What the World Needs Now is Love

By

Reverend Litton Logan

May 14, 2006

SCRIPTURES:

¹Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. ²By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world. ⁴Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ⁵They are from the world; therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

God Is Love

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. ¹³By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. ¹⁶So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. ¹⁷Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. ¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. ¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters,^£ are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. ²¹The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (1 John 4:--:21 (NRSV))

SERMON:

          It is hardly deniable that there exists in our culture today a sense of moral lawlessness.  We can trace much of the cause of this lawlessness back to WWII, which destroyed the optimism of European humanism.  The humanism I speak of believed that through modern science and technology humanity could solve the problems of poverty, ignorance, diseases, and build a world were peace and justice ruled.  WWII with its global examples of human corruption, destruction, and evil shattered such notions leaving a moral vacuum at the core of European humanism as well as American humanism that has yet to be filled.

          The Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, and now 9/11 and the war on terrorism continued and continues to fuel this sense of moral lawlessness and hopelessness of humankind ever effecting real peace and good-will among humanity at the local, national, or global level. 

          We can see some of the architecture for this moral lawlessness and hopelessness in some of the literature that came out of Europe after WWII.  The author whom I think that gives us the best insight to what I am talking about is Albert Camus (1913-1960).  Camus was a French philosopher, author, playwright, and Nobel Laureate winner.  Many of you may have read or studied his writings in college, such stories as the Myth of Sisyphus, The Rebel, and The Stranger.

Camus could be classified as a modern, moral humanist.  His writings influenced college students during the height of the Cold War and their social rebellion during the Fifties and Sixties in this country.  The legacy of much of their rejection of tradition and conventional morally we find in the moral lawlessness we live in today.

Camus then is important for us today because Camus’ thinking epitomizes a critical segment of modern thinking, which rejects established social conventions and beliefs, especially moral and religious beliefs.  Camus’ thinking also captures the essence of much of modern thought, which says life is pointless, and human values are worthless because there is no objective or universal basis for truth.  Some of Camus’ thinking also supports the notion that all established authority is corrupt and must be destroyed in order to build a just society. 

I dare say many people would not call themselves students of Camus but much of their thinking and reasoning processes mirror his.  This is why I choose to use Camus as a sort of foil to address a certain kind of moral and spiritual lawlessness that is prevalent  in our world today and to offer, what I hope is a Christian counter point.

          Camus as a spokesperson for a generation of European intellectuals, who came to prominence during and after the horror and carnage of WWII, believed that traditional philosophical and religious moral systems subvert humankind’s quest for authenticity as human per se in the world.  Therefore, since there is no universal principle under writing ultimate human meaning and morality the highest good for human existence lies solely within the human being itself

          For Camus, since there is no transcendent value in the universe to give life ultimate meaning and purpose beyond just living and personal happiness life there fore is absurd.  All the moral or ultimate meanings people try to give their lives by doing this thing or that, or not doing this thing or that is futile because all the meaning people seek to give their lives is lost in death. 

          Camus major interest was how people lived their lives and made moral decisions in the face of what he called the absurdity of life.

          Eventually, Camus comes to a place where he sees human fraternity -- individual, naked self-interest lived out within the commerce of human community as the only moral ground for human choices.  Said another way the Law of Reciprocity—my words not his—is the only basis of human morality.  The Law of Reciprocity one of the highest and noblest principles for moral and ethical human behaviors has many forms but its simplest form is, do unto others as you would they do unto you. 

For Camus, people therefore should enjoy life’s fleeting moments of happiness because our moments of happiness are the only self-evident value to our lives.

          Obviously, Camus was not a religious person.  He said he was an unbeliever.  If anything, one picks up the notion from Camus that humans preserve in the face of the absurdity of life only for those rare moments of happiness or pleasure in spite of religion not because of it.

          In 1948, Camus was invited by the Dominican monks of Latour-Maubourg to address them on the topic “What Unbelievers Expect from Christians.” The essay he gave that day deals primarily with a quest for an open and healthy dialogue between Christians and Unbelievers, which centers on those issues that are critical to human existence regardless of one’s position on matters of philosophy, religion, or faith.  I would characterize his essay and speech that day as a dialogue between an enlightened, moral humanist, and Christianity.

