Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Shouldn’t It Be Simple

April 28, 2024

Acts 8:26-40
1 John 4:7-21

Shouldn’t it be simple?

In this sermon we call the First Letter of John – at least, we think it’s a sermon, because it doesn’t open or close like a first century letter – in this sermon we call the First Letter of John, the preacher really only urges two things: Believe in Jesus. Love like Jesus.

That’s it.

Believe in Jesus. Love like Jesus.

Isn’t that simple?

John took a few more words to say that, of course. According to bible.allanhortle.com, there are 2,511 words in First John – that’s a little less than double the word count of one of my sermons, if you’re curious. The most frequently used word, with 61 appearances, is “God.” John used “love” 35 times, more often than “Jesus.”

Believe in Jesus. Love like Jesus.

Why take so much effort, why use so many words to say something I just put into six words? Shouldn’t it be simple? Why, with a title like “Shouldn’t It Be Simple,” am I going to use about 1300 more words to say the same thing?

Believe in Jesus. Love like Jesus.

Because John knew, and I know, and you know, that what’s simple is not always easy.

Janette H. Ok writes at Working Preacher, “Love is not God, but God is love, meaning that believers are to understand love on God’s terms and according to God’s character. The author intertwines theology and ethics in such a way that he describes Christian confession as inextricable from Christian conduct. Those who know God show God through their love for others.”

Christian confession is inextricable from Christian conduct.

I should point out here that when John spoke of love, he did not speak of feelings. The love he wrote about is the love that takes care of someone else regardless of how you feel about them. John – and God – know that human beings don’t fully control how they feel. We have a lot more ability to control what we do.

Love comes first from God – John was clear about that. “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us…” God’s love is one of the easiest things to experience in the world. You don’t even have to live here on Hawai’i Island to appreciate the extravagant beauty of Creation. We are surrounded by delights for the senses: colors to see, perfumes to smell, surfaces to touch, songs to hear, foods to taste. Rainbows stretch across the sky in stunning contrast to deep grays of clouds. One moment we breathe in the stunning scent of tuberose, the next the aroma of sea spray. Our fingers delight both in the smooth surfaces of polished stone and in the soft fur of a pet cat. The rumble of ocean waves sets the beat for birdsong. Our mouths delight as much in the savory flavors of meats and vegetables as in the sweet tanginess of fruit and chocolate.

God could have created a dim and austere world. God didn’t. Extravagant beauty is a clear sign of God’s extravagant love.

Believe in Jesus. Love like Jesus.

John wrote, “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.” God wasn’t content to leave us to enjoy Creation – or to ignore it, as too many do to their loss. God sent Jesus as an expression of love, a love so deep that it went beyond rejection, beyond death. This is a love that goes beyond deserving or worth. This is a love that simply says, “I love you now and always.”

This is a love that is brighter than a rainbow.

And it’s simple. God is love. God so loved us.

Believe in Jesus. Love like Jesus.

Judith Jones writes at Working Preacher, “In case we haven’t understood the seriousness of this command, 1 John expresses it in a way that leaves no room for doubt: ‘just as God is, so are we in this world’ (1 John 4:17 b). In context, it’s clear that 1 John is not saying that Christians are omnipotent or omniscient or morally pure. No, 1 John is saying that because God lives in us, we embody God’s love for the world. We are not gods, but we are God’s. God’s love is incarnate in us.”

On a similar line of thought, David Bartlett writes at Working Preacher, “It is not ‘we ought to love because he first loved us’ as if God’s love were the ground for a new imperative. It is ‘we can love because he first loved us.’ God’s love is the ground for a new possibility.”

God’s love, incarnate in us, makes for new possibilities of love among us, from us, around us.

Believe in Jesus. Love like Jesus.

John was not naïve. The occasion for this sermon – which may have been written elsewhere to be read to a distant congregation – seems to have been a split in the congregation that first heard this text. As I mentioned the other week, John had some harsh things to say about those who left, calling them “children of the devil,” which gives you a pretty good idea of how deep the conflict and the divisions went. With hurt, recriminations, and anger still reverberating, John urged a return to the standard of love.

Given that he struggled with it himself – I just can’t forget those words “children of the devil” – I suspect it was a long process within that church, within its leadership, within the author himself. I also suspect that later Christians failed to keep the standard, and had to repeat the process over and over again.

Why do I suspect this? Because I know something about history, and about the history of the Church. Christianity has not made human beings immune from the temptations of power, self-righteousness, and selfishness. If we were immune from temptation, there would be only one Church. We might have different congregations worshiping in different styles because different people approach God best in different ways, but we would be one Church, and nobody would be concerned about it. We would also be living at peace with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and adherents of hundreds of different faiths, because darn it, war contradicts love as thoroughly as may be.

Brian Peterson writes at Working Preacher, “Much of the anger that erupts within the church under the banner of loving God and defending God’s truth often seems to grow instead from love of self and of the power that comes from winning the argument, even at the expense of the church’s unity in love.”

