Love in Action

 

Have you ever been caught?  Caught doing something you shouldn’t?

 

Have you ever been caught?  There’s a scene in a Seinfeld episode where George is playing the perfect gentleman with his girlfriend’s mother, Mrs. Enright.  She’s very impressed with him.  George gathers some dishes up to take into the kitchen, but when he goes to scrape something into the garbage, he finds an éclair sitting there in the garbage can with only one bite taken.  The moment of temptation is too much for George, and even though he’s only just said he’s not hungry, he grabs that éclair and takes a huge bite.  Of course, it’s just then that Mrs. Enright walks in!  That Seinfeld scene ends with two people in the kitchen: the one who is caught and the one who catches; the caught and the catcher. 

 

We hate the feeling of being the caught.  I was travelling in Wales in 2002 – my paternal grandfather was Welsh – and I visited the area where he grew up.  He grew up in a village called Froncysylte, on the edge of a valley in north east part of the country.  Just west of Froncysylte, in the centre of the valley there’s a mountain with the ruins of castle at the top.  It’s called Dinas Bran. 

 

There are legends about the castle, about the Holy Grail, and about a beautiful princess named Myfanwy who once lived there – one of our daughter Kayleigh’s middle names is Myfanwy – named for that princess.  I’ll tell you the story some other time, maybe you know it.  The thing for me on that trip, was that from the top of Dinas Bran I figured I could look east down the valley, over along the River Dee, and see my grandfather’s village.  And so I got this idea that I wanted to see the sun rise over my grandfather’s village.  The thing is that I’m not really a morning person, and so I was afraid that if I just tried to hike up there pre sunset, that I’d miss it.  And so I took my little one man tent and I camped up there overnight. 

 

So I spent the night on top of Dinas Bran, and morning came,  and I got to see the sun rise over my grandfather’s valley.  It was so beautiful.  The sun was almost blinding once I’d waited long enough for it to rise a bit.  Moments like those you wonder what others before you have seen.  The ruins of Dinas Bran were all in the morning light. 

 

 

It was a wonderful experience.  With one problem . . . I spent the whole night wondering if I’d get caught.  You see it’s not a legal camping site, it’s like a British national park. 

 

I’d asked someone down on some farmland below if he thought it’d be ok, and he said he thought it wasn’t such a good idea.  “I think it’s owned by the National Trust,” he said, “I’m not sure you can camp there.”  I don’t know why we sometimes ask for advice and then ignore it.  Maybe sometimes we’re not looking for advice, just affirmation that what we want to do is ok.  Well, clinging to the possibility that he was the slightest bit doubtful, I went and did it anyway.  But at the bottom of the hill, I started wondering what would happen if I got caught. 

 

There’s no real parking at the bottom of the hill, you just leave your car at the edge of the road.  All night I wondered if it would get towed.  I’d waited until it was near dark to head up to the castle, but then when I went to set up my tent in the dark, I wondered if my flashlight would be visible down in the town at the bottom of the hill.  And when I got in my tent, I realized it lit right up when I turned on my light.  That you might be able to see.  And so I sat in my tent in the dark because I didn’t want to draw attention to myself up there.  And I was worried about my car getting towed.  I couldn’t settle the whole time. 

 

I got to see the sun rise as I’d hoped.  It was a wonderful experience.  But the greatness of that night and morning was tarnished because I was afraid of being caught.  

 

In the scripture from today, John writes about Cain.  Cain, the son of Adam and Eve.  The first murderer.   He killed his brother, Abel.  Cain had the experience of being caught.  You remember the story?  God comes to Cain, and he says, “Where is your brother Abel?”   Cain says “am I my brother’s keeper?”  

 

When John mentions Cain in the scripture today, and warns us not to be like him, he actually explains why Cain killed Abel.  He says it’s “because his own actions were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.”

That’s similar to what God told Cain in Genesis before he killed Abel.  Both brothers had made their sacrifices.  Abel’s had been accepted and Cain’s had not. 

 

That day, God said to Cain, “Why is your face downcast?  If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?”

