Nancy Ferree-Clark - "Love In Action" (May 14, 2000)

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-	When it comes time to show our love to someone,	0:12
	we often find ourselves searching	0:16
	for just the right words to convey what we feel.	0:17
	Most of us believe that words,	0:21
	even someone else's words,	0:24
	can help us express our deepest affections.	0:26
	And so on days such as Mother's Day,	0:30
	we choose very carefully the kind of message	0:33
	we want to send.	0:35
	Thank goodness for companies like Hallmark,	0:37
	who are committed to making it as easy as possible	0:40
	for us to express that perfect thought for the occasion	0:43
	with their amazing array of greeting cards.	0:46
	Their premise as Mother's Day approaches each year	0:50
	is that with just a little effort,	0:54
	you're bound to find a message suitable for any mother,	0:56
	any age, with any kind of personality.	0:59
	If you don't have time to shop	1:03
	for the perfect card at the mall,	1:05
	I just learned that Hallmark has now	1:07
	produced software which will enable you	1:08
	to print one up on your own computer.	1:10
	Or if that takes too much effort,	1:13
	I heard this week about getacard.com,	1:15
	that allows you to personalize, order, and send	1:18
	an actual paper Mother's Day card	1:21
	without leaving your desk chair.	1:24
	Now if you missed out on even that convenient option	1:27
	and you still need a way to tell Mom that you love her,	1:30
	hopefully your mother is online	1:34
	and you can send her an electronic card	1:36
	before the day is over.	1:38
	It may seem a little last-minute, but, oh well,	1:40
	it's the thought that counts.	1:44
	Thanks to the Internet,	1:48
	it's easier than ever to tell someone we love them.	1:49
	If it's simply a matter of getting the word out,	1:53
	we're learning to do that faster	1:55
	and more efficiently than ever before.	1:56
	But we've also learned through the internet	1:59
	that words without a face or a body attached to them	2:02
	can be a little misleading.	2:06
	Do you know anyone who got hit	2:08
	by the I love you virus last week,	2:10
	the one that affected millions of computers around the world	2:13
	and rang up a bill estimated to run as high	2:16
	as $10 billion dollars in lost work hours?	2:18
	Thousands of people were just sitting down	2:22
	to open their email messages one morning	2:24
	when they noticed the subject heading, I love you,	2:26
	which they couldn't resist opening.	2:30
	But it wasn't long until they discovered	2:33
	that this enticing message	2:35
	harbored a potent virus with the ability	2:38
	to destroy multiple files which also spread its deadly venom	2:40
	to all the addresses in their address books.	2:44
	What seemed so innocent proved to be deadly in reality.	2:48
	Some of us had to learn the hard way	2:52
	that what looks good in print or on your computer screen	2:54
	isn't always what it seems to be.	2:58
	Don't ever trust the words, I love you,	3:01
	when they are disconnected from a real person	3:04
	that you can see and know.	3:06
	The thought that counts may not be so good	3:09
	for the person who receives it.	3:12
	I'm intrigued that so many people	3:15
	fell for this particular virus.	3:17
	Somehow the words I love you, more than most,	3:19
	are words we want to hear and we want to believe,	3:23
	no matter what the source.	3:26
	But as the the author of our epistle lesson	3:28
	from 1st John points out,	3:30
	words on their own can never be the proof of love.	3:33
	"Little children, let us love not in word or speech,	3:38
	"but in truth and action," he writes.	3:42
	Words can manipulate and speeches can be misleading.	3:46
	We all know how speech writers work for politicians,	3:50
	and they get paid huge sums of money	3:53
	to put just the right spin on the things	3:55
	they seem to be saying but don't really mean to say.	3:58
	Or if you've ever fallen for a phony love letter,	4:02
	you know the difference between flowery words	4:05
	and loving actions.	4:08
	It is possible not to say we love	4:11
