Love, Love, Love

Last Friday, my parents came up to see Georgia and to hang out a little bit, and we went over to Tuckston United Methodist Church on the eastside of Athnes where my dad was a minister for 8 years, to go to their “Bethlehem marketplace.”

All the members of their church put on their bath robes, they dress up, and act like characters from Bethlehem as guests travel through, going to all the shops, and at each shop the people talk about how some “strange travelers” have come through recently. A young girl, riding a donkey, and a man who is engaged to her…which is quite a bit of a scandal.

Then, as you continue along your journey, you come to the inn. Where the innkeeper is talking about how there is no room, and that it broke his heart that he even had to turn away a young couple expecting a baby, and he wondered where they went. Then, his young daughter popped up, and exclaimed, “I know where they went!” And proceeds to show you the manger, where the baby is sleeping, and angels singing overhead.

It was a fun time to journey through Bethlehem. A lot of people broke character as we walked through to ask about how we were and what was going on. We swapped stories about how children and grandchildren were doing. And as we journeyed through, I thought about our own journey. I grew up in Athens, went to college, went to seminary, got married, had a child, moved here. A lot has happened in the short time we’ve been away from Athens, it has been quite a journey.

Hopefully, we have been journeying toward Bethlehem all of Advent. Shaking off the commercialism and busyness of the season to shed some light on what it means that Christ is coming among us. We light one more candle each week as we go throughout our journey, and many times it is good to look back at our journey to see where we have been, so that we can be better informed to know where we are going.

We started our journey talking about hope. Knowing that hope is something that undergirds our life, and that hope is what Christ brings into the world. I hope you all have shared your hopes with one another, and with your family. We all have hopes…but we learned that we also have Hope, with a capital H. Jesus Christ brings us hope. Hope for a future that is wonderful. And hope that this future is already breaking into our lives every day. Putting our Christmas Hope list together.
Then we talked about peace. Finding peace in the everyday, and becoming peace makers in our community, and the world. Trading in the pieces of ourselves for the peace of Christ.
Relinquishing our control of territory, and giving it over to God for the peace that God offers. That was the second leg of our journey.

Then, last week we talked about joy. How joy is different from happiness. And we have so many things to be joyful about. Mike and Teresa joined our church. This community rallied together to help some among us. The youth sacrificed Christmas gifts to buy a water buffalo for a developing country. We had laughter and music all afternoon at the parsonage, and we even had a joyful administrative council meeting, believe it or not, because there is so much to be joyful about. That was the third leg of our journey.

And now we are on the home stretch.

I ran cross country in high school. And whenever I would run a race, I would always try to pace myself. But then, when you get to that last stretch of the track, seeing the finish line in front of me, I found that I had an extra boost of energy. I run harder and faster that last leg, because you know that once you hit that line, you are done, and you can rest, and get replenished.
And so on this Sunday, we find ourselves on that last stretch of track in Advent. Some of us may want it just to be done. To go back to normalcy in our lives. Where we can take down the decorations, and rearrange our furniture back where it is supposed to be. We can get back into our routines without expectations of entertaining and shopping.

Well, I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news for those who want everything to go back to normal.

The good news is that Christ is coming. Christ is coming to be with us. Christ isn’t coming as a war hero who is going to take the world by force. Christ isn’t coming as a political figure who will unite everyone under the same banner. Christ isn’t even coming on a cloud or riding a horse or in an earthquake. Christ is coming…as a baby. The same way all of us came into the world. Christ is coming…as Jesus. As one who is born, grows up, and walks among us. Doing the one thing all the time that we all too often forget how to do…love.

That is today’s candle that we light in expectation of Christmas. Love. The one thing that holds it all together. The love of God is what gives us hope, it is what gives us peace, and it is what gives us joy.

Now for the bad news for everyone who just wants things to go back to the way they were.

It won’t.

Because when love enraptures your soul, things are never the same.

The letter Paul is writing to the Romans is a letter he is writing to people he has never met. He plans to go to the Romans, to preach there, and to take up a collection for a mission trip he has planned for Spain. And his letter to the Romans starts off in a different way than any of the other letters he writes.

