Walk in Love
Fifth Sunday after Easter
Revelation 21:1-6 and John 13:31-35
On Wednesday evenings the Centering Prayer on Facebook Livestream that we offer begins with a short reading followed by 20 minutes of silent meditation and ends with a prayer or another short reading.
In preparing for this past Wednesday’s reading, I came across this one by Peter Traben Haas:
‘Anoint me with your Spirit so I can speak in love and act in truth.
Where I lack clarity, reveal your will.
Where I presume to know, teach me simple trust.
Where I am impatient, remind me of your timelessness.’ Amen.
As I read it, I thought about how it fits perfectly with what we are going to talk about today regarding love.
When something like this happens, I always consider it a gift, a God-moment. A God-moment can come in many forms; however, this week, it came to me from a book, a page, a prayer that I didn’t even know existed, and that I would not have even been reading were it not for Centering Prayer.
Now I did not use this prayer for Centering Prayer, I used two others; however, this one was situated between those two, and was revealed to me while I searched for the ones I needed to have my Centering Prayer session.
Have you had moments like this where you were not looking for a specific item, and God placed it before you or revealed it to you. Maybe you were reading like I was when preparing for something, maybe you were out walking, maybe you were in your pool, or sitting on your screened in porch, or working in your garden when God spoke to you in such a way, in a quiet voice in your mind, or in your heart.
Now, you may be thinking, how does this tie in with today’s sermon title? What does this have to do with love? Actually, it has everything to do with it, so hang in here with me.
As we consider the New Covenant that we received through the Lamb of God, we are given this New Commandment, “Love one another.”
It’s so simple, yet complex.
When I speak to you each Sunday, I do my best to leave out the “shoulds,” the “ought tos” and the “must dos” so as not to say what I think you should be doing or ought to be doing or must be doing.
Knowing this, I had to chuckle as I read this scripture to prepare for today’s message, and I saw the sentence spoken by Jesus, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
So I’m not telling you that you should do something, but Jesus is!
And if Jesus is telling us we “should” do something, then I think we would be wise to do it. Don’t you?!
There’s a very important reason why Jesus said we should love one another, because it is ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, IF you have love for one another.’
Whew! That’s a big “should,” don’t you think?
I mean, it is easy when we love people we love, or even those we like, but what about those people that tend to rub us the wrong way? Or the ones that won’t do what we told them to do? You know, the ones we tried to help, but they didn’t do what we said or didn’t do it our way.
Jesus said we should love them, too.
However, let me be clear, loving someone doesn’t mean you have to allow yourself to be used or abused by someone, because you are not helping them or yourself in that situation.
This is where love gets complex.
There are many ways to love. You can love someone romantically, faithfully, because they are family, through friendship, and you can love someone you have just met because you have a weird, immediate connection with them. I consider that a Spirit thing.
I thought about some of the phrases we use when we speak about love.
“I love her or him.”
“We love that ice cream sandwich dessert!”
“I love my cat or dog or bird, or all of the above.”
“I love that house or that car.”
“We love to play that game.”
“I love to swim, or I love to run, or I love to garden.”
“We love to travel.”
“Jesus loves me.”
Can love be measured or quantified? Only if we make it conditional.
What if, instead of us saying, “I can’t stand that person.” We might say, “I love that person.”
What if, instead of saying, “I hate that idea.” We might say, “I love that idea.
What if every time we had a negative reaction, we turned it into love.
Something to consider isn’t it.
I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes my mind, my mouth and my heart are not in alignment.
For instance, I may have genuine love for someone that may be different from me, and I want them to be more like me because, if they are more like me, then I wouldn’t find myself saying something that is not speaking from a place of love. That’s when feelings are hurt and irreparable damage can be done.
Love requires we remain on our toes. We can’t let our guard down of keeping our heart and mind in alignment so that Jesus’ love shines through us, rather than our broken humanness.
It’s a full-time job because you never know when you will be caught off guard.
It’s also why we have a prayer of confession each Sunday.
Love helps us be the best of ourselves. Love requires relationship.
You can’t love that dessert unless you taste it. You can’t love that person until you get to know them. Love is a gift.
The New Covenant is a gift born out of love. Revelations tells us that the home of God is among mortals. Why is that? God created us to be in relationship with him. He created us out of love. He gifted us with a beautiful earth out of love. He gifted us with our significant other, our family, our friends, our pets, our neighbors and everything because he loves us.
Tara-Leigh Cobble says in writing about Job, ‘“Whether for correction or for his land, or for love, God causes it to happen.” This is God’s providence – His protective care and His preparation for the future. He has His purposes, and they may remain a mystery to us, but we can trust He’s at work. In His providence, He’s attentive to every detail and He’s intentional in working out His plan. Maybe it’s a plan to correct the hearts of the wayward, maybe it’s a plan to establish and bless His people, or maybe it’s just an act of love far beyond our understanding. But we can rest knowing He’s working in all things for His glory and our joy, and especially knowing that He’s where the joy is!’
We find joy through love, and there is no greater love than that of the one who created us, and the one that tells us we should love as he has loved us. God is among us and his words are trustworthy and true.
So coming full circle back to our centering prayer that I started with by Haas, it is a prayer to know and to possess the same agape love of our God the Father and the Son of Man, and to recognize this love is endless. We were created from it, and we will die in it, and we will live beyond our death in this love because it has no end, it is timeless.
Listen to it again, and I will close with this prayer.
‘Anoint me with your Spirit so I can speak in love and act in truth.
Where I lack clarity, reveal your will.
Where I presume to know, teach me simple trust.
Where I am impatient, remind me of your timelessness.’ Amen.