	and still express our love through actions,	4:13
	but it isn't possible to say we do love	4:17
	and not confirm it then with our deeds.	4:20
	This exposition in John on the nature of love	4:24
	takes place as part of a larger discussion in that epistle	4:28
	about the importance of genuine love among Christians.	4:31
	After a split in the Johannine community,	4:35
	the author of this epistle is focusing	4:38
	on how its members are to follow Christ,	4:41
	or more specifically, how to love.	4:44
	He beckons his readers to remember the message	4:48
	they have heard from the beginning,	4:50
	that they should love one another,	4:53
	and then act accordingly.	4:55
	Their model should be Christ himself	4:57
	who laid down his life for others.	4:59
	Likewise, they are to lay down their lives	5:03
	for one another.	5:06
	To make his point clearer,	5:09
	John presents us with a contrast,	5:11
	as he often does in his writings,	5:13
	using examples such as light versus darkness	5:16
	and life versus death.	5:19
	And so to clarify what love looks like,	5:21
	he spent several verses in this same chapter	5:25
	describing what hate looks like.	5:28
	And as his example, he chooses Cain,	5:31
	son of Adam and Eve, who murdered his brother, Abel.	5:34
	You may recall from Genesis 4	5:38
	that each brother presents an offering to God.	5:40
	But for some reason God considered Abel's offering	5:44
	to be acceptable, while Cain's was not.	5:47
	Out of jealousy, Cain murders his own brother.	5:51
	Now I ask you, out of all the murderers in the world,	5:55
	why would John pick out Cain as his example?	5:59
	I think the reason is that Cain's behavior	6:04
	is a prototype of all that has	6:06
	unfolded in human history after him.	6:08
	Though it was his parents who ate the forbidden fruit	6:12
	and were expelled from the Garden of Eden,	6:15
	it was Cain who first experienced the pangs of jealousy.	6:18
	He was the first to know the meaning	6:22
	of such intense hatred toward his own brother	6:24
	that he could kill him.	6:28
	And every person born since then	6:29
	has faced a similar temptation.	6:31
	If not the temptation to murder,	6:34
	then at least the barrage of feelings	6:36
	like jealousy, anger, self-centeredness,	6:39
	that can lead to hate rather than love.	6:42
	John sees a very strong connection between such feelings	6:46
	and even murder when he writes,	6:50
	"All who hate a brother or sister are murderers."	6:52
	In other words, wherever hate is,	6:56
	murder is always the possibility.	6:59
	And in the eyes of God, even turning down that path	7:01
	is the same thing as picking up the ax like Cain	7:05
	and bludgeoning your brother to death.	7:08
	This is what Jesus was trying to tell us	7:11
	in the Sermon on the Mount when he said,	7:13
	"You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times,	7:16
	"You shall not murder, and whoever murders	7:19
	"shall be liable to judgment.	7:21
	"But I say to you that if you are angry	7:23
	"with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment.	7:26
	"And if you insult a brother or sister,	7:29
	"you will be liable to the council.	7:31
	"And if you say, 'you fool,'	7:33
	"you will be liable to the hell of fire."	7:35
	And so I ask you this morning,	7:39
	is there anyone here who is without sin?	7:41
	This weekend a good deal of attention is being focused	7:46
	on the topic of murder as thousands of people gather	7:49
	in Washington, D.C. for the Million Mom March.	7:53
	The idea for this march came about last August	7:57
	when a woman named Donna Dees-Thomases was watching	8:01
	frightened nursery school children on television.	8:05
	She watched them holding hands	8:09
	as they were being led away in a line	8:11
	from a shooting spree	8:13
	at the North Valley Jewish Community Center.	8:15
	As a mother of young children herself,	8:18
	Dees-Thomases felt she could not remain silent any longer	8:20
	about the 5,000 children who die each year	8:24
	as a result of gunfire in this country.	8:28
	Within a week of the tragedy at the Jewish Community Center,	8:31
