The Way of Love

Transcripts are computer-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

One of the things that struck me when I first showed up at The Table last summer for the first time was just how beautiful the music is here. And how high quality the music is, and how the music is not just music but it is leading us in worship together. And that touched me, because since I was a child I've been chasing good church music all over the place. I've heard some incredible church choirs—none better than ones here in Twin Cities. I mean, this is like choir central of the country—thank you, Lutherans. I've both heard and played some of the largest pipe organs in the world [pointing up] Still not that one, but soon maybe, not for anyone, I'm too rusty for that, but for myself.

I've heard the call to prayer resound from a minaret over the old city of Jerusalem, heard Portuguese praises ring out from open-air worship services in Brazil, experienced the whirling dervishes of Sufi mystical tradition, but there is no musical memory that is more present in my mind on a regular basis than hearing, in a hot North Carolina summer county jail chapel, full of inmates singing “They Will Know We are Christians by our Love.” I can call up that memory like that [snaps]. I'm right back there in that hot, sweaty, North Carolina jail chapel.

The small-town church where I served as youth minister during college would take a month during the summer to lead the weekly evening worship services out of the county jail. Just so happened that the county sheriff was a deacon and choir member and my Sunday school teacher—small-town rural ministry is really really amazing. Everybody has multiple relationships with everyone in a variety of different ways and the sheriff invited us out to lead these services for the guys.

And before the preaching began, we'd ask the men what hymns they wanted to sing and they would just call them out from the pews, I would usually play them on the piano and no matter what else they wanted to sing, they always wanted to sing “They Will Know We are Christians by our Love.” We knew that. Every week, a room full of deep voices singing as loud as they could about what it means to be related to one another in the spirit of Christ. It's a hymn about relationship, how we imagine ourselves related to one another in the spirit. Goes like this if you're not familiar:

We are one in the spirit, we are one in the Lord.

We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand.

We will work with each other, we will work side by side.

And the refrain: they'll know we are Christians by our love by our love.

