Keep us in the fellowship of your love, O God. Amen.
A keystone is the stone in the center of an arch that holds the whole thing together. The tension from all the different angles meet in that stone, which gives the arch its strength and stability. In other contexts such as organizations, ecology, or ideas, a keystone is something that is a central principle or thing on which everything else depends. Well, when it comes to our Christian faith, today’s reading from First John presents us with the keystone of our understanding of God and ourselves – God is love.
Just
three words, but because of the power of those words, they are a keystone that
holds together and supports every aspect of our faith. Whatever theological
question you have, whatever struggle you are facing, whatever thanks and praise
you have to offer, all of it is supported by the declaration that God is love.
This keystone supports and sustains our lives, our faith, and our world.
And
though it’s such a simple claim, that God is love, it’s also quite radical. For
us to be able to make a definitive statement about God using just three words,
a total of nine letters, is astounding. That the source of all being, the One
is not bound by space or time, can be described by us is almost unfathomable. A
lot of times the Church talks about the transcendence of God – how God is
beyond all knowing. And there is some truth in that position. But God is also
intimately knowable and relatable in Jesus Christ who demonstrates to us that
God is love.
When
we read and say that God is love, we do not mean that God is a feeling of
affinity, we do not mean that God is an emotion, a warm fuzzy or a butterfly in
our stomach, nor do we mean that God is an attractive force, something like
gravity. No, love is what is described in First John, “In this is love, not
that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning
sacrifice for our sins.” As I said in the sermon last Sunday, love is
sacrificial action. Love is giving something of ourselves – our time, our
resources, our energy, our attention, our safety, our wills – for the good of
another. And this is what God does for us in Jesus – coming into the world to
live briefly, die violently, and rise unexpectedly for the purpose of assuring
us of our reconciled and beloved standing before God. Perfect love is seen in
that Jesus came to be with us and gave himself for us.
Something
that I pretty much say in every sermon in one form or another is the foundation
of this love. As we heard, “We love because God first loved us.” In a word,
this is grace. God loves us without condition or reservation. We are loved
because God is love, and loving is what love does. We do not have to earn our
love, it is given to us as a gift from our gracious and loving God. And the
reason why I am so intent on making this point every Sunday is that this might
be the first sermon you’ve ever heard and it needs to be abundantly clear that
you are loved as you are. You don’t need to clean up your act and get it
together to belong here. Not at all – we gathered as the broken and beloved
people of God; not only are all welcome, but all belong in this fellowship.
But
it’s also just as true that this might be the last sermon you ever hear or that
I ever preach. None of us knows what will happen between today and next Sunday
– and so I want to make sure that I always give you the goods and share the
most wonderful, glorious, and transformative news there is – that God is love
and we have the gift of enjoying this love instead of trying to earn it. That’s
why, following in the wisdom of the mystic and monastic Julian of Norwich, I am
absolutely confident that all shall be well, and that all shall be well, and
that all manner of things shall be well. The source of this wellness is secured
by the keystone message that God is love.
In
the sermons in Eastertide, I’ve been focusing on two things – fellowship and
evangelism, which really are two aspects of beloved community. A community
grounded in love is always going to have companionship and fellowship, and love
is always going to make room for and seek out others. This is what First John
tells us about how fellowship works – “No one has ever seen God; if we love one
another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.”
While
contemplative prayer is a good, holy, and wonderful thing, it only takes us so
far. The goal of Christianity is not mysticism, it is beloved community. This
is why Jesus, on the night before he lovingly gave up his life for us, did not
give us a ritual to enact alone. Jesus did not say, “If you want to know me,
find a quiet room and say these words or light a candle.” No, he told us to
gather as a community for a meal; to gather as a body to receive his Body. The
way that we encounter God’s love, the way we participate in our belovedness,
the way that we respond to this love is through loving fellowship and service
to others.
There
is a lovely poem by the English writer Christina Rosetti called “Because He
First Loved Us” that describes well this reciprocal economy of love. It’s
written as a conversation between us and God – the stanzas alternate between
the voice of the poet and the voice of God.
I
was hungry, and Thou feddest me;
Yea,
Thou gavest drink to slake my thirst:
O
Lord, what love gift can I offer Thee
who
has loved me first?