	Dees-Thomases had reserved the mall in Washington	8:34
	for Mother's Day 2000 and started calling people.	8:37
	And she found that many, many others	8:41
	were equally concerned.	8:43
	As the organizers of the Million Mom March got going,	8:46
	they developed a website which has become the repository	8:49
	for hundreds of stories about first-hand experiences	8:52
	with gun violence.	8:56
	When you have the time and the energy	8:58
	to cry your way through some of these accounts,	9:01
	I recommend you take a look at www.millionmommarch.org	9:03
	and click on Tapestry.	9:08
	You'll read there about toddlers being caught in crossfire,	9:11
	six-year-olds gunned down at school,	9:14
	teenagers shot while shopping at the mall	9:17
	or standing on the street corners,	9:21
	grandmothers murdered on vacation.	9:23
	The stories go on and on and on.	9:26
	Once I started crying as I was reading these stories,	9:30
	I could hardly stop, so heartbreaking they were.	9:32
	I couldn't help thinking that for each death or injury	9:37
	there was some parent, some spouse, some child,	9:39
	some sibling, friend, or neighbor,	9:43
	left standing by the graveside	9:46
	to deal with the anguish of their loss.	9:47
	It was amazing to me to read these stories	9:50
	and to think how a single bullet just keeps on killing.	9:52
	And so thousands of people,	9:57
	including several hundred from the Triangle area,	9:59
	are converging on Washington at this very hour.	10:02
	They will protest the murdering,	10:05
	the hatred, the violence,	10:07
	the callousness of the NRA,	10:10
	and the indifference of the rest of us	10:12
	to what has become standard fare on the evening news.	10:14
	As we reflect on John's words to us,	10:19
	we recognize just how far removed we are	10:21
	from Jesus' commandment to love.	10:25
	Though there isn't a thing that you or I	10:27
	can do to bring back those who have been murdered,	10:29
	we can protest the lovelessness of our society	10:32
	and all that it stands for.	10:36
	If we persist in glorifying self, wealth,	10:38
	power, and status at the expense	10:42
	of learning to give ourselves for others,	10:45
	very little will change to improve	10:47
	this grim situation.	10:49
	When we cave in ourselves to jealousy or rage,	10:51
	spitefulness, or malicious gossip,	10:54
	it ends in murder.	10:57
	If not physical, then emotional.	10:59
	It becomes a kind of character assassination,	11:02
	where we wish the person wasn't around any longer,	11:05
	and we can undermine his character	11:07
	and denigrate her worth.	11:09
	Thus, we all understand too well	11:12
	the dynamics of murder and the attitudes	11:14
	that Jesus has described which accompany it.	11:17
	The story of Cain murdering his own brother	11:20
	may be ancient, but it remains chillingly relevant	11:23
	to our own community in our own time.	11:27
	The contrast of all this with Christian love,	11:31
	as described in today's lesson,	11:34
	couldn't be clearer.	11:36
	Jesus, as the prime example of this type of love,	11:38
	laid down his life for us.	11:42
	That's how we know what love is.	11:45
	Cain showed us that the nature of hate	11:47
	is to take life.	11:50
	Jesus showed us that the nature of love	11:52
	is to surrender life, even when the recipient	11:55
	of that love isn't particularly deserving.	11:58
	It wasn't that God was somehow responding	12:02
	to our love for him when Christ died for us on the cross.	12:05
	Far from it.	12:09
	Rather than loving Jesus, most who met him	12:10
	were totally opposed to him.	12:12
	So much so that there were only a handful of people	12:14
	who accepted him for who he was.	12:17
	The rest rejected him.	12:19
	Even when he did the amazing things he did,	12:22
	like performing miracles.	12:24
	Even when he fed and healed them and resurrected them	12:26
	from the dead, all the rest could do	12:29
	was to demand his execution.	12:31
	And yet, Jesus submitted willingly to his death,	12:34
	so those very people could be forgiven.	12:37
	This is the good shepherd, who lays down his life	12:40
