Love Wins

This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. --John 15:12-13

My husband and I have been Star Wars fans since the beginning.  One of our first dates was  seeing the first Star Wars movie at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, California.  We've seen all the Star Wars movies in the years since, and when our kids were old enough, we showed them the original trilogy, calling it their "cultural education." 

Lately there hasn't been much new TV to watch since the COVID-19 pandemic has shut down productions. Since we're staying home to stop the spread and needing entertainment, we've been watching the Star Wars series, this time in the order of the story. (I remember our surprise when Episode 1 came out in 1999 and we learned then that the 1977 movie was actually episode IV.)  Watching the later movies first, we've been impressed by the high level of continuity between the later movies and the first three.  We're enjoying the stories we remember, and we're seeing new things we'd missed before.

Yesterday we watched Episode VI - The Return of the Jedi (1983), and today the scripture above has me pondering the scene in which Luke fights Darth Vader on the Death Star as Emperor Palpatine watches with devilish glee. 

(**Spoiler Alert** . . . if that still matters.  Hasn't everyone already seen these movies by now?)

In the previous movie, Empire Strikes Back, we'd had a chuckle at discovering that we all slightly misquote the now famous line, "Luke, I am your father." (Vader actually says, "No, I am your father.")  At this point, Luke's hatred of Vader has been growing, and he foolishly rushes into a lightsaber duel with the villain.  The duel comes to a halt when Vader cuts off Luke's hand.  Then Vader's paternal revelation turns Luke's world upside down, and soon Luke finds himself literally upside down, hanging from some space station scaffolding.

By the time they meet again in Return of the Jedi, Luke has been fitted with a prosthetic hand, and become much more skillful in his use of the force and his lightsaber. Meanwhile, Darth Vader and his evil master Emperor Palpatine have been looking forward to an encounter with Luke so they can turn Luke to the dark side. Emperor Palpatine goads Luke, trying to bring out the hate that still remains from before he learned who Vader really is, and hate would have gained the upper hand if Luke did kill Vader. When they duel, Luke slices off Vader's saber-holding hand and this brings the duel to an end.  Luke could have easily killed Vader at this point, but the sight of Vader without his hand flashes us back to the scene in the previous movie in which Luke has his own hand sliced off by Vader and  learns who Vader really is. It seems in this moment that the flashback reminds Luke of his mission - to turn Vader back to the good side.

Sparing Vader's life does the job, as Luke has left himself vulnerable to attack by Palpatine and in essence laid down his life for Vader.  Love wins.

In the next scene, there's a tender moment as everyone is scrambling to get off the Death Star before it explodes:

Darth Vader:  Luke help me take this mask off.
Luke:             But you will die.
Darth Vader:  Nothing can stop that now. Just for once let me look at you with my own eyes.
                      [Luke takes mask off] Now go, my son, leave me.
Luke:             No, you're coming with me. I'll not leave you here. I've got to save you.
Darth Vader: You already have, Luke. You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister, you were right.

Luke was right, there was still some good left in Darth Vader, and it was that good that drove Vader to turn on his master, the Emperor Palpatine, and stop Palpatine from killing Luke. Vader is redeemed. Love wins again. Luke lays down his life for Vader.  Vader lays down his life for Luke.

There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for another. Jesus did this for us all. 

Jesus is the prophesied Messiah and Savior of the world who died to conquer sin and death.  In Star Wars, Vader is the messiah of sorts, the one the Jedi prophets said would bring balance to the force. In watching the movies years ago, I had thought the balance came because Vader's children Luke and Leia lived, and Vader and Palpatine died.  And I had always wondered why some people like Darth Vader so much.  We have a friend whose young daughter often dresses up as Darth Vader and I had wondered at her wanting to emulate an evil character. 

But now I get it.  The balance does indeed happen in Vader himself. Vader is the one who shows us that no matter how much evil we have done, in the end, love still wins.  Vader is redeemed as he lays down his life for Luke. 

And we too display the redeeming power of love as we let go of our selfish ways and show concern for one another.  During this pandemic, we've seen this as people stay home to stop spreading the virus, as people help each other get through this time, and as doctors, nurses, and first responders expose themselves to the virus to help the sick.

