The Scripture Readings for this week are:
- 1 John 3:18-24
- Matthew 22:34-40
The Sermon title is The Magic Penny?
Early Thoughts: We are not commanded to feel a certain way toward our neighbour. We are commanded to act a certain way toward our neighbour. (And then there is the hope that acting in love will in fact shape how we feel about them.)
Maybe that is what the song means when it says that love is something when we give it away? Maybe love that is not shared, love that is kept, love that is held tight is not really love?
Our passages this week remind us of the importance of love in Christian life and ethics. 1 John makes it really clear that this love is a verb, not an emotion or a word. We should love in word and in deed. We have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. We have to give love away, share it in the community, act lovingly toward our neighbour.
I suggest that the only way we act lovingly toward God is in fact to act lovingly toward the world God loves. So to actively love God we also have to actively love our neighbour.
Can we give love freely and abundantly? In a world system where we are often, if not usually, taught that everything is limited, that we can run out of anything can we trust that love is just the opposite? Love, when we give it away, when we act in love, becomes self multiplying. It becomes more abundant when we share it around and less available when we are tempted to be stingy with it.
Isn't that wonderful?!?!
So far I have suggested that love is a verb, something shown in action not in word or feeling (though I do suggest that some of our words are actions in and of themselves), and that love is something that grows more plentiful when shared freely. What do we do with that?
I think that is, in fact, a stewardship question. If, as I have said before, love is everything we do after we say "I believe", if stewardship is what we do with the gifts God has given us, then how we share love, how we act lovingly toward the world God loves, is at the heart of stewardship.
This week I invite us all to consider what concrete ways we can show our love for God and neighbour. I encourage us to remember that, even though it may feel like it at times, love is not a finite resource. Love flows abundantly from God who, according to another part of 1 John, is love. Love flows abundantly through Jesus, Love Incarnate. Love flows abundantly in the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. Love is something that when we give it away, when we share it freely and prodigiously, we end up having more.
Isn't that wonderful????!!!???
--Gord
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