Basically, it says: I’m Paul, and here is what I’m all about. I’m all about Christ and who he calls me to be.

If you were to write a letter like that, what is it you would say?
Hello, I’m (Blank), and here is what I’m all about.

Are you all about family? Or all about Children? Are you all about your work? Are you all about retirement? Are you all about hunting? Are you all about sports? Think about that for a second. What are you all about? Where do you invest your time, money, and energy, because where you invest those three things says a lot about who you are. If you are all about your family, then everything you do springs from that well. That is where you derive your source and your strength.

Or if we wrote that letter, together, as a community, what would it say we were all about. If we wrote a letter that was to be distributed to everyone in Franklin County, we would say, “Hello, we are Bold Spring United Methodist Church, and this is what we are all about.”

Might I suggest love? It is the foundation upon which we stand…that God is love.

Might I suggest love, because as the Beatles say, love is all you need.

But I’m not talking about a feeling, and I’m not saying that you can survive on love. We all know that there are other things people need. Shelter, food, clothing; sure, but also vocation, purpose, hope, peace, and joy. But when we are all about love of God and love of neighbor, we want those things for everybody, not just for ourselves.

When we are all about love…everything will change. Love will become the source of who we are, it will become the motivation of our actions, it will be the reason we get out of bed in the morning, and it will be the reason that when we lie down, our minds are churning of what we can do to share love with others.

Because the other thing the Beatles say about love is that in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.

So we must share it.

One of the more interesting phenomena that we are experiencing right now is that there is a third kind of company that is emerging in the marketplace. There used to be two, simple, neat categories of “For profit,” which is a publicly traded company, and “Not-for-profit.” That is not the case anymore as a third category has emerged called “For Benefit.” These companies make as part of their mission to benefit society. The old model used to be that you made as much money as you possibly could, by whatever means you could, so that you reached a point that you were taken care of and you gave the rest philanthropically. The “For Benefit” companies are taking a different approach. They are publicly traded, but want to make their societal impact now. And so they make money, but they make money for the purpose of making a positive impact on the world.

Tom’s shoes is an example. Which is a company based out of California that makes and sells pretty trendy shoes. I heard an interview with the creator and CEO, Blake Mycoskie, on NPR. For every pair of shoes that is purchased, Tom’s shoes donates a pair of shoes to a village in the developing world. That’s it. And they have already given away millions of shoes to children mainly to prevent cuts, scrapes, it helps them receive an education, and stay healthy. For Benefit.

I am intrigued by this model.

Mainly because I think it does what the church should do. Make an impact. Not just exist solely for its members, though there is benefit in being a member here, but also be for benefit of the community in which it exists. Offering the love of Christ. As much love as is created here, as much love is given away. And so on and so on.

Christ is coming among us. So while we are on the homestretch of this Christmas season, we may ramp up our energy to push through the finish line…but I believe that we are pushing through to the starting line. The point at which we begin, which is Jesus Christ coming into our lives.

Then, everything changes. But most importantly, what we are all about. Love of God, and love of neighbor.

The root of our life. And a life-giving presence. I believe we are beginning to see what love can do. And we are beginning to understand that this entire Advent season, as we have been preparing and waiting with anticipation Christ coming to be among us; that when he comes, our lives will change. And we will see what love can do at this church and in this community.
Let’s see what love can do.

Love can break down barriers. Barriers that are hindering all of us. Barriers of guilt, barriers of doubt, and barriers of fear. Whether they are racial barriers, economic barriers, class barriers, or political barriers…we all have things that are preventing us from being in community with one another. Love can break down those barriers.

Love can inspire mission. Can inspire us to give of ourselves. And the youth are leading us in this. The youth go on a mission trip every summer. The youth have been raising money for a water buffalo through Heifer international, and the youth have been volunteering their time at Cornerstone ministries to pack bags of food for those in our community. Love can do that.

Love can make us one with Christ. One with each other. And one in ministry to all the world, the promises that we make week after week. Love is what makes it possible.

Hello, we are Bold Spring United Methodist Church. We are all about love of God, and love of neighbor. We like to see what love can do in our world. And we do it, because of Christ being in our life, and offering us life. Christ saves us, and inspires us. Won’t you join us?