St Oran’s and Dunbeg
5th May 2013
a sermon by murdoch mackenzie
John 13:34-35 ‘A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
In this our 125th anniversary year people on buses, people on foot, people coming to church, people passing by on the other side, look up at St Oran’s and see the immortal words: ‘God is love’. When Jesus was asked to sum up the law and the prophets he said: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
And this we also read in Matthew, Mark and Luke as well as in Deuteronomy 6:5 in the great words of the Shema ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord your God is one Lord and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.’ And in Leviticus 19:18 ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ And in Romans 13:9-10 ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.’ And in Galatians 5:14 ‘For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ And in James 2:8 ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ In 1 John 4:16 ‘God is love, and he or she who abides in love abides in God…’ and at verse 12 ‘If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.’ Not to mention St Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 who has a whole panoply about love and ends with the immortal words: ‘So, faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.’
To prepare for this service I looked at the lectionary readings for today and in these Sundays after Easter the whole Church throughout the world is in St John’s Gospel as Anne and I were last Sunday in the Lutheran Church in Lund in Sweden. Thus we have our text this morning from John chapter 13: ‘A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
Everyone! … in Connel … who are not only looking up at something written on the wall of the church building telling them that God is love but who are looking at the real church which is you and me to see that love in action. Thus the great Tertullian in Carthage in North Africa, the father of the Western Church, famously quoted the words of the pagans around him who said: ‘See how these Christians love one another.’ So let us think for a moment or two about love and what it means.
God loved the world so much – the world, not the church – that he gave his only Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. It has been said that the Word became flesh but we have turned him into words again. Like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady: ‘Words, words, words, Don't talk of love lasting through time. Make me no undying vow. Show me! Show me now!’ Actions speak louder than words. There is a quotation which in the last 20 years or so has been attributed to St Francis of Assissi: ‘Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words’. Words without actions, like faith without works, are dead. At the end of our Gospel passage this morning after Jesus had commanded the disciples to love one another, Peter said he would lay down his life for Jesus. And Jesus answered: ‘Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the cock crows, you will disown me three times!’ They met again on the seashore early one morning around a charcoal fire with fish and bread and after breakfast Jesus asked Simon Peter three times: ‘Do you love me?’ He didn’t ask: ‘Do you believe in me?’ or ‘Are you sorry for denying me?’ or ‘Are you born again?’. ’Do you want to become a member of the church?’ – none of these but instead he went to the heart of the matter and asked three times: ‘Do you love me?’
And that is really the only question that matters – isn’t it? Whether its your close companion, your wife, your husband, your parents, your children, your neighbours or even your enemies and like Jesus with Peter they’ll know whether you love them or not.
In the first Letter of John we read: ‘Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. She or he who does not love, does not know God; for God is love.’ Later he says: ‘If anyone says: “I love God” and hates his brother (or sister) , he is a liar for those who do not love the sisters and brothers whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen.’
When we think of the Bible we think of Ruth’s love for Naomi and David’s love for Jonathan, Paul’s love for Timothy and of Jesus’ love for John the beloved disciple. When we think of some of our great hymns we think of George Matheson’s wonderful hymn which we will be singing tonight: ‘O love that wilt not let me go’ composed in Argyll at Innellan manse on 6th June 1821 and published in Life and Work in 1822. ‘O love that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee’. And we think of two of the hymns sung at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral:
‘I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above, Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love; The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test, That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best; The love that never falters, the love that pays the price, The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.’
And Charles Wesley’s great hymn which was also sung at George MacLeod’s funeral in 1991:
‘Love Divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heaven to earth come down……Jesus, thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art’
In 1974 I was in Kalimpong in Bengal, the place where Dr Graham of Kalimpong Homes lived and worked. And I saw there a bus stop in which someone had painted three words which said; ‘Love is God’. And I thought that was a mistake. The Bible does not say: ‘Love is God’. It does say: ‘Love is of God.’
In 1 John 4:7 we read about the source of love: ‘Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he or she who loves is born of God and knows God…and at verse 16 ‘God is love and he or she who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in them.’ And at verse 20 ‘If anyone says, ’I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar, for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.’
Remember the story of the wee boy and how he said in response to the person who asked him about the heavy burden he was carrying: ‘That’s nae a burden, That’s ma wee brither’.
It’s like Jesus on the cross bearing the burden of the sin of humanity, our sin, and looking down with compassion and saying in the words of John 15:13; ‘No-one has greater love than this that someone would lay down his life for his friends’. Let us remember that, each time we look up and see the words; ‘God is love’ on the side of the wall of St Oran’s Church.
