Companions On The Journey

Read John 15:9-13

In this passage the teaching we call the Great Commandment is reinforced in the words Jesus says to his disciples, “Love one another as I have loved you.” What does this mean? In the original Greek language of the New Testament, there are actually three distinctive words that we translate with our one word love. Eros, the cognate for our word erotic, means to feel deep passion. Philia, which means friendship, as it is used in the name Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. The word used in the passage we just heard for love is agape. Last week we heard that agape reflects having a strong commitment toward another. It also expresses a character trait we are to possess as Christians. Agape means to have a genuine respect for other human beings. It is to have a sense of honoring all who are children of God. There is no human being on earth outside our call to live in agape.

So how do we do this? Jesus says, “I have loved you as the Father has loved me. Love as I have loved you.” How do we love as Jesus loved us? We see in part this understanding of love in the passage from Luke.

Read Luke 2:39-40

The words, “be merciful” can also be translated “be compassionate.” The life of compassion has its foundation in the understanding that we seek to be in relationship with another by trying to understand life from their perspective. Please hear that. Compassion means to understand life from another’s perspective. How do we do this? The only way we can, is to be willing to walk with them on their journey of life. We are all companions and pilgrims together on the road of life.

SERMON:
We have all been called to be disciples of Jesus Christ. But what does that mean? We need to understand what a disciple is before we can understand what we are being asked to do and how we are being asked to live. A disciple, in part scripturally, is one who is both a student and a teacher at the same time. We are continuously seeking to deepen our understanding of God and our relationship with God, while still being a model of the faith to the world. It is why we say that our life as a Christian is a journey. I love the way Dr Leo Buscaglia said it, “Why do I learn? Why do I grow? Because then I have more to give away, I have more to share.” I have more to teach and model for others.

This is one of the reasons we have chosen to utilize the story of the Wizard of Oz and follow the journey of the Yellow Brick Road. Each character in the story provides us with an insight and understanding about ourselves and the journey of discipleship we are called to follow. And as we learn and grow in our own life of discipleship, we have more to share, to teach, to model for others. Last week we looked at the scarecrow and his quest to find wisdom. Let’s look at our next character on the journey today.

Show video of Tin Man wishing for a heart.

The heart has longed served us as a metaphor for love. In this understanding of love, we see it as an expression of a deep emotion, maybe reflecting the understanding of eros. In part this is true, for in biblical anthropology, the heart is seen as the seat of the emotions. But it is even more than this. In biblical anthropology it has a broader understanding. The heart is seen not only as the seat of our emotions, but also the seat of our will, the place we make decisions about the living of our lives. We see by this, that in part our decision making has an emotional component to it, which is why it is important that we be in touch with our feelings. But as someone said, “It is important to be guided by our emotions, but not controlled by our passions, passions being emotions that run out of control and are untempered. This can cause us to react to events out of our hurt and anger exclusively without thought of what we are saying or doing. My suspicion is we have all had those moments where we have been really hurt and become angry and just let someone have it. And then a little later, when we calm down, we wish we could take it all back. Yet, anger and hurt, deep caring can be the very catalyst to get us to act. Love is a verb abd a verb is an action word. If we see an injustice, if we see a deep need going unmet, then it may spur us into acting.

It is the basis for many of the groups we house and support in our church. CCJ, People Who Care, Granite Creek Hunger Ministry, all saw a deep need felt care, concern or even angry that people were being allowed to fall between the cracks, and a response was made. This is where our wisdom can enter. We can be motivated by our feelings to do something, to make a choice to act, but our wisdom helps us channel these emotions into good decisions and appropriate actions. It is Jesus saying, we are to love with our whole heart, but also with or minds.

Last week Nancy talked about Conventional Wisdom and Biblical wisdom. Conventional wisdom being the values, mores and beliefs of the culture in which we live. Biblical wisdom seeks to help us become the people God has called us to be and live the lives God has called us to. In other words, how we can become disciples. Often, this biblical wisdom so calls our conventional wisdom and understandings into question, in ways that cause us to pause for the thoughts and the directions may make no sense to us. Hence our need to journey together.

