May 13, 2012 Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 15:9-17

   ⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

“Appointed To Love”

God is love.  This is the first and the last thing we can say about God.  This is the bedrock of our faith.  This is enough to live on and enough to die on.

Alan Jones, “Soul Making” has a chapter titled “Love: God’s Wild Card.”

Here are a couple of quotes from that chapter.

“All I know is that love of some kind has got hold of me and will not let me go.  That is why I describe myself as a believer and put up with the embarrassment of being seen in some dreadful company.  And I am grateful for the many people (both friends and strangers) who don’t mind being seen with me!”  p. 127

“I began to happen in a new way (my soul comes to life) when someone says, ‘Alan, sometimes you’re a mess, often your infuriating, and I love you!’  The soul cannot breath when a persons says, ‘there are some problems we have to iron out - in fact, you’re the major one - before I can tell whether I love you or not.’”  p. 134

God is love.  And God’s love is unconditional.  It is always waiting for us to open our hearts and let it have at us.  Then we also can love one another in a powerful and life giving way.

Jesus calls his disciples (and us) to be imaginative lovers.

We have been appointed to love, be it easy or hard; simple or extreme.

The four Chaplains on the Dorchester are an extreme example of love.

We may not be called upon for such an act of love, but we are called to love.

And that means to be there when we are needed and to not give up on one another.

God never stops loving us. We are appointed to love one another and never give up on love!