Jazz Player(5/25/03)
Text:John
15:9-17
Last week Christianity
Today, a Christian publication, published an article on the decline the
mainline churches in America are experiencing. Membership of the United Methodist Church, Lutheran, Episcopal, PCUSA, and
the United Church of Christ in the
State of New York has decreased 45% since its peak in the 1960s.
According to
Rev. James Vandberg, the moderator of the Hudson River Presbytery, PCUSA, half
the churches under his presbytery will close within ten to twenty years. Other leaders also acknowledge that their
churches will not survive if they do not change but are reluctant to admit that
openly.
The article
also reported that most mainline churches in the State of New York have been
slow to respond to the emerging demographic changes and the racial diversity in
the surrounding communities which is mainly due to the thinking of narrow
minded people that outreach is archaic and politically inappropriate.
However, those churches with open-minded lay
leaders or those with evangelic and charismatic pastors are growing and being
revived. Many previously predominantly Caucasian
churches are changing into multiethnic churches and pouring energy into the
community. Ironically, the mainline
churches put tremendous emphasis, and rightly so, on overseas missions and the
message of the Great Commission yet show so much resistance towards welcoming
the neighbors within their community. The bishop of the New York Episcopal church, Cathleen Rascam, in
relaying the urgency and the importance of God said, “if [our church] had not
changed we would have died and when we don’t follow the commandment of
spreading the Christ’s gospel to the peoples in the world, we deserve to die.”
God tells us
about these issues through today’s passages. Let us explore together.
If you knew
your death was coming soon what would you say to those you love? Take your pick
from a movie scene or TV drama.
Today’s
passage in John 15:9-17 are the words Christ spoke to his followers not long
before he was to be killed on the cross. He is giving his farewell speech. Jesus is getting his followers prepared
vertically for a relationship with God, shaping them up to live responsively
with God and with people before he leaves the world. But Jesus is also preparing his disciples, horizontally, to make
a foundation for relationships between each other. He talks about abiding in Jesus and loving one another. He is putting supreme importance and weight
to those two things. In MT 22:37-40,
Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is and responds that it is to love
God and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. The focus of this message will be on the
second greatest commandment.
Jesus is
serious about our loving one another. Look at what John 15:17 says “This is my command: Love each other.”
1) Loving one
another is not an option! 1John4:21
says, “And he has given us this
command: Whoever loves God must also love one’s brother and sister. “If you choose to be a follower of Jesus
loving each other is not an option, It’s an commandment. It’s not
just any commandment but the second greatest or important. Will you turn to the person next to you say, “I’m commanded to love you.” Then say, “You’re commanded to love me.”
Have you
ever heard the story about the actor who was playing the part of Christ in the
passion story play in the Ozarks? As he carried the cross up the hill a tourist
began heckling, making fun of him, and shouting insults at him. Finally the actor had taken all that he
could take. So he threw down his cross,
walked over to the tourist, and punched him out. After the play was over, the director told him, “I know he was a
pest, but I can’t condone what you did. Besides, you’re playing the part of Jesus, and Jesus never retaliated.So don’t do anything like that again.” Well, the man promised he wouldn’t.But the next day the heckler was back worse
than before, and finally the actor exploded and punched him again. The director
said, “That’s it. I have to fire
you. We just can’t have you behaving
this way while playing the part of Jesus.” The actor begged, “Please give me one
more chance. I really need this
job. And I can handle it if it happens
again.” So the director decided to give
him another chance. The next day he was
carrying his cross up the street. Sure
enough, the heckler was there again. You could tell that the actor was really trying to control himself, but
it was about to get the best of him. He
was clinching his fists and grinding his teeth. Finally he looked at the heckler and said, “I’ll meet you after
the resurrection.”
2) Jesus was
serious about us loving one another because it shows we know God!
1John 4:8
says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
You can’t say you know God and refuse to
love others. It is a sign you know God
and know God by experience. We were
subject to the most amazing display of passion, grace, mercy, and above all
love when Jesus with all his might, power, and splendor seated at the right
hand of God, decided to come to this earth in the most lowliest of casts even
to be born in a manger, amidst the putrid and fetid odor of farm animals so
that he might experience all the world’s suffering that we might have someone
to relate to and have someone who knows what we have been through. Someone who overcame all sin and died for
those sins, our sins, that we might not have to. If we, as Christians, know of a God who loved everyone in the
world so, but more importantly had that kind of love for you, just for you, how
could we not love those around us even those that annoy or heckle or even hate
us.