And that's basically the crux of the message of Jesus throughout the Gospels, perhaps most especially in the gospel of John, where Jesus's mission is to draw disciples into the communion of life and love that Jesus shares with God. It was a constant invitation for people to enter that loving relationship. Mary Cole says a definition of God that underpins the theology of the fourth gospel is being hyphen in hyphen love being in love God's being is God's love love is to be the essence of Christian discipleship and not simply an ethical response it is for Jesus not that we practice love in order to respond to God's love it is in and through love that God can be known because God is being in love this is one of the simplest and most poignant descriptions of God in the whole text of Scripture says from the epistle of 1st John beloved let us love one another because love is from God everyone who loves is born of God and knows God whoever does not love does not know God for God is love this is the final sermon in our series on the ways of Jesus and we end with the central theme of Jesus's teaching the way of love some of the strongest and most outlandish statements in the entire Bible are about love like that three-word sentence in 1st John God is love summing up every tome of theological reflection on the divine life in three words God is love radical outlandish and one from the lips of Jesus that I want to focus on for a few minutes in that scene of the Last Supper in John's gospel when he needed to leave them with something to sustain them in the turbulent days ahead as he was betrayed by one from their own circle of companions and would soon be executed he could have given them given them a strategy for growing the church or instructions on mounting a military revolution or any kind of instruction on how to do all the things he had been doing all of this time but this is what he said after washing their feet I give you a new commandment that you love one another just as I have loved you you also should love one another by this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another that was the message to leave with them to sustain them some of the strongest most outlandish teachings in the Bible are about love even that most popular wedding text from 1st Corinthians 13 who had 1st Corinthians 13 at your wedding I know some of you probably all of you did I will say this upfront no biblical writer after pinning their words thought this would be a really nice wedding text they are really nice wedding text but they are so much more radical and expansive than that and they cannot be contained to the romantic companionship of partners or spouses this is a love that does not get simplified into one particular form of relationship so here these words that you may have heard a million times at every friend's wedding outside of that context and I'm gonna skip around the part we normally read about love being patient and kind and all that you know that part but here's where how it begins and if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love I am nothing if I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I might boast but do not have love I gain nothing every marker of discipleship every marker of faithfulness is subjugated to the ultimacy of love and it continues this is the end of the next paragraph that you know so well love never ends but as for prophecies they will come to an end as for tongues they will cease as for knowledge it will come to an end it's the kind of promise that we cling to even as our very life is on the brink as another popular wedding text says from song of songs love is as strong as death not long ago I had a conversation with an elder minister friend of mine who I've admired for many many many years and in this conversation he told me about a conversation he had had with a minister friend of his someone I've also long admired who died several years ago and in their last conversation over the phone as his minister friend lay dying the dying minister said to his longtime friend you've conducted hundreds of funerals tell me what you say keep in mind both of these guys seasoned ministers people everyone looks up to you've conducted hundreds of funerals tell me what you say the other minister said to his dying friend in all those funerals I think I've only ever said one thing but I've said it a lot of different ways love never ends and his friend replied I hope so but because we've made of love something of a feeling that we hold towards someone or even something we've sometimes missed the power of these texts the radicality of these texts the outlandishness of these texts I was confronted with this way that I have in my own reading of the scriptures dismissed the centrality of love when I was reading the last time I read them through the collected sermons of Martin Luther King jr. in this little book of his called strength to love you want to get into King's sermons which might be sustaining to you right now in this day look at strength to love King was one of the fiercest advocates for justice in the last century and I was struck reading through his sermons how many of them began with scriptures on love like beloved let us love one another because love is from God there is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear first John 4 you've heard it said that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you Matthew 5 if I speak in tongues of mortals and of angels but do not have love I'm a noisy gong or clanging symbol 1 Corinthians 13 and it started to become clear to me as I read these sermons of King love was the bridge that King used to cross the divide between absolute despair which he felt often in his life if you read his biographies you read the words of Coretta Scott King reflecting on those days love was the bridge that he used to cross the divide between despair and a realistic kind of hope facing the risk of failure while continuing to strive for a different future and a more just world love was for King and for Jesus the dismantling tool of non-violence King employed this to meet his enemies violence with what he considered the weak force or in Gandhi's words the soul force that can never be overcome with the weapons of the strong love was the energizing empowering animating element in King's life and amid his looming depression which you get when you read his biographies amid his looming depression and moments of hopelessness and fear and justified despair there we're all likely becoming acquainted with right now love compelled King forward in the work of justice love was the lens that allowed King to see the humanity in the face of others even his enemies I've been grappling with the persistent reality in the life of justice seekers like King and Gandhi and Jesus that the enemy of love is not hate in fact hate is a pretty extreme response to love's lure the real enemy of love that is much easier to be swayed by than hate is fear first John 4 again another of those strong outlandish statements about love in the Bible there is no fear in love there is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear the commandment we have from him is this those who love God must love their siblings also so friends my invitation to you this evening is this in the coming days the coming months the coming years pay careful attention to those forces that erode the possibility of love they've come in many form like propagandize accounts of other races and cultures and religions and sexualities and gender identities that we're all becoming acquainted with right now making us fear the other so that it's hard to see our lives called up in the mutuality of God's being in love sometimes the forces that erode the possibilities of love come when we become so fractured and fragmented from one another that we succumb to the increasing fear that loneliness and isolation bring about making it harder and harder to see ourselves in the lives of others and easier and easier to believe that the other is always out to get us this is how loneliness and isolation work to bring about totalitarianism Hannah Arendt told us this in her study of Nazi Germany and it's happening now that's why communities like this are so vital not just to hold us in care and companionship but vital as a weak force a sole force against the fear that will divide us and bring us down pay careful attention to those forces that erode the possibilities of love but be sure to understand what King is talking about when he preaches about love and I think this is likely pretty close to what Jesus was preaching about when he preached about love King says when I speak of love I am NOT speaking of some sentimental and weak response I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life or as first John describes that unifying principle God is love and there's that other outlandish statement about love and the biblical text that we likely all know again from 1st Corinthians and now faith hope and love remain these three and the greatest of these is love and it's always been hard for me to understand how these three are connected in this text or why the greatest of them is love but a while back I listened to an interview with the eco theologian Norman Wiersbach from Duke and he said this this brief paragraph in this this little podcast that I want to read to you because it's so helpful in drawing those three things together faith hope and love he said hope is not something that we have as a possession something that we just acquire if we are patient or we pray hard enough or if we ask politely or whatever framing you might have I want to say that hope is an activity I want to say that hope is a disposition and it's closely joined to love and so for me when people say what gives you hope what gives me hope is the ability for love and when people ask whether or not they should have hope I say well do you find anything in the world in your community in your circles of relationship worth loving and if you do then you're acting on hope because love presuppose the effort to care for the other and the effort to care for place is worth the effort so listen friends this is something we all need to hear right now hope does not mean believing things will get better in fact they may not yet hope is being oriented toward a future of possibility beyond the present status quo and moving in that direction and continuing to move in that direction steadily and with deep companionship along the way and it is fueled by the power of love not to let the present status quo have the last word that is hope fueled by love as a life of faith so as we at the table prepare for this next phase of our journey as a church a journey down the street we will become more deeply embedded with a neighborhood will be joining a community of nonprofits serving the needs of others in a brand new space so I asked you ask you tonight to keep your eyes open as we make that move and keep this question alive in your heart do you find anything in the world in your community in the community we are joining in your circles of relationship worth loving if we do then we will be acting and hope toward a future of possibilities fueled by love to move beyond fear never allowing the status quo to have the last word then we will be living our lives in the way of love demonstrated by Jesus drawing us into a communion of life and love with God who is being in love

[Words of Institution, Communion, Worship]

Debbie: I'd like to invite Stefano Giovannelli up, and all of the kids, please come on up. (Applause) All the kids, come on up, you guys. Come on up. We need everybody. There you go. Come on up. Come on up. Okay. Hi. We, oh my. So Stefano, this is his last Sunday with us. As we move to mornings, he's unable to be with us. And we wanted, oh, thank you. This is actually, this way. But we wanted to make sure we're celebrating well God's faithfulness and Stefano's ministry with us here at The Table. Stefano is, 20 years old, right? He has been with us since he was 15 years old. Working at the church. (Applause) And he's been teaching, teaching, serving, loving all of these kids. Some of these kids, he's known since they were little, little. And he has showed up over and over again for these kids.

