“Smokejumpers”
John 13:31-35
Sunday, May 13, 2001
All services
PRAY… & Intro…
Imagine if you can, not knowing whether you’d live to see the end of today.
Imagine being with friends and family, unsure whether or not you’d see them tomorrow.
How might the life and love you share with those close to you be re-shaped if you knew your days were numbered?
There is a rare brand of people known as smokejumpers who face this reality every day.
These are an elite form of firefighters who battle firestorms in remote, wooded locales.
First, they jump out of an airplane with a hundred pounds of gear into the middle of a burning forest. Then they hit the ground and begin to dig. They chase the fire and fight it by hand—typically without water or retardant. They beat the fire with sand bags, digging trenches, and cutting down trees with burning branches…they are smokejumpers!
Dangerous? To say the least! It’s a killer…but it’s what they do
There is an undeniable aura surrounding this tight-knit team of men and women…
Deployed anywhere, at anytime, covering 150 miles in an hour.
Usually the first ones to arrive at isolated fires…fighting for days at times.
Can you imagine not knowing whether you’d live to see the end of today?
Can you imagine being with friends and family, unsure whether or not you’d see them tomorrow?
How might the life and love you share with those close to you be re-shaped if you knew your days were numbered?
This is precisely Jesus’ situation in the text for today…
He could smell the smoke of fires in his not-to-distant future…
He knew a fire was burning that only he could fight…
He was prepared to jump into the fire of the betrayal, arrest, trial, and execution
He knew his days were limited…so what to say…what to do!?!?!?!?
Every moment, every word counted…
After dinner he took his chance…and said: “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, love one another.” In the same way I loved you… This is not some sappy, emotional, drippy love that arrives like flowers on a bad day…this is a radical, right now, right here love… THIS is the topic of today…and everyday…
Friday night at Brady’s spring party… talking about church, etc… He asked rhetorically:
“Jesus never pushed anyone away…excluded anyone, did he?”
I thought I knew the answer, but didn’t answer…I went straight to my office and did a survey of the gospels… researched the life/love of Jesus…
My friend’s question…simple and genuine…cut to the core of HOW he loved…HOW
he wants us to live and love…today and everyday…
This survey gave me the picture of what Jesus meant when he commanded us
“Love one another…AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.”
Here is what I found…
1. Leprosy Love of Jesus…first thing Jesus does coming off the greatest sermon ever given…the sermon on the mount? Visits, touches, and cures the most outcast person of his culture…a man with leprosy…who are the lepers in our lives?
2. Leftovers Love of Jesus…on two occasions, Jesus fed masses and made sure there were leftovers! He didn’t ask for food stamps or demand proof of membership…he fed them all and said, “I’ll always have more than you need…more love that is!”
Who is starved for love in our lives?
3. Tough Love of Jesus…the rich young man who claimed to have kept all the commandments asked Jesus what else he needed to do…JC said, sell your possessions, give the money to the poor and follow me…the guy bailed out. Too tough…but true. JC wanted him to get rid of anything that stood between them... Who needs to hear the tough truth about what stands between us and God in lives?
4. Blind Love of Jesus…the exchange between Bartimeaus, the blind guy inspires me every time. Just when people who were embarrassed by Bart were telling him to leave Jesus alone…that Jesus had more important things to do…Jesus said, “Come here Bart…their opinion of you matters not to me!” Who are we embarrassed of in?
5. Unlikely Love of Jesus…one of my favorites. No one was more unlikable than shrimpy little Zaccheus. He was the Roman Tax collector who enforced the Roman tax by cruising around with a couple of thugs. Zach kept his own share…he bought his friends with it. No one liked him…but Jesus called him out of that tree and had dinner with him. Can we count the number of people in our lives that we don’t like?
6. Look-in-the-Mirror Love of Jesus…Few accounts as vivid as the woman caught in the act of adultery…Jesus standing between the woman and the gathered crowd with fists full of rocks ready to stone her to death…Jesus says…”Look in the mirror…who is without faults throw the first one.”
How quick are we to judge others without inspecting our own lives first?
