John’s letter this morning talks a great deal about love. “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” Is it just me, or was it a bit confusing to you as well? Let’s try to unpack this just a bit.
The reading is 326 words long. The word love is mentioned 28 times and the word God is mentioned 20 times. Even for someone like me, it is hard to miss that point. What John is trying to help us understand is that God is love. It is as simple as that. God Is Love. God loves us, and God wants our love in return. He doesn’t demand it though; we are free to not love God. But if we refuse, God will still love us anyway.
That is powerful stuff. It means that God, who created the world and all that is in it including us, is willing to love us so much that He gives us the power to reject him if we want. That is an amazing thing. God could compel us to love him. He had the power to create us in that way. But that would not actually be love. For love has to be given freely and returned just as freely. So God gave us the freedom to love him, or to reject him, it is our choice.
He does this because that is what love is about. To love is to be vulnerable. The offer of love to another is to give them power over you; to open yourself to that other and allow them to either accept or reject your love. It is that vulnerability, that willingness to surrender control to another that makes love so scary to us. It has been my experience that humans like to be in control. Especially Episcopalians.
Giving up that control to another can be terrifying, but it is the only way that love can truly work. Love is not about control. It is instead, being willing to give up control. God shows us that in his willingness to become vulnerable to us. In loving us, God turns himself over to us and lets us decide. The omniscient and omnipotent God is willing to give us this power, to teach us what love really is.
Love is also self-sacrificing. To truly love another means to put their needs ahead of our own. This is another area where humans struggle, especially today. For we look at the world through the lens of “enlightened self-interest”, or more bluntly, we usually ask “what is in it for me?” Love doesn’t work that way. True love means caring more for the other than for the self. God again shows us the way in the most vivid of examples. He gives us part of himself, his Son Jesus, a sacrifice offered for love.
God gave up a part of himself as a testament to His great love for us. Indeed, in giving us the Holy Spirit, God does this again as we are baptized. “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” So the all powerful God, the ultimate man who has everything, the one who has already given us life, gives the very last measure. He gives of himself, literally parts of himself, to teach us how great a love God has for us. It is this self-sacrificing gift that teaches us the most about love, and about the nature of God. The nature of a God who is willing to give his power over to us, to allow us to decide if we will love him, or not.
John also reminds us that God callus us to love one another. How do we love our brothers and sisters? This is an often-asked question in the church. We know that we are charged by God to love others, but it can be a daunting proposition. Do we just go down to the strip and start accosting passers-by and telling them that we love them? I am guessing that this is outside of the comfort zone of many of us, not to mention likely to provoke a long conversation with Metro.
No, the way to start loving others is to begin by loving those that we already know. This is the definition of pastoral care. Loving and caring for those in our community who are suffering or in need. Providing emotional or spiritual support to one another is a central part of being the church. When one of us is hurting, the rest have a duty through our love to help that hurt and provide comfort and support.
We do this in a variety of ways at Epiphany. The clergy do some of this, visiting hospitals, administering sacraments, etc., but it may surprise you to know that pastoral care is not the sole province of the clergy. Each of us is called to care for one another as part of the ministry of all the baptized. We do a fair bit of that here, with lay Eucharistic visitors, care and calling to members, angel food, and a whole list of other ministries. But we do have opportunities to get better.
People sometimes fall through the cracks, or we don’t know that they are in need. Some don’t know how to ask for help, and for still others we don’t have support systems in place. We can, and we will get better in our goal of loving one another. Today we will begin to recruit a prayer team, a group of folks who are willing to pray daily for those who are in need of support. We will also embark on a healing ministry, to empower folks who feel called to pray with people, raising their needs to God. We need to find someone willing to help with physical issues as well such as a ride sharing ministry to help those who cannot drive continue to attend worship and be part of our community. In 2018, lack of a car or the ability to drive should not be a barrier to our church.
We are also designating one person to be pastoral care coordinator, so we will have a single contact point for all needs. Filling this role will be Jen O’Brien, a person who has a great deal of experience and training in pastoral care. Jen won’t be replacing any of the pastoral programs we have, but she will be coordinating our resources and matching needs with ministries. More info will follow in the coming weeks, but all of these are ways that we are committing to care for one another as God calls us to do.
I call on each and every one of us to find ways to care for one another. Even in small, quiet ways, demonstrating love for another is a Godly gesture. You never know when what you perceive to be a small act, can make all the difference to another. For as John reminds us, “those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”