Increasing in Love
May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.
Christianity, we are often told, is about good news. I am sure that none of you here this morning need me to remind you that the very word Gospel means Good News, and it is Good News that we proclaim, both in the reading of the gospel as we have just done, and, hopefully, in the living out of our lives as followers of Jesus. Certainly, we have reached that time of year when the vast majority of people around us are already using the excuse of Jesus’ birth a little over 2000 years ago as a reason to indulge in rather sentimental or frivolous emotion in what they regard as the season of good will. Indeed, yesterday afternoon, Alison, Benedict, Linus and I joined a number of others in the High Street to watch the switching-on of the Christmas lights in the town centre - an event heralded by the ubiquitous song, "So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun..."
The trouble is, if we listen to the portion of Luke 25 that we, and Christians in churches all around the western world have been reading this morning, we see that it simply isn’t true. Everybody’s not having fun! Far from it - for Jesus is in a pretty cataclysmic mood. Taking his lead from a disciple’s innocent remark about the beauty of the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus goes off on one... Not only will the Temple be thrown down so that one stone isn’t left standing on another, but there will be wars and insurrections, let alone earthquakes, famines and plagues - and prior to that, his followers will be arrested and persecuted - betrayed by parents or siblings, and quite possibly put to death. There will be great distress - and seemingly for very good reason. And all that doom and gloom leads in to the verses we just heard read out, which tell us of distress among nations and people fainting from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world... and which culminate with Jesus telling his followers that they shoudl pray that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place...
With good news like that, you could be forgiven for asking who needs bad news, and it explains, perhaps, why our service began with us pleading God the Father....Have mercy on us.
For this is the season of Advent. The season which, traditionally, focusses on the great four themes of death, judgement, heaven and hell. The season which, in the modern western world, puts those of us who are practising, church-going Christians, most at odds with our neighbours amongst whom we live, who are busy singing, "Here it is, merry Christmas", when that great feast is still four weeks away, and we are turning our attention to something altogether rather more scary, when People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world....
And yet, somewhere in amongst this all, there is - there has to be, surely - good news. But, in amongst all that fear and foreboding, can we actually see where the Good News might be lurking this morning?
One person who used to believe that the Second Coming of Christ was a fairly imminent prospect was St Paul. I say ‘used to believe’ as over the years most people believe are covered by his many letters in the New Testament, one can see something of a shift in timescale on the subject of Jesus’ return in glory. But this morning we are privileged to read what are, with little doubt, some of the very earliest words of what we now call the New Testament - Paul’s first letter to the church he had founded in Thessalonica. Depending on which scholar you consult, you will find opinions suggesting this letter was written in the early 50s, or just possibly in the late 40s, and almost every expert thinks that this fairly brief letter is the single oldest document in the New Testament, pre-dating the gospels by anything from 15 to 30 years. And at this early stage in his ministry, there is no doubt at all that Paul believed the return of Jesus in his glory was imminent. Indeed, only a few verses later in the letter he writes:
For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.
From that, it is quite clear that Paul expects to be alive himself to see this great event. And interestingly, while he is clear that this great day will bring sudden destruction of a rapid and violent kind, he is not concerned. Indeed, his mood is quite the opposite - as we saw at the opening of that first reading, when, in almost ecstatic terms, he says, How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel...because of you?
Is this a man fainting from fear and foreboding, or showing signs of anxiety or distress? I think not! For Paul, the Second Coming is an event of joy and excitement - at least for those whom he calls children of light, in contrast to those whom he depicts as those who have no hope. For those to whom he is writing - those who are the Body of Christ in Thessalonica - those who possess hope - those who walk as children of light - those who, if they were living today, might, perhaps, be wise enough to think twice about singing So here it is, Merry Christmas at the start of Advent - for the Christians of Thessalonica, and for all Christians, Paul is convinced that the prospect of the return of the Lord is an occasion for excitement and joy - a joy which is already bubbling over in his heart as he writes to his young church, giving such profound thanks for their discipleship and faith.
There is, however, a but... And, as is usually the case, this but is what gets us to the heart of the matter. For what is it that defines the children of light? What is the sign of those who possess hope? What is it that stands out about the Christians of Thessalonica, that makes them clearly a special group of people, distinct, perhaps, from the wider community from which they were drawn? At its most vital and most basic, quite simply, it is love. And thus Paul prays May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And there is a difficult and challenging point contained there, almost as a throw away line: May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all... Not just May the Lord make you abound in love for the other members of your family, or your church community, or those who vote the same way as you do, or those who look like you, or those who are black, or white, or gay or straight, or anything else... but May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all...
And that’s the catch, isn’t it! For, as Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? And, most famously, "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.
And, in another gospel passage that is often read at this time of year, Jesus recounts the chilling image of the great judgement of the nations, when people are divided like sheep and goats - and divided on the basis of their treatment of those who are the very least in society, for, in the way such people are treated, we are actually treating Jesus himself. And you may recall that those who are judged - both the sheep and the goats - are so short-sighted that they have to ask the Son of Man as he passes his judgement, "Lord, when was it that we did this to you?" Is it any wonder, at this time of year, that we sing God the Son... have mercy on us.
At the culmination of his teaching, Matthew, Mark and Luke all depict Jesus as being in what we usually call apocalyptic mode, with these dire predictions of frightening events. When we examine them in a little more analytical detail, however, we note that they start with him predicting the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem, and much of his rhetoric is based around the consequences of behaviour that is no more than typically human - wars and rumour of wars are just another example of how we fail to demonstrate love for one another and for all. They are the reality that exists when we fail to show love, not just for one another, but for all. And that, for us, I believe, is the real challenge of Advent.
If you think that the coming four weeks are just the last call for buying presents and mince pies, you are missing the point. If you think they are a time merely to prepare yourself spiritually to consider the birth of Jesus in a manger 2000 years ago, you are missing the point. If you think that these coming weeks are to be spent worrying about the end of the world, you are also missing the point. But if you think that this season of penitence and preparation is given to us so that we might think afresh about just how much we manage, truly, to demonstrate love for one another and for all then, just perhaps, we might be beginning to understand the message of this holy season.
And if we are going to manage to do that, we need the continuing gift and grace of the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and fill and refill them with love. For it is the Holy Spirit that will prompt us to give generously of our time and our resources, for instance, to St Jude’s YMCA, to show the 100 or so young people who use the centre each week that there are some people in society at large who do love them - even if they sometimes behave in unlovable ways - and who want to demonstrate that love to them.
Indeed, it is the Holy Spirit that will, in the coming months and years, prompt our hearts to work out how best we use both this glorious church building, and the increasingly strategic location of our Parish Hall, to demonstrate love, not just for each other within this church community, but love for all who pass by, or who might pass by, as effectively as we can.
And it is the Holy Spirit that, every time we feel ourselves on the brink of an ungenerous deed, or word, or even thought, might call us back to that state of being which brought such joy to St Paul when he contemplated the Christians of Thessalonica, and exhorted them to increase and abound in their love for one another and for all. And that is why, as we begin this holy season, we dare to sing God the Spirit...Have mercy upon us.
And so, this Advent, as we beseech the Holy, Blessed and Glorious Trinity to have mercy upon us, let us strive to be a Christian community that brings joy to any and everyone who beholds us. And May the Lord make us increase and abound in love for one another and for all - just as God abounds in love for us. Amen.
Dominic Barrington, Advent Sunday, 2009
