Easter 3B
1 John 3.1-7
April 26, 2009
In our basement is a box about so big. (hands) The box itself is nothing special but it contains a treasure that I am not likely to ever part with. You see, in August of 1979, when I was the ripe old age of 17, I waved goodbye to my parents and younger siblings and got on a plane for college an entire continent away.
There would be no phone contact—this was way before cell phones and in the college dorm I lived there was only one phone out in the hall for about 30 girls to share. It wouldn’t have mattered because my parents didn’t have a phone in their house in Spain. No, for four years our correspondence was all via letter, snail mail.
For four years the routine never varied. I got on a plane in August and returned in May. The communications we shared were all letters and every single one; every letter, card and picture sent over those years is saved in that box in my basement.
In her letters, my little sister kept me apprised of the five most recent annoying things done by our brother. My brother’s correspondence, what little of it there was, generally began with the phrase, “Mom is making me write this.” Our mother was very efficient at keeping me up to date on the happenings around Post. But my Dad’s letters were beautiful. As far as I was concerned, they were literary masterpieces. Dad is very bright and articulate, so to a degree, they really were. But they were also so encouraging, enlightening, reflective. When I thought I was in love as a college freshman, he wrote a lengthy dissertation on the difference between love and indigestion. Turns out I had indigestion that time.
One letter in particular was written during a faith crisis. At the small conservative Christian college I was attending, I was one of two Lutheran students. It was incredible how many other students made us their conversion project. It seemed like the whole campus was praying for us to become “real” Christians. As you can imagine, a few months of this and you begin to wonder, to doubt, to question. I wrote my frustrations and concerns to my parents. Was I really Christian? Was Christ a real relationship in my life? Why couldn’t I describe a tangible conversion experience like the other students?
Dad wrote back, “Stick to what you know.” Of course, there was more to it than that, but the bottom line of his letter was, “stick with what you know.” You know God loves you. You know the relationship you have with Christ. You are secure in your baptism and your salvation. Stick with what you know is a sure thing.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? I didn’t realize it 30 years ago, but my Dad sounds remarkably like the author of First John.
I’m so thankful I still have those letters. Yes, we live in the age of email and it is so much more efficient and immediate. But I miss getting letters—something to hang onto, to savor, to remind us of the realities of life, years after those realities have become a distant memory.
When I was being pelted from all sides with questions and competing tidbits of information: You can only be a Christian if you do this. You can only be a real Christian if you don’t do that. You’ll know you’re a Christian if you’ve had this or that experience. When I was hearing those things relentlessly, I needed to hang onto that letter from my father reminding me of my baptism.
John’s community was experiencing the same sort of attack by false teachers. Their arguments were seductive and enticing. “You can know God without knowing Christ,” they said. Jesus was merely a wise teacher,” some whispered. While others were whispering in the other ear, “Jesus is only concerned with heavenly matters, earthly, physical life is of no concern to him.” “You can do what you want,” they professed. “It won’t matter to God,” they explained. And the community was starting to fall for these arguments.
They were starting to truly thing that they could do anything they pleased, God wouldn’t care. They started to think that Jesus was not an important part of their faith. Following Jesus was not important. Sacrifice and humility were not important. Jesus wasn’t really God incarnate so he wasn’t to be taken seriously. And that thinking is destructive to the community, to the church, to the heart.
John, responding out of love for God’s people, wrote a beautiful homily reminding them of their place in the world. It all started with, “Stick with what you know.” He begins by reminding us what we’ve known from the beginning—the Father has been revealed to us through the Son. We have our fellowship with the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ, who is our Lord and Savior. IT is Jesus who is the atoning sacrifice for our sin, it is he who cleanses us from all unrighteousness. We live in him when we obey his commands—loving God with our whole heart and mind and loving our neighbor. Our love of God is nothing if it is not lived out by loving our neighbor.
My friends, John admonishes, do you not remember that you are children of God. The world doesn’t recognize us as such, but we are indeed children of God from now until all of eternity. We don’t know what will be in the future, but we know this: that we are God’s own people right now, right here. And our task in life is to be like Christ, for it is through Christ that God will be revealed to us.
We still need these words of John. We still need this encouragement. For the world is constantly attacking us with false messages. And while we don’t like to admit it, we are vulnerable to such messages. They are so easy to hear, to ready to comprehend. None of us live in a vacuum, we so easily fall prey to the false teachers of our society.
Just pick up any issue of any magazine and read the ads.
Amazing aren’t they. The images they project draw us into thinking that we’re in charge; we’re the center of the universe; it’s all about ME, ME, ME.
From the moment our clock radio goes off until we turn off the eleven o’clock news at night, we are told it is all about us and our choices and our decisions and our power. There are no messages about community. There are no messages about humility. There are no messages about sacrifice. There is nothing in here about accountability. According to what we read, we have no need for God.
John tells us differently. God became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth because we desperately needed a savior; a living, crucified, resurrected savior. Because we are children. We are children in need of a word of love and encouragement from the Father. We are beloved children of God, just children. But then, at some level, we already knew that.
I keep those letters from my Dad to remind me that I am indeed loved and cherished and have always been cared for. This one in particular reminds me to cling to what I already know; what I learned first at the feet of the one who gave himself for my sake.
Child of God, stick with what you already know. Amen
Copyright © The Rev. Aileen Robbins. All rights reserved; use requires permission
Web design and development by our friends at BH PC Technical Services