Love unconditionally in community

A heartbroken lady once wrote the following letter :-

“Dearest Jimmy, No words could ever express the great unhappiness I've felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you'll take me back. No one could ever, ever, take your place in my heart, so please, please, forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you! Yours forever, Mary.

P.S.  Congratulations on winning the lottery.”

Sometimes we make love conditional – it’s perhaps almost a natural emotion to put limits on our love but it’s something that God never does… The love of God for each one of us is unbreakable, it is not dependant on what we do or fail to do, and that is the love that Jesus asks, in fact demands, his followers to show to others. Paul begins the section of the letter to the Romans that we heard (13:8-14) with the words, ‘Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law…’

In today’s society it is very unlikely that we will not owe anything at all – banks, credit card, mortgage, car loan, and so on. Most people today owe something to somebody but in the time Paul wrote to the Romans, people borrowed on a very short term basis, if at all, often making trades instead for something they may really have wanted. 

To that extent Paul was speaking to a different people at a different time, and yet his words contain a great truth that we must practice today – love unconditionally - families, friends, neighbours… and the sting in the tail, even our enemies… 

In our gospel reading (Matt. 18:15-20) Jesus is also speaking to people in a very different age. He talks about members of the Church quarrelling, something that never happens today (!!!!!), and he asks them to sort it out amongst themselves, speak to the person with whom they have a problem, then, if that doesn’t work ask others to help… 

Like most other things the early Church was very different to the Church of today. It was much smaller and far more intimate – people genuinely did know each others business, they lived in small communities, far more established in many ways as a family than today… 

And yet, as we look at the teaching of Paul, who recounts the words of Jesus, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’, as we look at the words of Jesus himself to sort out problems, and as we look around the world today, beginning in our own communities, we can’t fail to see that what both Jesus and Paul were teaching are things that remain equally important today. The world actually does need more love… 

And that challenges us to reflect on our role as a Christian community or family…… Reading the words of Jesus in the gospel this morning we can think it sounds incredibly legalistic. It’s about setting rules to sort things out, and in some ways rules are easy. We can be comfortable hiding behind rules, but I think Jesus is actually going deeper here. 

This passage that we have this morning follows on from the parable of the lost sheep and of Jesus welcoming the little children to come to him – so I think it’s more about drawing people closer to him and to each other rather than making rules. 

Jesus is recognising that relationships are hard sometimes, that building community can be messy, that living as a family can bring with it an extraordinary amount of pain…. But he’s also recognising that when it works, it is so worth it! 

A while ago I heard on the radio about a garage in London that was giving away £20,000 of free petrol, as some kind of advertisement for a new computer game. The queues were tremendous all around not just the garage, but the area anywhere near it. People were desperate for their free top up of fuel. 

People like free gifts, but they only like them as long as they believe there really is no cost. Many are affected by the old cliché that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Some years ago I did some work with a new Church in Merthyr who were trying to get some awareness raised of the fact that they were there. It’s on a fairly poor estate, and as a bit of a gimmick they went around all the houses and gave out free energy saving light bulbs. 

Most people accepted the gift without question, but some refused it fearing that there must be something more to it – they were suspicious of the Church offering a free gift. 

It’s a sad fact that some people are suspicious of the Church offering free gifts, when the Christian Church is actually built on the free gift of God’s unconditional love for everyone.

I like the story of the ingenious teenager, tired of reading bedtime stories to his little sister, who decided to record several of her favourite stories. He told her, "now you can hear your stories anytime you want. Isn't that great?" She looked at the machine for a moment and then replied, "No. It hasn't got a lap to sit on."

Love is the most personal thing in the world, and yet mirroring the love of Christ, we are called to love unconditionally, to welcome those who are different, to seek to care for those who need help, and those who don’t think they need help. And we are called to be a community witnessing to the limitless love of God.

And there are promises here about what real community can offer. Towards the end of the gospel passage Jesus said, ‘truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven…’ 

It’s an incredible promise, but it’s not about forcing God’s hand but recognising the reality that when we sit together and we discuss and we listen and we pray and we listen to God, nothing is beyond us – incredible things can happen… Community is hard, because loving everyone is hard, but what a witness it is for people to see Christians truly living out our faith in loving one another…. 

Paul wrote in that part of the letter to the Romans that we heard earlier, ‘Let us then lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light...’ Members of Churches today do a huge amount of good work, Christians are prominently involved in most leading charities, on a day to day basis many good Christian people go about caring for their neighbours, calling to see them, doing some shopping for them, perhaps giving them a lift somewhere… all kinds of good things, and yet somehow these things are not perceived as works of God in our communities today.

And perhaps one reason for that is that as Churches we sometimes fail to put on a collective ‘armour of light’… I mentioned earlier about the church never having any arguments – of course it’s not true – in any group of people there will sometimes be disagreements, sometimes personalities we find it difficult to get on with, it is the same in Churches everywhere, and will always be wherever humans have relationships, but very sadly this is the picture that often overrides all of the good work we may do amongst those who are sceptical to start.

And so we need to examine again the teaching of Jesus, and the words of Paul, and the principles applied throughout so much of the gospels, and ask ourselves what we can do to make things a little bit better, not what somebody else can do. 

Each one of us can put on the ‘armour of light’, each one of us can work at really loving one another, because if every one of us really tries to wear that armour of light, people can’t fail to notice. The free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus, but it is a fulfilled life TODAY as well, a fulfilled life for all people, rich or poor, nice or not, and that is the desire of God for everyone… 

It is up to us to celebrate that fact, and to show to others that our lives are really changed by that fact… 

And so, back to the words of Jesus about reconciliation, about love, about his promise to be here with us always – and let’s think about community and look around us here this morning and see every person that we cast our eyes on as a gift from God…. 

Imagine what needs, hopes, hurts, and dreams the people near us today hold and how together we might go out into the world God loves so much armed with the courage and compassion of Christ.

There is so much that is challenging in the world today – whether it be hurricanes or conflict, injustice or intolerance, and these things serve as a reminder to us that the world desperately needs us to be the Body of Christ.  

Authentic community is hard, but it is so powerful, and it helps to heal and it is a tremendous witness… 

And there will be times when we struggle to live as Jesus wants us to but then we’re reminded that he is right here with us – showing us about love, forgiving us and sending us out to be his disciples in the world today… 

D L Moody, the American evangelist, wrote, ‘Show me a church where there is love, and I will show you a church that is a power in the community. In Chicago a few years ago a little boy attended a Sunday school I know of. When his parents moved to another part of the city the little fellow still attended the same Sunday school, although it meant a long, tiresome walk each way. A friend asked him why he went so far, and told him that there were plenty of others just as good nearer his home. 

"They may be as good for others, but not for me," was his reply.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because they really love a fellow over there," he replied.’

Moody continued, ‘If only we could make the world believe that we loved them there would be more crowded churches, and a much smaller proportion of our population who never darken a church door... Let love replace duty in our church relations, and the world will soon be evangelised…’

May it be our prayer and our hope, and may we be willing to work, because it will take work, to show people that we really are a Church of love, offering to all the unconditional love of God. AMEN