Believe in Jesus. Love like Jesus. Simple, but not easy.

John wrote that perfect love casts out fear, and that conversely, fear is the barrier to love. Well, it’s a barrier to love. Personally, I think greed is more serious obstacle. But David Bartlett tells this story about love and fear, and it may even have something to say about selfishness:

“A small child received a jack-in-the box for Christmas and, to the parents’ surprise, was not delighted by the puppet’s popping out but terrified. Not entirely daunted though, the child turned the handle once again until the puppet jumped out again. This time the child kissed the puppet he had feared.

The child was far from fearless. But by loving, he sought to put fear in its proper place.”

By loving, the child transformed the object of fright into an object of affection. By loving, you and I can transform the person we fear into the person we appreciate. When loving, we have to reach beyond our sense of safety. When loving, we use our courage. When loving, we have to give of ourselves. When loving, we set selfishness aside.

It’s so much simpler than hiding our hearts away. It’s so much simpler than hiding our resources away. It’s so much simpler than hiding our deep commitments away. It’s so much simpler than hiding our faith away.

Believe in Jesus. Love like Jesus.

Shouldn’t it be simple?

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric does make changes to his prepared text as he delivers the sermon. Sometimes he adds things, sometimes he leaves things out.

Photo by Eric Anderson

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: God is Love

Transcript 4/23/2024

God is love, said John, and that means Jesus’ followers should love. Would that it were so.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the fourth chapter of First John (1 John 4:7-21). If you’re familiar with this particular book of the Bible, this is also probably the section that you have been waiting for.

This is the place in the Scriptures where it says that God is love. Jesus didn’t say it. Moses didn’t say it. None of the prophets wrote it. The apostle Paul didn’t write it. Here it is in the First Letter of John.

John wrote that God is love to say that God loved us first, and because God loved us we also ought to love one another.

Loving one another is one of the two great themes in First John, the other being the importance of faith in Jesus. Jesus himself did have something to say about loving one another: He told his disciples to do precisely that. “That is how people will know you are my disciples,” he said, “if you love one another.”

How I wish that that were true in our present day.

All too often, however, people identify Christians not by their love, but by their hate, by their self-righteousness, by their judgment. All too often Christians are identified by what would make Jesus weep.

If you can do anything in this life to help at least one person realize that Christianity’s commitments are to love and compassion and care, then you will have done a great thing, partially because yes, it would be good for people to know that these are the Christian commitments — to love one another, to love the world — but also, of course, because you will have followed Jesus’ commandment. You will have loved someone else as Jesus loved you.

God loved us first. Let us love one another.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below; I’d love to hear from you.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Shepherd’s Cornerstone

April 21, 2024

Acts 4:5-12
1 John 3:16-24

I’m afraid that “Shepherd’s Cornerstone” is a phrase that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Cornerstones are architectural features of buildings, buildings with foundations. Shepherds in the first century didn’t live in buildings with foundations, at least not very often.

Yet the two ideas come together, at least in my mind, in this passage from Acts. Ancient Israel routinely used “shepherd” as a metaphor for the responsibilities of civil and religious leadership. Look through the psalms and you’ll find, over and over again, “shepherd” used to explain the role of a monarch. In the 23rd Psalm, which we prayed through adapted words this morning, the writer described God’s sovereignty in the world as being like a shepherd.

In Acts 4, the senior shepherds of the Jerusalem Temple gathered together. Rulers, elders, scribes, and notably Luke named members of the high-priestly family: Annas, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander. They had gathered to consider the fate of Simon Peter and John the son of Zebedee.

Simon Peter introduced the other word in my odd phrase: “cornerstone.” It wasn’t original to him. Jesus spoke about the stone the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone while arguing with the scribes and the chief priests in the Temple during the last few days before his arrest and crucifixion. It got them angry, because he’d clearly accused them of hindering God’s plans. I have no doubt that some of them were in the room again to hear Simon Peter repeat it. I don’t think it made them any happier to hear it a second time.

Matt Skinner writes at Working Preacher, “These are not rank-and-file Jews who oppose, detain, and question Peter and John. They are the leaders of the temple and the Jewish nobles whom Rome entrusted with ruling and ensuring the peace in Judea. With the high priest atop the pyramid, they are the tiny percentage of the Judean population that possessed an enormous amount of power.”

Let me step back just a moment to explain why Peter and John were in this predicament. It had been at least two months, possibly more, since Jesus’ death and resurrection. The day of Pentecost had come along with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and that had led Simon Peter to speak in public for the first time. After that, however, the group of Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem stayed relatively quiet. They worshiped in the Temple. They shared meals with one another. They welcome new people into the church. Nobody in authority seemed to notice.

Then Peter and John went to the Temple to worship, and met a beggar who could not walk, being carried to a place where he could beg for his sustenance. Simon Peter told him, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And he did, praising God. People asked Peter to explain it, and he spoke of Jesus’ resurrection and his power to heal.

That’s what got them arrested.

I guess it was okay that they did a good thing for somebody, but they did it in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong theology. Do better next time.

