3. The dynamic power of love

Aspects of Mission

17 May 2009

John 15:9-17

Today we celebrate the 197th Anniversary of the first gathering of Methodists in Australia. Our work can be traced from those small beginnings on 6 March 1812 … and has operated under various names until today as Wesley Mission.

However, from the small beginnings, the work has grown and continues to develop today. Our history is one of ups and downs, celebrations and disappointments, but it is a constant story of a community of faith which has sought to serve God and the people of this great city for 197 years.

Over the past weeks, I have been looking at Aspects of Mission and to date we have focused on two themes –

The care of the Shepherd – a reminder of our pastoral and compassionate purpose.
The closeness of Jesus – a pointer to the devotional and spiritual centre of all our work.

Tonight I want us to consider the Dynamic Power of Love, translated into a purposeful energy which is the inspiration of all that we seek to do.
John 15:13 –
“Greater love has no-one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
These words can too easily become an epitaph, rather than a description of the whole purpose of our mission. Without doubt such words are significant on ANZAC Day and on other occasions when we remember those who have given their lives in the service of others, but the words also describe the kind of love that both inspires us and leads us in our mission.

Knowing that the end of his earthly ministry was nearing, Jesus instructs his disciples to ‘stay in his love’ and to demonstrate the same kind of love that they have met in God. Friendship becomes the reason for keeping God’s commandment to love others. We do this not merely as servants, but as friends. We are friends because Christ has revealed his heart to us (v.15). Our salvation comes as a gift from God; it is not a matter of our own efforts (v.16).

The power of love is greatly needed today. Some will know one of my favourite theological books is the Peanuts cartoons! In one of the cartoons, a little girl calls Charlie Brown on the telephone. “Marcie and I are about to leave for camp, Chuck,” she says. “We are going to be swimming instructors.” Marcie takes the phone and adds, “We just called to say goodbye, Charles. We are going to miss you. We love you.”

The perennial loser, Charlie Brown, stands by the phone with a grin on his face. One friend asks, “Who was that?” He answers, “I think it was the right number!”

When Jesus spoke about love, it was a pertinent truth for all time. It is the antidote to lovelessness:-

Lovelessness which is too often experienced in an impersonal city.
Lovelessness encountered through rejection and abuse … the breakdown of family life.
Lovelessness demonstrated by the inequality of opportunity and a denial of care.

One of the features that have run like a seamless thread throughout the history of Wesley Mission is the desire to serve people in need because of the love we have found in Jesus Christ.

This has been expressed in a range of different ways and still today such work spans multiple expressions of care, making ‘joined up thinking and practice’ an appropriate response in delivering services. True to our heritage at Wesley Mission, we continue to look for new ways in which we can care for those who are isolated, ignored and powerless.

The current economic crisis dominates the agendas of the world, but hurt, poverty and suffering have been our concern from day one. ‘The subprime mortgage crisis’ may have triggered an economic crisis, but has only made worse a situation that we were already well aware of … that the gap between ‘the haves and the have nots’ has by no means been bridged.

Tonight we remind ourselves of our mission to Sydney which, in turn, has grown in scope and influence way beyond this city. We focus upon the God-centered, God-patterned and God-inspired aspects of our Mission:-

God-centered love is our motivation - v. 9.

The question ‘Why do you do what you do?’ remains critical in any organisation and the answer for Wesley Mission is found in our relationship with God and each other.

John has been using the metaphor of the vine and now he leaves it to speak of the nature of love. ‘What kind of love is it?’ God’s love shown in Jesus didn’t hold back from suffering, abandonment or from dying a shameful death upon a cross. The love of God does not shelter us from pain, sorrow or death. Rather God shows his love by keeping us and giving us newness of life.

This lens of love is the way we look out on our world; it is the perspective that gives shape to how we respond to human need.

To fulfil God’s purpose, we must be motivated in a God-centered way as we:-

Live close to God … ‘remain in me’

If ever there was a time to live close to God then it is today. We could easily:

convince ourselves that we should separate ‘word’ and ‘deed’.
choose to become a secular welfare agency … and we could be very effective at that.
cast a new and sustainable secular pathway in a society which is increasingly hostile to faith groups.

