Welcome to Nassau Church

The writer of 1st John loves his church. And so when they have forgotten who they are and to whom they belong, he writes this sermon. Some church goers have left the congregation; many are whining for an easier, softer way to be the church; there are quarrels about the life of Christ and clashes about caring for one another. (1)
And the preacher’s heart is breaking for their lack of understanding and consideration of one another. But rather than putting on his boxing gloves and going into the ring he chooses to speak tenderly:
Dear friends, everyone who loves is born of God
and this is how God showed God’s love for us:
God sent Jesus into the world
so we might live through him.
This way, love has the run of the house;
love comes home and matures
so that we're free and bold and confident before God.
We love because God first loved us. (2)
So often we get this backwards: "Believe in Jesus; keep the commandments; live a moral life; give up your bad habits – and God will love you with an everlasting love." But it’s not that way at all. (3)
God’s love is not a reward for anything we’ve done or can do. Rather, God’s love sets us in motion; sometimes to do the very thing, in love, we thought we could not do: making that phone call to the friend we’ve let down; reaching out to a family member to whom we’ve been estranged; walking from your pew to say to a friend, “I see you’re hurting. What can I pray for? Or walking across the bedroom to say, “I’d like to talk about what’s keeping us apart; putting into motion a plan for self-care; walking into the hospital room even if it’s the last thing we want to do because we simply don’t know what to say – then sitting down and simply saying “Hi.”
To be free and bold and confident in God’s love. God is so very accepting of us. Sometimes God’s question becomes "Why haven’t you accepted your acceptance?"
It’s like that beautiful scene in Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes when Frankie confesses to his priest and his priest replies:
God accepts you and forgives you Frankie,
and you must accept and forgive yourself.
God loves you,
and you must love yourself.
For only when you love God and yourself
can you love all of God's creatures."

Love is not a feeling, it’s an activity. It’s the will to extend ourselves beyond ourselves because God first loved us and we are compelled to respond in love.(4)
You see, what the writer of 1st John is doing for the church is throwing us into and onto love; a love that is concrete for love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; or a matter of sentiment, or a warm, fuzzy experience. Love is active and effective.(5) Love creates righteousness and justice for friends and enemies. Love becomes our conversion to humanity – our willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives. (6)
And of course our collective hearts want to proclaim with Paul:
Love is patient; love is kind;
love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;
and the greatest of these is love.(7)

Frederick Buechner says our deepest need is not proof that there is a God somewhere who exists to give us love.
What our heart seeks is the love of God, who is right here,
knee-deep in the mud and mire of our existence — a [Risen] Christ who comes to us every day to give life and hope.

Historians tell us that Charles De Gaulle was a World War II hero and later president of France. What the historians do not so often tell us is that Charles De Gaulle and his wife, Evonne, were the parents of a little girl named Ann. Ann had Down’s syndrome.
Charles and Evonne would spend time at the end of every day with their children. When they would put Ann to bed, Evonne would sometimes say, "Oh, Charles, I have often prayed that she could have been like the other children. Why was she not like the others?"
When their child Ann died, the De Gaulles had a private graveside service. When the service was over, everyone left the grave except her mother Evonne. Grief-stricken, she could not pull herself away from Ann's grave, but stood there sobbing. Charles went back to her and said, "Come, Evonne, did you not hear the promise of the resurrection? She is healed and restored." God loves us Ann. (8)
We have through the love of God a Lord who is right here, knee-deep in the mud and mire of our existence — a Risen Lord who first loved us, so we may be free and bold and confident before God.

(1) Scripture Lesson: 1 John 4:7-21 (NRSV)
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. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that
he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of Judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

(2) M. Eugene Boring and Fred B. Craddock. The People’s New Testament Commentary. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, 743.

(3) 1 John 4: 7-21 adapted from Eugene H. Peterson’s The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary English. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress Publishing Group, 2002.

(4) Russell E. Mase. “God in His Grace.” Day 1: A Ministry of the Alliance for Christian Media, Atlanta, December 13, 1998.

(5) Adapted from M. Scott Peck. The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978, 81ff.

(6) Adapted from Carter Heyward’s Our Passion for Justice: Images of Power, Sexuality, and Liberation. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1984.

(7) 1 Corinthians 13:4-13, NRSV, selected verses.

(8) Thomas G. Long. “So, What about the Resurrection?” Day 1: A Ministry of the Alliance for Christian Media, Atlanta, February 15, 2004.