Just Do It!

John 13: 34-35 & Acts 11: 1-18

Roger Lynn

May 8, 2016

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

Over and over again in the Gospels we find Jesus taking the traditional approach to faith and religion and turning it upside down. You can almost hear people asking him, “What are the rules we’re supposed to follow?” They were looking for a convenient check-list, and instead he gives them a new ‘commandment.’ “You want rules,” Jesus seems to be saying. “You want to know what to do. OK, try this. Love one another.” That’s it! It really is as simple, and as challenging, as that. And 2,000 years later, we are still struggling with how to live out the profound implications of those three words. 

It is true that there are all sorts of very real, very legitimate questions about what it means to love one another. There will probably always be discussions and debates about the specific details. And in the meantime we are still living in a world which is deeply, profoundly broken by the very real consequences of not loving each other. Whatever it might or might not mean, I’m pretty sure that loving one another means something other than hating, something other than demonizing, something other than excluding, something other than ignoring, and certainly something other than killing. We might not be able to fully and completely define every last nuance and implication, but we’ve got a pretty good idea of where to start. The problem is not that we don’t know how to do it fully and completely. The problem is that much of the time we don’t even start down the path. Whether it’s fear, or misinformation, or being overwhelmed, or all of the above, the fact of the matter is that loving one another has not always been one of the human race’s strongest attributes, including those of us who claim to be followers of the one who told us in no uncertain terms to do that very thing.

So how do we begin to change that? How do we begin, even in some small ways, to live out this powerful mandate from Jesus? I suggest that perhaps the folks at Nike have some advice worth paying attention to – “Just do it!” There are all kinds of reasons why we don’t. We live in a scary world where bad things happen. Those people over there are just so different from me that I don’t know how to relate to them. And besides, they might be dangerous. Love makes me way too vulnerable. I’m just one person. It’s all well and good for Jesus, but I live in the real world. On and on the list could go. 

Peter knew the list. He didn’t want to do it either, and he had heard the words directly from the lips of Jesus. When he had a vision of God telling him to go have dinner with Cornelius, he was quick to point out all the reasons why he couldn’t do it. He’s was a Jew and Jews just didn’t eat with Gentiles. Peter had the support of scripture. He had the support of tradition. He had the support of the religious authorities. As it turned out, the only support he didn’t have was God’s. And God was insistent. “What I have declared to be acceptable, you are in no position to declare unacceptable.” And so Peter goes. He shares a meal with Cornelius. He has a profound and transformative experience of the ways in which God’s Spirit is able to transcend the barriers we human beings try to erect. The very nature of the Church was forever altered. And it begins with one person stepping beyond their comfort zone and daring to interact with another human being on a basic, human level. They shared a meal together. And the world was never the same again.

During World War I, on the front lines somewhere in Europe, on Christmas Eve, something profound occurred. The British soldiers were in the trenches on one side of the field. The German soldiers were in the trenches on the other side of the field. Through what can only be described as the grace of God, they came to experience each other as fellow human beings rather than simply as enemies. There was every reason to be afraid. There was every reason to simply continue the patterns of interaction which were the accepted order of the day (namely, shooting at each other). But instead they stepped beyond those expectations and they shared something basic and profound. There was a soccer game. There was music. There were pictures from home. They shared a meal together. Then the truce ended and the war continued. But for those particular soldiers the world was never the same again.  Something deep and basic had changed and they could not go back to the way they were before. Those soldiers who dared to step beyond their comfort zone that night couldn’t go back to killing the enemy, because now the “enemy” had a face and name and a story. They had eaten together.

In the Sikh tradition, there is a practice known as “langar,” which is basically an all-you-can-eat feast where anyone and everyone is welcome. At any Sikh temple, anywhere in the world, you will find these langar feasts. In the early 1500s, when early Sikh gurus created the langar, it was a time of class struggle. A communal meal was a revolutionary concept at the time. Priest Wadhawa Singh Gill declares that the langar undermined and eroded the caste system. “We do not discriminate between human beings. And we are required to sit at one place and at one level. All are one.” (from an NPR story featured on the May 1, 2007 edition of “Day to Day”) When people dare to step beyond their comfort zone and meet each other at a basic human level, the world is never the same again.

Love one another. It sounds like such a great idea, at least in principle. But putting it into practice has proved much more challenging, whether it is Peter faced with how to relate to an ‘unclean’ Gentile, or German and British soldiers faced with how to relate to ‘the enemy’, or Indian Sikhs faced with how to relate to those on the other side of the caste divide, or us as we face the challenge of how to relate to people on the other side of whatever dividing wall we might think of. We human beings are frequently good at coming up with ways to separate ourselves into ‘us and them.’ There are always seemingly good reasons why such barriers should be maintained. And we are always less whole and less fulfilled and less human when we give in to that temptation. Love one another, Jesus says. There are no easy answers regarding what that looks like. It will frequently be a scary business to take such a step. And finally, the only way to begin is to begin. Take a deep breath, put one foot in front of the other and step out in faith, trusting that the God who calls us to such a bold and daring life is also the God who will be with us on the journey. Love one another, Jesus says. Just do it!