In the passage we read today from John, Jesus shares a biblical wisdom of God’s love and our calling which increases the breadth of what it means to live together in this journey of love. He says, “No greater love has anyone but this, that a person would lay down their lives for a friend. You are my friends.” We know that Jesus, himself, literally lived this statement. For some it may mean literally laying their lives on the line, but for most of us, I believe Jesus is asking us to set aside some of the focus of our lives from ourselves and take a greater and broader understanding of life that reflects the common good of all. As someone said, “Very seldom does a personal want or desire outweigh the need of the common good.” Jesus said it this way. “I came to serve, not be served.”

But that’s hard is it not? What can that possibly mean about the living of our lives, the journey of discipleship, the call to love and the choices we make? I am reminded of a statement one of my seminary professors made. He said, “I believe that some day I will stand before God and have to give an accounting of my life. Being a human being, I know I will make mistakes. But if I err on the side of love, I believe God will be better able to understand.” What does this mean? For me, it has meant when I face a decision about a choice before me, if I err it will usually be on the side of patience, tolerance and kindness. They are all part of the definition of love found in I Corinthians 13. Will this cause me to err at times? Of course, I am human. At times, there may be a need for what we have termed tough love. How can someone overcome addictions unless we hold them accountable for their actions? But let me tell you why this though has been important to me, as it may be helpful to you.

The movie shows the classic storyline of innocence versus evil. Now evil is often understood as extreme cruelty, but it is more than that. Evil is live spelled backwards, so evil is the opposite of life, it is that which takes away life from another. Not just literally, but also takes away life by preventing another the chance and opportunity to pursue life, or prevents another from experiencing life to their fullest potential. In the movie, the witch is the personification of evil. And what is she trying to do in the movie? She is trying to prevent the characters from completing their journey. To prevent them from following the path that leads to the hope and promise of realizing their life’s deepest goals and heart’s greatest desires. She is thwarting others from realizing their deepest hopes and dreams for life.

And why is she doing this? Not because she really has anything against any of them. She is doing this because she simply desires the Ruby Slippers. Because she wants something, she is willing to diminish the lives of those around her without any regard for who they are or what it may do to them. My deepest concern about the living of my own life, and I suspect it runs deep in all of us, is I do not want to err in my decision making in a way that takes away or diminishes life, that takes away the opportunities and possibilities that can prevent others from pursuing their hopes and dreams as well. I do not want my life to diminish the life of another. That my own personal desires or wants get in the way of pursuing and working toward the common good, the deep needs of the whole community. It is my starting place in my decision making process.

It is why I have a deep commitment to social holiness and social justice. Are there places that our community is not seeking the common good? Are there places that people’s lives are needlessly being diminished? It is where Jesus calls us to be peacemakers, shalom makers. Shalom meaning to bring wholeness, harmony and well-being to all of God’s children. Where the lives of all of our brothers and sisters in the family of God are important, and enter into our decision making process. Influence the choices we make about our lives.

This is how I understand Luke as taking up my cross of service, and laying down or setting aside my life as I look at the lives of those who are my companions, my friends along the road of life.

The call to be disciples is more than a decision to not diminish the life of another, but in service doing what we can to extend ourselves so we can enhance life for each other. We see this in Jesus teaching of being merciful or compassionate as God is merciful or compassionate towards us. Surely these words reflect Jesus commandment to love as I have loved you by laying down your life for each other. It is the whole point of Jesus’ life is it not? God who came to live among us. God who came to take our journey of life with us, showing us the God truly understands our life and the living of it. These words are the best definition of compassion I know. How can we be a source of care and love and be a presence of good news, unless we personally understand the life of the one we seek to serve and help along their life’s journey? How can we be companions for each other, how can we be disciple’s for Christ, unless we take the time to really know one another?

When we were in Kenya a couple of years ago, we were able to have many conversations with the church people we were working with. When they asked us about Sabbath, they could not understand how our Sabbath could simply be gathering for one hour to worship. For them, Sabbath was a gathering of the community that brought them together not only for a three hour worship, but then had them sit together and have a meal with each other. Their question to us was, “How can you care about each other when you do not even know each other?”

The movie reminds us that as companions on life’s road together, we travel seeking the realization of our own hopes and dreams to be fully alive. To become fully the people God hopes us to be. But as companions on the journey, just like Dorothy and her companions, we get to know each other’s hopes as well, and in love seek to assist each other along the way by at times setting aside our needs for the good of another. What we see about the journey is no one would have made it without the encouragement and strength of each other. But I guess that’s where we start next week.

Sermon delived by Rev. George Cushman on August 10, 2008.