John 17:20-26 NIV-UK
‘My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, God, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ‘Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you[a] known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.’
1 John 4:7-8
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
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A few years ago I was having a conversation with my youngest son about God, faith, religion and - in his mind - the damage religion does when it is not carefully thought out. He was relating that a colleague of his at work had become involved in a church, and it was beginning to consume his life. The colleague repeats whatever he is told without thinking. So this colleague pronounced that if people don’t love God, they are not capable of loving others either. My son pointed out that even in that very statement, the colleague had stated he himself was then not capable of love, because it had conditions and restrictions, and that in his opinion, God wasn’t limited.
It was interesting that we were having this particular conversation, because I had decided to preach on the text of John - whoever loves comes from God. This is precisely the opposite of what my son’s colleague was saying. We don’t have to love God first, and then find the capability to love others. It is the other way around - humans are born to love, that love comes from God, and the love we are capable of having for others connects us to God.
So it raises for me lots of questions: where are the places God is found? Only where we say it is? There are so many definitions, from different groups who say they are Christian, about where God is found.
What constitutes “right belief”. Is it a so-called orthodox belief that only Christians can have a relationship with God. Is God so limited? What, and who, defines our relationship to God? Too often, unfortunately, we who call ourselves Christian want to label our relationship to God, and the way we do it, as the only right way. When we do that, though, we leave God out of the equation altogether. And in fact, God cannot be defined or confined by us our by our beliefs.
Is baptism evidence of “right belief”? We bring children for baptism, make promises on their behalf. Does that mean they have “right belief” just because of that action? We confirm our children when they are teens, and they are considered members of the church. Is that all ‘right belief’ takes? Or do those young people then continue to learn and discover what love in faith means? Do we help the young people learn and discern? Or do we want them in church, but ensure they believe the way we think they should? And then we ask ourselves why they aren’t here.
Is prayer “right belief”? What kind of prayer? Is prayer alone the most important thing? Does God ignore us if we don’t pray a certain way? Does God do what we ask because we claim to be Christian, and turn others down because they are not? Or does God know and hear the prayers of every single human being?
What about social justice and outreach? Is that “right belief”? Shelters, warm meals, Habitat for Humanity builds, compassion. Are those the only evidence of “right belief”? John’s Gospel talks about Jesus being the vine, and us the branches. Jesus was love, Jesus is love. So if that is the case, then we also are born to love - and out of that love surely comes a mission. A church with no sense of mission has cut itself off from the Vine. Without connection to the Vine, mission in the church is just mission by any other social agency.
What about the ‘born again’ experience? Is that the earmark of “right belief”? We know that deeply moving experiences can change lives. I am sure there are many of us in this place who have had deeply moving spiritual experiences, but not necessarily in a church, and certainly not at a time of our choosing. But is that all? One moving experience which connects us to God, and suddenly we have “right belief”? What does it mean to be “born again”? Who defines what “born again” is? Us? Or God? Do we continue to find God in the most unlikely places, and have spiritual experiences which give us insight into a broader version of being than we can conceive?
So the places where God is found are the places where love is - no matter who, or where, or how - simply that wherever love is, God is there. Wherever love is, God’s unconditional love is also there.
To have love - agape - is to have God living within us; everyone who loves has God within them.
This one simple statement takes us well beyond the Christian context, and into a world-wide context with no boundaries. “Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God; if we love one another, God lives in us.” It means that God lives within human beings regardless of whether or not they are baptised, or whether or not they pray, or even whether or not they claim they are Christian. God is love. God cannot be contained by one faith, or one way of looking at faith. God lives wherever there is love.
Is love present here, in this place? Do we, in this place, love enough to consider our neighbours as important as we consider ourselves? Or do we seek to undermine each other, gossip and spread stories, strike up conversations on doorsteps, designed to spread discord rather than truth?
Agape, or love within a community, is the one single and most important criterion which gives meaning to everything else we say or do. We might be able to recite the creeds, and the Lord’s Prayer, but if we are just going through the motions, reciting without thinking, we are “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”. We may have experiences that take us into God’s holy presence, but without love it does us no good. Though we feed the hungry and rescue those who are perishing but have no love, we are nothing. We might think baptism and then confirmation is all it takes - but unless a child learns to love all throughout life - it is a meaningless ritual.
On this day, as we celebrate new windows and God’s light in this place, and celebrate the love of Jesus through the service of the table, may our prayers be that we are transformed by insight, and by the example of Jesus, to make this a place where God is found, for all who are seeking.
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