Radical Love
By
Carrie Houston
A
Sermon on John 13:31-35
May
19, 2019
(Graduate
Recognition Sunday)
First
Austin: a baptist community of faith
Tests are completed. Books are returned. Lockers
are emptied. The “have a nice summer” inscribed into yearbooks stings this
time, as the recipient knows it’s the last summer before their lives are about
to change forever. Caps are decorated with sequins and glitter, displaying a
funny saying or a beloved cartoon character. Gowns are carefully ironed,
so as to remove the crease that forms from sitting in a plastic wrapper for
weeks. Stoles that signify academic accomplishments and memberships in
honors societies are draped carefully on top of the gown, ready to be put on
for the commencement ceremonies. Parents and siblings and grandparents and out
of town relatives make plans to celebrate the accomplishments of their
graduate. The last-minute details of graduation parties are in place. It’s all
happening. The hour is here.
Graduation signals the completion of
something big, the first step into new levels of responsibilities and
opportunities. You finally have freedom to choose your own path in life,
without some other adult dictating it for you. You ARE that adult now.
As parents and teachers and mentors and
ministers, we hope we have prepared our students to be successful adults in a
world full of attractive choices, some that are more advantageous than others,
more life giving than soul-sucking.
By now, we hope we’ve taught them all they
need to know about separating clothes into piles, one with colors, one with
whites, a pile for delicates, a pile for towels. How important it is to
use high efficiency soap only in a high efficiency washer or risk a
bubble catastrophe. Or tricks like turning your jeans inside out when washing
them (is that a thing? My mom always told me to do that.) and pretreating
greasy stains with a small blue drop of dawn.
We’ve taught them the dos and don’ts of
driving in Austin which may or not be applicable in the small cities of their
colleges, like Waco or Macon or San Marcos. But I bet the constant stop
and go and weaving in and out of lanes doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue
in places with less than a million people, unless you’re driving near the Silos
where road rage is real.
Our teachers have taught them how to read
and write, they’ve taught them algebra, history, chemistry, English and
literature, environmental science. They’ve modeled cooperation in team
sports, orchestras, choir, and theater productions.
Here at church, our Sunday school teachers
have taught them the bible, telling the stories of Jesus, the women at the
tomb, the three wise men, of Abraham and Sarah, Moses and the Jewish
exile. They’ve stressed the importance of healthy relationships with
themselves and with others, teaching them to know when to bow out of a toxic
friendship or when to step up in a time of need. They’ve prepared them to speak
up in the face of injustices and to articulate their faith in a loving way.
Whether you are a Sunday school teacher, a
parent, or a high school English teacher, all of us here today take some
responsibility for preparing our young people to step out into the world with
boldness and confidence that they have the skills needed to not only survive,
but thrive. We say goodbye, trusting that in all the ways we’ve modeled right
and wrong, taught them life lessons about respect and love, and encouraged them
to speak up for good, that our students feel ready to continue on the path
we’ve set them on, without us.
In the gospel story today, we encounter
Jesus beginning his goodbyes knowing he’s headed for the cross. He hopes
he’s prepared his disciples well enough to continue without him, because what’s
about to come next isn’t going to be easy. It’s going to change their
lives forever. The hour is here.
At the beginning of the chapter, the
reader enters into a meal already in progress. The smell of freshly baked bread
is in the air. Cups of wine are half full, bowls are filled with a thick
vegetable stew, the bread used as a spoon. Jesus sits shoulder to shoulder
with his disciples, unable to shake the sad truth that he is about to be
betrayed and killed. Does it show on his face?
The meal nearly complete, Jesus calmly
gets up from the table. All eyes are on him. Jesus takes off his
robe, ties an apron around his waist and pours clean water into a basin.
He calls each disciple over, one by one, even the one who will betray him,
submerging their dust-caked feet into the basin, the water getting murkier and
murkier after each foot is cleaned. His apron heavy with water, Jesus’ hands
begin to smell sour from the dirty water. But he doesn’t care. This is what
love looks like.
Jesus calls Simon Peter to the basin, but
Peter refuses. “You’re not going to wash my feet – ever!” he proclaims.
But Jesus persists, insisting that Peter participate in this intimate
act, for he has a lesson to teach, as always.
Jesus knows he isn’t going to be around
much longer to hold their hands, to affirm them or teach them. He really
hopes they get it, that they see that love isn’t just a noun. It’s a verb
of action. Jesus embodies this kind of love by modeling what he wants his
disciples to do after he departs. He loves without grudges, without limits,
without requirements or prerequisites. He doesn’t make excuses or make a cost
benefit analysis on the risks of loving someone.
Jesus washed the feet of the one who would
betray him right at the same time he washed the feet of his beloved
disciple!
Jesus’s love doesn’t discriminate or play
favorites. He lowers himself to the position of a servant – a practical,
physical way of loving someone else – getting involved up close and personal to
all the muck and stank. He shows them the power of service to others, how
it can break down barriers and unite an unlikely bunch. In this
simple act of foot washing, the disciples experience a new way of being
community for each other, creating spaces of trust within their vulnerability
and fear of uncertainty.