And so we sing Isaac Watts amazing words: ‘Love so amazing so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.’
Let us pray: Living and Loving God, our song is indeed of Jesus’ love to each one of us here this morning. We love because he first loved us. And yet we know how often we fail to love. How often we pass by on the other side. How often we do not love our neighbours as we love ourselves. And yet we lift up our hearts, our eyes, our ears to the Cross of Calvary and hear the voice of Jesus say: ‘Father, forgive them. They don’t realise what they are doing.’ Help us, each one of us here this morning, O God, to receive a fresh understanding of heavenly love that is real and to love one another and all those whom we meet in Connel and elsewhere this coming week with the tender love of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we pray together in the words which he has taught us as we say: ‘Our Father…’ (652)
Prayers of Intercession
‘Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see.’
Let us pray
Loving God help us to see. Open our eyes, quicken our consciences, disturb our minds, melt our hearts, invade our bank balances, that we may allow your amazing grace to save a wretch like me, that we may know that when we’ve been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing your praise than when we first began. Which means that today we can begin again to see the face of Christ in the faces of all those who are in bondage, asylum seekers, refugees, the old men with the worn-out shoes on the streets of London or of Oban, the 6 million children around the world who die each year under the age of five as a direct result of hunger and all those whom we have thought about this morning. Give us the zeal of a Wilberforce, the conviction of John Newton, the inspiration of St Paul to realise that for freedom Christ has set us free, that here there cannot be slave and free man, rich and poor, male or female, catholic or protestant because Christ is all and in all. Release us, O God, from the bondage of our prejudices, our doctrines, our inhibitions and fears and give us the courage to love our neighbours in the global village as we love ourselves, and the imagination to love the poor and the marginalized with the love with which you in Christ love us. May we be touched in the eye of the storm to give and give and give again what you have given us so that at the end of the day we may rest in peace. And all of this we ask for Christ’s sake.
And we also remember in a time of silence all those known to us who really need the touch of your hand in their lives this morning………….where they are sad – make them glad, where they are sick- heal them with the touch of your hand, where they are lonely – comfort them, where they dying receive them to yourself.
And finally we remember those whom you have given us specially to love and who have gone before us into your nearer presence. If it be your holy will tell them how much we love them, how much we miss them how much we long for the day when we will be with them again. And to your Name be the praise and the glory.
Amen.
Murdoch MacKenzie
In this our 125th anniversary year people on buses, people on foot, people coming to church, people passing by on the other side, look up at St Oran’s and see the immortal words: ‘God is love’. When Jesus was asked to sum up the law and the prophets he said: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
And this we also read in Matthew, Mark and Luke as well as in Deuteronomy 6:5 in the great words of the Shema ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord your God is one Lord and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.’ And in Leviticus 19:18 ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ And in Romans 13:9-10 ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.’ And in Galatians 5:14 ‘For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ And in James 2:8 ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ In 1 John 4:16 ‘God is love, and he or she who abides in love abides in God…’ and at verse 12 ‘If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.’ Not to mention St Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 who has a whole panoply about love and ends with the immortal words: ‘So, faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.’
To prepare for this service I looked at the lectionary readings for today and in these Sundays after Easter the whole Church throughout the world is in St John’s Gospel as Anne and I were last Sunday in the Lutheran Church in Lund in Sweden. Thus we have our text this morning from John chapter 13: ‘A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
Everyone! … in Connel … who are not only looking up at something written on the wall of the church building telling them that God is love but who are looking at the real church which is you and me to see that love in action. Thus the great Tertullian in Carthage in North Africa, the father of the Western Church, famously quoted the words of the pagans around him who said: ‘See how these Christians love one another.’ So let us think for a moment or two about love and what it means.
God loved the world so much – the world, not the church – that he gave his only Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. It has been said that the Word became flesh but we have turned him into words again. Like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady: ‘Words, words, words, Don't talk of love lasting through time. Make me no undying vow. Show me! Show me now!’ Actions speak louder than words. There is a quotation which in the last 20 years or so has been attributed to St Francis of Assissi: ‘Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words’. Words without actions, like faith without works, are dead. At the end of our Gospel passage this morning after Jesus had commanded the disciples to love one another, Peter said he would lay down his life for Jesus. And Jesus answered: ‘Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the cock crows, you will disown me three times!’ They met again on the seashore early one morning around a charcoal fire with fish and bread and after breakfast Jesus asked Simon Peter three times: ‘Do you love me?’ He didn’t ask: ‘Do you believe in me?’ or ‘Are you sorry for denying me?’ or ‘Are you born again?’. ’Do you want to become a member of the church?’ – none of these but instead he went to the heart of the matter and asked three times: ‘Do you love me?’
