The following is the sermon my friend Erin and I presented a few weeks ago. Our pastor was away at the men's retreat and the women of the church took care of the Sunday services.
This sermon is adapted from notes of another pastor. We made a lot of changes, but used it as a starting point.
Loving Enough to Let go of the Little Things: 1 John 4:7-21
Pastor and author Rob Bell tells the story of a day at the beach with his family. Walking along the shore, they had come especially to pick up seashells. I'm sure the image in his kid’s mind was like it is for many the first time they visit the ocean from Sanibel Island - visions of lots and lots of giant, whole shells and starfish, just strewn all over the beach, waiting patiently to be picked up. The reality was different - lots and lots of broken pieces of shells, picking in the sand for hours, rarely finding a whole shell, and not one of any size. Bell's son had the same sad experience - continuing down the beach, he picked up lots of broken pieces of shells, but nothing whole or of any size. Then, they saw it - a whole starfish, floating on the water, near enough to shore to walk out and grab it. (If you are concerned for the starfish at this point, don't be - if a starfish is floating, it is already dead.) Bell and his wife encouraged their son to go out and get the starfish - it was his for the taking - the whole starfish he had wanted so badly.
Bell's son waded out into the ocean and right up to the starfish, and then turned around and came back, leaving the starfish to float. So they said, "come on! You can do it - it's right there! Just pick it up off the water." And he waded out again, right up to the starfish, and turned around and came back empty handed. After a couple more failed attempts, they said "What's wrong? Why don't you just reach out and pick it up? It's right at your fingertips, this starfish you have wanted so badly." And he said, "I can't" "You can't? Why not?" "Because my hands are too full of all the pieces I have picked up!"
He was clutching all the broken bits of shells, and his hands were so full of this detritus, that he could not open his hands and reach out to grab the whole shell he so desperately wanted. He couldn't reach out for the most important thing because his hands were full of lots of stuff. His hands were full of stuff that he didn't really want, or need, but it was in his hands, and he just couldn't let go of it, even to get something much more wonderful.
Over the summer, the United Methodist Women hold a School of Christian Mission, an opportunity for women across the state to meet for Bible Study. This past summer, their Spiritual Growth Study was on 1-2-3 John. How many of you have read 1-2-3 John lately? Most of us probably don't even remember that these books are there, hiding in the back of the Bible, just before Jude and Revelation. We might see them as little, inconsequential books not worth much energy or effort, but the more we examine the words of 1 John, the more we understand the central importance of the book to our Christian community, indeed to any community.
The author of 1 John is a pastor, anguished that his beloved community is painfully breaking into factions. Still, he encourages them to continue to love one another. 1 John 4:20 says "... those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen." Written almost 2,000 years ago, it is still excruciatingly obvious that it has not gotten any easier to be in community, whether that community is family, church, denomination, nation, or world. Or to continue the starfish metaphor, the early church and its members carried around a lot of broken fragments, and used them for the excuse that they could not remain together any longer. The world of 1 John was probably that of Ephesus, and the Christians in the early church are dealing with two issues, both of which have led to divisions among the church members: the first issue is right doctrine and the second is right practice. Most of the letters in the New Testament have to do with these kinds of issues. We have to remember when we read them that they are all starting from scratch. The early church was trying to answer questions such as: What does a community that follows Jesus look like? How does it behave? How does it treat other members of the community? How does it treat outsiders?
In regard to right doctrine, traveling preachers (who also considered themselves followers of Christ) had come in and convinced some members of the early church that Jesus was really not human, that he was completely divine, and that group split off. Those who had split off were trying to convince those remaining to join them. John is trying in earnest to encourage everyone to remain in community together, not divide into factions.
In regard to right practice, John has heard that the community is being torn apart, not only by the doctrinal issues, but also by how the factions, and those remaining, are treating one another. While professing their love for God, they are treating each other very, very badly.
I'm guessing there were a lot of similarities to what we find in our time today - lots of talking and backbiting, not much listening or understanding, lots more talking about folks than talking to them, lots of assumptions without regard to checking the facts. Our hands are so chock-full of broken bits of stuff that we can't seem to let go of, even when what we really want is floating there right next to us, ours for the taking.
This is our human situation and always has been. But we can find encouragement and strength to put down the detritus and reach out to Christ's wholeness - to remember and focus on what unites us instead of what divides us. And we do find hope: We love, because God first loved us; God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. John says "The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also." Sometimes we read passages like this and think "yeah, well that doesn't apply to me. My anger or hate or separation is justified. They just didn't have a situation as bad as mine back then."
What we see in 1 John is that it has always been, and will always be, very, very difficult to be in community. And it doesn't matter what that community is - family, workplace, local church, denomination, nation, or world. Splitting up is a time-honored tradition of just about every community we could name. But another time-honored tradition is this: reconciliation. And it is not easy or simple, but it is possible, particularly when we make first-and-foremost in our relationships the wisdom of 1 John: "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God."
In the book Radical Hospitality, author Father Daniel Homan reflects on his own experience of reconciliation. At the time, he was living in a monastery working with youth and considered them close friends. Father Dan introduced Father Mike to some of them. Father Mike invited the teens to an ordination party in his honor. Dan was upset with Mike because the teens were "his friends". In a fit of jealousy, Dan wrote Mike a letter expressing how he felt. It was not a nice letter. He put it under Mike's door, immediately felt better, but then tossed and turned with guilt all night long. In the morning the letter had been returned with a note from Mike. The note said "Dan, this isn't you." Mike didn't just forgive Dan, he erased it, gave him the benefit of the doubt, and moved on. Dan gave Mike more grace than he could have hoped for.
I love the message here...even the best of people mess up and have human feelings. We're all human but we can rely on Christ's power and example to lead us into reconciliation.
You may remember the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution - maybe you had to memorize it when you were in school. "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." "in order to form a more perfect Union..." The founders of this nation came together to write such things as the Constitution, not because they were all of like mind, but because they weren't. They decided that the starfish that floated in front of them was worth laying down the detritus in their hands to reach out and grab it! But think about the political, religious, and local dialogue of our day. We constantly hear the call for sides to be taken up, lines drawn, and battle to be engaged. We rarely hear from any side of an issue the call for what might be best for the communal good. Winning or losing seems much more important than a way through whatever mess we find ourselves in. But when we find community, whatever we name it - United Methodist or Lutheran or Roman Catholic, Republican or Democrat or Independent, Christian or Muslim or Jew, supporters of cause x or supporters of cause y - we can easily claim that community to be morally superior. Our human history is rife with examples of demonizing those who do not agree with us personally, or with the particular community we find ourselves a part of. And that puts us on very unholy, un-whole ground.
I think if John were here with us today, he would be shaking his head, grieving that we are still looking for ways to divide the beloved community, wherever we find it, tightly clenching our fists around our precious bits of pain and anger, refusing to reach out for healing and wholeness, needing desperately to feel a victory at any cost, especially at the cost of love.
But I do believe that there is hope - for as Jesus promised, where two or three are gathered, there Christ is among them. And we have those obscure little books of 1-2-3 John that were written to provide hope and inspiration that healing can occur. John writes that love is the path even when it seems impossible, that our communities in our homes, our churches, our towns, states, nations, and even as the world can come together - because that is God's will for us, that is Christ's example for us, that is the Spirit's power in and through us.
So, what do you hold in your hands that keeps you from reaching out for the wholeness that God wills for each one of us?
We invite you now, to stand up and open your hands to your neighbor.
Let's join hands and pray together the Lord's Prayer.
Our Father...
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