Unfortunately, the voice of Emperor Palpatine also seems to be making a comeback, as people are being encouraged to stand up for themselves and defy the guidelines that have been designed to keep the virus from spreading.  Protestors are filling up the streets demanding freedom.

We have a long history in America of fighting for our liberty.  When our country was being founded, Patrick Henry declared, "Give me liberty or give me death!"  It's important to note, however, that Henry meant his own death.  Those who are crying out for liberty today are more likely choosing someone else's death, since those who are young and healthy enough to be out protesting are less likely to die from this virus.

The chaos and arguing that fills the news right now is discouraging and disheartening.  Tyranny and selfishness seem to be winning.  But we need to hold on to hope.

In the Star Wars movies, there an ongoing succession of hope.  At first, Obiwan thought Anakin Skywalker was their hope.  Years later, in A New Hope, Princess Leia's desparate video message recorded on the robot R2D2 says, "Obiwan, you're my only hope."  Obiwan tells Yoda that Luke is their last hope.  Yoda tells Obiwan that Leia is their last hope.  The problem with all of these is that their hope is in human beings.  In the end it's their first hope Anakin who destroys the most evil and powerful character in the story, but it's the power of love that wins, and it's love that brings us hope.

God is love.  Jesus, Emmanuel, God in the flesh, came to show us how to love, by being willing to sacrifice and serve each other.

Life isn't always so black and white as it is in the movies.  And though Star Wars is pretty clearly good versus evil, maybe one of the reasons we love these movies and keep rewatching them is that we see characters making tough choices in situations that aren't so clear. 

But in the end, love wins.  May we remember that this is also true in real life, and may that renew our hope.

What Matters Most?

This is a sermon that was preached on Sunday, January 14, 2018 at United Presbyterian Church, Sterling KS.  

Listen to audio here.

Read John 13:12-17, 34-35; Leviticus 19:9-18 here.

How do you feel about group projects?  If you teach, do you assign them?  As a student, do you love them or hate them?  I dreaded them.  I typically got good grades and didn’t like that my grade was going to depend on other people, people I didn’t know well, or worse, people who I knew didn’t care about their grades as much as I did.  So I learned that the best solution for the grade-conscious student is to be ready to do all or most of the work.

At Clemson University, my alma mater, group projects were common AND they were given a high priority because Clemson was very focused on making sure that students graduated with the skills that employers were asking for, and high on the list was the ability to work well with others.[1]  Because of that, the grades for group projects were frequently tied to how well we worked together.  Unfortunately for me, you got marked down for taking over and doing all the work. On one of my projects, the members of the group gave each other grades.  I decided what grade my partner would get and vice versa. We had to get along and work together.

If life had grades, and the grades were about how well we got along with one another, what would your grade be?

Technically, there are no grades, but in our reading from John today, Jesus does give us what might be grading criteria.  “By this all people will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35)

Jesus is telling the disciples about this idea of loving one another during their last meal together before he is arrested.  In the other gospels, the writers tell us about the first communion, Jesus taking bread and saying, “Take and eat. This is my body broken for you.”  And taking a cup of wine and saying, “This is my blood shed for the forgiveness of sins.” And he adds, “Do this in remembrance of me.” 

John chooses instead to tell us about something else that happened that night.  Jesus washes their feet.  It’s a menial task that was usually performed by the lowest ranking servant in the house.  It wasn’t notable that their feet were getting washed.  That was a normal thing.  But it was unthinkable that their teacher and leader would be the one to do it. 

Then he tells them that they too should wash one another’s feet. While they’re still pondering that radical idea, Jesus tells them he’s got a new commandment for them – love one another.

It’s not really new, though.  Moses had included this in the rules for living a holy life that we find in Leviticus.  Love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18).  And Jesus had already identified this as one of the top two commandments in his conversation with the teachers in Matthew 22[2]:

 ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The Gospel of John, instead of telling us his version of the events that Matthew, Mark & Luke tell, seems to be more focused on filling in the blanks, telling us about events that the other gospel writers left out.  The one thing that all four include is the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  John gives us four chapters of Jesus’ words that last night when he was preparing them for what was going to happen.  Twice in these four chapters, Jesus talks about this commandment to love one another.  He says it again in chapter 15, because this is the highest priority.  So they won’t miss it, he commands it.  And then he tells them how to do it.

 Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  (John 13:34)

He’s just demonstrated how to love one another by washing their feet, a shocking act all by itself, and he’s going to show them even more dramatically when he dies on the cross.

The Apostle Paul gives us reinforcement for the priority of loving one another in his letter to the Corinthians.  He says, “Without love we are meaningless” – 1 Cor 13 (Krabbe paraphrase).  I love how the Message version of the Bible makes this really clear.  It says:

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

² If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

^3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Nothing we do or believe or say matters if we don’t love one another.

It’s a high priority, and it’s also a challenge.

Jesus says we’re to love, “just as I have loved you.”  He’s giving this command to the disciples, two of whom are doing some rather unlovable things.  While they’re in that room having supper, one of the disciples, Judas, leaves to go tell the temple leaders where Jesus is so they can arrest him. Jesus knows that Judas is betraying him, setting into motion the events that will lead to his death.  But he says, “Love one another just as I have loved you.”  Jesus has washed Judas’ feet, along with all the other disciples.[3]

Peter, the disciple who seems to always have something to say, says, “Of course, Jesus.  I will lay down my life for you.” Peter is so sure that he’s up for following Jesus no matter what.  But Jesus tells him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”  Peter has heard Jesus’ words and promised to follow, but then he denies even knowing Jesus.  But still, Jesus says, “love one another, just as I have loved you.”

It’s a challenge, because people aren’t always lovable.  Judas betrayed him.  Peter denied him.  But Jesus still died for them because he loved them, just like he loves us.

It’s a challenge because Jesus tells us we are even to love our enemies. In Matt 5, he says:

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Be perfect, as God is perfect.  Love one another like I have loved you.  This connects us back to those rules for living back in Leviticus, instructions for living as God’s holy people.  Loving like Jesus, living as God’s holy people, is a big challenge.  Putting love first, doing everything with love is not easy.

Which is why we need to practice.  And to practice you have to spend time with people, because we can’t love one another if there is no other. 

I started out talking about the challenge of doing group projects in school.  Those projects were opportunities to practice working with other people.  Sure it would be easier to get things done if we just did everything by ourselves.  No arguments.  No having to compromise.  But what if the point is not to get things done but to learn to love one another?

We often joke about how churches do everything by committee.  Have you ever considered that maybe we do things this way because it’s God’s way?  That the point is not just that we get things done, but that we do things together?

So we make love our highest priority because Jesus commanded us to, despite the challenge it is to love even our enemies, and we practice loving one another by doing things together.

Just to make sure that we don’t miss how important this really is, Jesus also gives us a purpose for working on this. He says, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35)

I mentioned earlier in the service that this is the first sermon in a series of sermons that I’m calling Together@United.  We’re spending five weeks talking about this idea of loving one another because it is a high priority, then we’re going to have an opportunity to practice that together by getting together in small groups for the six weeks of Lent, the six weeks before Easter. It’s important for us all to take part in this, and to make this a regular part of our lives.  Small groups are an important part of discipleship, of growing in our relationship with God, because they give us an opportunity to work on learning the ins and outs of loving one another in a safe environment. They give us an opportunity to have conversations about God, and to get to know one another in a deeper way…to work on being the church – loving & growing & serving together.

It’s not going to be easy.  When we get to know each other better, we may find that we disagree about things.  We will find that we don’t all do life the same way.  Despite all that, Jesus tells us to love one another.

I’m pretty sure the hardest part will be to accept one another, to love one another without judgment.  I’ve heard it said that Alcoholics Anonymous becomes church for some people because they can go to an AA meeting and find encouragement without judgement, but when they go to church they find judgment. 

Do you know why there’s no judgement at an AA meeting?  Everybody comes with the common understanding that they are all alcoholics.  Some of them are sober alcoholics, and some of them have been sober for so long that people may not even remember that they were drunk, but they’re still alcoholics.  What do they way any time anyone speaks? They start by saying, “My name is ____ and I’m an alcoholic,” so that they don’t forget that they’re all alcoholics.