	for his flock, as our gospel lesson describes him.	12:44
	This is the love that is spelled out in action.	12:48
	It forgives over and over and over, without retaliation.	12:51
	And when we recognize that this is the type of love	12:57
	God has for us and allowed it to transform us	13:00
	deep within, all we can do in response	13:03
	is to open ourselves to loving others in the same way.	13:06
	So what does this love look like in practical terms?	13:11
	To say we ought to lay down our lives	13:16
	for one another doesn't mean lying down	13:18
	on the nearest train track just to prove	13:20
	how much we love each other.	13:22
	When John gets very specific about this	13:24
	in verses 17 and 18 of chapter three,	13:27
	he asks, "How does God's love abide	13:30
	"in anyone who has the world's goods	13:33
	"and sees a brother or sister in need	13:36
	"and yet refuses help?	13:38
	"Little children let us love,	13:41
	"not in word or speech, but in truth and action."	13:43
	In other words, an expression of sympathy	13:47
	for a hungry man is not love,	13:50
	but giving him something to eat is.	13:53
	Getting a spiffy Mother's Day card	13:56
	to your mother on time isn't love.	13:58
	But sitting down with her to find out	14:01
	what she needs and then responding to them	14:03
	by giving her needs priorities over your own is love.	14:06
	In order to love, we share our resources.	14:11
	We share our time and our energy.	14:14
	We make a decision about how we should act,	14:17
	rather than waiting to see how we feel.	14:20
	We are willing to set aside	14:24
	our carefully laid plans to reach out to another person.	14:25
	Perhaps you've been scheduled to take an airplane flight	14:29
	that was fully booked but then got canceled,	14:32
	and you were told that less than half the people	14:35
	holding reservations would be able to get flights	14:37
	out on that same day.	14:40
	Did you step aside to give someone else the option	14:42
	of getting a seat, or were you among the ones	14:45
	racing to the next gate to make sure	14:47
	you were not inconvenienced by the delay?	14:49
	It's happened to me before.	14:52
	And I'm not going to tell you how I responded.	14:55
	Maybe for some of us, learning to lay down our lives	14:59
	for another starts with laying down our calendars,	15:02
	so we can actually make room	15:05
	for other people and their needs,	15:07
	which don't always present themselves	15:09
	on schedule, after all.	15:10
	Think of the good Samaritan, who unexpectedly encounters	15:13
	the Jewish man in the ditch, but then went out of his way	15:16
	to bandage up his wounds and deliver him to a safe place,	15:20
	not only leaving money for the inn keeper	15:23
	to cover his expenses, but promising also	15:25
	to pay whatever else was needed when he came back.	15:29
	Based on the history of the Jews and the Samaritans,	15:33
	the expected outcome for this story	15:37
	would have been for the Samaritan	15:39
	to finish off the job which the robbers	15:40
	had already started.	15:42
	But instead, without saying so much as a word	15:44
	about loving the man, the Samaritan showed his love	15:48
	for his neighbor through his actions.	15:51
	One of the difficulties we have in thinking about love	15:57
	is that the very concept of love	16:00
	has been hijacked by popular culture.	16:01
	We turn to places like Hollywood	16:04
	or the Backstreet Boys to tell us	16:06
	what love should look like.	16:08
	We imagine that it always involves	16:11
	chocolates and flowers, or at least	16:12
	flowery words of endearment,	16:15
	resulting in some kind of heightened emotional state	16:17
	that lasts forever.	16:20
	But this is the kind of love that	16:22
	is often grounded in self-enhancement	16:23
	and self-centeredness.	16:26
	"These are my needs and I expect you to meet them,"	16:28
	is often the motivation for such love.	16:31
	And as we learned from so-called crimes of passion,	16:34
	when those needs aren't being met,	16:37
	the feeling soon turns to violence and hate,	16:39
	which is really only a hair's breadth away from love,	16:43
