Sunday Message: the meaning of, Love One Another

I see it a lot on Facebook.  Supposedly Christian people acting in anger, bigotry, hatred.  Stop by a Catholic blog post and mention Martin Luther in a kind light and you will find them.  I have friends who spend not a thought condemning those they decide are worthy to hell.  Over and over I watch Jesus' words to James and John in Luke 9:


55 But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. 56 For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.”


I'm not holding myself guiltless here.  But there are a lot of extreme cases, from the woman from Pennsylvania just sentenced to prison for beating her 13 year old daughter over not getting her memorized Bible verses right, to myself being called a heretic because I choose not to pull out a musty book of church fathers' sayings to determine what a Bible verse is getting at.  We are a land of ease and plenty, and all it seems to buy us is division.  John got what Jesus was getting at when He chastised him;  he explained it in 1 John 4:

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.


This was brought into focus for me in an article in the latest Decision magazine from the Billy Graham organization.  In it was an article from an Egyptian convert telling his story.  He had joined the Muslim Brotherhood because a friend of his and his friend's father joined.  Later, he met "a German atheist" who befriended him and convinced him to go to a Bible study "because Christian girls were able to socialize more freely."

But instead of picking up girls, he picked up on the love of the Christians.  "Their prayers were not like the memorized prayers I recited.  ...they believed God actually loved them and cared about the details of their lives."  He found a Bible (his brother had dated a Christian girl using the same method), and began to learn.  Most of all, he began to NOTICE.  He noticed Muslim "brothers" and how they treated others.  He watched as his friend's family, "once so successful and happy, became sullen and bitter." and then he looked at the Bible study group he was in and said to himself, "The young people of the Christian group were so much better than that.  If Christianity was so bad, why was it producing people who were so good?"


And this DOES still happen in our nation.  The great things loving Christians are doing, and sharing on social media, vastly overwhelm the sour grapes and bad apples, swinging their personal swords of vengeance everywhere.  But here's the thing-  IF you are a young non-Christian looking for an answer, where do you think Satan is going to point you?  Christians, beware what you comment on social media.  Do you really think calling all Muslims disgusting goat-lovers and hell bound is helping anyone?  Sure, it makes you feel better to fling your rage in every direction, but how do you think, "I expressed my own rage against the lost" is going to feel when your Judge asks before the throne, "And what did you do in My Name?"


The author of the article mentioned some facts that our secular, built-to-gain-ratings-and-foment-division media misses on a consistent basis:  "Many Muslims are open to hearing the Gospel right now.  The brutality of ISIS has shown Syria what Islam is all about.  Many of them now say, "I'm no longer Muslim."  When we talk with Iranians, they say Ayatollah Khomeini was the "best evangelist" in the history of Iran for turning so many young people off of Islam.  And the oppressive presidency of Morsi in 2012 and 2013 caused many Egyptians to renounce Islam."


There then is our challenge.  To love one another and draw others unto Christ.  But we are doing a darn fine job of blowing it.  I am currently reading a biography on the great Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph.  While negotiating with the less-than-honest US Government about possible relocation to a reservation, he asked if the reservation would give them a school.  When told yes, he said he didn't want it.  "Schools will bring churches, and churches missionaries."  And referring to the "division of labor" between the various denominations' missionaries, he added, " And missionaries will argue about God.  I would not have my people learn this."