What is a Christian?

After thinking about the church, this week I thought we would think through what it is to be a Christian.

I am sure there are lots of different readings I could have chosen when looking at this topic. 

Our 2 gospel readings both speak about commandments:

The Mark reading has someone asking, “What is the most important commandment?”

And in the John reading, Jesus gives a new command.

All are to do with love.

Jesus answered, “The most important one says: ‘People of Israel, you have only one Lord and God. You must love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.’ The second most important commandment says: and ‘Love others as much as you love yourself.’

And the new command: you must love each other, just as I have loved you.

Loving God with all that we are - OK

Love others as much as you love yourself. Not exactly what I was taught as a young Christian. I was taught love God and love others, and I don’t count.

So we have:

Love God

love yourself

Love others

love each other

what might that look like.

on Friday night we read a few verses from 1 John – we love because God first loved us. I asked the children what love looked like. They are clever children:

love looks like kindness

and hugs

saying sorry when you hurt someone

playing games together

I asked them what God’s love looked like:

The earth

People

Family

Air and water and food and animals

I told you they were clever children.

So how do we:

Love God

Love others

Love ourselves – because if we don’t love ourselves we can’t love others

Love each other as Christ loved us.

I am not suggesting any of this is easy. What might it look like in our lives.  

Love in action?

Love God: like other people we love that will mean spending time with God - for some that will be in church, others walking along the beach, or in the bush or a garden, or …
for some it will be singing, or painting or drawing or laughing or dancing or silence.

The ways we show God that we love God will be as individual and unique as each person.

Loving others? We can’t go around hugging everyone we meet.

In Galatians I think we get some clues, we love others by being peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. The fruits of the spirit within us. We love others by looking at the world from their point of view. In another place Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan in response to a question about who to love. We love when we do what is needed for someone to have life, fullness of life.

Loving ourselves? Sometimes I wonder the commandment should be love yourself the way you love others, because we will often treat other people better than we treat ourselves. We love ourselves when we give ourselves the time we need - to walk and sing and swim and play. We give ourselves permission to make mistakes. We forgive ourselves. We are kind to ourselves.

And then the new command that Jesus gave to the disciples shortly before his death: love one another as I have loved you. there is nothing sentimental about any of this. Jesus showed love in many ways – healing, forgiving, restoring to community, and dying. In what ways are we a community where people find that which is life giving and healing and hopeful?

All this reminded me of a song:

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord

And we pray that our unity will one day be restored

And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love

Yeah they'll know we are Christians by our love.

Do people see that love in us and our interactions,
do people see Jesus in us?
in our words?
In our actions?

so often when I hear people talk about what it means to be Christian, the conversation is not about love. The conversation is about:

a set of doctrines,
or a way of understanding the Bible,
or a prayer that you must pray

or what you can or cannot do or eat or say

or the length of your hair or your hem

In Galatians we heard: All that matters is your faith that makes you love others. At that time the debate was over the need for Christian men to be circumcised.

All that matters is your faith that makes you love others.

And from John: If you love each other, everyone will know that you are my disciples.

What is a Christian? my answer is someone who loves God, who tries to live that out in loving other people, loving themselves, caring for the creation.

A Christian is someone who loves Jesus and tries to live that out in following the call to be a disciple.

A Christian is someone in whom the Holy Spirit is taking root, growing and will hopefully show the fruits of kindness and peace, patience, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

The way we love God, the way we follow the path of discipleship and the way the spirit acts in our life, will be different in each one of us, just as each one of us is unique.

Do I have to love me ???

The Hebrew Bible has lots of rules to follow, there is the ten commandments, but also many rules in the Old Testament that cover what to plant, and what and when to sacrifice, and tithing and numerous other rules. Rabbis were often asked to interpret these rules.

Rules help us,
when we follow the road rules,

we all drive on the same side of the road,
we know to stop at a red light,
we know to slow down in school zones.

