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THE SERMON
I AM PREACHING today on the lesson from 1st John, which is often introduced as an epistle, or letter, but it almost certainly isn’t. It doesn’t contain the same salutation, or closing that a letter does. And even though scholars have believed it could be an essay, I am willing to bet almost anything that it’s a sermon, because it begins, “We declare to you…”
And the author keeps using terms of endearment for the Christians he is speaking with. He calls them variously Beloved, Children, Little children, and My little children. We might bristle at that language as sounding paternalistic, but back then it wouldn’t have seemed so.
The elder and the Christians to whom he is speaking are part of the community that gave birth to John’s Gospel.
Calling followers children or little children is consistent with John’s retelling of Jesus using those forms of address; also in this lesson, the word “abide” is used—a word that frequently appears in the last chapters of John’s Gospel.
The lesson for today is an earnest expression of a simple message.
The point the author is surely trying to make is that to be in right relationship with God is not merely a personal thing—as if just intellectually liking Jesus takes care of it—it means being in community and caring for other people, supporting not just with loving words but with acts of service.
And the kicker here is the use of a very potent reward: that we will know. “That by this we will know that we are from the truth, and will reassure our hearts before God.” Potent language in the community of St. John that placed a very high premium on seeing and knowing and believing.
The knowing and the assurance of our hearts is being able to have a clear conscience—knowing that we could not have done better. We might have done more, of course. But, the elder doesn’t give us an impossible standard like that. It is enough that we help; it is enough that we do what we can, but that we don’t martyr ourselves in the process.
And I know that I am speaking to Christians who already deeply understand these words. Just this past week, as the Stewardship Committee gathered up in the Peach Room to set the timetable for our yearly campaign, we marveled at the many ways this parish—you—respond when a need in our community is made clear.
When we have ingatherings for Highland Park school supplies, or soup for seniors, or back when the flooding in Kentucky produced a call for cleaning supplies and extra clothing, you have always come through with great generosity on top of the generosity of giving to Feed the Hungry and supporting the day-to-day the needs of the church.
I often marvel at how the Prayer Board reflects not just this parish community, but the community at large, and how people ask after others with genuine interest. Christ Church, I don’t think you realize how amazing you are.
So, it’s not that I think you need to have this lesson preached to be better about active love, or converting love into more than just words, but I wonder if it may encourage you to know that that kind of active love can serve to reassure us that we are recipients of God’s favor.
The author writes that our active love can be a reassurance “whenever our hearts condemn us,” meaning that when we feel the sting of conscience for the things we have done wrong, we can take comfort in knowing that God does take into account our nobler aspirations and the good things we do.
I think quite often we believe that it’s a zero-sum game: you do some good here and there, but then you misbehave or you fail to respond to one thing or the other, and the belief can be born that God will be angry or ignore us.
The author writes that that is not the case at all. That our relationship is much more stable than that, because God sees and knows our hearts and actions are by-and-large directed toward goodness. We are after all human, and as the Psalmist says, “for he himself knows whereof we are made, he remembers that we are but dust.”
I want you to spend some time reflecting on the good you do. Your kindnesses and your active love, your acts of service and generosity.
We often default to looking at life and of ourselves with something of a negative bias. We are fearful perhaps of owning our virtues, worried that we may become blind to our failures, or self-absorbed, or even narcissistic.
I remember years ago being very worried that I was too strict with my son, and I confided in a counsellor that I was worried that I was messing him up. The counsellor, who knew Peter, looked at me with great compassion and said, “I think you’d have to work very hard to mess him up.”
Do not beat yourself up over your past mistakes. A little of that is healthy, but only a little. Take true and accurate account, and see that within you the Holy Spirit is very much at work, and that 9 times in 10 you choose kindness, decency, and love; and that you demonstrate that in more than just being a nice person, but a helpful one, too.
Respect yourself, and trust yourself. You are not going to slide into hell because you messed up a couple times, or even many times. God has you much tighter in his loving embrace than you can possibly know.
Spend real time reflecting on your good choices, and give them the benefit of the honest assessment that your goodness shines in your being, even when your sad, or depressed, or tired, or discouraged.
Your relationship with God and your relationship with others is not a zero-sum game. God does not look at us askance, wondering why we haven’t prayed a particular prayer or done a particular thing. God knows our limitations, knows our foibles, our frustrations with ourselves, and probably wishes we were nicer to ourselves than we usually are.
So please, give yourself some credit. Reflect with love and gratitude, and be well and truly assured that God sees your heart, knows the good, forgives the bad, and is happy to bless you for whatever lies ahead.
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