't you like some flowers?"
Mrs. Terrell thought, "Fussed in my mind? You mean it shows? To a five-year-old?
Finally Mrs. Terrell spoke: "Rachel, what is a mother like?"
"A mother is like you used to be," Rachel said. "A mother likes being with children."
"But Rachel," said Mrs. Terrell, "I like being with children. I've just . . . well, I've been . . . well, Rachel, my mother . . . passed away, and . . ."
Rachel meekly interrupted, "You mean she died?"
"Yes, Rachel," said her teacher sadly, "She died."
Rachel looked up at her teacher and asked, "Did she live until she died?"
Mrs. Terrell thought, what kind of question is that? "Well, honey, of course," she said, "All people live until they die; they . . ."
Rachel interupted her again. "Oh, no they don't, Mrs. Terrell. Some people seem to die while they are still walking around. They stop being what they used to be. Mrs. Terrell, don't die just because your mother did. Be alive while you are alive." (2)
Out of the mouths of babes. How do we witness to the world that Christ is alive? We do it by being alive ourselves. How do we witness to the world that God is love? We do it by loving one another.
In that popular film a few years back, THE COLOR PURPLE, Sophie experienced some kindnesses in a dark and troubling time in her life that deeply affected her. Looking back on those kindnesses, she said, "It was then I knew that there was a God."
Intuitively she knew that this is the best evidence we have of the existence of God. In an unloving world, there are yet people who really do care about others. Where did such love originate? It came from the very heart of God Himself. We witness to the world that Christ lives in our heart every time we perform any act of kindness to another. "BY THIS," said Jesus, "shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you love one another."
So, how about you? Like Alexander Dumas have you missed the point of it all? The primary requirement that Christ asks out of us is that we love. We love because he first loved us. How can you tell if someone lives close to Christ? By their love. Love is our primary witness to the world.
(1) Jerry Clower, LIFE EVER LAUGHTER, (Nashville, Tennessee: Rutledge Hill Press, 1988).
(2) VITAL SPEECHES
Copyright 2004 by King Duncan. For oral use only.
www.sermons.com This sermon also appears in the collection, THE WORKS.