“Revolutionary Love - Take 3”

Karen Sloan 17/12/2023

Readings - John 15:9-17, Parable by Peter Rollins - ‘The book of love”

Today is our third week of advent, which for us is love.  Something we speak about, think about, talk about it, particularly me,  in wedding and funeral services.  It’s in our songs, and poems and novels, and in our movies and on our TVs, and in our bible.  Jesus uses the term a lot, and we have heard countless sermons on it.  But maybe, just maybe, we need to really examine it a little bit more.

But before we get carried away with the theory of it, I want to start with the reality of our lives today.  I was recently listening  to Radio National and in one hour I was subjected to a litany of violence, war, and grief, from places such as Israel, Afghanistan, and Africa that made me wish I was listening to classic FM, with its gentle music. My heart was breaking.  Each report seemed to get worse.  On top of what we have experienced on our television in the past few weeks, the terrible images from Gaza and the Ukraine, the continued abuse of the Rehinga people in Myanmar, the thousands of refugees stuck in huge camps,  to the violence in Northbridge, and the sorrow and grief in our indigenous communities where many are without hope.  it leads one to wonder about the world and society in which we live. And what we can do to change things. Or even if we can  change things.

So, after pondering this sermon, I am not going to concentrate on what is wrong in the world but rather I am going to talk about what is needed.  And what is needed is love. Yes, we are going there again, because I am fundamentally an optimist and there is always hope.

A famous philosopher once said “For in truth, in this world hatred is not appeased by hatred, hatred is appeased by love alone.  This is the eternal law”.

We can find, if we look, places where hatred or at least neglect and loneliness and poverty is being appeased by love. 

People who care for their neighbors, their friends, their family, who support those who they don’t know and never will, with time and money.  Who set up charities and organizations to help the most vulnerable with food and shelter and education.  Who rescue people with no thought for their own safety.

I wanted to give you 2 concrete examples, to help picture how amazing  this love can be. But then Sandra’s sister, Josiane, has come from the US for a holiday, after a journey that many  of us will be amazed by.  Josiane can talk first hand about love and the difference it makes. So I scrapped by examples, and she will share some of her experiences with us now.

Josiane to speak (see my blog “wehaveadreamtoo.wordpress.com for more details)

 …..

Thanks Josiane.  May be I should finish now, although with some concluding thoughts on love.

So what we have seen is that love is so much more than a feeling, it is a movement and a way of life. A commitment to the other. It’s about going against the norm and saying something different, doing something different that is life giving for others. It requires great courage, and compassion, and sometimes there’s a huge cost. Both in time, money and sometimes even life.

The scriptures call it agape love, which has to be worked at, and displayed in our actions. 

Richard Rohr would call it revolutionary love,

“Love is more than a feeling., he says  Love is a form of sweet labour, fierce, bloody, imperfect and life giving, a choice we make over and over again.  In order to transform the world around us. It is not a formal code or prescription but an orientation to life that is personal and political and rooted in joy. “

But why are we drawn so much towards it.  Where does the urge for this sweet labour come from? What drives people to love in this way.  Particularly in our science and technology driven world. 

Bruce Sanguin, suggests we have been told by many, including our own religious traditions that humans are naturally sinful.  That we are by nature violent, self centered and greedy and that our genes are geared only for survival regardless of who we hurt in order to live.  That we are out for pleasure and self-interest over rides everything.

The problem, as we well know, is there is a great deal of truth in these statements.  We only have to look at the world and our society today.

When we see violence and hatred, and the outcome of such things, the grief and heartache and despair that they generate we ask ourselves what many ask, religious or not.   Is there any hope for a better more just world, a world where love rather than hate rules? 

Sanguin would argue that there is, if you take into account the God factor.  The God factor, I love that.

This God factor is not from a remote deity, that intercedes occasionally, but from a divine presence at the very heart of all creation.   An immanent presence that leads to life, a creative, loving, and compassionate life.

More and more we see there is a different story to the story that says we are determined by our genes and our quest for survival, and by our psychology to be violent and self centered. We are so much more than our genes.

Current research in evolutionary biology has revealed that cooperation and connectedness, rather than selfishness can and does drive the development of a species.  There seems to be a new science of empathy emerging.   

As Sanguin suggests the need to belong, to connect, to become one with others, through rituals of love is what seems to be built into the fabric of our evolutionary being. 

Life it seems may not be solely about the instinct to survive.  Rather it is about the sense of belonging and being connected.  And it evolves, both in the universe and in us. 

From the moment the universe was born God’s spirit was at its heart driving even its most basic elements to connect.  I believe that at every level this spirit urges  communion and relationship, so that atoms combine with atoms, molecules with molecules, cells with cells, and people to people.  We have this urge to connect with one another, as though it is in our DNA. 

God is the divine mystery that holds us, nurtures us and nourishes us into being.  The one in whom we belong, and who drives us to belong to others.  We are interconnected to one another and all of creation in ways that seem so sacred and gives us such hope. Which is why the ancients referred to God as love, as a shorthand way of describing this presence.

Tragedy and suffering and violence seem part of the story about what it means to be human.  Particularly today, in the 21st century.  But it is not the full story.  And it’s not inevitable.  Because there is also the story of love.  We are hard wired for love, we seek it, we give it away and when we do, we connect to the most basic and beautiful element of the cosmos, God. Or spirit or breath or energy, however you want to name it.  What we find is that life means nothing without love. 

And if we widen our view, as we should, we will see, that the social form of God’s love is justice, fairness and equity for all, regardless of race or religion or gender or sexuality.  Everybody and everything are encompassed within the divine presence, held in love.  The Christian life, accordingly, is about developing a relationship with the spirit that responds to that love and transforms us and those around us into more compassionate caring people.