 

But instead of hearing the opportunity God gives him to do things the right way, Cain goes after his brother and kills him.  How come?  Why?  Because Cain disagreed.  Ask Cain about Abel, and what would he say about his brother?  Ever met someone with a righteous sibling? 

How do you feel when someone else gets the nod?  The approval?

That’s right.  Ask Cain about Abel, and what would he say?  “Hey Cain, I heard about your brother Abel!  I hear that God thinks he’s spectacular.  Boy, everyone’s talking about how great he is.  How he always gets things right.” 

And what’s Cain going to say?  He’s going to say, “Oh yeah, well did you ever hear about when Abel didn’t . . .”  “Oh yeah, well I saw Abel when he forgot . . .”      

 

Abel may have been righteous in God’s sight, but don’t you think Cain would’ve been quick to find an example of some fault? 

 

God sees something beautiful, wonderful, in Abel.  But Cain will not let it be.  He wants to destroy Abel.  We hear about Cain and imagine that he’s the caught.  But I’d bet he was a catcher.  He’d have a list of Abel’s faults a mile long.

 

Wait a minute, you say, the bible says Abel was righteous.  How could Cain have found something wrong with him?  Well, maybe he killed him because he was perfect, but let me tell you about another righteous man in Genesis. 

 

How about Noah? 

“Noah was a righteous man.  Blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.”  Gen 6:9

Let me tell you a story about Noah.  It’s in Genesis 9.  After Noah had survived the flood, settled into a new life, and made a covenant with God, he planted a vineyard.  And then he made wine.  And one night, Noah drank himself silly.  He passed out, drunk, naked, in his tent.  His sons were there that night.  Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  And at some point, Ham went into the tent, and saw his father exposed and passed out.  He caught him – his righteous father. 

 

Did you have a righteous father?  Did other people think so? 

 

Noah was the caught, Ham was the catcher.  Ham raced outside the tent and could not wait to tell his brothers.  It’s the moment of mocking.  Jokes at someone else’s expense.  It’s the moment of self-justification.  Every tipsy turn in Ham’s life pushes him right out of that tent with a satisfied smile on his face.  He’s seen the righteous man fall.  And that’s not enough, now the knife is out.  Ham’s tongue slits the throat of Noah’s image in the eyes of his other sons. 

 

Shem and Japheth bow their heads low . . . they refuse to look on their father as he lies there.  They take a garment, and walk in backwards with it over their shoulders.  And they cover him.  They cover his shame. 

 

The Ham’s and Cain’s of the world hate the righteous.  They are the kind of catchers that are out to find the fault in someone else so they can destroy them. 

 

In the scripture today, John sets Cain up against Jesus.  We’re not to be like Cain, who’s hates and kills his brother.  We’re to be like Christ, who lays down his life for his brothers.  But the contrast is deeper.  It’s not just that one kills while the other is killed. 

Cain looks at one who is good and despises him, finds fault with him, picks him apart until his hands are set to carry out what his heart has started. 

Jesus looks at all those who are not good – all who are filled with faults and sin and weakness and shame, and loves them.  And with his own body and life he carries out what God’s heart has started. 

 . . . He lays down his life for all who are caught in his sight.  And that death – when Jesus lays down his life – is not just vain love.  It’s not like Jesus is saying, “I love you so much I’d die for you”, and then he hops in front of a bus to prove the sincerity of his point.  That’s ridiculous.  The point is, that by his death – he actually makes all those of shame and sin into people of righteousness. 

 

Cain takes a righteous man and destroys him.  Jesus takes sinful men and women and dies himself so that they can be righteous.  When we come into contact with Jesus, and are caught in his sight – when we know he’s seen us as we really are – with all our junk and doubts and corrupt fugitive thoughts.  When we know his gaze has seen the whole lot, and we let him know, that we know, that he’s right about us . . . then it’s as though Jesus just closes his eyes to what’s wrong with us, decides not to look on it, turns his head the other way, walks backwards into our tents and lays down a sheet over us.

