October 29, 2008 + Authentic love + Hayward Fong

John 13:31-35

For the longest time, our Pastors and pulpit guests have preached on the importance of fellowship and community. Community building has been a theme woven throughout our mission program objectives here at Immanuel for some time. I don’t usually think of these ingredients as part of my personal Christian life. But, I have since found fellowship and community to be particularly important to us as individuals when our faith is ebbing and low.

At those time, the loyalty of friends is so important. In retrospect, it raises the question in my mind of my loyalty. Am I truly loyal to my friends? Are their lives better because I am their friend? Do I pray for my friends to have good things happen to them?

I read a story many years ago about an artist who made a sketch of a winter twilight. The trees were laden with snow and a dreary looking house stood in the midst of the drifted field. It was a bleak and depressing picture. Then, with yellow chalk, the arrtist put a light in one of the windows. The effect was almost magical. The entire scene was transformed into a vision of comfort and cheer.

It’s amazing to see the effect we can have on another person’s life. If we care enough about one to pray for him or her, God uses that prayer to also bind us close together in our friendship. Our Wednesday Morning Worship Service had its beginning as a prayer service and evolved into the more formal service as we know it today. Recently, I felt the need to place greater emphasis on the needs of people on the Weekly Prayer Request, so we have set aside a special time to pray silently for those needs.

When our friends are having problems, our first desire should be for God to use us to help them get through their problems. We must also warn them of the dangers that are before them. If we give them only ourselves, it is not enough. We must also give them God.

When Mother Teresa of Calcutta was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, someone asked her what we can do to promote world peace. Her answer was deceptively simple but very much to the point, “Go home and love your family.” Go home and love your family!

Unfortunately, the word love has received some poor press in recent years, and, as a result, it doesn’t have the bite and meaning Jesus was talking about when He gave us His new commandment, “to love one anothor ” All too often we hear comments like “I just love your new outfit.” Or, “I just love the barbeque sauce on the Colonel’s fried chicken.” Or, “Don’t you just love the lines on the new BMWs?”

But Jesus’ new commandment and Mother Teresa’s formula for world peace is a much harder and tenacious love than shows up in casual conversation and in television commercials. The English word is deficient in this respect in that we only have the single word love. Jesus new commandment is not something we feel, it is something we do. Authentic love, the kind that binds us together as families, as communities is not a euphoric emotion that sneaks up on us on our blind date. Rather, it is learned and relearned again and again.

I think Antoine de Saint Exupery, the French author and aviator, captured an important slant on love when he said, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.” It is looking outward toward common goals and desires that enriches the love among family members, that allows each member of the family to grow and mature as uniquely different individuals, yet bonded together.

In my growing up, saying, “I love you,” was non-existent. I had to learn to say it; the more I said it, the more I meant it and the easier it came. This is not to imply that it became mechanical but rather because it became real.

Something else about Jesus’ rugged kind of love was beautifully expressed by Paul when he wrote, “Love believes all things” (I Corinthians 13:7, RSV). But that phrase might better be translated, “Love is always eager to believe the best.” That’s the model for us in our relationships...every day believe and expect the best in each other.

As Mother Teresa implied – as we express our love within the family circle through words and touch and loving actions, we will experience a peace and joy that “surpasses human understanding” (Philippians 4:7, JBP). World missionary Dr. Frank Laubach summed up the whole idea of Jesus’ new commandment in these words, “When iron is rubbed against a magnet, it becomes magnetic. Just so, love is caught, not taught. One heart burning with love sets another on fire.”

I had finished and printed this message last Friday but what I heard on Bill Moyer’s weekly program on KCET caused me to come back and share these closing thoughts. He was interviewing a man by the name of Mark Johnson. Mark had just finished a project, which I would call love in action.

Ten years or so ago, he was one of thousands in New York City rushing to catch the morning subway to work. All of a sudden, the people at the station stopped their rush, himself included, spellbound by two white clad monks playing music and singing words they probably did not understand. A short time later, Mark was in Santa Monica walking along the beach front when he, along with others, was captivated by various musicians playing and singing spiritual messages of love.

Mark’s eyes were opened to how music might be a common medium to communicate the message of love. He obtained the consent of these Santa Monica musicians to record their music with the intent of having it played by musicians around the world as a TV production. Mark started in South Africa. After locating a musician renown in the land he wanted to begin where love was needed the most. They went to an AIDS ridden village for the TV recording. Afterwards, he asked the people what he might give back in return from this project. They felt that a school devoted to music would be most appropriate since it was music that had brought him to them. From that beginning, more schools have been funded by Mark Johnson’s program, “Playing for Change: Peace through Music.” This is another example of what God can do with a person with a vision answering the call to love.

So each day, let us ask God to help us see the opportunities to love as Jesus loved and in so doing set the world on fire.