“Divine Love, Part 1: God Is Love” by the Rev. Don Wahlig, April 28, 2024, Year B / Easter 5 – Acts 8:26-40 • Psalm 22:25-31 • 1 John 4:7-21 • John 15:1-8

THEME:  God is present and visible where we love our neighbors.

What does God look like? When you think of God, do you have a picture in your mind? If you are an art and culture lover, then God probably looks like that oddly muscular, grey-haired old man floating on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, forming Adam with the touch of his finger.  If you are a movie buff, then you might say that God looks like Morgan Freeman in Evan Almighty.  And, if you are a young adult or the parents of a young adult, then you may think of the Muppets who thought that God looks like Whoopi Goldberg. And of course, if you are of a certain age, then God looks like the old-time comedian George Burns, in his round glasses smoking a cigar.

I John has an answer, but it is not the answer we expect. In I John, God is love.  Let’s be honest. It is a little strange to say that God is love. But that’s what our passage says – not once, but twice – just so that we get the point.  So, we had better unpack that. The writer of these verses is part of a community of early Christians who are deeply influenced by John’s gospel. In fact, John the son of Zebedee and brother of James may be the Elder who leads this community. So, let’s call it John’s community. 

John’s community members are crystal clear that God is the source of love. Not us – only God. In fact, we are able to love one another only because God loved us first. We know that God loves us because he came to be one of us in Jesus the Christ so that we would have life. We are going to say more about what that means next week. For now, it’s enough to say that in Jesus God showed us what true, self-giving, divine love looks like in the flesh. 

But there were some in John’s community who had a problem with that. Let’s call them the opponents. For them, Jesus simply could not be God in the flesh. It never crossed their minds that a divine being of any sort would ever stoop to become human. So, to these opponents, Jesus was not the Messiah, the divine Son of God. He was just another human being like you and me. In the eyes of the opponents, God gave Jesus his Holy Spirit at his baptism, and then removed it when Jesus died on the cross. But never did God actually become flesh-and-bone human being.

So, Jesus only appeared to be divine. These opponents were so adamant that God would never choose to become fully human, that they separated from John’s community. For the writer of 1 John, that is proof that these opponents are in error. They do not trust that Jesus is God’s Messiah as the gospel proclaims. They lack faith, and as a result, they lack love. They do not love as God loves us. On the other hand, John’s community is guided by Jesus’ commandment to love one another. No doubt, they do not love each other perfectly.  Nobody this side of heaven ever does. But nevertheless, they trust that Jesus is God’s Son, the Messiah – God with us – and living proof of God’s deep love for us. Their faith enables them to live with love for each other. And God lives in them.

In all of scripture, I can think of no better illustration of the connection between Christian faith and Christian living than this one. The point that I John makes is that what we believe about God and his Son guides the way we live and the way we love others. What about today? What about you and me? Does faith make a difference in how we live and how we love others? 

Just ask yourself this question. Where would you rather live – with John’s community of the faithful, or out there somewhere with the schismatic doubters? I know where I’d rather live. It reminds me of a story I read in Guideposts not long ago. It was written by a young husband and father named Clement Sprout. Clement grew up in Capetown, South Africa where he was raised as a devout Christian. After graduating from law school he decided to spend the summer as a counselor at a Christian camp in New Hampshire. There he met his future wife, another counselor named Sarah. Clement and Sarah fell in love, got married, and had twin girls. After several years of renting, they finally saved up enough money to buy a house in the town in upstate New York where they wanted to live. The challenge they faced was to find the right neighborhood.

What Clement wanted most of all was to find a community like the one where he grew up in Capetown. A place where neighbors knew each other and were involved in each other’s lives. Where they looked out for each other and cared for each other. In short, a place where loving your neighbor was not just a nice idea, but a lived reality. After much searching, they found a house that looked right. There were 12 houses on the street and lots of kids running around. To Clement and Sarah, it looked perfect. So, they bought the house. A month later when they were settled in, they began wondering how do we get to know our neighbors? Clement thought back to the neighborhood get-togethers back home.  The adults would sit around a fire in the evening while the kids ran around playing.  It was idyllic.

That memory inspired Clement and Sarah to do something a little unusual. They decided to take the initiative and throw themselves a Welcome-getting-to-know-you gathering over the July 4^th weekend. The week before the gathering, the girls put invitations in the neighbors’ mailboxes.  They were simple: “Hello! We’re new to the neighborhood. The Sprout Family. We’d love to meet you. Monday, July 5^th, anytime between 6 and 8 p.m.”  The afternoon of the party, Clement and Sarah set-up a table at the end of their driveway with food and goodies for the kids. They set-up the corn-hole game.  After all, we all know you can’t have summertime gathering without cornhole, right? 

And then they waited. 6:00 came and went. 6:10 came and went. Not a soul in sight. Clement and Sarah began to have doubts.  Clement prayed, “God, let us be a blessing today. Help me to be the kind of neighbor I want to have.” Then, as if on cue, slowly and steadily, the neighbors began to show up. It wasn’t long before connections were formed, and friendships were made between neighbors up and down the whole street. Reflecting back on that day a few years later, Clement said, “Upstate New York is a long way from Cape Town, but I’ve learned that it’s not a place that builds community, but the people.  People willing to do something daring:  Love their neighbor.”

It brought to mind something that his God-parents used to tell him back home.  “Following Jesus starts with the house next door.” Friends, that is where Jesus wants us to start. Whoever is next to us, that is who we are to love. Is it difficult? Yeah, it can be. Because people can be difficult. Lord knows, we ourselves can be difficult. None of us is perfect and none of us loves perfectly. But simply being willing to take the risk opens up the possibility of real community, a community of those who love one another because God loved us first.  Is it risky? You bet. Relationships always are. There is always the danger of rejection, which is what happened to John’s community when the doubters chose to leave. But you can bet that over time, members of John’s community began to reach out to the doubters, to offer a pathway for reconciliation.

Will it work? We don’t know until we try. But I would never bet against it because God’s love is the single most powerful, persistent force this world has ever known. Trusting in the power of his love, we do not have to fear our neighbor, anymore than we have to fear Jesus on judgment day. Love conquers fear. That is the promise of the gospel. And it is not just a promise for the end of time, but for this time, for today, too. We do not have to fear because we trust in a God of love. What we stand to gain by reaching out with love for our neighbors far outweighs the risk. It is nothing less than the experience of God in us, working through us to share his love. That is an experience beyond any this world can offer.

So, what does God look like? God looks like you and me, loving our neighbor the way God loves us in Jesus Christ.

May it be so.