Read - First Presbyterian Church
Transcription
Read - First Presbyterian Church
“Looking For Love In All the Right Places” Text: 1 John 5:1-6 a sermon by Kevin Fleming Sunday, May 10, 2015 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH - EVANSVILLE, INDIANA Some of you will remember a film that was released 35 years ago, called “Urban Cowboy.” It was one of those films that sought to cash in on a contemporary trend and the trend at that time was all things cowboy. The film starred John Travolta and Debra Winger as two love-struck Texas young people who alternated their time between their jobs and Gilley’s, the world-famous, world’s largest watering hole in Pasadena, Texas. The movie was rightly summarized in the line, “hard-hat days and honky-tonk nights.” “Urban Cowboy” gave the culture things like line-dancing and mechanical bulls. People were pulling on their western boots and jeans and western shirts. Everyone owned a cowboy hat and did their best to learn the western two-step. The trend stayed with us for quite some time and then sort of played out as country music changed. For some of us, the day that trend died was second only to the day disco died. Rest in peace and good riddance. But, there was a song from “Urban Cowboy” that struck a chord with both country and pop fans. The song was “Lookin’ for Love in All The Wrong Places” and was recorded by country singer Johnny Lee. It hit number 1 on the Billboard country chart and made it all the way to number 5 on the pop chart. It sort of summarized what was going on in the movie and in the culture of the time. The chorus said: © 2015 Kevin Scott Fleming I was looking for love in all the wrong places Looking for love in too many faces Searching your eyes, looking for traces Of what.. I’m dreaming of... Hopin’ to find a friend and a lover God bless the day I discover Another heart, lookin’ for love. There were all kinds of people who could related to those sentiments back then. And there still are today. Just watch a little television and you’ll be bombarded by ads for ChristianMingle.com, eHarmony, Match.com, FarmersOnly.com, OurTime.com (for those of a more mature age level), and so many more. All kinds of people are still “looking for love” and now that the probabilities of love can be reduced to a series of zeroes and ones, the internet can help you find “another heart, lookin’ for love.” Now, obviously, there is a particular kind of love being sought in the song and on the websites. People are looking for that other person with whom they can share their lives in intimate and cherished ways. Finding that person who helps life make sense is sometimes a rewarding – sometimes frustrating – experience. And sometimes, you get really lucky and find the person who makes your heart sing and you make their heart sing and the music goes on and on. But the love of which the First Letter of John speaks, is not that passionate, physical love, but a kind of love that is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. While we have one word for love – which expresses our delight in everything from green beans to our partner – the Greeks had four words for love, each expressing a distinctive kind of love. The word for love in our passage from the First Letter of John is agapé. Agapé is the selfless, compassionate, love-in-action that Christians are to have for one another and for their neighbors. Agapé flows, not from the human heart, but from the selfless, compassionate love-in-action of God’s own heart. In Paul’s classic definition to the Corinthians, it is the love that patient and kind; it is a love that is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude; it is love that does not insist on its own way; it is love that is not irritable or resentful; it is love that does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. This love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And this love never ends. This is the love that most imitates the very love of God. And it’s not easy. Not by a long-shot. John writes, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the parent loves the child.” Okay, that makes sense. We’re accustomed to hearing that. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.” There’s a little twist there. Usually we think of obeying God’s commandments to prove how we love God, but this verse says that our love for God and our desire to keep God’s commandments proves that we love our Christian brothers and sisters.1 Love for God and love for one another grows out of a relationship with God. And who is God? For the Christian – God is defined by God’s saving, redeeming, and recreating love in Jesus Christ. We know that, even though we sometimes forget to live it. But, then, the Letter gives us a moment of challenge. “For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world.” Now, I’ve been a Christian for nearly 58 years and I’ve been a pastor for 29 years and I gotta tell you – there are days when loving God by loving my sisters and brothers in the faith is pure burden. Some of my sisters and brothers in the faith drive me nuts! (Not anyone here today, of course.) When some Christians start spouting their version of Christianity in the media and in congressional gathering places, I want to completely disassociate myself from them. There are days I don’t want to be identified as a Christian because of what some of my sisters and brothers are up to. The problem is: love is a birthright of our faith. Love comes to us as both gift and grace. Love comes to us in times of despondency and unhappiness and love comes to us in times of exuberance and cheerfulness. Love comes to us and makes us new. Love comes to us in spite of who we are and what we have done. Love comes to us in spite of what we believe or don’t believe. Love shakes us from our complacent way of life and drives us deeper into life’s truest meaning and purpose. And it is this love – this selfless, compassionate, endlessly giving love – that will win out over all the lesser forms of love that the world around us offers. It is this love that will bring meaning and significance to life after the trinkets and charms of the world have tarnished and shriveled. It is this love that brings forth the fullness and richness of life that we always seem to be searching for, but in all the wrong places. Sometimes, if we are lucky, we learn that kind of love in the heart of our homes. Sometimes we learn that love from caring and compassionate friends who seem to reflect the love of God with ease and grace. Sometimes we experience that love unexpectedly and out of the blue. That self-giving, life-changing love finds its source in God. That same First Letter of John reminds us that – whatever else anyone may say about God – God is love. And God’s people are to be people of love. And if we are going to be people of love, we have to look for love in all the right places and, chief among them, is the very person of God. This agape love – this patient, kind, generous, understanding, compassionate love – is the foundation of true life and true living. All other forms of love find their beginnings here. This is the right place to begin looking for love. In the lead up to the Gulf War, a group of Christians gathered for prayer. There were songs, and scripture, and prayer, and then more songs, and more scripture, and more prayer. It went on for a while. A young man, of about eighteen or nineteen, maybe a college freshman, offered a prayer, during the sentence prayers, asking that God be with the women and children in Iraq who would be hurt and killed in the war. When the gathering was over, a man in his mid-fifties came over to that young man and said, “Are you on Saddam’s side?” The young man replied, “Uh, no sir.” To which the man replied, “Well, you’re praying for the wrong people.” 2 One got it. One didn’t. One reflected the love of God. One moved toward the darkness. One lived the command of God. One walked the way of the world and not the way of God. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world.” “I give you a new commandment: that you love one another.” For now and evermore. Amen. 1.) Feasting on the Word, year B, volume 2, p. 492 2.) Craddock Stories, p. 130