D. Mark Davis writes in his blog, LeftBehindAndLovingIt, “This whole inquiry is rooted in the assumption that the ruling judges are looking down at powerless idiots. The irony is that the powerless idiots have something that the ruling judges don’t: The name of Jesus, whom these judges had rejected, but who has now returned with power. And the undeniable evidence against the judges is simply a man, who was once lame and is now walking.”

In other words, the leadership here has reverted to that most basic of assertions of power: “Because I said so.”

Mitzi J. Smith writes at Working Preacher, “Religious folks who have confused the power of position with the power of God are more likely to reject the power of God operating in others who lack similar position and rank (cf. 4:13), despite how God might use them. We should maintain some humility considering our fallibility, mortality or human condition no matter how high we might climb in institutions. Only God is infallible, inscrutable, and absolutely God.”

The cornerstone of our faith is one that’s often been rejected because it doesn’t look like it will hold the weight. We proclaim as Savior one who wouldn’t save himself. We proclaim as Judge one who endured unjust judgement. We proclaim as all-Powerful one who would not claim that power. Would you build a building on that? Would you build a program on that? Would you build a faith on that?

God would.

That’s the sticky part. God would. And has. And does.

Our cornerstone is a shepherd’s cornerstone, one based upon the role of caring, nurturing, and protecting. Caring, nurturing, and protecting not just human beings, but sheep, who are pretty annoying creatures who don’t have the sense that God gave a… well, something less sensible than a sheep.

While I grant you that human beings are much cleverer than sheep, our talent for getting ourselves into nonsensical situations outdoes anything any sheep has ever done. How do arguments escalate to fights? By the participants adding more energy to the argument as it goes back and forth. By the participants refusing to be the one who will back away. By the participants always being the one who is “right,” rather than the one who is loving.

You’d think that in larger groups we’d do better, but we don’t. So many wars start with provocations going back and forth until provocation has become full scale conflict. National pride is no more rational than individual pride. Given the number of people it kills, I’d have to call it less rational and more evil.

When you know where the provocations lead, why do them? Why?

Why do them when the Good Shepherd told us to love one another?

“Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action,” wrote a later apostle, one we know as John but almost certainly not John the son of Zebedee who stood accused with Simon Peter that day. Nevertheless, they did precisely what that writer advised decades later when they extended love, offering healing in Jesus’ name to one who rejoiced in it. They extended love when they spoke to the people prepared to judge and condemn them that God had taken something rejected and made it important. They extended love when they simply said, a few sentences later, “we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).

Our cornerstone, frequently rejected, is the Shepherd’s cornerstone, the cornerstone of love, compassion, generosity, and courage. Our cornerstone, frequently rejected, looks weak to the world but strong to God. Our cornerstone, frequently rejected, is the Shepherd’s cornerstone, upon which we can build a beloved community.

Our cornerstone, frequently rejected, is Jesus, the Good Shepherd, the cornerstone, the Christ of God, the one who loved and commands us to love.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric sometimes omits things while preaching, and sometimes he adds things. Today he added more than he omitted.

Photo of a Karasu-no-tsubo rock (a foundation stone) by MirokunomichiProject – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=117934949.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Love and Pride

I’m thinking about plenty of Scripture during Holy Week, but is there any text more important than Jesus” command to love one another?

Here’s a transcript:

It’s Holy Week, so I’m thinking about a lot of Scripture. For Easter, I’m thinking about the twentieth chapter of John (John 20:1-18); for Good Friday, I’m thinking about the texts that we call “The Seven Last Words of Jesus;” and for Maundy Thursday, I’m thinking about the thirteenth chapter of John (John 13:1-17, 31b-35).

That particular reading comes in two parts. The first part concerns Jesus washing his disciples’ feet before they actually began the meal of the Last Supper. Washing feet was not an unusual thing to do in the first century, but it was unusual for a teacher, a leader, to wash the feet of his students and followers. Simon Peter thought it was so wrong that he protested and declared that Jesus would never wash his feet. Jesus insisted, and Simon Peter gave in.

Jesus then told his disciples to remember that he, their teacher, had done this humble and powerful thing for them.

Later he gave them a new commandment: To love one another. “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” He said those words after washing their feet.

In human relationships, it is easy to stand upon dignity and upon some sense of self-worth which is not self-worth, it’s just simply pride. Self-worth is a good thing. The awareness that we are valued by God, that we are valuable living beings: this is a good thing. But to believe that our self-worth disconnects us from the grime of the world, that it somehow or other separates us from cleaning up around the world, that it keeps us somehow secure from taking care of one another: that’s no longer self-worth. That’s hubris. That’s pride.

On that night, Jesus told his followers to lay aside their pride, to maintain their self-worth but to lay aside their pride. Once that is out of the way, then it is indeed possible for human beings to love one another, to meet one another’s needs, to value one another’s souls, to stand with and walk with and move with and support with one another in the course of our lives through the world.

“A new commandment I give you: that you should love one another. As I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.