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| Doing is Believing May 18, 2003 - 5th Sunday of Easter TEXT: John 15:1-12; I John 4:7-12 © 2003 Tina Blair |
When I was a young person, I longed to feel God's presence all the time, especially when I prayed. I had had a few wonderful experiences of experiencing a strong sense of God's presence and love. So when I prayed I worked hard to feel in myself a strong faith. But it was very hard to achieve every day! I worried about whether I was a good Christian or not.
So it was with great relief that I read the autobiography of the well-known Christian scholar and writer, C.S. Lewis. Lewis tells the story of his childhood faith when he believed that every time he prayed he was required to feel a fervent faith. When he attended church on Sundays, he would labor at feeling every word of the Lord's Prayer, of saying each line with meaning and emotion. Since such an emotional state is hard to maintain, he was often disappointed - in himself and in God. He began to doubt that God loved him; and then, even that God existed. He stopped going to church and eventually stopped believing, losing his Christian faith altogether.
Years later, though, after he experienced a conversion back to Christ, a conversion brought about by God's efforts, not his own, he was wont to talk about how grateful he was for the Sunday worship services. No matter how we feel, he would say, whether we are experiencing deep and moving feelings of faith or whether we are in a desert period of doubt - the worship services and prayers are always there, reminding us that God is always here, always loving us and calling us. And then when we join in prayer and worship, acting out our faith whatever our feelings are, then we rediscover our faith. Doing, you see, is believing.
This insight is the key to understanding our Bible readings for today. These texts pick up from the ones we heard last week. You remember that we learned that God's love is what comes first; before we know to love, God loves us and calls us back home, into God's arms. God's love, Larry reminded us, is unconditional. We are loved and accepted as we are. Let me repeat that because it is so hard to grasp: we are loved and accepted as we are. The result? We are to love others in the same manner. In these few phrases said by Jesus, he uses the word "love" as a noun or a verb 7 times. Listen again to Jesus:"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."
And the writer of I John, expanding on Jesus' words, uses it 13 times in only 5 verses. Listen:
"Beloved (that's you and me - the ones that are loved, very loved), let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone (everyone!) who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love... Beloved (that's us) since God loved us (us! Me, you) so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God's love is perfected in us."
But did you hear the catch? The scary part? "Whoever does not love does not know God...." Great goal, but, give us a break God, it is hard to be loving all the time. Yes, we know that love is a verb, it is more than a feeling, but what does it mean to love everyone, at work, at home, and, shudder, in the metro during a week of strikes? How do we love the unlovable? How do we sustain a life of "love?"
Jesus addresses this very question throughout his ministry in many parables and sayings. One of the most telling is Jesus' parable of the 2 sons in Matthew 21. One, when asked by his father to go work in the vineyard, says he will not, but then changes his mind and goes to work. The other son, when asked by his father to work says he will, but then gets lazy and does not. Jesus asks the Temple priests, "Who did the will of his father?" They answered, "The first." Again and again Jesus emphasizes that to do "the will of the Father" is to be a true disciple. Indeed, it is to be a member of his family. Remember when his mother and brothers, worried that he has gone too far, come to talk with him and his disciples told Jesus that they were outside, waiting to see him? Jesus answered, "My mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it." (Luke 8:21). Again, Jesus rebukes some followers by saying, "Whoydo you call me 'Lord,'Lord,' and do not do what I tell you?"
To be the sisters and brothers of Jesus we are to do God's will, to follow God's law, the law of love. And this love is not a warm, fuzzy feeling: it is doing God's will, a will that demands that we treat each person as Jesus treats us, as a friend for whom we are willing to die. It is doing love - a series of actions. Which ones? You know them already; they are the ones you and I wish for from others: respect, trust, honesty, integrity, courtesy, patience, peaceful intentions, and so forth.
Let's not shirk this call by claiming that we don't know how to act: we humans can quickly recognize what is good and loving behavior and what is not. That is not the problem. The problem is that we get tired, impatient, irritable, angry; we develop habits that promote discord and disagreement; we want to be given more than we want to give. Even when we decide to act in a way that is loving, however we feel at that moment, we may lose the capacity to act. So what are we to do?