And that is really the only question that matters – isn’t it? Whether its your close companion, your wife, your husband, your parents, your children, your neighbours or even your enemies and like Jesus with Peter they’ll know whether you love them or not.
In the first Letter of John we read: ‘Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. She or he who does not love, does not know God; for God is love.’ Later he says: ‘If anyone says: “I love God” and hates his brother (or sister) , he is a liar for those who do not love the sisters and brothers whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen.’
When we think of the Bible we think of Ruth’s love for Naomi and David’s love for Jonathan, Paul’s love for Timothy and of Jesus’ love for John the beloved disciple. When we think of some of our great hymns we think of George Matheson’s wonderful hymn which we will be singing tonight: ‘O love that wilt not let me go’ composed in Argyll at Innellan manse on 6th June 1821 and published in Life and Work in 1822. ‘O love that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee’. And we think of two of the hymns sung at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral:
‘I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above, Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love; The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test, That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best; The love that never falters, the love that pays the price, The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.’
And Charles Wesley’s great hymn which was also sung at George MacLeod’s funeral in 1991:
‘Love Divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heaven to earth come down……Jesus, thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art’
In 1974 I was in Kalimpong in Bengal, the place where Dr Graham of Kalimpong Homes lived and worked. And I saw there a bus stop in which someone had painted three words which said; ‘Love is God’. And I thought that was a mistake. The Bible does not say: ‘Love is God’. It does say: ‘Love is of God.’
In 1 John 4:7 we read about the source of love: ‘Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he or she who loves is born of God and knows God…and at verse 16 ‘God is love and he or she who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in them.’ And at verse 20 ‘If anyone says, ’I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar, for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.’
Remember the story of the wee boy and how he said in response to the person who asked him about the heavy burden he was carrying: ‘That’s nae a burden, That’s ma wee brither’.
It’s like Jesus on the cross bearing the burden of the sin of humanity, our sin, and looking down with compassion and saying in the words of John 15:13; ‘No-one has greater love than this that someone would lay down his life for his friends’. Let us remember that, each time we look up and see the words; ‘God is love’ on the side of the wall of St Oran’s Church.
And so we sing Isaac Watts amazing words: ‘Love so amazing so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.’
Let us pray: Living and Loving God, our song is indeed of Jesus’ love to each one of us here this morning. We love because he first loved us. And yet we know how often we fail to love. How often we pass by on the other side. How often we do not love our neighbours as we love ourselves. And yet we lift up our hearts, our eyes, our ears to the Cross of Calvary and hear the voice of Jesus say: ‘Father, forgive them. They don’t realise what they are doing.’ Help us, each one of us here this morning, O God, to receive a fresh understanding of heavenly love that is real and to love one another and all those whom we meet in Connel and elsewhere this coming week with the tender love of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we pray together in the words which he has taught us as we say: ‘Our Father…’ (652)
Prayers of Intercession
‘Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see.’
Let us pray
Loving God help us to see. Open our eyes, quicken our consciences, disturb our minds, melt our hearts, invade our bank balances, that we may allow your amazing grace to save a wretch like me, that we may know that when we’ve been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing your praise than when we first began. Which means that today we can begin again to see the face of Christ in the faces of all those who are in bondage, asylum seekers, refugees, the old men with the worn-out shoes on the streets of London or of Oban, the 6 million children around the world who die each year under the age of five as a direct result of hunger and all those whom we have thought about this morning. Give us the zeal of a Wilberforce, the conviction of John Newton, the inspiration of St Paul to realise that for freedom Christ has set us free, that here there cannot be slave and free man, rich and poor, male or female, catholic or protestant because Christ is all and in all. Release us, O God, from the bondage of our prejudices, our doctrines, our inhibitions and fears and give us the courage to love our neighbours in the global village as we love ourselves, and the imagination to love the poor and the marginalized with the love with which you in Christ love us. May we be touched in the eye of the storm to give and give and give again what you have given us so that at the end of the day we may rest in peace. And all of this we ask for Christ’s sake.
And we also remember in a time of silence all those known to us who really need the touch of your hand in their lives this morning………….where they are sad – make them glad, where they are sick- heal them with the touch of your hand, where they are lonely – comfort them, where they dying receive them to yourself.
And finally we remember those whom you have given us specially to love and who have gone before us into your nearer presence. If it be your holy will tell them how much we love them, how much we miss them how much we long for the day when we will be with them again. And to your Name be the praise and the glory.
Amen.
Murdoch MacKenzie