Let me remind you of a quote from Frederick Buechner,

“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me.  To see reality not as we expect it to be but as it is, is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily, that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.”

But what about Jesus.  He is part of our story as well. He is part of the God story. We are inspired by those around us who seek a better life for all,  but we are called by Jesus.

We hear his voice today, through John’s gospel, a gospel that speaks of love more than any other. We hear a message from Jesus to his disciples that seems like a last prayer or set of instructions, “love each other as I have loved you, and as the father has loved me”. Jesus wasn’t giving out too many rules or regulations, doctrines, or things to believe in, instead he was speaking of love.  He has already spoken about love being the greatest commandment, love of God and neighbour, and he speaks about it again here.

He is calling the disciples to love one another as he has loved us, as the father has loved him. And he calls them to go and bear fruit. Out into the world.

And we know that Jesus did not just say it but lived it. 

So today, for us, what does it really mean.  It means, practising an inclusive love, where everyone, and everything including all of creation is of value, including us.  It means practising hospitality, justice and sharing of our resources, it means being open to people with different ideas and traditions, and it means welcoming the stranger, the outcast, the lonely and the lost. We are to break down the barriers and distinctions between people.  And it means caring for the earth, for its own sake and because the people who will suffer the most during climate change are the poorest.

And it means realizing that while we may not think we can make a difference, we can, and if 100 of us, or 1000 of us do a little bit lives can change. Look at Josiane and her family.

For as Richard Rohr has said, revolutionary love practiced in community can be life changing..  “We birth the beloved community by becoming the beloved community. When we become the beloved community….

So, as I end this sermon, I always come back to the same thought.  Sometimes it would be easy just to believe a few things and go on our merry way.  But Jesus message is so, so challenging, even in its simplicity. What matters is love. As Peter Rollins surmised in his parable, the Book of Love, “The book was refined into a single word and that word was sent out on the lips and life of a messenger”. And that word was love.

If we embrace the idea that love is at the core of life, that God is at the core of life, and that Jesus embodies that love, maybe we will become better human beings. And the world will become a better, more welcoming place. And maybe just maybe we will do the things others say can’t be done.  And while this path may entail great cost there can be great joy and great hope. 

Because you can’t kill love, no matter how hard you try.  

Amen

Josiane talked about this love, love that you can’t kill, love that can build with community…

These are the other two examples I was going to use…

I found the first person in a book,  called “The life you can save”, by Peter Singer, which I have just read, even though it was written some time ago. Singer is a philosopher who has been exploring how we can share our resources and time, so that those without much can be supported, particularly in other places.  As he says, all lives matter, not just some.   It’s a challenging book because it asks some challenging questions of us, but I want to focus on one person in particular, a guy called Paul Farmer, who Singer writes about.  Farmer went to Haiti as a student, and was totally changed by the experience at seeing first hand the suffering of its people and especially the high maternal and infant mortality there.  So he came back and became a doctor, set up a charity called Partners in Health, an organization that works to bring the benefits of modern medical science to those in need and went back to work in Haiti. Eventually he married and had a daughter, but was troubled by the fact he loved his daughter more than those children he was treating, as most parents do.  As he says, p151, So he carries in his wallet a picture of his daughter Catherine and a picture of a child from Haiti of the same age, suffering from malnutrition, to remind him, that all lives do indeed matter. He continues to work as much as he can for those without support and without basic health care.. 

Pretty incredible.

My second person is Ben Forencz, a small Jewish lawyer, who died this year aged 103. We know about him through an amazing documentary we saw the other night.

As a lawyer he was part of a team of investigators who went to the concentration camps when they were being liberated at the end of WW2 to record what the US soldiers were encountering.  And what he saw changed his life. “He writes, The camp was a charnel house of indescribable horrors,”. “I saw crematoria still going. The bodies of people starved, lying dying, on the ground. Eyes pleading to me. I’ve seen the horrors of war more than can be adequately described.” “What he witnessed was seared into his memory.

Because of this experience he was then called up, at 27, to be the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials held to prosecute Nazi war criminals, and make many of the German leaders and commanders accountable. 

Rather than depending on witnesses, Ferencz relied on official German documents to make his case, which he himself went through. At Mauthausen, for example, he found incriminating ledgers kept by the Nazi commandant on the number and manner of prisoners killed each day, on starvation rations and on horrific conditions in the lice-infested barracks. Crazily  he had these numbers because the Germans like order, sending them to over 90 different departments in the Reich, and signed by each one.

Mind blowing, really!

At the end of the trial, all the defendants were convicted, and many hanged.

“At the beginning of April 1948, when the long legal judgment was read, I felt vindicated,” he wrote. “Our pleas to protect humanity by the rule of law had been upheld.” And he continued to say this throughout his life, law not war.

After the war he continued to help Holocaust survivors regain properties, homes, businesses, artworks, Torah scrolls, and other Jewish religious items that had been confiscated from them by the Nazis. He also later assisted in negotiations that would lead to compensation to the Nazi victims.

In later decades, Ferencz worked on human rights cases and championed the creation of an international court that could prosecute any government’s leaders for war crimes and for laws to end wars of aggression.  Those dreams were realized in 2002 with the establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. 

He continued to work tirelessly for others and for peace, and wrote many books,  articles, letters to editors, and spoke at many peace conferences until near his death.  He never gave up the idea that, as he kept saying, “we have to create a more humane and peaceful world, we just have to”.

Another incredible person.  Driven to change and challenge.