Maybe we should do the same in the church.  Hello, my name is Melissa and I’m a sinner.  We all are sinners.  We all are equally in need of God’s love and forgiveness.  Jesus died for every one of us.  Love came down for me and for you and for everyone we meet.  The most powerful way that we love one another like Jesus loved us is by showing the same forgiveness and acceptance that Jesus showed for us. Despite our faults.  Despite our differences.  Jesus came for all of us.  All of us are sinners in need of his grace.

We’re together because we all need love – the love we have through our faith in Jesus Christ.  God put us together to love one another – to practice what Jesus commanded us to practice – loving one another as he has loved us.

If life had grades, and the grades were about how well we got along with one another, what would your grade be?

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[1] Learning goals for group projects https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/instructionalstrategies/groupprojects/benefits.html

[2] And Mark 12:28-31 and Luke 10:25-28

[3] Susan Hylen : “Judas’s presence at the supper means that the example Jesus sets is not simply one of service to an elite group of believers. Jesus has washed Judas’s feet, and therefore has included him among those he loved “to the utmost.” Similarly, the love of disciples for “one another” might be understood to include even those others we might prefer to forget.” http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1583

Love Came Down

This is a sermon that was preached on Sunday, December 24, 2017 at United Presbyterian Church in Sterling, KS.  Listen to the audio here.

Read Luke 2:1-20 here.

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How many of you love Christmas carols?

I want to share with you my favorite carol:

I want to know what love is.  I want you to show me.

Poignant words from the ‘80s from the band Foreigner.

What is love?  How do I show you?

Love is our Advent theme today.  Love is the major theme of the Bible.  God is love (1 John 4:8).  Which is easy to talk about, but how do we show what love is?

This time of year the most obvious answer is to give you something, a gift for Christmas.  Many of us have spent a lot of time and money over the past few weeks making sure we have gifts for everybody on our list.

Even if we haven’t been hanging around church much, we’ve also probably heard the Christmas story from Luke that Gordon just read for us.  If you watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” you heard it there from Linus.  Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem and while they’re there, Mary gives birth.  Angels appear to some shepherds.  The shepherds go to see the baby.

It’s really easy for the shopping and wrapping and gift-giving to feel totally disconnected from that 2000-year-old story. 

The most obvious connection is that God showed us his love for us by sending us his son.  That baby born in Bethlehem - God’s greatest gift to us, and so we give gifts to one another.  Sometimes I think we get caught up in trying to match God’s gift.  We try to be the greatest gift givers.

If we can’t do quality, we try to make up for it with quantity.  The more there is to open, the more people will know we love them, right? …which if we’re doing it to show our love is wonderful, but we have to make sure we don’t have other motivations, because without love our actions fall flat (1 Cor 13).

The thing is, we can’t out give God.  No gift is ever going to be as big as the one God gave us. 

 There are other gifts of love being given in Luke’s story.  It’s a story that covers a lot of ground. Throughout Advent we focus on different parts of it.  We talk about Joseph’s willingness to disregard Jewish law and tradition to take Mary as his wife, even though she was pregnant, even though he hadn’t played a part in the pregnancy.  We talk about Mary’s willingness to be the mother of God.  This week, though, I’m fascinated by those shepherds.

Maybe we can all relate to them.  They’re just average workers, out-standing in their field, minding their own business, or rather, minding their sheep. 

Really, although we tend to treat the shepherds as bit players in this story, Luke gives them more space in the birth story than Mary or Joseph.  Maybe that’s because throughout the Bible, shepherds are the main characters.  Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were shepherds. Moses was a shepherd, and King David, the most revered of all the kings and the ancestor of Jesus, was a shepherd.  In the psalms, we are reminded that God himself is our shepherd.  In Ezekiel, God gets angry with those who are supposed to be shepherding the people of Israel, but instead are only looking out for themselves, and says that he will be our good shepherd.

So here in Luke we see that shepherds again play an important part in the story.  They are the first to receive the good news.  They immediately respond and go and see.  And they don’t keep the good news to themselves.  They go and tell.  They share.  They are good shepherds. 