This is what love looks like in action.
As if they weren’t filled with enough
anxiety already, Jesus issues another reminder to his remaining disciples that
he is about to leave them, and they’ve got to do this without him. Where he is
going, they can’t go. He can’t hold their hand anymore. There is work to be
done here and it’s up to them to take responsibility to do God’s work. So,
he gives them a new commandment, an already familiar command, but with an added
twist. He says, “love one another, just as I have loved you, you also
should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.”
Jesus says that this kind of love is the
true mark of discipleship – not right belief, not wearing a cross necklace, not
reciting bible verses, or saying the sinner’s prayer. It’s not your
political leanings or moral purity, or those bible verses you post on
Facebook. It’s so much more than all of that. It’s loving as Christ loves
you.
It’s love in action.
It expects activity and doesn’t rely on
sentimental feelings. It’s not the “Hallmark card” kind of love. It’s
acknowledging the humanity of the person begging for money on the street
corner, asking their name or simply looking up from your phone to smile.
It’s going out of your way to treat someone experiencing homelessness the
same way you’d treat your best friend or someone you really want to impress.
It’s extending the hand of friendship to someone you so deeply disagree with,
to a republican. Or a democrat. It’s washing the feet of someone who hasn’t
washed them in a very long time. It’s sitting with someone in their
hospital room who has no family to sit with them.
It’s radical and it has the power to
transform everything.
Radical love looks betrayal in the face
and says, “I’ll love you anyways.” It wades in the water of mud and murk,
because as Leander Keck put it, “to love one another as Jesus loves us is to
live a life thoroughly shaped by a love that knows no limits, by a love whose
expression brings the believer closer into relationship with God, with Jesus,
and with one another. It is to live a love that carries with it a whole
new concept of the possibilities of community.”
When people show up for each other in
service, we experience a tangible sign of what it means to abide in Jesus. This
kind of radical love can revolutionize communities. It’s how we can remember
the way Jesus loved us first, unconditionally, without limits. Radical love
loves despite our want to hold grudges against someone who wronged us.
It looks past embarrassment, or failures.
When we love like Christ and can see first-hand how transformative it is,
our motivations to serve others begin to be less about ourselves and more about
experiencing Jesus in person.
But Radical love doesn’t mean putting up
with abuse and mistreatment. Sometimes the hardest thing we can do is
acknowledge that we have to walk away from a toxic relationship. Radical
love is knowing that saying goodbye to someone and breaking the cycle of abuse
is the most loving thing we can do.
In the new book Educated, a memoir about her life, Tara Westover tells the story of
growing up in rural Idaho to a survivalist Mormon family, isolated from others,
lacking a proper education and never once seeing a medical professional as a
child. She didn’t have a birth certificate until she was nine, and even then,
she isn’t 100% sure her birthday is correct. When she was a teenager, she
began to suffer physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her own brother.
When Tara confronted her parents about her black eyes and broken wrists, they
didn’t believe her brother was responsible. Their relationship began to
crumble as Tara spoke openly about the abuse, her family in denial about that
truth of the situation. Knowing the most loving thing to do was walk
away, Tara severed all ties to her family. She says in an interview, “You
can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them. You can miss a person
every day and still be glad that they are no longer in your life.”
Radical love means refusing to be
mistreated or becoming the victim. It’s flipping the expectation that
loving like Christ means you must take whatever someone gives you. The world
tells us to think of ourselves, get what’s ours.
Women are taught to put the needs of
others ahead of theirs, suppressing their true needs for fear someone will stop
loving them. But being a doormat is the anthesis of radical love.
Radical love means challenging an
oppressive power. It’s standing up to injustice and demanding equality. Radical
love extends a hand to the oppressed, pulls them up, and walks hand in hand
together, fighting for equality. Radical love is standing up for the
rights of women to receive equal pay and access to adequate healthcare and paid
maternity leave. Radical love means paying your property taxes to fund
schools that educate at-risk students so they can have an opportunity to thrive
in a society that already has them two steps behind. Radical love holds
institutions accountable for sexual abuse and harassment. Radical love
means reducing our dependence on oil to reduce the damage being done to the
earth God has trusted us with. Radical love means standing up to racial
injustices in our criminal justice system that disproportionately incarcerates
people of color.
Yes, to love as Jesus loves is radical.
It’s going to take effort and a lot of practice. People are going to think
you’re crazy. They might question your motives. But how else are we
able to experience Jesus’ presence on earth if we don’t put our hands in the
dirty water to wash to our neighbor’s feet, just like Jesus did? Serving our
neighbor, knowing the risk involved but doing it anyway, because that’s what
Jesus does. Jesus loves without limits, loving in the face of betrayal
and heartbreak. What a radical way to live life!
Jesus is obsessed with love. Are we?
AMEN.
*artwork: Love Your Neighbor, by Vierwind, picgra.com/user/vierwind_/4261073499
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