Danbury United Methodist Church

Pastor Karen Karpow

May 2, 2010

10:30 a.m.

The Choice

Isak Dinesen, in her book Out of Africa, tells a story of a Kikuyu boy named Kitau. He appears at her door one day asking for a job as a house servant. She hires him. After three months he asks for a recommendation letter to Dinesen’s friend Sheik Ali bin Salim, a Muslim who lives in a nearby town. She is surprised, and dismayed—Kitau is an observant, attentive servant, and she likes him very well. She offers to raise his pay—but he isn’t interested.

You see, he has decided to become either a Christian or a Muslim, only he does not yet know which. He has come to her for three months to learn the ways and habits of Christians. Now he will go to Sheik Ali to learn about the Muslims. And then he will decide.

She sure wished he had told her to start with.

In this post-Easter season, we’re going back in time a bit today, because the gospel reading is set at the Last Supper. This is Jesus’ last chance to say what he wants to say to his disciples, his followers—his friends. In a few hours he will be arrested, accused, beaten, and hung on a cross to die. He knows this. He doesn’t have much time. And so he puts aside all his parables and paradoxes, and gives a plain command: love one another. It’s not complicated. Jesus says,

³⁴ “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Three words: Love one another. Simple enough for a child to memorize; and yet, even the most mature Christians must be ashamed at how far they fall short of these three simple words: Love one another.

Notice that Jesus did not say, “They will know you are my disciples if you believe the right things.” Jesus says, “They will know you are my disciples if you do what I do.”

It’s kind of embarrassing, really. Jesus tries to make it easy for us by having us focus on this one thing. If we do this one thing, all the rest of the laws and rules and commandments seem to fall right into place. We don’t even have to worry about them any more—if we just do this one thing. But it’s hard! It’s hard enough for us to put this command into practice even with people we actually do love. But Jesus isn’t talking about loving feelings, over which we have very little control, or even loving thoughts—he’s talking about loving actions. Jesus says that in every case, we must respond to the person in front of us with love. That means doing what is best for them. Not necessarily what they want; certainly not necessarily what we want—but what is best for them.

Three simple words: love one another. Easy to say, and so very hard to do. Jesus says this is how Christians are to be known in the world—as the people who love—but that’s too hard. So we put a great deal of effort into finding other ways to identify true believers. Like what? We say a person is a Christian if they join a church we approve of; or if they say the right things, profess the right beliefs, say “I’ve been washed in the blood of the Lamb, thank you Jeeee-zus!!”

We really don’t want to make these loving actions of Jesus the standard, because it’s too hard. And so we put even more effort into finding ways to explain why there are some people we don’t have to love. Maybe they were mean to us once. Or more than once. Or they don’t try hard enough, work hard enough, and they deserve what has happened to them. Maybe their skin is the wrong color, or they smell bad. Or they are someone else’s problem, not ours. Or maybe we’re too busy.

Three simple words: love one another. The one thing Jesus cared most about would be nearly lost, as his followers wrestled for centuries and millennia over who’s in and who’s out, the correct wording of the creeds, who’s got it right and who’s missed the boat. This may shock you, but it seems that Jesus was not primarily concerned with correct beliefs. Jesus’ way was the way of little children, not the way of theologians.

Love one another. Jesus provides a clear model of the love that he requires. We don’t have to figure it out from scratch—we just have to do what he does. Do you remember what comes before this in the scripture? What does Jesus do at the beginning of the Last Supper? That’s right—he washes the disciples’ feet, a task reserved for the lowliest servant––a task too lowly to be required of any Jewish man, even a servant. This is the kind of humble service that Jesus expects his disciples to render to each other.

When Jesus says, “Love one another,” he’s talking about actions, not feelings. This makes it possible to at least try to obey.  While it might be impossible to feel affection for some people, it is not impossible to help them and serve them.  Our action-love is a gift of Christ, who loves us, shows us how love behaves, and makes us into a new creation, born again in his image and capable of loving with his love.  We can truly obey this commandment when, as Paul writes to the Galatians (2.20),

…it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Love one another. The command is not about what you believe—it’s about how you live. It’s about doing things that change you. This kind of love transforms, both the person who gives it, and the person who receives it.

You might have noticed that last week Serge Karpow and Mark Pierce were both missing from worship. That is because they were away on a Tres Dias weekend—a three-day cloistered retreat over at the Nazareth Spiritual Life Center in Monroe. Serge was one of the leaders, and Mark was one of the first-time participants. Tres Dias is a wonderful experience—three days of living in intentional Christian community, apart from the world. The participants are put into small groups, with leaders, and there is a team of other people who just take care of everything for the weekend—food, worship, music, fun. There are talks about the Christian life, and how people go about living it. There are also a bunch of fun surprises, which I won’t tell you about, because I don’t want to spoil it.

I heard from a bunch of the participants last Sunday night when the weekend was over, and the overpowering message was: I can’t remember the last time I felt so thoroughly loved. Men were so moved that people they didn’t even know would go to such lengths for them. Hearts were opened, old grudges spilled out and left behind, commitments made to live life differently from now on. And that’s just the candidates! The men who served on the team—who prepared for weeks, did the work, reached out in love to people they had never seen before—they were also transformed. I’ve never seen people so happy to be cleaning up after meals and moving chairs as on a Tres Dias weekend. Several of them, who were serving on team for the first time, said they finally “got it.” They understood what Jesus was saying in a way that they never did before, because they spent a very happy weekend…as a servant.

(By the way, there’s a women’s weekend in a few weeks, with maybe a couple of spots open on it. The next men’s weekend is at the beginning of October, with another women’s weekend in November. Speak to Serge or me if you’re interested in going.)

Obviously, you don’t have to go away for three days to encounter this kind of love. Jesus calls us all to this kind of transforming love all the time, not just so that we can become better people, but so that people can catch a glimpse of Christ and his love.  Once they see it, chances are they will want some too. Remember Kitau, Isak Dinesen’s house boy? People are watching us all the time. What do they see?

I have a challenge for you this week. At least once, do something kind for someone. I know, you do that all the time. Here’s the twist: the recipient of your kindness can’t know it’s you. Bonus points if the person you choose is someone you don’t like very much. When you do this, take note of how you feel about it, and how the other person reacts, if you can see it. This is beyond random acts of kindness—be intentional. What happens when you do something good for someone with no expectation of reward—of any kind, not even bragging rights?

If we all were to give love freely, I believe the world would change. Our conference mission statement says that we do what we do for the transformation of the world. That’s a big job. Let’s get going.

"And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.

Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love."