Longing For the Sea
Bulletin
“Longing For the Sea” by Pastor Rosanna McFadden
Good morning! I am happy to get out ahead of Valentine’s Day preparation with the theme of “For the Love of God” This will be a sermon series which goes through the month of February and into the first Sunday of March. Here’s a spoiler alert; I introduced this series in the Pastor’s Page of the February Connection which was distributed this weekend. If you have already read that, God bless you — some parts of this sermon should sound familiar. There will be some content here that there wasn’t room for in the Connection, and several more weeks to come.
You may have heard this text from 1 John before, and if you haven’t, the song which we used for the Children’s Story, Beloved, let us love one another . . . is a pretty catchy tune, and one of the few Bible songs which includes the chapter and verse — 1 John 4:7-8. We are going to be in John’s epistles for the next few weeks, so I want to say a bit more about them. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John are toward the end of the New Testament, just one short book before Revelation, the last book of the Bible. They are a quick read, even taken as a trio. 1 John is by far the longest — 5 chapters; 2nd and 3rd John are each only one brief chapter — not even an entire page in my study Bible. An epistle is another name for a letter. 2nd and 3rd John are in the form of a letter, with an opening, the ancient equivalent of “Dear so and so . . .” and a closing, “Give my greetings to . . .” or “Peace be with you . . .” 1 John lacks some of these conventions, but the style between them all is consistent enough that scholars believe they were all written by the same person at around the same time.
Because of the similarity in vocabulary and style to the fourth gospel, these letters were historically attributed to John, the disciple of Jesus. Context and references date these letters around the year 100, which means they were probably not written by one of the apostles, but likely a follower who may have been a later member of the same Christian community as the author of the gospel of John. All that is to say that while a lot of the specifics about these three short epistles has passed into obscurity, what remains is love.
1 John in particular is read and remembered — and preached from — because of its insistence that “God is love.” And that message, that God is love, is a part of what I want to highlight this morning. But only the first part. So if you turn in your Bibles to 1 John 4, or even if you can simply remember that song we sang for the Children’s Story, you know that verse 7 says, Beloved, let us love one another. For love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. So hang on a minute before we charge ahead to verse 8. Verse 7 is about us loving whom? The command is to let us love . . . one another. Why? Here’s why: because if we don’t love, we don’t know God, because (wait for it) God is love. How do we know this? What is the proof? Read on:
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 God loved us and sent the Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
This is great stuff: I hope you know that without me having to tell you. The power of love is not how much we really, really love God: the power of love is what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. Because of that, we ought to love one another. This is not more important than loving God or for feeling love and gratitude for Jesus, but love is always more than an intense and intensely private feeling. Love means actually doing stuff. Not as a way to earn God’s love, but as an expression of the love which we have been freely and unconditionally given.
You may have heard the story of the Church of the Brethren man who loved his wife so much, that he almost told her. You may be a reserved person, you may come from a family or a culture of un-emotive people. I’m with you; I get it. If you have experienced God’s love you will still find ways to express that in the way you interact with other people. Maybe in what you tell them, but especially in how you treat them. And if those two don’t synch up — we know which is the stronger message.
I mentioned in the Connection this little book titled, The Little Book of Lykke. Lykke is the Danish word for happiness, and the author of this book is the CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. I don’t speak Danish, but his name sure looks like Mike Viking to me, which makes it easy to remember, since Danes were Vikings — at least some of them still are. There was a quote in the book which resonated with me. I’m not sure I can say the writer’s name; he is the author of the book A Little Prince, which was originally published in French. Here’s the quote from Antoine de Saint Exupéry
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
Building a ship is a big task: of course you’re going to need supplies and skills and organization. But that is not the reason to build a ship. The reason to build a ship is because we long for sea. So church, what is it that we long for? This is not a short-term, this afternoon question: I want a nice lunch and a long nap. This is about what we long for, for the love of God. What do we want other people to know about what God’s love means to us? How can we inspire other people to know God by the way we love one another?
We’re going to be talking more about this in the coming weeks, but between now and next Sunday, I’m going to give you some homework. Number 1: Read 1 John chapter 4 verses 7-21 — verse 7 to the end of chapter 4. Read the whole epistle if you want, but especially this section. It has some inspiring things to say, such as “perfect love casts out fear,” and some pretty direct things to say, such as “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ but hate their brothers or sisters are liars.” Yikes.
Number 2: Take some time to consider what you long for, what you yearn for, what stirs your heart for the work of God. Not so much what skills you have or what tasks you would be willing to do, but what you love enough to give your heart to. What would you love for our church to do for the love of God and as an expression of our love for one another and for the world? We know how much work it is to assign tasks–that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m also not that interested in hearing what you wish other people would do. Think about what you would do for the love of God.
And finally, I have a tool for you. It’s a pretty simple tool, but I know from experience how much of a difference it can make. We have a basket of cards out in the Gathering Area. They say, Bless Your Heart! And a place to write who they are for, and to sign your name — or not. These cards are for you to give to folks at Creekside, or anywhere else where there are people who need blessing and affirmation (that is everywhere there are people, by the way). This is not a contest to see who can get the most cards, but it would be fine to challenge yourself to see how many you can give away. I have shared before but I’ll say it again, I got a card like this from a much-younger Tiara Marcin almost 20 years ago, on which she wrote: when you sing you smile. I kept that card for years. I am often reminded that one of the ways I share God’s love is in the joy I find in worship and in music. I was so touched that a child saw that and shared that with me. Take as many cards as you want. There are some envelopes of you want to send them through the postal service, but you can also share it in person with a handshake or a hug, or put it in someone’s Creekside mailbox. These cards will be out through the first Sunday of March — if you want to keep a stash at home, that is just fine. We’ll print as many as we need.
Whatever it is we are longing for, you can be sure that it will show up in our lives somehow: how we spend our money, how we spend our time, what we make sacrifices for. There are many ways which we express our love for Christ and for other people, and no genuine expression of our love for God is ever wasted. But showing our love for God does not have to be a big dramatic gesture. In fact, we do ourselves and God a disservice if we neglect to do the small things because we’re waiting for a big moment. If you get a Big Moment, I hope you are ready to make the most of it — to bring a stranger to Christ, to change someone’s life for eternity, whatever it is. But I believe the best preparation for the Big Moment is to the small things often: small acts of service and generosity and kindness. We never know what small thing we do for the love of God may have a big impact on someone’s life. It may be someone we’ll never see again who will be changes because of a small act of kindness. A regular practice of kindness and generosity changes us, and it becomes our identity.
We’ll be talking more in the coming weeks about who we are and what we do for the love of God. In the meantime, love one another, for everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Blessings for the coming weeks. Amen.