"Radiate God's Love" San Williams, UPC
Matthew 28:18-20, John 20:21-22, Acts 1:6-8
Our summer sermon series is titled, “Rediscovering the Message of Jesus for a World in Crisis.” These sermons are challenging us to rethink what it means to be Christians. We’re learning to think of the church not so much as an institution as a community that helps form people in the way of Jesus. We’re starting to speak of the church not as a place to go but as a people to be. Our rethinking is challenging us to ask ourselves: Are we only fans of Jesus, or are we followers of Jesus? We want people to see that what we believe is demonstrated by how we live. This morning I want to suggest a sentence for us to ponder, one that sharpens our focus on what it means to be Christians in 2009. Here it is: The church is at its best when it tries to be a community that radiates God’s love. What’s needed today are expressions of church that radiate God’s love. Let’s listen, then, to three brief passages of scripture that show the followers of Jesus being sent into the world to embrace and spread the love that they have received in Jesus.
Read Matthew 28:18-20, John 20:21-22, Acts 1:6-8
Broadly speaking, these three passages take us back to our commissioning as disciples, and ground our understanding of church in the person and message of Jesus. My Thesaurus defines the word radiate: “To send forth from a center.” The center of our life is Jesus, and our commission is that from this center we will try continually to shine God’s love out into the world.
Think for a moment of how the four Gospels describe the person of Jesus as the one sent into the world to radiate God’s love. Beginning with the birth narratives, Jesus is proclaimed as the light of God that has come into the world. In John, the light shines in the darkness radiating grace upon grace upon grace. In Luke, the angels are the first to sing that, in the birth of Jesus, God’s glory fills the earth with a message of peace for all people. Jesus’ mother, Mary, sings of how her son’s love will radiate into the world, transforming relationships and righting wrongs. “He has scattered the proud…brought down the powerful...lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry with good things.” So beginning with these birth stories, Jesus is pictured as one who has come into the world for the purpose of radiating God’s love, peace and justice.
And recall how Jesus’ ministry began in Capernaum, but then radiated out to all the neighboring towns and villages. Mark reports Jesus as saying, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message of the kingdom there also, for that is what I came out to do.” Jesus’ predecessor, John the Baptist, stood at the Jordan and asked people to come to him, but Jesus went forth from the Jordan to radiate God’s love. He intentionally went to those places in the world where people were shut out—to the sick, the despised, to outsiders. To any who felt they didn’t belong, weren’t loved and never welcomed, Jesus radiated acceptance and love. Even on the cross, Jesus transmitted God’s love to his enemies, “Father, forgive them.” So if someone asked us to bring the life, death and resurrection of Jesus down to a single sentence, we might choose to say that Jesus came into the world to radiate God’s love.
Yet as we heard in our scriptures this morning, Jesus gives this same ministry to his followers, the church. While on vacation this summer, I called the church to check in and see if there was any news. That’s when Judy told me about John and Suzi Parker’s decision to go to Haiti for a year. The Parkers have made the decision to return to the hospital where they have served before. My first thought was, How are we going to get by for a year without the Parkers? John’s been the ring leader in all the painting and renovations we’ve been doing on the building, and Suzi has been a strong member of Mission and Service and much more.
When I saw Suzi last week at the Mission and Service meeting, I told her that I had heard about their decision, and how we would miss them. Suzi shot back, “Well, it’s your fault. The sermons you and Judy have preached this summer, along with the prayers and music and Communion in worship, kept nudging us to accept this assignment.” Her comment helped me realize how encouraging it is that ours is a congregation radiating God’s love, even when—maybe especially when—some of us are in faraway places such as Haiti.
This summer in our worship we’ve been calling attention to some of those places in the world where suffering and violence are the most intense. We’re doing this in order to help us think about what the message of Jesus might mean in places such as the Congo, Darfur and Palestine. I read recently about some indigenous Christian groups in the Congo who were travelling to villages where soldiers were kidnapping and coercing young boys to fight in their cause. The motto of the soldiers was “If you want peace, prepare for war.” These Christians handed out t-shirts with a very different understanding of peace. Their t-shirts said, “If you want peace, practice forgiveness.” Here’s a group of Christians radiating God’s love in a war-torn nation.
This morning you have an insert highlighting the ongoing conflict in Israel and Palestine. I like the quote at the bottom of the sheet by the Palestinian, Mitri Raheb, who states that the challenge for Christian Palestinians is to embrace a hope that "is active…that develops a strategy for action, for work, for getting engaged and involved.” In other words, peace in the Middle East depends on an active hope that radiates forgiveness, seeks justice and practices non-violence.
But radiating love also takes place much closer to home. Last Sunday, Bobbie Sanders gave a Minute for Mission on our Tuesday Up-lift ministry. Uplift is an acronym for University Presbyterians Living in Faith Together. Bobbie explained that this is not simply a ministry in which we try to provide financial aid and emergency food assistance to people in need of help, although we do that. More importantly, it is a ministry of hospitality and listening. It’s a way to radiate God’s love. And what the volunteers often discover is that love goes both ways. Often it’s our guests who radiate God’s love to us.
And don’t forget that radiating God’s love should begin at the church door. A visitor to our congregation told me this week that as soon as he first entered our sanctuary he was greeted with warm hospitality. One of our members even said, “Come and sit with us.” Such hospitality signals to others that ours is a congregation radiating God’s love.
Of course, we know it’s one thing to radiate God’s love when others are receptive and friendly. But what about those more difficult situations, when others are radiating hate or even violence toward us? Shane Claiborne is part of an urban Christian community located in a tough section of Philadelphia. Judy and I heard Shane speak at a conference in Albuquerque last spring. Shane’s community is committed to practicing non-violence in that impoverished, sometimes dangerous, section of Philadelphia. In one of his books, Shane describes a time he and a young friend named Kassim were walking to the post office when they were accosted by a group of teenagers intent on creating mischief. Shane writes:
'They ran after us, throwing some rocks and bottles, and I noticed two of them now carried broomsticks from the trash. We picked up the pace a bit, and then I looked at Kassim and said, ‘No, don’t run.’ We turned back, and before we knew it, one of them had clocked Kassim on the side of the head with a stick. I said firmly, 'Why would you do that? We haven’t done anything to hurt you.' They laughed. Then they started hitting me with a broomstick until it broke over my back. At this point I decided to bust out a can of holy anger. I looked them in the eyes and said, as forcefully as I could. 'You are created in the image of God…every single one of you. And you were made for something better than this. Kassim and I are followers of Jesus and we do not fight, but we will love you no matter what you do to us.'’ Shane concludes, 'That wasn’t exactly what they expected or hoped for. They looked at each other, startled a bit. For the first time they were quiet. And then they scurried off in every direction.'
Sometimes we may be challenged--like Shane and his young friend were and like Jesus was-- to radiate love even when others are radiating anger and violence.
In a few moments we’ll come to the Table to commune with Christ and one another. This Table represents the center, the place where we meet Christ, receive the Holy Spirit and join our lives to his. And friends, from this Table, go out to radiate the love you have received to the person in the pew next to you, as well as to the person who is not likely ever to sit in a church pew…to the person across the street as well as the person on the other side of the globe…to the neighbor who lives under the same roof and well as the homeless neighbor who lives under a bridge. Radiate God’s love…in every situation…without reservation…without hesitation…and with no limitation.