But it would be a mistake, as well as a betrayal of our own unique part of Australian history. Our parents in the faith talked about not missing ‘our providential way’.

That does not suggest for a moment that we do not have to change, discover new approaches, find a language appropriate to our day, but it is a call to live close to God – to ‘remain in Christ’.

Love calls the disciples into life, holds them and sends them into the world to continue a mission of care, compassion and healing. It is only possible by living close to him.

Lead others in the Jesus way … ‘so have I loved you’

This leading people in the Jesus way is many-pronged:-

it clearly affirms our evangelical purpose, demonstrated in our congregations, Operation Hope, our website and in many other ways.
it significantly describes the pattern of leadership, which we seek to offer in the Spirit of God. I see it in the day-to-day work at Wesley Mission.
it subtly reminds us of the prevenient grace of God. This love is not vague, sloppy or sentimental, but a tough reality … not afraid to make difficult decisions and challenge the powerbrokers in society, who often damage the vulnerable.

Listen to the needs which still exist among us

Listening to the cries of the world is one of our greatest tasks, because only as we do so can we discover the words and works which are appropriate to offer in God’s name.

William Willimon wrote about the North American context, but they also apply here: “John Wesley said that there is no such thing as a solitary Christian. The faith must be shared in order to be kept. Christianity is a social religion. It becomes dwarfed and blighted when alone; it thrives in numbers. But true to our ruggedly individualistic self-centredness, we have tried to practice the Christian faith as if it were a home correspondence course in self-improvement. The great heresy in American popular religion is the notion that religion is a private affair, a secret contract between the believer and God.”

We have a bigger vision. We draw people into a living relationship with Jesus Christ and then introduce them to a shared responsibility for the world.

George Eastman, the talented inventor and founder of Eastman Kodak Company, often stated that he never set out to become rich. Nor was it specifically his intent to promote photography.

The real secret was the Eastman lost his father while he was still young. He was forced to watch his mother scrape financially to provide the bare essentials for George and his two sisters. He had vivid memories of his mother mopping floors and taking in washing from others. It followed George like a bad dream throughout his life. Consequently he vowed to make enough money so that his mother would never have to work again.

Actually he made millions, and revolutionised photography, but his real goal was a comfortable living for his mother. That’s what love does … love is the best objective.

We are not driven by an insatiable desire for more, or to the triumphalism which contends we are bigger and better than others. St Paul’s wrote, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine …” (Eph. 3:20)

God-patterned love is our mission – v.12

There is a danger that we see the enormous challenges before us and become grim and determined and lose our joyful purpose. G K Chesterton called joy (v.11) “the gigantic secret of the Christian”.

Spiritual writer, Evelyn Underhill, drew her readers back to priorities: “We mostly spend our lives conjugating three verbs: to want, to have, and to do – craving, clutching, and fussing – forgetting that being, not wanting, having, and doing, is the essence of the spiritual life.”

This God-patterned love is:-

Demonstrated in Jesus Christ

Jesus said we should “… love one another as I have loved you.” What a mandate!

So often we live for ourselves … a point made by one writer: “We’re still basically living for ourselves. Jesus is telling us through John’s Gospel to ‘just do it!’ Don’t wait around for a warm fuzzy feeling. Just do it! Love is more than an emotion. Love is what we do after we say yes to God. One might reason, I can’t do it! I can’t love that person or that group of people; I’m too weak! However, we find that when we attempt to ‘Just do it’ God gives us the strength to keep on doing it.”

Devotedly carried out by workers and volunteers

This wonderful vision of friendship which gives itself in sacrifice and care is not a distant dream, but one carried out day by day. I pay tribute to the high quality of care, deeply committed professionalism, great volunteering and vibrant congregations, which make us what we are today.
When the brilliant journalist, author and satirist, Malcolm Muggeridge, first encountered Mother Teresa in Calcutta among her ‘destitute and dying’, he could not explain the ‘luminous quality’ he saw in this little plain woman from Albania. In the end, it turned out to be more than a television assignment to Muggeridge; it became a turning point in his life. Compassionate service transforms others.