I have mentioned to you before one of my favorite role models, Brother Laurence. Brother Laurence lived in a large monastery in the 1500's in France. Monasteries at that time were a hotel for rich travelers, hospices for the poor, and hospitals for everyone. Laurence was in charge of the very busy kitchen: picture it, food for possibly a couple of hundred people being prepared, cooked in large kettles and roasting on spits in the enormous fireplaces, while bread is baked, water is fetched from the courtyard pump, wine is brought up from the cellar. A noisy, busy, highly stressful place. Laurence, however, became known for his calm, his faith, his respect of everyone, down to the scrub boy. People came from all over to learn from him: why was he so at peace, so filled with faith? His answer was deceptively simple: the "practice of the presence of God." In his prayer time, Jesus had reminded Laurence that he was always present in Laurence's life: Jesus was present as a poor pot-scrubbing boy; Jesus was present in the rich prince visiting upstairs. When the soup spilled and the wine soured, Jesus was present, at Laurence's side, calming, supporting. Laurence began practicing remembering Jesus' presence: when the roast burned, rather than yelling at the poor cook, he would treat the cook as he would treat Jesus. If he felt he was losing his temper, he would remind himself that Jesus was with him, and he would mentally hold on to him for support.
My friends, this was not an exercise in trying to feel Jesus' presence: it was a deliberate mental discipline, an act of faith. The result became a loving public life and a rich private prayer life. Doing, you see, was believing.
In Laurence we have a Christian model, a brother of ours and of Christ's, that helps answer our questions about loving as Jesus loved us. What does it mean to love as Jesus loved? It means to treat each person as though she is Jesus herself. It means acting toward each person as if we really believed that he is the child of God, an heir to God's immense fortune. It means to live with Jesus at our side, in our minds, in our hearts, whether we feel his presence or not. It is a doing of faith, a disciplined exercise that strengthens our faith muscles.
You may be thinking, "But I'm not good at that kind of thing. I'm no saint! My faith isn't strong enough." Yes - we all feel that way, weak in faith, unable to develop spiritual disciplines; lots of times we don't act like we should and we despair. Even St. Paul had this problem; read his words in Romans 7 and 8. But don't give up: let's go back to what Jesus said:
"I am the true vine and my Father is the vinegrower. . . . Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing."
The Greek word used here that we translate "abide - abide in me as I abide in you" is the same word used to express permanence, as in the permanence of God's love. Romans speaks of God's counsel which abides forever/endures permanently (Rom. 9:11); God's word endures/abides forever in I Peter; the new covenant endures/abides (2 Cor. 3:11). You would recognize the same word in the famous passage on love in 1 Corinthians 13: only "faith, hope and love endure/abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." To abide in Christ is a permanence and a promise. It is being in the permanence of God's love in Jesus Christ forever, and it is the promise of future fulfillment, a future of fully knowing and feeling God's love for us.
I want you to notice something about this permanence, this "abiding in Christ" which lasts forever. The paradox is that, after all I have said about "doing," God's love has very little to do with what we do: it has everything to do with what Christ does for us. God has claimed us, and through our baptism, the little branch that you are was grafted onto the vine. You are already abiding in the love of Christ. The living water of God that grows this vine nourishes you. The great vine that is Christ holds you firm and enables you to grow fruit. To do then, to give and to love, then, is not a great work; it is letting our gifts be put to use. It is using the fruit God gives us to nourish others.
Yet like Laurence, we can strengthen our spiritual muscles, our faith, by acting towards others as we would act toward Jesus himself. Doing will strengthen our believing and if we believe, we can't help but "do." And also like Brother Laurence, we need to return to our vine, to Jesus Christ, and be refreshed and watered. God in Christ continues to love us and guide us, and this love gives us the energy and power to do, to live out our faith.
C. S. Lewis found that when he stopped trying to feel a strong faith and instead simply to act in faith, the feeling of faith returned: sometimes as quiet contentment; sometimes as reassurance; and sometimes, as a gift of deep, wild, joy.
Jesus said, "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete."
My friends, do what you believe, as best you can. The vine will nourish and renew your strength, and you will experience joy.
What kept Bro Laurence going?...