	because hate wants to take life	16:46
	and love wants to surrender it.	16:48
	The kind of love that calls us	16:52
	to surrender ourselves is much more down to earth	16:54
	than what Hollywood is telling us about.	16:57
	Anyone who has ever raised a child	17:00
	or nursed a sick friend or relative	17:03
	or lived in a marriage for more	17:06
	than even a few weeks knows about this kind of love.	17:08
	Love involves giving ourselves in practical ways.	17:12
	Ways that respond to the needs and desires	17:16
	of the recipient more than the giver.	17:18
	Remember John's words?	17:21
	"Let us love, not in word or speech,	17:22
	"but in truth and action."	17:25
	In truth, because such love doesn't pretend.	17:27
	It gets to the bottom of a problem and fixes it.	17:31
	And in action, because that's the way	17:35
	we give ourselves away to the ones we love.	17:37
	I wonder if this is the point	17:42
	where I should ask how you're feeling?	17:44
	My guess is that quite a few of you are feeling guilty,	17:47
	because we know we haven't been doing	17:50
	any of this very well.	17:52
	And quite a few more of us are feeling pressured,	17:54
	because it sounds so difficult.	17:56
	Try and remember that God's love is good news.	17:59
	It's about grace, the love that God gave to us first	18:03
	and not about our own guilt and pressure.	18:07
	Even Cain received a mark on his forehead	18:10
	as a sign of God's ongoing care and protection	18:13
	after he murdered his brother.	18:17
	As John writes in his letter,	18:21
	"By this we will know that we are from the truth	18:23
	"and will reassure our hearts before him	18:26
	"whenever our hearts condemn us."	18:28
	In other words, just as we start feeling like failures,	18:31
	because no one has the energy or the resources	18:35
	to always love the way we should,	18:38
	God gives us the reassurance we need.	18:41
	"God is greater than our hearts," John writes,	18:44
	"and he knows everything.	18:47
	"We receive from him whatever we ask,	18:49
	"because we obey his commandments	18:51
	"and do what pleases him.	18:53
	"This is the work of the Holy Spirit,	18:55
	"the guide and the advocate Jesus promised to send	18:57
	"to be with us after his ascension into heaven.	19:01
	"The spirit, you see, empowers us to do	19:04
	"what God commands and reassures us	19:07
	"that God is with us when we do it,	19:10
	"as as sign of God's faithfulness to us."	19:12
	Friends, we testify to the world	19:17
	that we are Jesus' disciples by how we love one another.	19:19
	If we indulge in hate, disobedience,	19:23
	mere profession of love in words	19:27
	without deeds to support them,	19:30
	then we are the hypocrites that the world	19:32
	is so quick to accuse us of being.	19:34
	It isn't the thought that counts,	19:37
	but the way we live our lives.	19:40
	The test of the sincerity of our faith	19:43
	is to walk in the footsteps of Christ,	19:45
	who gave up his life for us,	19:48
	that we might receive the gift of eternal life with him.	19:51

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Title:

Nancy Ferree-Clark - "Love In Action" (May 14, 2000)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 0:00. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 19:57.
Reading the story of Cain murdering Abel through the lens of 1 John and the contemporary event of the Million Mom March on Washington to end gun violence, Feree-Clark asserts that love without action is meaningless; she implore the congregation to embody a deep, selfless love while recognizing no one has the resources or time to do such love, which is why God’s grace is so significant. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4th8c32k

Date:

May 14, 2000

Speaker:

Ferree-Clark, Nancy

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 CS-1013
ref10183_fgn
uachapelsermaud
duke:320273
dcrau001657
ark:/87924/r4th8c32k
0087dc4c-b1b8-46e6-bf22-592f41c2cdc7

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Nancy Ferree-Clark - "Love In Action" (May 14, 2000)

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