Stefano, we've gotten to watch you grow up and watch your faith grow. And I know that you've done a life with you and your family. And what I know and I was thinking about as we were singing is that your mom's spirit lives on through you and your faith. And while she's missed, I think it's a beautiful legacy. So we are so grateful just for who you are and how you love people and how God loves through you. But I'd like us all before we pray for him to just give him a hand in service and love. (Applause) He thinks that's enough. That's good, thank you.

But we would love as he steps into his next chapter and we know he'll always be part of this community and certainly part of all of these kids here. We would love to pray for you. And Jack is going to start us out and I'm going to close. So you come this way and put a hand on Stefano and I'll put a hand here. And you guys, everybody put a hand on each other. There you go, Jack. And you hand it to me. Okay.

Jack: All right, let us pray. Dear God, thank you for Stefano. Thank you for sending him to us and blessing us with him. We pray that you can use him to bless other people after us. And we pray that you guide him through the rest of his career slash life. And that you continue using him to love each one of us.

Debbie: God, we sing about your faithfulness and we see that faithfulness in Stefano. God, we are so grateful for this young man and his deep faith and his love for you and love for others and just his pursuing your love and loving others. God, we are thankful for the way that Stefano has been a part of this community, a part of the fabric of who we are and your impact on these kids and all of us, adults too, your impact on all of us through Stefano and his heart for you. And we pray for all of us ahead. For Stefano we trust that your spirit will continue to move him and through him and impact people with the good news. As he continues to love you and love others. We lift him up to your arms and we pray in the name of Jesus and all of God's people said amen. (Applause)

One other thing: You know I shared with a few people when I came in today that if you know me, you know I am not necessarily an anxious person. You have heard me probably in sermons tell the story how Steve thinks I am unconscious. Early on in marriage. (Laughter) But I shared with a few people, I was feeling some anxiety. It struck me today, anxiety, and as we were worshiping and hearing the message I realized it is not anxiety, I think it is a little grief and loss. Grief and loss and hope and possibility. All of those things that lay ahead for this community.

And I was thinking back that it is almost five years ago that we moved here and there has been a lot of change. And God has been faithful and God has worked through this community in just honestly mind blowing ways. And the way we have loved other people and walked alongside others and we have been able to help them. And the way we have showed up to be good neighbors and during the whole George Floyd horrible, horrible happenings and how we have showed up to supply diapers and jump in and when the Afghan refugees came here, how this community jumped in and just the way that we continue to step out in faith and things that we are calling out to. And we do it out of love. Fueled by love. And I am so grateful for this community and the authenticity and the hope we hold together in the faith and just moving forward. And continuing to step into these places that we believe God is calling us to.

So as we do that, I will end with our traditional benediction but I want to read this blessing as we step into what is next. And we don't know exactly what that is going to look like but we are trusting God and we are stepping in together. These words are from—many of you know, my favorite and Lynn Giovannelli’s favorite—Kate Bowler:

We find ourselves here once again at the precipice of change. Afraid to let go and afraid of what will happen if we don't. Might this be a place of blessing too?

Blessed are we standing in the hallway between closed doors and one still to come. Between the old and the new. Between the worn in and the doesn't quite yet fit. Between who we were and who we might become.

God make it remotely possible to grow and change. Become open to new adventures and untethered to routine or the same old.

Blessed are we who take a minute to look over our shoulder at all we have learned from what was. The people we became. The people who loved us into becoming. The peace that came with familiarity.

Blessed are we who trust this timing and who open our hearts anew to change to new friends to hope. Nervous, maybe heavy hearted but brimming with gratitude for a life so beautiful that it hurts to say goodbye.

Blessed are we turning our eyes ahead toward a new path not yet mapped. God give us courage to take this next step and enough for the one after that too. And be sure that you're in this moment to remind us that you have gone before and behind and around and you are with us now.

In our leaving, in our arriving, in our changes expected or shocking surprise us with who we might become.

And with that I want to give a sincere thanks to Bethlehem Lutheran, because from the moment we stepped into here, they have shared—and I, many of you don't know this, but during COVID they decreased our rent in half and then when COVID was over, every year I'd meet with the head of…Ryan Currens, who runs the place, and he'd say “Well Debbie, how's it going?” I’d go, “Good you know we're we're making budget but we did get to just hire someone new…” “Oh, let's keep it the same because we're on the same team.” We survived COVID and we actually flourished because of the love and the generosity of this community and so with that I'd love for us to just give a big thank you to Bethlehem.

With that if you could please hold your hands out for our benediction. We've had a lot of change but this benediction has never changed nor the meaning behind it: No matter who you are or what you've done no matter who you love or what you've lost no matter where you've been or the places that you've stayed you always have a place at the table because you are a beloved child of God and beloved you belong.

Go in peace and when you go, go to Aldrich next Sunday at 10am!