We sometimes think of shepherds as being somewhat similar to today’s homeless people.  In reality, shepherds were highly regarded.  The Jewish philosopher Philo who lived in Jesus’ time wrote:

Indeed so good a thing is shepherding that it is justly ascribed not to kings only and wise men and perfectly cleansed souls, but also to God the All Sovereign. The authority for this ascription is not any ordinary one but a prophet, whom we do well to trust. This is the way in which the Psalmist speaks: ‘The Lord shepherds me and nothing shall be lacking to me’ (Ps 23.1).[1]

The Lord IS our good shepherd.  And the presence of shepherds in the Christmas story reminds us that this baby that the shepherds are telling about would grow up to one day tell us, “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11,14).

We live in a world that needs to know love.  The words of the Foreigner song could be the words of anyone.  “I want to know what love is.  I want you to show me.”

The shepherds in this story help us see how to show love.

1.     Love shares the good news.

The angels tell the shepherds about the baby, the messiah, born in Bethlehem.  And then they go back to tending their sheep.  NO!  They go running off to see for themselves.  And then they go back to tending their sheep.  NO!  They DON’T!  They go tell more people about it.  They don’t keep it to themselves.  They share this amazing news.  THAT is showing love.

They saw and then told.  This news was too good to keep to themselves. The savior of the world was born that night.  Why wouldn’t they tell everyone they could find about the one who’d come to save us all.

Jesus said in John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” And before he ascended to heaven, Jesus told us to go and make disciples.  Love tells the story of the one who came to save us all.  The shepherds show us that love shares the good news.

Shepherds are kind of passé for us in the church….sort of a that-was-then-but-what-about-now kind of thing, but I follow a shepherd on twitter.  He’s quite popular, actually.  He has something like 15,000 followers.  One of his recent tweets pointed out to me that it’s still important to go out and tell.  The Herdwick shepherd posted a picture of sheep that he was shipping to Belgium.

Notice what he says about why he is shipping them there.  “Important for the breed to have wider geography.”  These sheep were a breed that was brought to England by the Vikings.  They are herdwicks.  To keep the breed going they have to share them.  Just like we have to share the good news about Jesus to keep our faith going.  God showed his love to us and we show love by sharing it.  Love tells the story.

The shepherds show us how to love in another way.

2.     Love pursues us.

Good shepherds go after their lost sheep.  Psalm 23 spells it out for us.

Goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life. Psalm 23:6 CEB

In fact, God’s pursuit of us is shown by the birth of Jesus:

God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  John 3:16

Love pursues us.

3.     Love sacrifices for us

Again the shepherds are the example.  Jesus tells us in John 10:11

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Jesus laid down his life for us, just as a shepherd would to protect the sheep.

Giving your life for someone is huge.  It’s an amazing way to show what love is.  Really, though, we can do this every day even in small ways by the ways we put others before ourselves. 

One Christmas there was a mother who did this.  Her daughter was eleven and the daughter was obsessed with getting presents at Christmas.  When she thought no one was looking, she checked the tags on every single present under the tree to see which ones were for her.  When it came time to open presents, the mother said apologetically, “We’ve had a tough year.  There aren’t as many presents this year.”  Her daughter already knew that from checking the tags and counting.  So she knew when her mother handed her a present that wasn’t hers.  She hadn’t seen her mother that morning taking the tag off and quickly putting on a new tag with the daughter’s name.  The daughter looked to the mother quizzically.  Her mother nodded.  “Go on.  Open it.”  Inside the package was a blow dryer.  It wasn’t a big present to most people, but the daughter knew her mother needed one, and the daughter knew that her mother was giving this one up for her….a seemingly small sacrifice, but to an 11-year-old who was entirely focused on receiving, it was incredible that someone would give up their only gift for her.  Years later as an adult looking back, this was the gift she most remembered. Her mom’s simple act meant the world to her.^[2]

Kids learn how to show love from watching how we show love to them.  And kids can surprise us with their ability to learn to show sacrificial love.

There was a dad who had been trying to teach his kids about love in action.  One day he took his 8-year-old daughter Helen and 5-year-old son Brandon to the mall.  When they first arrived, the kids saw the petting zoo that had been set up especially for the holidays and got excited. “Can we go in, daddy?  Can we?”  So the dad gave them each a quarter, and seeing the opportunity for some quick shopping alone, went into the store nearest the petting zoo.  Not long after he got inside, he turned around to find Helen following him.  “Why aren’t you at the petting zoo?” he asked.

