More Than Words
1 John 3:16-24[1]
We all know that loving God means loving people. And we all
know that loving people means more than just loving our family and friends. It
means loving even those who are difficult to love, even those who may push our
comfort level, even those whom we may think of as “enemies.” And we all know
that when the Bible teaches us to love like this, it’s not just talking about
how you “feel.” It’s talking about how you live, what you do, and how you treat
people. And it’s not just talking about “people” as an “idea,” it’s talking
about the real, living and breathing people we come in contact with every day.
If there’s one thing that’s true about loving other people, really loving all
the people we come in contact with, it’s that it doesn’t come easily—for any of
us!
I think part of the reason for this is that love is about
giving. When you love another person, you give to them. You give them what they
need when they need it. If they’re hungry, you feed them. If they’re lonely,
you spend time with them. If they need help, you give it to them. You care for
them when they cannot care for themselves. But more than any specific thing you
may give to someone you love, you give yourself. That’s where it gets tricky,
because the question is how much of yourself you can really give away. We all
know that our example for loving others is Jesus, who gave his life for us all.
And there have been many throughout the ages who have done just that: give up
their lives for the sake of those they loved.
As much as I would agree with the fact that Jesus’
teachings about love were intended to prepare those who followed him for the
possibility that they may be called on to give up even their lives for others,
I would not say that’s what loving others always means for everyone. Sometimes
we may be called to give up a great deal, perhaps even everything, perhaps even
life itself for the sake of those we love. Sometimes, though, we’re called to
love people over the course of a lifetime. We may give up a lot in order to do
that, but the point is that we go on living our lives so that we can go on
loving them day by day, year after year. I would say that’s probably the kind
of life of love that most of us are called to practice.
The practice of loving other people as something that is at
the heart of what it means to be a Christian is also a major theme in 1 John. The
Elder John says it plainly earlier in the chapter from which our lesson for
today is drawn: “This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We
should love one another” (1 Jn 3:11, NLT). And in our lesson, he says, “We
know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought
to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 Jn 3:16, NLT). Again,
we know well that there were many in that day who literally were called to give
up their lives, especially to protect their brothers and sisters in the faith.
But that doesn’t seem to be what’s in mind here. He goes on: “If someone has
enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows
no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not
merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions” (1 Jn
3:17-18, NLT).”
Here, the kind of love that the Elder John has in mind is
about having the means to help someone in need and actually helping them. It’s
about sharing what we have with people we know who are in need. For some of us,
helping others like this is second nature. For others it may be more difficult.
Beyond the basic challenge of whether or not we have a generous nature, the
command that we are to love others by giving tangible goods or money to help
them is another way in which loving others can be tricky. We have to use our
best judgment to discern whether giving someone what they ask for actually
helps them or whether it may hurt them. It’s not always easy to know for sure
when we’ve crossed that line.
I’ve had some experience with that. Some of you may know
that I have a tendency to be generous to a fault. When I was in college, I was
the guy who picked up hitchhikers as I was driving the wide-open spaces of
Texas. I’ve given more money out of my own pocket than I probably should have
to people simply because they asked for it. And I know for sure that some of
them were taking advantage of my generosity. I had a man whom I had helped on
more than one occasion come back to me and apologize. He had been taking
advantage of the fact that I was helping keep him housed to spend what money he
had on his drinking habit. Was I helping him? Was I hurting him? That’s where it
gets tricky.
I’d like to think that I’ve gotten more discerning about
whom I help and how I will help them. I don’t have any problem buying someone a
meal or filling their tank with gas. But I prefer to give money to
organizations that help those in need rather than handing out cash to someone
standing on a street corner. And yet, I must confess it’s hard for me to just
“look the other way,” but I simply don’t feel comfortable potentially giving
someone the means to continue destroying their own lives. I think the challenge
for me is to make sure that I’m actually giving to those organizations and not
just using that as an excuse not to share what I have with those who are in
need.
The part of this that gets really tricky for all of us is
that helping people who are in true need takes us outside our comfort zones.
Many of the people who truly have needs we can help are those we ordinarily may
not have much to do with, or perhaps they are those whom we intentionally
avoid. But we cannot follow the command to love others without recognizing “the
intrinsic claim of every person to be considered a person.”[2] That’s not
so hard when everyone we meet looks like us, or talks like us. But we live in a
great big world with a lot of very different people in it. We cannot simply
love those who are like us. We can only truly love our neighbors when we can
see “that every human face is the face of a neighbor.”[3] And Jesus calls us to love that neighbor. When we can get past all the
superficial differences and see anyone in need as “one of us,” then we can love
them in a way that goes beyond words.
[1] © 2024 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/21/2024 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Paul Tillich, Love, Power and Justice, 60.
[3] Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society,
41: “For a compassionate [man] nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no
way of living and no way of dying. … This compassion pulls people away from the
fearful clique into the large world where they can see that every human face is
the face of a neighbor.”
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