 

Now that’s love.  That’s what John is saying to us.  That’s what love is like.  And that’s what our love is supposed to be like.  Love takes the sinful brothers and sisters and parents of the world who are without any cover or excuse, and then without any ignorance of their wrong, and without any destructive scandalising, love self-sacrificially walks along with them towards righteousness.  You may not be able to take the sin away – only Christ can do that – but you can always treat them like it’s gone.  And when you sit with your siblings in Christ, you recognize that because of Christ their sin is gone.  If you are child of the king, so also are they.

 

This passage in John isn’t just about us as the caught, it’s about how we act when we’re the catcher.  We’re to lay down our lives for the sake of others as though they were as righteous as Christ himself.  

 

To illustrate laying down our lives, John uses the illustration of laying down material possessions.  If anyone is in need, and we don’t respond by laying ourselves down for them, then something’s gone wrong.  Don’t be fooled, this is not just a lesson on giving or generosity.  This is first and foremost a lesson on how you treat a person who is in need, in your heart. 

 

Ever run into someone in need?  What’s first in your thoughts?  Isn’t there a part of you that starts to scrutinize them?  That part that spends more time figuring out how they might have avoided this crisis in the first place.  Or that’s measuring whether they’ll really use your help for what they’ve said, or whether they’ll just waste it.  And not just guys on the street who might go and buy the bottle and pass out in some tent somewhere.  We’re talking about the people you know too.  That sibling maybe, who just makes bad decisions over and over.  If they would just stop . . .

 

I know there’s a time for, and even a rightness in, stewardship and giving wisely.  There is a real need to help with the issues that lie underneath poverty or poor decision-making.  But it just seems sometimes like I’ve had a lot more interested conversations about how to ‘keep’ in stewardship than I’ve had about how to give self-sacrificially.  And I don’t think that’s primarily because of a lack of generosity with our stuff.  What’s really the issue is the lack of Christ like love we feel for people who can’t seem to get life right.  

 

Cain could look at a righteous man and cut him down, Jesus could look at world of sinners and selfishness, and yet still give himself for them.  When you’re looking at your brother, your sister, your fellow church members, your elders, your pastors, and the guy on the street, who’s eyes do you use?  Do you feel the tension within yourself between Cain and Christ?  How often does the love of Christ – the love that can look at faults and lay down for someone anyway – how often does that love really win within you? 

 

When we want to do the right thing, and we find that wisdom and love seem not to fit, the tension can be so difficult.  If you have a sensitive conscience when it comes to helping, my purpose isn’t to trigger it and guilt you.  If you’re unsure about how to move ahead in your relationship with someone, part of the value of being in a consistent relationship with a church community is that you become surrounded with people to whom you may choose to go in particular circumstances for advice and counsel.  

 

And what John actually says in the last portion of our scripture today has to do with being in doubt.  Being in doubt about what’s right, who’s right, whether we’re in the right, whether things are what they seem to be in our faith and life.  “This then”, says John, “is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence.”  How do you know that you belong to the truth?  How do you set your heart at rest in God’s presence?

 

You love.  You take every person around you and decide not to be like Cain, determine not to see like Cain.  You take every person around you and imitate Jesus in how you treat them in your thoughts.  You picture that white cloth over their faults.  If you have a critical heart or spirit that tears people down in your mind, you’ll spit fire one day, and over-compensate with saccharin sweet the next.  And you’ll never rest at peace with God, because you’ll always suspect that that is what He’s doing with you.  But when you find that you’ve walked into someone’s tent and found them at their weakest, and they know it and you know it – when they are the caught, and it turns out you are the catcher – what you do then will affect your sense of confidence with God.  The way you treat them in that moment, and help them feel safe with you, opens the possibility that you will experience the overflow of God’s own Spirit and so know by that experience that God’s hand is on you.     

 

Suddenly you sense that you are a part of God’s caring for that person.  They’ve been caught, but in you they have experienced something of Christ, because of your kindness.  Because of your love in action. 

 

Above all,

love each other deeply,

 because love

 covers a multitude of sins.