To Die For

May 13, 2007

By

Reverend Litton Logan

Scriptures:

³¹When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. ³²If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. ³³Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ ³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Jesus Foretells Peter’s Denial

³⁶Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward.” ³⁷Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” ³⁸Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times. John 13:31--38 (NRSVA)

Introduction and Comments:

It’s Mother’s Day, so let me share with you some things my mother taught me.

Her sense of logic:

“What were you thinking?  Answer me when I talk to you!  Don’t talk back to me!”

“If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you’re not going to the store with me.?

“When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don’t come running to me.

My mother’s understanding of human physiology:

“If you don’t stop crossing your eyes, they are going to freeze that way.”

My mother the geneticist:

“You’re just like your father.”

Sermon:

How many times have you heard the expression that something “…is to die for?  Godiva Chocolates are to die for; that sweater in the shop window was to die for; that new boy or girl in school is to die for; fishing in that stretch of the river is to die for.  (That has possibilities)  The expression “to die for” is an exaggeration that tells us how unique or how much someone values something or someone.  In our scriptures this morning, we hear Peter say, “Jesus, you are to die for.”  Jesus responds, “Peter, I hear you talking the talk but you will not be able to walk the walk--well, not yet anyway.”  Jesus goes on to state that the mark of a true disciple of his is to be found in a love to die for.

The setting for today’s scriptures is the Last Supper.  This scene stands within the greater social and religious context of John and his church.  The early Christians and Christian Churches experienced a variety of persecutions and harassments from various sources; however, in John’s churches the biggest source of persecution was not from the Romans or the pagans but from other Jews.  Most modern biblical scholarship maintains that the author of John’s Gospel was most likely a Jewish Christian writing to Jewish Christians who have been “put out of or excommunicated from the synagogue and Judaism.”  (9:22; 12:42;16:2). 

After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., Judaism had to redefine itself amid controversy and turmoil.  In this environment, Jewish Christians, a religious minority, were experiencing vilification, persecution, and harassment.  By the time the Gospel of John was written, the practice of excommunicating Jewish Christians from the synagogues was formalized in the Birkath ha-Minim, a liturgy that would have vehemently condemned the followers of Jesus as heretics.  Thus, John is writing to encourage Jewish Christians to stick together, support each other, and encourage one another and  to hang on to their faith in the face of Jewish persecution, vilification, and their ejection from their mother religion and their synagogues. Although John through out his Gospel expresses animosity toward the Jewish authorities, John none-the-less draws heavily upon Jewish traditions and the Old Testament to shape and express his understanding of God’s saving work in Jesus.

At the Last Supper in John, we find Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, foretelling of his betrayal and eventual crucifixion, and giving a farewell discourse to his disciples.  In this farewell discourse, Jesus gives a New Commandment.

          John’s Gospel is the only place we find this New Commandment.  In these passages, Jesus draws his insights and inspiration from the Old Testament book of Leviticus 19:17-18 and 19:34. These passages are from the Holiness Code-- a code that spells out the behaviors that makes one holy—set apart--unto God as God is holy—set apart.

In Leviticus 19:17-18 the term “neighbor” would have been generally understood to mean a fellow Jew.  However many ancient Jewish authorities extended the meaning of the “neighbor” to include all humankind.  The term “neighbor” also carried the overtones of a religious or spiritual “brother” or “friend” with certain moral obligations and rights. The injunction to love one’s neighbor in Leviticus is preceded by several other injunctions, “Thou shall not hate thy brother in thine heart,” and “…thou shall not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people (the Israelites).”  Hatred and harbored thoughts of vengeance rendered one unholy before God not to mention the damage it could cause to the community and to one’s soul.

In Leviticus 19:34, we see the sacred duty of loving one’s neighbor extended to a sojourner, a stranger, or foreigner.  The sojourner is one who comes among people not his own and lacks the protection and benefits ordinarily provided by kin and birthplace.  The sojourner’s status and privileges were derived from the ancient Mediterranean world’s sacred bond of hospitality, in which the guest is inviolable.

I might add that the concept of brotherly embracing all humanity was taught by many of the ancient Jewish rabbis.  In addition, hospitality to the stranger, and charity to the less fortunate were the hallmarks of Judaism and the devote Jew’s relationship to God.  In fact the rabbis understood Lev. 19:18--¹⁸You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD—to mean that even the criminal at the time of execution should be treated with tender love, (Sanh. 45 a, Jewish Encyclopedia, Brotherly Love.)

          In today’s scriptures we see Jesus lifting the love of one’s brother and sister in Christ and the sojourner, possibly-those Gentile converts to Christ, beyond Judaism’s traditional moral and ethical responsibilities to the same level of self-sacrifice as Jesus would demonstrate on the cross.  Thus, the new commandment—true love of God is to die for.

What Jesus is saying is that his disciples must be people who demonstrates not only a love for God  by living a moral, charitable, and spiritually wholesome lives but also people who demonstrate a love to die for what God loves as he did.  Thus, the thing that will define and identify Jesus’ disciples, ancient and modern, will be the same self-expending life and self-sacrificing love and devotion that Jesus demonstrated for God, for his friends or neighbors, which is to be extended to include all humankind.