7. Stinky Feet Love of Jesus…as gross as our feet get from time to time…it can’t be anything compared to first century feet when they had no socks, shoes, paved roads, carpeted floors, showers, or baths…as bad as they were Jesus cleaned them by hand… humbling himself to servant of all. When was the last time we humbly served someone in our lives?
When Jesus said, “In the same way I loved you, love one another” he meant all of these things…Leprosy Love, Leftovers Love, Tough Love, Blind Love, Unlikely Love, Look-in-the-Mirror Love, Stinky Feet Love…and much, much more…that’s just seven instances!
But his greatest act of love was yet to come…stretching out his arms on the cross he said, “I love you this much.” We just heard the story four weeks ago on Good Friday when Jesus willingly gave his life for all people of all time…even his enemies whom he blessed as they executed him…and how quickly we forget as right here in our very own church we’re having meetings about who’s allowed in and who’s not!
I have a terrible confession to make: there are many times when I hesitate to tell strangers that I meet in day to day life that I am a Christian…even more times when I flat out avoid telling people that I am a minister by saying “I’m in sales.”
I just don’t want to be identified with what I see/hear in the Christian messages these days—especially those of high visibility, high profile: judgment/grace, exclusion/inclusion, self-righteousness/servanthood, hypocrisy/humility…where’s the love of Christ in that? Did I miss that part in the gospels? Am I misreading his answer to the question “What is the most important commandment?” Am I not hearing his “new” command on this day?
(9 & 10:15) I’ll be video-taped later this morning and that tape will be played in thousands of homes around Ohio next Sunday morning. I’m going to invite those viewers to flip around the channels to survey the “Christian” message going out on broadcast…there will be more judgment than grace…I guarantee it. That saddens me. Where’s the love Christ in that?
But this is not about me…or you…it’s about the reality that there are two kinds of churches: GRACE and JUDGMENT. We are a church of grace uniquely positioned with a message deeply needed in today’s world and remarkable resources with which to share that message. The most remarkable resource we have is sitting in this room…you and me…but this is not a sappy, emotional, drippy love that arrives like flowers on a bad day…this is a radical, right now, right here love…it’s much more difficult to articulate a love of grace and acceptance… it’s much easier to make of list of who’s in and who’s out…black and white…right and wrong.
Does that mean we don’t’ try…I sure hope not! It’s time to reclaim the message of Christ: the GOOD news…not the bad news…the message of love that hugs lepers, feeds strangers with leftovers, tells the tough truth, is blind to the opinions of this world, embraces the unlike-able, judges self-not others, and humbles itself in servanthood to all. I deeply desire the day when I don’t have to apologize to strangers who say to me on a plane or in the mall or on the golf course “I’ve lost interest in my faith…I can get judgment, exclusion, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy from my office and co-workers, why would I go to church for that?”
I’m typically a three-points and a funny-story preacher…but not today. There is a single point for today and it’s not my point. Today is about the words of an urgent Jesus Christ, facing the biggest firestorm of his life, realizing his time is limited, and telling his followers, in fact, commanding them the most important thing: Love one another as I have loved you!
This is not some sappy, emotional, drippy love that arrives like flowers on a bad day…this is a radical, right now, right here love…the kind that makes you feel like you’re jumping into fire.
Imagine if you can, not knowing whether you’d live to see the end of the day.
Imagine being with friends and family, unsure whether or not you’d see them tomorrow.
How might your life and love be shaped by the possibility that your days are numbered?
Well guess what, they are…for all of us. The message we have is too important to wait another day…when it comes to the love our world needs let us assume the urgency of JC.
Please receive this not as a threat or message of judgment, but as an invitation to look for the fires in your life…those hot spots that call for the love of Christ…an invitation to fight the fires of exclusion…to become a community of smokejumpers…an invitation to live a life of love so that as Jesus said…and the old song goes…”They’ll know we are Christians…”
This is an invitation to let the world know we are Christians…not by our words, or by our bumperstickers, or by our jewelry, but BY OUR LOVE. Not some sappy, emotional, drippy love that arrives like flowers on a bad day, but a radical, right now, right here love.
Jesus gave us plenty of examples to follow…I invite you to take your pick…join the fight.