Feed
My hungry brethren for My sake;
Give
them drink, for love of them and Me:
Love
them as I loved thee,
when
Bread I brake in pure love of thee.
Yea,
Lord, I will serve them by Thy grace;
Love
Thee, seek Thee, in them; wait and pray:
Yet
would I love Thyself, Lord, face to face,
heart
to heart, one day.
Let
today fufil its daily task,
fill
thy heart and hand to them and Me:
Tomorrow
thou shalt ask, and shall not ask
half
I keep for thee.
Love,
like beauty, is how we participate in the Divine. And it is a prodigiously
democratic gift. Everyone and anyone is loved and everyone and anyone can love.
Yes, the world has a way of hardening our hearts, closing our minds, and
toughening our skin – but love is always an option. This is what Jesus shows us
in his Passion. Love is always a viable option and love is, in fact, the only
way that will ultimately lead to flourishing. We respond to the love that was
first given to us by opening ourselves to others in love, which connects us to
the source of all love, because God is love.
Beloved,
our world has tried everything except for love. Jesus gave us the Golden Rule,
and pretty much every spiritual guide has shared a version of it, “Do to others
as you would have them do to you.” First John echoes this in saying “Those who
love God must love others.” We’ve tried warfare, consumerism, monarchy, socialism,
representative democracy, and look where we are. For all of their promises,
technology and politics have not brought us to utopia, but only closer to hell.
It is why St. Paul says that the most excellent way is the way of love.
This
is what St. Augustine said centuries ago, “If God is love, it follows that the
more companions and partners in the faith we have, the more effusive will be
the love in which we rejoice.” This is where evangelism comes in. Both for our
sake and the sake of others, it is our mission to expand our fellowship. For
our own sake, the more people who add their voices to our prayers, who
participate in Communion with us, who offer their gifts in ministry, the more
beloved our community will be. And for their benefit, if they do not currently
have the love of God as the keystone of their life, they are missing the thing
that matters most, indeed, the only thing that matters.
On
this point, the reading we heard from Acts is helpful. It’s a story of
boundaryless love and the power of the Spirit. There are two things to note
about the duty we have to share this love. The first is that love has no
boundaries, exceptions, or exclusions. According to the beliefs and rules of
the day, this Ethiopian eunuch could not be a part of the fellowship. His
status as a eunuch, something today we might call “non-binary,” meant that he
was not allowed to be a part of the religious community. At least, that had
been the assumption. But love says “come” when the world says “stay away.” It’s
the message of grace – no one is excluded because there is nothing that we can
or need to do in order to be included. This message of belonging and love is
for everyone. So as you’re thinking about who you might invite to come and see
the difference Christ makes at St. Luke’s, don’t write anyone off or exclude
anyone from your list.
The
other thing to notice is that Philip goes to this person, he does not wait for
him to take the initiative. Faith always comes by invitation. We can have the
prettiest church in town, which we do. We can have the doors open wide, which
we do. We can have a great website and social media presence with targeted ads,
which we do. We can have outstanding liturgy, which we do. But none of these
things are evangelism. Evangelism is about fellowship and relationship. The
call is not to wait for people to show up here, it’s to go meet them and offer
the invitation where they are. Yes, I want this to be a welcoming parish, but
more than that, we need to be an inviting parish. This Ethiopian did join the
Church through Baptism, but first, he was sought out by Philip and told about
this love that is making all things well. It is a holy example for us to
follow.
I
know that a lot of us have been trained to treat faith as a private matter, to
think that we don’t want to be like “those Christians” who are always trying to
get people to come to Church. As we hear in First John, “There is no fear in
love, but perfect love casts out fear.” Bringing up faith might make us a bit
uncomfortable, it might even make us fearful. But, to be clear, our goal is not
to add people to the membership database at St. Luke’s. Our hope and prayer is
that they will encounter the love that created them and that can be their
keystone in life. The invitation isn’t “Come to my church because it’s nice.”
No, the invitation is more like “There is a peace, a love, a sense of belonging
that I can’t imagine living without, and I think it’s something you might connect
with as well.” As you are thinking about inviting others into this fellowship
of love, know that I am praying for you and those you will invite. And I’m here
to help you if you want to talk through any of this.
God
is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in us. Thanks
be to God.