She looked up at him with big, clear brown eyes and said sadly, "Well, daddy, it cost fifty cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter."  No one loves cuddly, furry animals more than Helen, but she had given that up so her brother could go in.

The man finished his shopping, and then he and Helen went back to the petting zoo. They stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon. The dad had fifty cents burning a hole in his pocket; but he never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and wanted to follow through with her lesson, seeing her love in action.[3]

How do we know what love is?  We see it in all the big and small ways that people are willing to sacrifice for others.  This ability to sacrifice comes from God’s love that has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. 

We have the Holy Spirit through our faith in Jesus Christ, that baby given to us out of love for us, that baby who grew up to be our savior, willing to give his life so that we could be forgiven of our sins and have peace with God through him.

How do we know what love is?

As I was pondering this question, a picture came to mind of a beat up old van sitting in the middle of an empty church parking lot just as the sun was coming up in the morning.  This is the picture that greeted my husband Rob and I on many Sunday mornings as we arrived at church.  Inside the van was a man who earned a meager living playing drums at night at clubs in downtown Los Angeles.  He also played drums for our worship services.  He would finish playing at the clubs sometimes as late as three or four in the morning, and then drive to our church and sleep in our parking lot so that he wouldn’t miss being there to play for worship.

This is love…

…not only that God loves us so much that he sent us his son Jesus,

…not only that Jesus loves us so much he gave his life for us,

…but also that we would return that love to him,

   sharing the love that he put in our hearts through our willingness to sacrifice

… for him.

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[1] Harris, Sarah. 2012. "Why are there shepherds in the Lukan birth narrative?." Colloquium 44, no. 1: 17-30. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed December 23, 2017)

[2] Adapted from Jennifer Yardley Barney, ‘Tis Better to Give https://www.rd.com/true-stories/inspiring/christmas-stories-wonder-love/

[3] Adapted from Dave Simmons http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/l/love.htm

Love Will Keep Us Together

This is a sermon that was preached on Sunday, July 9, 2017 at United Presbyterian Church, Sterling, KS.

Read Genesis 24 here.
Listen to the sermon here.

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Note:  Watch a fun video of the from which I borrowed the title here.

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What’s your favorite love story?

Long long ago in a land far far away, there lived a beautiful princess…

This is the typical beginning to a classic fairy tale love story.  There would, of course be some sort of issue:

• ·  the princess is lonely or trapped in a tower, or
• ·  the kingdom is failing, or
• ·  there’s an evil dragon or an evil villain. 

Whatever it is, the issue creates tension which draws us into the story.  By the end, the issue is resolved, and the princess has met a handsome prince who risks his life to save the day, and they get married and live happily ever after. . .The end.

Believe it or not, the story we read today from Genesis 24 is considered a classic love story.  Not a modern classic, though.  An ancient classic. 

Do you believe in fate?

We also call it destiny, kismet, serendipity.

Whatever we call it, it’s the belief that something bigger than ourselves has a hand in directing our lives.

I prefer to call it providence.  Providence is what we see at work in our story from Genesis 24.  Providence is the hand of God at work in our lives.

Throughout the story of Abraham, he has heard from God and responded with obedience.  In today’s story, God’s action is more subtle, more like the way many of us experience God in our daily lives.  We trust in God’s faithful love, and do our best to be obedient disciples, and watch prayerfully and expectantly for God’s will.

As we’ve been talking about the past few weeks, Abraham has received a promise from God that he will have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.  God has confirmed that this happens through Abraham’s son Isaac.  God has also promised Abraham that the land in which he is now living would belong to his descendants – the Promised Land.  So Isaac needs to get married, and Isaac needs to stay local. 

If this were a Disney story, there’d be a grand ball and all the fair maidens of the kingdom would be invited so that Isaac could choose one to marry.  Like in Cinderella. 

Did you know that Cinderella was really bad at sports? 

She kept running away from the ball.[1]

But this isn’t Disney.  This is a story that shows us how God was faithful in keeping his promise.  This is a story about faith and commitment and a deeper kind of love.

·      Abraham trusts God to lead the servant to the right woman for Isaac. 

·      The servant also trusts God’s leading, and so does Rebekah.

