Easter 6 B: As the Father…
Dear Partner in Preaching,
“As the Father has loved me,…”
Last week the phrase that guided my reflections was “as I abide in you,” reminding us that it’s Jesus’ promise to abide in us, love us, and hold onto us that makes abiding in him and loving others possible. This week the phrase that has helped me – only and finally on Saturday morning! – find an angle into this portion of the Farewell Discourses is, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.”
Sometimes I wonder if it’s the preachers job, above all else, to help people imagine God differently. Imagine, not just think about. What I mean is this: I wonder how many of us have our image of God shaped by things that go wrong – a harmful or neglectful parent, an early loss or setback, the cruelty or at least randomness of nature, a vicious disease that took a loved one, and so on. Or perhaps our imagine of God is shaped by popular theology: a just judge that needs to be appeased, a stern parent who sets rules that must be obeyed, the clockmaker that sets things in motion and then remains at a distance, and so forth.
Because God is so utterly beyond us, I think we are regularly shaping what we imagine God to be like, consciously or unconsciously. And I’m not sure those images are always all that helpful. In today’s passage from John, however, we get an interesting, even arresting picture: “As the Father has loved me,” Jesus says, “so I have loved you.” Keep in mind that Jesus says this on the eve of his crucifixion. He is about to embody the love he describes when he says this, “No one has greater love than this, that you lay down your life for your friends.” And that’s what Jesus does.
So what does God look like? How do we imagine God? Martin Luther is said to have responded to that very question by saying, “When I think of God, I think of a man hanging on a tree.” Not to keep a grisly image of pain and suffering before us, but rather to remind us that there is no length to which God would not go to embrace us in love. There is nothing that God wouldn’t do to save us through love. And there is nothing God will permit to remain between us and God’s love. Love will conquer. Love will prevail. Love will win.
Earlier I stressed helping people “imagine” God, not just “think” about God. Which means it won’t be enough simply to say this, but to show us what this love looks like, perhaps by a story you’ve heard or some experience when you felt just plain loved. By a parent, sibling, friend, partner, spouse. I know it’s hard, sometimes, to share those stories, particularly if they feel too personal. And I know we never what the story to swallow the sermon, particularly if it’s a personal one. But perhaps this week, Dear Partner, we can find a story to lift up God’s love. Or maybe it’s enough to remind us of the story of Jesus. The story of the one who came to bear our lot and our life, who enjoyed and endured all that we did, who left the riches of heaven behind in order to identify fully with us…and then who was willing to be tried and crucified unjustly simply to tell us how much God loves us.
There’s a lot of somewhat crazy theology floating around about the cross – that it was the instrument by which God’s sense of justice was satisfied; that Jesus was punished on the cross in our place, taking the beating we deserved; that the blood of Jesus was payment for our sin. Metaphorically, perhaps those various images have some limited value, but they have often been pressed too far, and as a result paint a pretty brutal picture of a God who cannot love until all the debts of justice are paid, of a God whose first response to our sin is anger and a desire for punishment rather than sorrow and a desire to love and forgive.
So what if the cross is not a mechanism at all, but rather the natural if painful extension of God’s willingness to enter into our confusion and chaos and violence and heartache? Then, maybe, the cross is simply testimony to just how much God loves us – that God will not shy away even from the worst of humanity’s instincts – and the resurrection that follows is the promise and sign that when we’ve done our very worst, been our very worst, fallen so tragically short of God’s hopes for us, yet God’s love embodied and enfleshed in Jesus endures, remains, and is victorious.
Help us this week, Dear Partner, imagine God differently, as love – parental, sacrificial love that will not stop at anything until God’s beloved children have been saved by that love. We so desperately need a new and better picture of both who God is and what is possible through the power of love.
Thank you, Dear Partner, for your words this week and always. Blessings on your proclamation.
Yours in Christ,
David
Thank you David. I really needed this today — I’m preaching on 1 John 4, but relaying it back to John 15 really got me to where I was trying to go. That – “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. (v 12). We sacrifice for each other every day — Usually willingly, but it is good to understand that the little things we give up for the sake of others, is important too.
Just the end of tomorrow’s message. I start with singing a song I learned long ago – “Love is something if you give it away… it’s just like a magic penny. Hold it close; you won’t have any. Lend it, spend it, you’ll have so many, they’ll roll all over the floor.” (helps to make sense of some of my metaphors….)Oh – and I do quote you in the end….
When we say God is love or that we are to love others as God has loved us… it is not an objective claim. It is not a love that is detached and impartial. It is a subjective and specific love – for each of us. God’s love for us is real and physical and human. Our love for others is not just words, but actions – and often actions that cause us to give up something. Perhaps we give these things up willingly – that’s love. The time and money spent on our children and grandchildren could have been used on ourselves – more trips, more exotic vacations… but we choose to spend those magic pennies of love — and we end up having more and more love, rolling all over the floor – to spend on each other. I don’t want to make this sound like it’s only the parent/child relationship that embodies sacrificial love. It’s just the easiest metaphor to reach for – and is in my realm of experience. Any relationship of true value experiences sacrifice of one kind or another – friendships, co-workers, spouse, siblings –
Look for God’s love shining in and through those relationships – Love you give and love you receive. See that, even though we may gladly and joyfully give up our time and resources or our need to be right or our comfort or our wealth, when we acknowledge that hospitality and sacrifice in others, we acknowledge where that love lives and abides and makes a home – in our God of love – whose way is counter to our self interest and the ways of the world.
I know sometimes it is hard to imagine God. Perhaps Martin Luther’s answer may be the best one. When we imagine God as a man on a tree – we see testimony to just how much God loves us – that God will not shy away even from the worst of humanity’s instincts –and we are called to love in whatever way we are able – to care for not only those like us, but for all of humanity that is so loved by the God who came to be with us. The resurrection is the promise and sign that when we’ve done our very worst, been our very worst, fallen so tragically short of God’s hopes for us, yet God’s love embodied in Jesus endures, remains, and abides in us.
Our challenge going into this week? Let love drive out fear – spend God’s love with abandon – and watch those pennies roll.
I did borrow a couple of your lines…. with footnotes in my manuscript 🙂
God as the adult version of an imaginary friend. I prefer that to the imaginary monster under the bed waiting to grab me by the ankle! LOL.
I think the trouble with all religion is that it is subjective and divisive. Ask three people what a certain verse means and you’ll get three different answers.
Thank you, David for this thoughtful reflection on the gospel. I like your idea of helping people to imagine God in new ways. But I could use an example of what you mean by sharing a story of just being loved. Anyone have ideas?
God’s blessings.