Okay, we modern Christians as a rule are not being persecuted, vilified, or harassed for our faith like those Christians in John’s church.  This may be the case in other parts of the world but not here in the United States.  So, what could these scriptures possibly mean to us given the extreme differences in social and religious context between John’s and our own time?

Well, come to think of it, we do have various Christian sects, factions, and denominations vilifying one another, calling each other names, discriminating against one another, and maintaining that certain groups are not really even Christian.  In some parts of the world in the recent past, we’ve even had Catholics and Protestants killing each other.  We have Christians within the same denominations and churches vilifying and discriminating against each other over matters of doctrines and practices. We have brothers and sisters in Christ across the world in dire need who are being denied basic protections and the sustenance of life in the face of the power and bounty of other more affluent and empowered Christians.

The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, scriptures traditionally read at weddings although they have nothing to do with weddings, gives us some practical examples for how Jesus’ disciples are to behave toward one another in such situations.  In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes to Christians, some of whom are guilty of immoral activities; while others are locked into doctrinal struggles and conflicts over religious observances.  Some are involved religious and socio-economic elitism.  Many of these Christians in the church at Corinth have become mean and unkind to one another.  Let me paraphrase Paul’s words:

Jesus’ disciples should not be impatient with those who are at different stages in their faith development.  They definitely should not be condemnatory and abusive toward their younger or less sophisticated brothers and sisters in Christ.  Jesus’ disciples should not be hateful and spiteful, given to backbiting, petty jealousies, and power struggles in the church.  Disciples of Christ are not supposed to be haughty and look down their noses at one another because of their socio-economic status, their race, their gender, nationality, their age, or other so-called cultural or socially defining characteristics. 

Followers of Jesus must not make harsh and unrealistic demands on others in the name of so-called Christian religion.  Jesus people are not to hoard needed resources to the deprivation of their brothers and sisters in Christ.  Jesus people are not to try to manipulate or to control things in the church for their own interests at the expense of the greater good of the kingdom of God. 

In the church of Christ, people must not forsake the community of faith when they don’t get their way but rather seek to understand, to forgive, and to be forgiven, initiating reconciliation in love when they take offense, give offense, or receive offense.

However, Paul will later say in another place that those who are corrected in love that do not mend their ways are to be cut off from the fellowship until they repent, make amends, and ask for renewed fellowship.

Please understand that Christian love in its most practical applications is never to be confused with permissivism, tolerance of self-destructive indulgences, tolerance of immorality, or condoning the disruption of the good order and discipline of the body of Christ under the guise of some cowardly idea of love.

If we love and care for people, we want the best for them, we want them to achieve their highest potential in life and in their relationship to God in Christ.  Love condemns bad, evil, unhealthy behaviors, and demands repentance, restitution, and change, but love never pronounces God’s condemnation on a person to the point that a contrite and repentant person is cut off from the opportunity of experiencing God’s love, grace, and the possibilities of change in the Christian community.  Love never casts certain people beyond the pale of God’s care and love—no matter how different they and their beliefs are from our beliefs and us.  Love never says that a person is beyond human and divine compassion—not even the most hardened criminal about to be executed for horrendous crimes.  

I have a note here that says interject some humor—this stuff is heavy.

While I sat with my wife in the hospital in Colorado Springs during her emergency hospitalization, I was flipping through a magazine and shared this story with her.  It helped to break some of the tension in our lives at the time.

There was this elderly couple, although not very religious, who decided to take a package tour of the holy lands.  While there, the husband he keeled over from a heart attack and died as he was walking up the hill that is supposed to lead to Calvary,

The mortuary affairs person told his grieving widow it would cost $5000 to ship her husband’s remains back to the States or she could bury him in the holy lands for $500.  The widow mused over this for a few moments and said, “I think I am going to ship him by to the States.”  “Why, would you want to go that expense?” asked the Funeral Director.

The widow looked at the Funeral Director and said, “Well I understand that here in the holy lands you had someone die and came back to life.  So, I think I’ll ship my husband back to the States.”

Let me add that Christian love does not say you have to like or go out of one’s way to socialize with certain people just because they are Christians.  What Christian love demands is that we be willing to self-expend or to self-sacrifice for God’s love for people.  Christ simply says you must be willing to do as he did—lay down your life if called upon for what God loves, just as Jesus laid down his life for what God loved and for those whom God had given him—his disciples, his friends, and you and me.

The Apostle Paul says that the religious practices and witness of Christians that are not willing to self-expend or to self-sacrifice in love are just so much irritating noise.

In summary, the world will know we are Christians by our love, by our love.

We’ve all heard that Peter denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed at sunrise on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion.  Like Peter, we cannot love this divine love of self-expenditure and self-sacrifice on our own—it’s impossible.  The source and power of this kind of love has to come from God.  This power of love to die for is the work of the Holy Spirit, which calls us all to faith in Christ and some of us to an intentional life of self-expenditure and self-sacrifice in Christ.  Yet, we all must stand ready for God’s call to demonstrate a love to die for.

Peter talk the talk and eventually walked the walk, leaving the question:  What about us and our love of God—a love to live for and a love to die for, or just self-serving religion that makes the necessary a little easier?  Is our faith in God through Jesus Christ just so much whistling in the dark of life’s uncertainties and the reality of death?

I will struggle with my answer and I invite you to struggle with yours.