Decisive in the practicalities of mission

God-patterned love makes the difference between just doing a job, just being a congregation and just maintaining a tradition. Throughout our history, there are countless examples of service and witness, which go much further than just what is reasonable.
Such service flows from a community whose inspiration is in a Saviour who showed us that the cross is not the end but the beginning, that resurrection opens up the way to new life for all and that the Spirit of God has opened up a whole new way of seeing the practicalities of our mission.

A young person’s room-mate at university turned out to be a blind student, studying music. As she tried to assist her non-seeing room-mate by describing their surroundings, she came to realise that her room-mate could see, too. Her sight was not with her eyes, but with her fingers and other senses. She found, in fact, that her friend saw with greater sensitivity, alien to those with visual sight. This realisation caused her to gain greater insight in her own art studies. She began to see with greater depth and insight. This new way of seeing in turn helped her art career immeasurably. Love began to lift and bring a new appreciation of the visual world in which she lived.

God-inspired work is our message – v.17

Our mission to love is a command from God and a response to his love. How we do this becomes the very message that people hear. It is a dangerous thing to separate ‘thinking rightly’ from ‘doing rightly’. Truth and love are given not to be contemplated upon, but to be done. Life is an action, not a thought. That is why:

We serve God with clear goals, in his power

A story is told of a centipede, suffering from arthritis. It went to the wise old owl for advice. The owl thought for a long time and then replied: "‘Centipede, you have one hundred legs swollen with arthritis. My advice is that you change yourself into a stork. With only two legs you would cut your pain 98 per cent. Then by using your wings to stay off your legs you wouldn’t have any trouble at all.’ The centipede was delighted with the suggestion and asked the wise old owl how he could change into a stork. The owl quickly replied: ‘Oh, I wouldn’t know about the details. I offer only general policy.’”

We need to be a people who move beyond general policy and are unafraid of developing strategies which ultimately translate into new ways of doing things in God’s power.

We seek God with certainty of purpose

During the last few months, we have faced some great challenges and few areas of our work remain untouched. I am so proud of the response of the vast majority of our people who have risen to the moment. Many people have upheld our work before God.

George Stewart wrote: “No situation remains the same when prayer is made about it. There are influences of many kinds, good and evil, operating in every cause and in every soul, and each of these has power as an element in the battle between good and evil, but the decisive and essential factor in each case is the loving power of God called forth, or rather made way for, by the intercessions and prayers of Christian folk. For a time things may seem to go on much as before, but the decisive power has entered in, and even mountains must move. Prayer always creates a new situation.”

We stand with God to see what he wants to do with us next

I share with you one of my favourite stories about ‘sticking in’ which comes from Nottingham, a one-time centre of the clothing industry in the UK. I used it at Easter at our corporate breakfast to demonstrate how we have to stay in there when the going gets tough:

A notice appeared on the window of a coat store in Nottingham during a previous economic down-turn. It read:
“We have been established for over a hundred years and have been pleasing and displeasing customers ever since. We have made money and lost money, suffered the effects of coal nationalisation, coat rationing, government control and bad payers. We have been cussed and discussed, messed about, lied to, held up, robbed and swindled. The only reason we stay in business is to see what happens next.”

On an occasion like this, we are bound to look over our shoulders at our own history. I encourage you to look still further to the roots of a movement that began in the heart of an Anglican priest called John Wesley. If you trace the story of John and Charles from London to Georgia in the New World, as it was known, and back to England, something becomes absolutely clear: that their Christian conversion diverted from an intense absorption in the state of their own souls to an overwhelming passion to share good news with others and to spell out the gospel in deeds that made sense in their day.

That’s what made their message and mission eventually spread worldwide. If ever it was needed, it is needed today! It is still worth giving your life to … through the work of Wesley Mission.

Christian Life