          I want to share with you some quotes from that lecture with an ear on today’s scriptures and what the Elder says is the defining characteristic of Christianity and what humanism, which seeks to be its on ultimate reference for value, needs from Christianity today. 

          Camus said that day in 1948,

…I shall never start from the supposition that Christian truth is illusory, but merely from the fact that I could not accept it. (Modern Religious Thought, The Unbeliever, p. 29)

…what I feel like telling you today is that the world needs real dialogue, that false hood is just as much the opposite of dialogue as is silence, and that the only possible dialogue is the kind between people who remain what they are and speak their minds.  This is tantamount to saying that the world today needs Christians who remain Christians. (Modern Religious Thought, The Unbeliever, p. 30)

What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear, and that they should voice their condemnation in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest man.  That they should get away from abstraction and confront the bloodstained face history has taken on today. (Modern Religious Thought, The Unbeliever, p. 31)

And now, what can Christians do for us? (Unbelievers) To begin with, give up the empty quarrels, the worst of which is the quarrel about pessimism. (Modern Religious Thought, The Unbeliever, p. 31)

The pessimism that Camus is talking about is found in the traditional Augustinian-Christian idea of the innate corruption of humanity, which fosters an almost mystical sense of human self-devaluation, a loss of hope through normal human efforts.  It is a pessimism that requires special revelation and help from beyond itself.  It is a pessimism, which gives very little value to human existence in this world but is optimistic in death.

Camus goes on to say:

We are faced with evil… But it is also true that I, and a few others, know what must be done, if not to reduce evil, at least not to add to it.  Perhaps we cannot prevent this world form being a world in which children are tortured.  But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you (Christians) don’t help us, who else in the world can help us do this? (Modern Religious Thought, The Unbeliever, p. 32)

* * * * *

Let us now turn to our text for this morning for a counter point to the thinking of Camus and those of his ilk, who live out of the spirit of this world.  Let us also be open to seeing some of the truths of Camus insights for Christians.

In 1 John 4:1-6 the Elder tells his audiences that there is a spirit in the world that is anti-Christ.  This spirit not only denies the reality of Jesus of Nazareth as the only begotten of God, but denies that there is a universal, moral underpinning to human choices, much less that it is expressed in the life and teachings of Jesus.  The Elder indicates that the spirit of this world, which could be called a form of moral humanism, is in opposition to and in competition with the Spirit of God.

The spirit of the world may acknowledge a god of sorts as a creative principle as the basis of its sciences, but denies its involvement in the affairs of humankind. The spirit of this world seeks answers to the questions of ultimate and relative meaning, purpose, and value of life from within itself and itself alone.  Contrary to the spirit of the world, God makes known God’s wisdom on matters of ultimate meaning and values to those who are truly open to finding and living in real and ultimate truth.

There are those of us who know the innate value and goodness of humanity, because God so loved humanity that he gave his only begotten Son that we might have life and it more abundantly.  Humanity is not a glass half-empty, but rather a glass half-full to be topped off by the absolute moral dimension and purpose of the universe found in God’s love.   In love, humanity can be all God meant for us to be for ourselves, for others, for the world, and for that matter for the universe.

In Jesus Christ, God elevates the noble Law of Reciprocity—doing unto others as you would they do unto you—to its ultimate, spiritual dimension, the Law of Love—Love your neighbor as yourself.  Don’t just do unto or not do unto you neighbor, but love your neighbor as you love yourself. 

In the Law of Love, we are more than conquerors of our own natures; we are sons and daughters, heirs and joint-heirs with Jesus the Christ.

The fact that human beings universally can experience love and be loved tells us life is not without hope, life is not absurd.  Something is absurd if it doesn’t make sense—defies logic.  Our hope in Jesus Christ, I must admit defies human logic, but it definitely makes sense to us in the presence of the wisdom—the Logos of God, the love of God with us. Doesn’t it?

