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(1 John 5:1-6) -- Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves
the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God
is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the
world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes
that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with
the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.
(John 15:9-17) -- As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you
will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you
so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as
I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do
what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but
I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose
me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever
you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
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As Christians we say that Jesus reveals God. Whenever we wonder, "What is God like?" our answer is, "Look
at Jesus." Jesus shows us God's ways, in heaven and on earth. Jesus shows us the Father and gives us a peek at heaven.
He lived what he taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Do you want
to know what God's will is? ...what God's kingdom on earth and in heaven is like? Hang around Jesus and watch how he lives.
That's the way God is. That's a foretaste of heaven.
What do we see when we watch Jesus? We see someone who is love incarnate. John says, "God is love." We see
Jesus, and he is what love looks like in a human life. He gives his disciples the new commandment, "Love one another."
That's what God wants us to do. Just love one another, and he says God's joy will be in us. He shows us what that is like
by loving us, even to the point of laying down his life for us. He lays down his life for his friends.
And he calls us friends. I like that. I like that very much. We are friends. Friends of Jesus. We are God's friends.
I find myself thinking of God that way more and more. God has called me to be God's friend. How wonderful. I'm growing
more convinced that our ultimate vocation is to be intimate, loving friends of God. When we are friends of God, according
to First John, "everyone who loves the parent loves the child." And Genesis teaches us that we are all God's children.
So, John continues, "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments."
Loving God and loving people; it's all tied in together. Jesus summarize God's commandments as love. The Great Commandment
-- Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And the New Commandment, "love
one another." So, we are invited to live in this relationship of love for all God's children. That's the way we love
God. And beyond that, we are called friends of God. I find that thrilling.
What a great way to go through life -- making the fundamental aim of life to live in loving friendship with all. To be
God's friends. To be friends to God's children, all humanity.
But that's not the way everybody sees it. I was driving between the Cathedral and Camp Mitchell this week, and I turned
on the radio searching for the public radio station. Public radio is always down in the 80's and 90's on the FM dial. It's
the same part of the broadcast spectrum that carries the religious stations. And I found myself drawn into a sermon being
given by Adrian Rogers. Adrian Rogers is a Memphis preacher who helped engineer the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention
by a fundamentalist faction which has successfully enforced their creedal beliefs on their denomination. Adrian Rogers also
sees love as central to the gospel message. He calls his radio program, "Love Worth Finding." As I listened, he
pictured a very different kind of love from the love I see incarnate in the life of Jesus.
Adrian Roger's sermon was titled, "The Un-Saved Dead." He made it very clear that the only way anyone will
get to heaven, is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Then he went through a very long list of people who will not make
it -- the un-saved dead. Of course he included those bad people who rebelliously reject the message and person of Jesus.
And then there are those who follow any other religion, a false religion. And he included many Christians who go to church
and trust in their membership and worship. Believing in the Church will not get you into heaven, he said. And there are
those who have taken issue with the Church because of the Church's hypocrisy. Even those who have believed in the message
of the preacher won't necessarily make it. He said, you are not saved by the preaching of Adrian Rogers but by believing
on the Lord Jesus. Those who have lived good lives and tried to do good to all people will be left out. Your goodness is
not enough, only your belief on the Lord Jesus Christ. And those who have never heard the word of the gospel of Jesus Christ
will not enter into heaven, Brother Adrian said. For all have sinned, and the one and only remedy for sin is to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. If you've never heard of Jesus, you cannot be saved.
There is mercy in this life, he said, but none in the hereafter. There is only judgment on the other side of the grave,
said Pastor Rogers. So you'd better get your business taken care of here and now, for unless you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, you will go to hell.
What a long list of the damned. He included most of humanity. It struck me how different his view of heaven was from
the way that Jesus lived his life on earth. It seemed to me as I was listening to the radio, that Adrian Rogers had re-created
the gospel of Jesus into the religion of the ego -- a vision of heaven as an exclusive place populated only with "people
like us." Only people like him, who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ in his particular way would be admitted.
All others are forever condemned. And so, in what struck me as a base appeal to egoistic self-interest, he urged everyone
sign up for the eternal fire insurance. His is a religion reduced to a transaction. Believe on the Lord Jesus and you've
got a "Get Out of Hell Free" card. Everything else is pretty meaningless. I think Adrian Rogers lets everybody
off too easy.
It's easy to get along with everybody who agrees with you. It's a lot more challenging to live like Jesus -- to live
with everybody in a relationship of loving friendship. It seems like everybody that Adrian Rogers rejected, Jesus reaches
out to with loving friendship. Jesus invites himself to lunch with a corrupt political operative, the tax collector Zacchaeus,
and he dines at the home of Simon the proper Pharisee. He gives living water to a promiscuous woman. He recovers the lost
coin and the lost sheep. He feeds both the Jewish 5,000 and the Gentile 4,000 with the same loaves and fish. He touches
the leper and heals the Garasene demoniac. He raises the Roman soldier's daughter and saves the Canaanite woman's child.
He stops the stoning of the adulterer. He embraces the prodigal son and invites the resentful elder son to the feast. At
the end, he absolves the murderous mob praying, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." And I believe
God answered that prayer, and still does.
That's the picture of the kind of life Jesus invites us into. That's the kind of heaven Jesus reveals. What is God like?
He's like that! All embracing, forgiving, loving friendship. And if God's will is going to be done on earth as it is in
heaven, we need to start practicing living like Jesus right now. We need to look around and see nothing but friends. Friends
to live with, friends to respond to, and, from time to time, friends to forgive, for much of the time we know not what we
do. This table is a great place to practice friendship. We seek to offer radical table fellowship like Jesus did. "No
matter who you are or where you are in your spiritual pilgrimage, you are welcome, in this place and at God's table."
Now don't over-sentimentalize all of this. It's not easy to live in loving friendship with all people. It's not as anything
like as easy as Brother Adrian's confident dismissal of everyone who isn't like him. If you want to be friends with God's
friends, if you want God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, you're going to have to start creating a world of
friendship. How about a world where you and I, all of us sit down in friendship, along with George Bush and Osama ben Laden
and Ted Kennedy? How do you think we'll all get along? If we're all going to have to learn to live together in heaven, Jesus
insists that we start learning how to do that here on earth. I know it's so much easier to kick out the ones we don't like,
but that's not the way it is with Jesus.
We're all going to have to figure out a way to be friends, because we're all expected to spend eternal life together.
I can imagine what this heaven of Jesus' friends could be like. I can imagine entering heaven, and being greeted by Brother
Adrian with a big hug. "Ah, Brother Adrian. We preached the gospel the best we could, didn't we, and we both got it
so wrong. It's better than either of us ever imagined. Come on. There's bread and wine. Let's go sit over there with George,
Osama and Ted.
"But, I'll tell you what Adrian. I sure wish I had practiced more on earth."
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