What happens when we don’t follow the road rules? We can get fined and maybe lose our licence, but not following the rules means we are more likely to be involved in a  collision, to hurt ourselves or other people. Rules are there so we can share the road with other traffic and people, and stay safe.

In the same way, rules in the Bible are a framework for living together, not something to tie us in knots.

The Scribe asks Jesus what is the most important of the rules; and he responds:

“The most important one is this: ‘Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second most important commandment is this: ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment more important than these two.” [Good News version]

He doesn’t speak of tithing, or sexuality, or what clothes to wear, or how to worship, or what structure the church should follow. Jesus speaks about loving God and loving neighbour.

Relationship and community.

Being able to quote these two commandments is one thing, but what might it look like for us to live them out?

The greatest commandment - Loving God with all out heart, soul, mind and strength. What might loving God look like? The scribe agrees with Jesus’ answer, and continues on that these two commandments are more important than burnt offerings and sacrifice - remember this was a time when ritual and sacrifice was considered very important, more important than how you treated people.

This is a reminder that loving God is not shown in burnt offerings, or these days we might say in an abundance of good works or giving to charity or pious living. We are called to love God with all that we are, with our whole being, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. ‘Listen O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord’ – not Caesar, not money, not our reputation.

What are the factors in our decision making:

about our food
where we live
our work

Loving God with all that we are may not be simple, but loving your neighbour as yourself, doesn’t sound simple either.

I remember early in my time as a Christian being told that I was at the end of the list,

J O Y,

Jesus first,
yourself last and
others in between,
there was even a song about it.

Yet, Jesus is saying that the second most important commandment is loving our neighbour, the person who is in need, in the same way that we love our self.  One person explained this by thinking about it like the oxygen masks on an airplane: the instructions are to ‘“attach your mask first before assisting others.” The point is clear: If I do not take care of myself, I cannot take care of others. If I do not love myself, I cannot love others.’ [Seasons of the Spirit]

Love neighbour as we love ourselves – not as much as, or more than, but in the same way as we love ourselves.

While some people are better at loving themselves than their neighbour, others are very poor at loving self.

We need to love our self, which can be difficult for many of us, because if we don’t love ourselves, how can we love others? This doesn’t mean thinking we are better than others, or that we never get anything wrong, but it does mean recognising and valuing the person that God has made you.

For example, I will generally give people the benefit of the doubt, most people do the best they can given their life situation. BUT I don’t always give myself the same generosity. Sooner or later I get resentful, because I am giving myself a hard time, so I end up getting annoyed with people.

I need to allow myself to be human,

amazing yet imperfect,
chaotic and creative

Loving our neighbour includes living in ways that do not exploit people. In Biblical times this meant leaving grain for people to glean, which you can read more about in the Ruth story;

not oppressing your workers;
not discriminating against the disabled;
not speaking falsely about people.

Loving our neighbours seems to me to be about living in ways that offer life to all people, the fullness of life that Jesus speaks about.  

We love because God first loved us.

If we can’t /don’t love our self, can we really love our neighbour, or are we acting out of duty?

I know some of you are thinking –

but I am not lovable!

If you only knew what I was really like!

If you knew half of what I have done!

Well God knows what you are really like, and God loves you.

Not lovable? God disagrees, God loves you. Even though you can be a horrible, grumpy, rude …… [fill in your own blanks] person, God loves you.

Some years ago at a camp, I received a Placemat that has a picture and the words: God don’t make no junk!

We love because God first loved us

Love God with all that we are

Love ourselves, accept our dignity and humanity.

Love our neighbour, the one in need.

What would need to change for you to love yourself?

What would your life look like?

What does it mean to love?

The Hebrew Bible has lots of rules to follow, there is the ten commandments, but also many rules in the old testament that cover what to plant, and what and when to sacrifice, and tithing and numerous other rules. Rabbis were often asked to interpret these rules. Here Jesus is asked what the most important of the rules are; and he responds:

“The most important one is this: ‘Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second most important commandment is this: ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment more important than these two.” [Good News version]

He doesn’t speak of tithing, or sexuality, or what clothes to wear, or how to worship, or what structure the church should follow. He speaks about loving God and loving neighbour.