In 1 John, the Elder tells us that the defining characteristic of the Christian is to be found in our capacity and willingness to love ourselves, others, and the world as God does.   This and this alone is the hope of the world, the hope of this life, and the hope of the life to come. Love is the power that confronts human rationality on all levels; faces down its claims of absurdity, and forces it to bow its head in reverence and awe at love’s power to give ultimate and lasting meaning and purpose to human life.

Love will self-expend for the beloved, love will self-sacrifice for the beloved.  Love transcends the value of the individual and anchors one’s meaning and purpose in life in the love of others.

Contrary to the best laid plans of mice and men and all our hopes in human creativity and power models of justice and the good-life we find no lasting peace or hope in such human answers.

The Elder in 1 John tells us, what the world needs now is love.  What the world needs from Christians is God’s love.  This is the wisdom of God that is contrary to all the solutions of human reason across the millenniums.

Hear again the answers to those who deny a moral foundation to the universe. Hear again the words that address the value and purpose of human existence. Hear the words that lift Camus’ hope in fraternity to God’s hope in love.

¹¹Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

²⁰Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. ²¹The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also

Let me again share words from the arch, moral humanist, Camus:

I can speak only of what I know.  And what I know—which sometimes creates a deep longing in me—is that if Christians made up their minds to it, millions of voices—millions, I say—throughout the world would be added to the appeal of a handful of isolated individuals who, without any sort of affiliation, today intercede almost everywhere and ceaselessly for children and for men. (Modern Religious Thought, The Unbeliever, p. 33)

          Do you hear the truth of Camus indictment?  I certainly can.

I would agree with Camus on several points.  One is that the traditional philosophical, metaphysical, and theological answers that try to justify human moral choices must be abandoned, they haven’t worked, and for the most part they are not scriptural.  What Christians must do, what the world must do is reexamine scripture as if by the dawn of first light.  We must abandon all notions that we are without power in this world and therefore simply pawns in some cosmic chess game. We must see that God has given us the power of self-determination and world-determination.  If we live in a world that seems to be without a moral basis, if we live in a world where children or tortured, and if we live in a world where people suffer from injustice and neglect then it is a product of human choice.  If we live in a rotten world, it is a world of our choosing.  It is a world that refuses to live by the moral foundation for all human relationships in the universe—Love.

Furthermore, we Christians must put petty quarrels aside, we must abandon childish theological arguments one has to die to prove, we must stand up with one voice and condemn the lawlessness, greed, immorality, and hatred in our world.

We must also abandon the traditional pessimism about humanity.  We are the hope of God for this world.  We are so special, so innately valuable that God, the divine self, took on the initiative to bring us in to the fullest possible relationship with the divine-self and to one another on the cross.

We Christians claim to have the very power that created the universe in our lives as a catalyst that brings about personal transformation through a faith beyond the rational.  We claim to have the wisdom of God, which is the knowledge of eternity, in us.  We claim the power of salvation and abundant life in the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth. 

I fear that many like the Gnostics have the knowledge of God, the knowledge of salvation but not its power.  The power of salvation, the power to change our lives, the power to change the world for the good lies in the Holy Spirit’s power to help us love beyond our own naked self-interest.

God is love.  Love is the reason for creation. Loves is the life giving principle of all existence and the source of the moral imperative.

Love is not a second hand emotion. I don’t care what Tina Turner says.  It is not just a feel good tickle in the pit of our stomachs. Love is not romanticism.  Love is not sensualism. Love is the power that sang the universe into being.  Love is the power that transforms lives as well as transforms and creates worlds.   Love is the power that sustains every organic and inorganic thing in the entire universe.

Our ability to participate in God’s love and to love as God loves is our hope, it is our meaning, it is our authenticity, it is the core character of a Christian, and it is what the unbelieving world needs from us.

In closing, let us take instructions from the Apostle Paul:

¹If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly,^£ but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:1--13 (NRSV)

Let us put away childish abstractions and hear again the Apostle Paul as he writes to Timothy

²⁰O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: 1 Timothy 6:20 (KJV)

That which is from the beginning and endures forever is a fair basis upon which to build a moral code and to understand the meanings and purposes of life. Love was in the beginning and endures forever.           Let us build our lives on it.  Let us build our church on it.  Let us build our nation on it.  Let us build a world on it.  Why not try it?  Everything else has failed.