·      Isaac, too, trusts that the woman the servant has brought back is the best woman for him, and verse 67 says he loved her.  No courtship.  No steamy love scenes.  Just faithful, committed love. 

I love how the servant finds Rebekah.  He goes to the well, apparently the local pickup spot (a common place to meet women in ancient times), and he asks God for a sign.  He says, “This is my request. I will ask one of them, ‘Please give me a drink from your jug.’ If she says, ‘Yes, have a drink, and I will water your camels, too!’—let her be the one you have selected as Isaac’s wife. This is how I will know that you have shown unfailing love to my master.”

This is very similar to what Gideon does.  In the book of Judges, we read about God telling Gideon to go lead his people to fight off an attacking army.  Gideon wants to make sure he heard God correctly, so Gideon puts out a fleece, like a wool blanket, and asks God to make the fleece wet and the ground around the fleece dry so that Gideon will know it’s really God’s will.  And the next morning the fleece is wet and the ground is dry.  But Gideon still isn’t certain, so he asks God to do it again, only this time make the ground wet and the fleece dry.  And the next morning the ground is wet and the fleece is dry, so now Gideon knows that God has spoken. (Judges 6:36-40)

Abraham’s servant puts out a fleece of his own.  He is also asking for a sign so that he will know which woman is the right one to take back to Isaac.  And before he has even finished praying, here comes Rebekah.  God knows what’s in our hearts and minds before we can even say it, and God was already working answering the servant’s prayer.  Jesus says in Matthew 6, God knows what we need before we even ask for it.

The servant asks Rebekah for a drink of water, and she responds exactly as the servant had asked, “Yes, here’s a drink, and let me get water for your camels, too.”  Aha!  Could this be the woman he’s looking for?

We should note that Rebekah doesn’t just say she’ll give the camels some water.  She says she’ll keep giving them water until they’ve drunk their fill. (24:19)  The servant has ten camels.  They’ve just crossed the desert, so these are thirsty camels, and a thirsty camel can drink as much as 30 gallons in about 15 minutes.[2]  Drawing enough water for 10 camels is a serious commitment, and says something about the character of Rebekah, and maybe something about her physically as well.  We know how much one gallon of milk weighs.  Imagine carrying 300 of those! 

And then in talking with Rebekah more, the servant finds out that she is the daughter of Abraham’s brother.  Perfect!  God has indeed brought just the right woman to the well at just the right time, and the servant wastes no time in acknowledging this and thanking God for his unfailing love and kindness. Providence at work.

Finding the right woman is only step one, however.  Now to meet her family, and see whether they will agree to let her go.  When the servant tells his story to Rebekah’s brothers, they agree that this is God’s will at work and that Rebekah should indeed go be Isaac’s bride.  And when they ask Rebekah if she will go, she also agrees.  Step two – success!

The last step is to bring her home to Isaac.  How will that go?  Of course, it goes well.  Isaac loved her.  Cue the joyful and triumphant music, and roll the credits.

It’s not your typical modern love story, but we still get a happy ending.  There is love, and, like the song, love will keep them together.  Isaac and Rebekah even become a model for marriage for future generations.  In fact, the prayer at the end of wedding ceremonies used to say, “Send thy blessing upon … this man and this woman … that, as Isaac and Rebecca lived faithfully together, so these persons may surely perform and keep the vow and covenant they’ve made.”^[3]

If Abraham were looking for a wife for Isaac today, maybe he would have used Match.com, the online dating app.  (For Abraham, it might be called Yente.com after the matchmaker in Fiddler on the Roof.)

In a sense, using Match.com is still trusting God for things that are beyond our control, trusting God to work through the algorithm that makes up the software work. 

I recently did something like this, and so did you.  Using Match.com is very much like the process that brought us together as pastor and church.  Our denomination has a database called Church Leadership Connection. The name isn’t as catchy as Match.com but the process is similar.

• ·      Churches enter their information and criteria,
• ·      pastors enter theirs, and the system matches them up. 
• ·      Lots of prayer goes into the process of preparing the information that we put in, and
• ·      lots of prayer happens about the matches that we receive, and
• ·      there is a great amount of trust that God will bring the right matches together. 