Reminds me of the song: All you need is love. it is just so simple, all you need is love, so says the Beatles classic.

“All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love,
Love is all you need”

But what do we mean by love?

These days we think of love as a romantic feeling.

I wonder what it means, to love God with all that we are, and to love our neighbour as our self. 

Loving God has to be easier than loving our neighbour, maybe we should start with the first one: Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Maybe not so easy, so we will come back to it later, and move to the second most important commandment: “love your neighbour as you love yourself” .

In Luke’s gospel we have the story of the Good Samaritan in response to a question about who is my neighbour? Our neighbour is someone who is in need, and I get that we can, and should, help such people, but love them???

We heard a few weeks ago about the rich man who went away sad- Jesus told him to sell all he had and give it to the poor – is that what loving people is about, giving them what we have worked hard for? It doesn’t sound like love.

Matthew has the story of the Sheep and Goats at the judgement, and the sheep asking when they have visited or fed or given water or clothed Jesus and the response is : “Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.” [Matthew 25 CEV]

Love your neighbour as yourself, doesn’t sound simple either; maybe we can start with the part about yourself, loving our neighbour in the same way as we love our self.  I can remember early in my time as a Christian being told that I was at the end of the list, J O Y, Jesus first, yourself last and others in between, , there was a song about it. Yet, Jesus is saying that the second most important commandment is loving our neighbour, the person who is in need, in the same way that we love our self.  One person explained this by thinking about it like the oxygen masks on an airplane: the instructions are to ‘ “attach your mask first before assisting others.” The point is clear: If I do not take care of myself, I cannot take care of others. If I do not love myself, I cannot love others.’ [Seasons of the Spirit]

This passage then is about love, but not love that is a warm, romantic, sentimental feeling; love of neighbour = non-exploitation [Binding the Strong Man p318 Ched Myers].

I wonder what loving God and loving neighbour means in our world today.

·    In a world where people are cleaning up after the super storm Sandy [2 pictures]

·    In a world where making changes that mean a more liveable environment is thought of as strange [1 picture]

·    In a world where wanting to learn is considered dangerous [1 picture]

·    In a nation where the entire country has been removed from the migration zone

·    In a city divided by geography, wealth and education.

What does loving God and loving our neighbour as our-self mean?

Well, first of all we need to love our self, which can be difficult for many of us, because if we don’t love ourselves, how can we love others? This doesn’t mean thinking we are better than others, or that we never get anything wrong, but it does mean recognising and valuing the person that God has made you.

Loving our neighbour, living in ways that do not exploit people, in Biblical times this meant leaving grain for people to glean, which you can read more about in the Ruth story; not oppressing your workers; not discriminating against the disabled; not speaking falsely about people. Loving our neighbours seems to me to be about living in ways that offer life to all people, the fullness of life that Jesus speaks about.  

Which brings us back to the greatest commandment - Loving God with all out heart, soul, mind and strength. What might loving God look like? The scribe agrees with Jesus’ answer, and continues on that these two commandments are more important than burnt offerings and sacrifice - remember this was a time when ritual and sacrifice was considered very important, more important than how you treated people.

This is a reminder that loving God is not shown in burnt offerings, or these days we might say in an abundance of good works or giving to charity or pious living.

I have one more picture for you this morning, it was on the front page of the Leader on Thursday, this woman is recipient of the carer category of the NSW Grandparent of the Year awards; she has raised her grandchildren from the time they were quite young due to the breakdown in relationship of the children’s parents. The headline caught my eye.

All you need is love.

Maybe that is all we need, maybe the Beatles song isn’t too simplistic after all.

All we need is love

Love God with all that we are , and love our neighbour as we love our-self.

What does this mean in your life?