Eternal Life Is… Love in Truth and Action
Love is a Verb
1 John3:16-24
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. April 21st, 2024
My last year in Durham the churches, service organizations, city, and police department, united to crack down on panhandlers. The city passed ordinances against “aggressive panhandling” which seemed very vague to me. The churches and service organizations supported a marketing blitz telling people not to give money to people on the street. Instead, the pamphlets said, direct them to the local homeless shelters where the professionals can help them get on their feet. Well, I knew very well the local shelters didn’t have the capacity to serve Durham’s homeless. It was effectively a campaign, not to help, but to kick them out of town.
I discovered the reason behind the ordinance and the campaign the year after I left. Millions of dollars were being poured into the areas of Durham surrounding Duke to build high rise apartments, boutique shops, and condominiums. As long as the panhandlers stuck around it would hurt business. It’s a lot easier to kick people out than it is to give them the help they need.
I was stuck by the Churches that were involved in this campaign. They were the social justice churches. The ones that spoke the most about love and justice and acceptance. The ones who, surely, cared deeply for the people on the street and I’m sure gave generously toward the various programs in town that served people experiencing homelessness. And yet, they were backing a campaign that plainly harmed the people on the street. They plainly played their role on behalf of wealthy developers who wanted to get the panhandlers out of town. They spoke words of love, but in this instance I don’t see how they followed through in action.
John exhorts us this morning to love. Love is not a word owned by the right or the left. Love is what disciples of Christ do. But John also doesn’t want us to merely love in word or speech. He doesn’t want us to talk about love and do nothing. Or worse, to talk about love and do things that might hurt others. I was reading a book the other day by someone who digressed to say that they are all about love, they just think their enemies are agents of satan. That’s love as window dressing. Love as good feeling. It’s not enough.
John exhorts us to love not simply in word or speech, but in truth and action. What does that mean?
We love in truth, first, because we love God. John also says, “And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him” Being “from the truth” is the same here as being from God. The source of all truth. The one who gives us our true confession. Love flows from the love of God. The God who is love. I’ll be talking more about this later on.
But we love, secondly, in action. The love we have of God, or rather God’s love for us, overflows into love for others. And this love overflows into love that is found not in merely words and good feelings. But it is found in action. It is practiced. It is concrete.
We can think about this love in different ways. It can be the love of presence. Lending a listening ear, sitting with someone in their illness or grief. Or a phone call. Few things say love more than being there, even in silence. Even when there is nothing to say. Perhaps, when there is nothing to say, we are showing the greatest love of all.
This love can also be the love of gifting. When someone is in need of help and we give them what they need to get by. There is love. But I’m thinking, too, of something as simple as a card. Or maybe a meal. In these ways we show love concretely.
But love can also be the love of doing. Giving up of ourselves in concrete ways to support someone. When I was up north God’s Country Cooperative Parish would build ramps or fix bathrooms. There’s love in that.
What characterizes love, in the end, John tells us is, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us--and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” In presence, gifting, and doing, we lay down our lives. We give our time, talents, resources, attention, to others for their sake. Because they are one for whom Christ died. And they are our sister, or they are our brother, or they may be in that moment Christ for us. After all, Jesus says what you do for the least of these you’ve done also for me. In all these ways we make love real and concrete.
And eternal life is found in the mutual sharing of love.