3) Jesus was
serious about our loving one another because it reveals whether or not God
lives in us. 1John 4:12 says, “No one has
ever seen God; but if we love another, God lives in us and his love is made
complete in us.” The message translation says, “No one has seen God, ever. But if you love one anther, God dwells
deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us-perfect love! Does God
live in you? He does if you love others.
Love is the distinguishing mark of the
child of God. It is also the
distinguishing mark of the church of God. Love is the sign of true discipleship.
Then how are
we supposed to love others? John 15:12
gives us the answer. “My command is this:Love each other as I have loved you.”
How did he love us? Jesus didn’t just
tell us what to do but how to do it. 1John 4:19 says we love because he first loved us. By his own initiative. My God came near to
us. From creation to the cross and
after the resurrection –God is always taking the initiative …to love us and
care for us and lead us. God didn’t
have to be persuaded or prodded. God
sees something very valuable in every person. When we didn’t deserve to be loved God loved us. You know, I’m so glad God is for the
underdog. That is exactly where each
and everyone of us is at.
R5:8 says
that But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.” He willingly laid down his life for us. John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one
than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” He goes on to call his disciples
friends. John 13:1 says, “Having loved
his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his
love.” He soon after taught them about
servanthood and washed their feet. We
have the greatest model of how to love by looking to Jesus. For many, it seems we’ve been looking at the
wrong model.
The
problem is that we naturally are easy to love the same kind of person like me.
We often do not expand out love to other groups of people even though they are
right near us. Fortunately, we have had
a great opportunity to expand our hearts to other races thanks to our ESL
ministry. There have been many times that I was moved by the love shared
between teachers and students and I wanted to share some of these to you even
at the expense of embarrassment to some people. I apologize ahead of time.
I will never
forget the remarks by Ann Jadick, the teacher of Yuko at the first annual ESL
party when she realized that she and Yuko were the same person through their
time spent working together. I was very
moved that she invited her family to her daughter’s house in Ridgewood and held
a swimming party for Yuko’s and her daughter’s children and developed a closer
relationship even to where she sacrificed the second ESL dinner party to watch
Yuko’s children’s baseball game even though she would have preferred the party.
As you already know, Yoshinao and Yuko were baptized last week and when they go
to Japan next week, they have already decided which church they’ll attend. I know their conversion is the working of
the Holy Spirit through the love shown by Jadick’s family as well as our church
family.
I was moved
that Barbara K.S. didn’t mind going to her student’s house to teach English for
her Russian student who didn’t have a ride and helping her out whenever she can
with transportation to places she might not otherwise be able to get to. I love that Everlyn Pergola patiently waits
for her student for up to 20 or 30 minutes at a time or hearing Merryl
Schuetz’s repeated voicings of “I like my student very much” in her excited,
angelic tone in my ear. I know that
others have been comforted by the presence and prayers of the teachers and students
and their friendship goes deeper and deeper as time passes.
All these
experiences tell me that the distance we feel about each other is has to do
with xenophobia, our fear of strangers and our fear of breaking away from our
comfort zones and our routines. But once
we get to know people and are able to overcome our imposed emotional barriers,
we develop this community of love for our each other.
When
our volunteers show their love to the students first, I see they respond to
this with another kind of love. Some
ESL students’ children brought their musical gifts in our worship and some
students like Byung il, Luz, Gildardo, Jose Duenaz, Esther Garcia, Jose Garcia,
Yoshinao and Yuko became members. Some
donated money offerings and some volunteered ride for the people in PCFL and for
the heavenly treasure project.
These
are like jazz. Jazz is based on the
idea that there are an endless number of tunes that can go along with any
particular chord progression of a song and so each musician improvises new
tunes repeating them over and over and different soloists join in. Everyone supports each other as they try out
new combinations of sounds and chords. Relationships are like that. We
don’t quite know where the other person is going next but we go along, trying
out new things, supporting them. We
need to communicate with one another in order to make music together.
On
June 8th , we pray and prepare for the Pentecost party. We hope that every member invites as many
people as they can and gather at least as many people on Pentecost Sunday as
attended our Easter Sunday service. And
we pray that we receive at least 30 new members during the worship service. For this project we hope to focus on the
spiritual energy of our entire congregation. However, we can’t make it happen without the love shown toward our
neighbor, especially love toward different persons, different nationalities,
and different races. Not because the
American church is declining, but because the mission of the church is to love
our neighbor, let us all focus our energy to reach out. Let us remember always that evangelism is the best love that we can give
to others. I am sure that God will make
a new song out of this.
