The First Sunday after Trinity - June 26, 2011

The Church Season of Trinity

The First Sunday after Trinity, One Year Series
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (June 26, 2011)

Readings:   
    Psalm 33:12-33
    Genesis 15:1-6
    1 John 4:16-21
    Luke 16:19-31

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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen

The text for today is as recorded in the Gospel Lesson from the 1st John the 4th chapter.

1 John 4:19-21

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot[a] love God whom he has not seen. 21And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Jesus said, "Whoever loves God must also love his brother."  And by the word "brother," John does not only mean our literal brothers.  Our brother is anyone to whom we can show love through our vocations, especially those brethren in the faith. Towards these people, we Christians should excel at love.  We are not to be absorbed by ourselves and our own desires, but rather concerned for the well-being and needs of those around us.  We are to love selflessly and willingly.

So how are we doing?  Have we been loving?  Perhaps our first response is, "Yes, we are doing pretty good.  Maybe not perfect, but not bad." A poor response says, "I love a lot!  Look how loving I am!" Such pride does not sit well with love.  Instead, love enjoys praising the qualities of others, while covering itself up. Yet there is an impulse inside us to think of ourselves as very loving.  We elevate our love in our own eyes.  But that is to love ourselves, not our brother.

We are also tempted to think that love is merely an emotion in the heart.  When people examine themselves to see if they love, they are feeling for a feeling, to see if they get a warm emotion when they think about warm emotions. We Christians should not be satisfied with such a shallow kind of love.  We should not only try to cultivate a loving feeling towards others.  Much more than that, we should strive to be loving in thought, word, and deed. Far from being only a matter of subjective emotions, love is measurable and objective.  God gave us a guide to test our love, called the Commandments.

Some people think that the Ten Commandments are not much of a standard, and they want some bigger and better way to show love.  But the Commandments are more than enough.  If anyone masters them, then they are already in Paradise with the Lord. The summary of the Commandments is love.  Love God, and love your neighbor.  If you kept all the Commandments, then you would have perfect love, if that were possible.

So here are the things we ought to do, and those we should not be doing. We should not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them. Have we obeyed our parents, even when they are not looking, and even when we think they are wrong?  Do we gladly obey the laws of the land? We also should not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need. Do we harbor anger in our hearts against people, or use hateful words toward them?  Do we support abortion, in either direct or indirect ways? We also should lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do, and husband and wife love and honor each other. Are we pure in our thoughts and desires?  Do we treat attractive people as if they were objects?  Do we view marriage as a gift of God, and treat our spouse honorably?

We also should not take our neighbor's money or possessions, or get them in any dishonest way, but help him to improve and protect his possessions and income. When a financial transaction nets us more than we should receive, we pocket the extra and think we have it coming to us, even though we are upset if we are shortchanged. We also should not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.

We all know that gossips are destructive.  But when we do it, we think that we are only passing on information. I could go on and on.  Let this suffice for now.  If anyone thinks they have mastered even these parts, then they are simply not paying attention.We want to say, "Sure, I sin now and then, but at least my heart is in the right place!" Brothers and sisters, to sin means to not have your heart in the right place.  Every sin is a failure to love.  Our hearts, far from being places of beauty and light and warmth as we imagine, are instead full of darkness and sin.

If we try to stand before God on the basis of our love as so many people try to do, then we will fail.  We could never do enough to satisfy the demands of love.  There is always more to do.  We can never love enough, no matter how hard we try. Yet we Christians stand before God as we will stand on the Day of Judgment, with confidence and certainty, because we do not stand upon our love, but upon the love of God.

The only absolutely pure love in the universe is God's love, for He is love.  You can rely on that love.  Trust in it, believe upon it, bet your eternal soul upon the love of God.  That love will never fail you. We can know this for certain because we see that love on the Cross.  We do not have to imagine or speculate on what God's secret attitude in His heart is towards us.  No, this is the love of God, that Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior of the world, gave Himself into suffering and death for you.  This He did, not when you were loving and good, but when you were a loveless sinner.

That [point to Cross] is love.  Love is the Son of God bleeding His precious life-blood for sinners who did not deserve Him.  Love is Christ rejected by the Father.  Love is all that Christ did, even though no one will ever be able to pay Him back even a thousandth of what He has freely given. Love is the wounds of Christ.  Love is His crown of thorns.  Love is the nails hammered into innocent flesh.  Love is made complete in the cry of Jesus, "It is finished!" At that moment, His love for mankind was perfect and complete.  That is the love He shed upon you, to buy you back with His Blood.

Now we stand ready for the Judgment.  Indeed, we are already judged and found innocent, because we are declared innocent by the Great Judge.  All our lives are seen by God as one continuous action of love, because our lives are seen through the Cross, and through the love of Christ. Therefore, having been loved this much, shall we not be stirred in our hearts to live loving lives?  Since Christ worked mightily with His every breath to love us, shall we not strive to love Him and our neighbor?  There is no fear in our love, because we are already saved by the love of God.  We are free to love generously and recklessly.

So the Lord creates love in us.  He makes us love one another.  He guides us to make no mention of how worthy someone is of our love, since God loved us when we were His enemies.  He leads us to count no cost in our love, for we could never suffer a loss even a millionth of what Christ suffered on our behalf.  So He labors unceasingly to cleanse our love from the impurity of our sins by putting to death the old Adam in us, until that great Day when the Holy Spirit shall complete our purification by raising us in sinless bodies, and we shall love with a true and flawless heart. Amen.

The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

AMEN
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