Once we all agree that this is indeed the right match, we get married.  There’s even a ceremony.  I hope you’ll all come on August 6 at 4pm when I’ll be installed as your pastor.  Just like a wedding, we’ll make vows to one another, professing our commitment to one another and to God.

Marriage is a commitment. In traditional wedding vows, we promise to stick together through sickness and health. Love and commitment involve willingness to sacrifice. 

·      Rebekah is willing to leave her home and her family and go to a land far away to live with people she’s never met, knowing that she will never see her family again.  She doesn’t hesitate.  She says, “I will go.” (24:58) 

·      Abraham had done the same thing, obediently following God’s call to leave his homeland and go to Canaan. 

Both of them had to keep on trusting God’s love to carry them through whatever happened in the process of keeping their commitment.

We make commitments to one another and to God when we become members of a church, too.  God brings us together, and God’s love is what keeps us together.  Through our faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit gathers us together and unites us, and gives us the tools we need to be the church together.

At Church we work on learning how to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  None of that is easy.  It’s much easier to stay home, to avoid people…easier to love your neighbor if you never see your neighbor.  That’s what Robert Frost says in his poem “Mending Wall”:  “Good fences make good neighbors.”  But he’s saying it ironically, because the poem is really about how the wall keeps falling apart.  If they never mended it, eventually it would fall down as the natural forces of wind and rain and time wore it down.  “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”  That something, when it comes to relationships between us and with God, is the Holy Spirit.

Relationships are important.  Our relationships with God and with one another are our strength.  They’re also our witness to the world.  Jesus said that the world would know us by our love.  Church is about learning to love one another so we can be equipped to share that love with the world. 

Our unity is vital to our witness.  Unity is much easier if we stay isolated from one another, or if we stick with people who agree with us.  Unity involves sacrifice.

Relationships grow deeper when we struggle together through the challenges that come from diversity and doing life together. 

• ·      Marriages are stronger when they’ve dealt with the issues that come up, and not just ignored them. 
• ·      Friendships are stronger when they’ve spent time together talking about things that matter more deeply. 
• ·      Churches are stronger when they’ve worked through the conflicts and challenges that come from being together.

Relationships can be difficult, but in the Bible, the Apostle Paul tells us how to do this in his letters.  In Romans 12:9, he says, “ Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them.”  In 1 Corinthians he tells us what that looks like:

⁴ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Those sound wonderful in theory, but to put them into practice we need to be with other people.  At church we have the opportunity to work on having this kind of love with others who are also working on having this kind of love, to encourage one another and pray for one another. 

We’re going to be working on having more opportunities to build these kinds of relationships with one another in the days ahead.  One of the things the education committee will be working on is getting us together in groups to talk about God and the Bible and life.  In those small groups, we’ll make commitments to one another to be patient and kind, and to support one another even as we uncover ways in which we might not agree about everything.

Our life together begins with our commitment to seek God and to follow Jesus and to trust the work of the Holy Spirit among us. 

·      One step in that commitment is committing to one another in membership, which is why we’ll have an opportunity to consider that step in our UPC101 class on July 23. 

·      Another step in that commitment is using our gifts to support the work and ministry of this church.  One opportunity to do that is on the insert in our bulletin today from the education committee.

The story of Isaac and his bride Rebekah is one of the great love stories in the Bible. Another great love story is the story of Jesus and his bride the church.  Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians that Jesus loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that she might be clean and holy, washed by God’s word, and presented as holy and without spots or wrinkles. (Eph. 5:25-27)

Not that we don’t have spots or wrinkles—because we do—but as if we don’t.  By Jesus sacrifice we are made perfect, spotless, without wrinkles, in the eyes of God. 

It’s like how a bridegroom sees his bride when she’s walking down the aisle on their wedding day.  In his eyes she is perfect, because he sees her with the eyes of love.

That’s how God sees us, made possible through the work of Jesus.  Because God loves us we can trust in his providence, in his sovereignty.

God’s love is strong.  God’s love draws us together. 

God’s love will . . . keep us together.

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[1] http://www.jokes4us.com/peoplejokes/disneyjokes.html

[2] http://www.nationalgeographic.com/weepingcamel/thecamels.html

[3] Interpreter’s Bible  and http://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/book-of-common-prayer/the-form-of-solemnization-of-matrimony.aspx