Sermon: Easter 6 RCL A – “Rightly Ordered Love”

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A new priest came to town. On the first Sunday, he preached one of the best sermons folks had ever heard. Everyone was excited, believing things were looking up for their church. They all complimented him on his wonderful, inspiring words. The following Sunday, the new priest preached the exact same sermon, to the letter. Folks looked a bit bewildered, but since it was so good, they all thought it was worth hearing a second time, just not two Sundays in a row. However, since he was new, no one said anything other than that they enjoyed the sermon. The third Sunday, once again, the priest preached the exact same sermon. The Sr. Warden didn’t think they could take a fourth Sunday, so after everyone had exited the church, he had a word with the priest. “Father,” he said, “that’s a good sermon you preached.” “Thank you,” he replied. “However,” continued the Senior Warden, “you have preached the same sermon three times now. We’ve all heard it and were wondering when you were going to go on to a different subject.” “Sir,” he responded, “when you all start acting like you’ve heard it, I’ll preach something else.”

In the opening words of our Gospel lesson, Jesus said something curious: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Earlier, He said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18). What is curious is that we are also taught that we are no longer under the law or its commandments. St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, said, “While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive” (Romans 7:5-6a).

So, what’s it going to be, law or no law? The answer, of course, is both, and the reason this sermon may sound like a repeat of so many others I’ve given is that the only way the answer can be both is if the solution is love. Therefore, I can stop preaching on love if we all start acting as if we’ve heard it. The problem is, one quick glance around the world today tells me I’ve got to continue preaching on the topic. So, with that, how is the answer “both”? How can we be under the law and not under the law? Jesus provides the answer when He was questioned by a lawyer who asked Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” Jesus’ answer, I hope you all know by heart: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40).

We understand this to mean that behind the law lies a single guiding principle: love. Love is also the defining mark of a Christian. Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). You know this as well. Together, these point back to the first line of our Gospel, “If you love me, if you are My disciples, then you will keep this summary of the law, which is to love God and to love one another.”

Here endeth the sermon. Go and love God and your neighbor. Amen? You should be so lucky. It would be that easy if we actually knew what it means to love like this, to love as Jesus loves us. But our idea of love often comes from a cherub named Cupid and a greeting card company with estimated revenues of about $5 billion, neither of which teaches us to love as Jesus loves. Let’s see if we can begin to sort it out. We’ll start by looking at a law: #10 of the top ten—“Thou shall not covet.”

To covet has two sides. The first is a lack of gratitude. When we covet, we are not satisfied or thankful for what we have. There is a constant need for more and more. Second, to covet is to become jealous of another for what they have and to want it for ourselves. To covet a thing or person is to desire it, and—whether we would define it as such—the things we desire are the things we love. Yet this love is disordered, because in it there is no love of God or of neighbor. In that disordered love, we become angry, anxious, and restless. Our souls are in turmoil over a desire, a love that cannot be fulfilled. Therefore, St. Augustine was correct when he wrote, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God.”

To love instead of covet is to be thankful for the blessings and things God has provided us with, and to give thanks for the blessings others have. In your eyes, it may not seem fair that so-and-so has such-and-such, but that is not your concern. If they have sinned in order to gain what they have, that is between them and God. Don’t allow their sin to cause you to sin. If God, out of His goodness, has chosen to bless them, then be happy for them. You, you are to follow the commandment and love.

If that makes sense, then we understand that we don’t love as we should because our love is disordered. Our desire is elsewhere rather than on God, and this is sin in its most basic form. This disordered love has been with us since the very first day, when Adam and Eve desired a piece of forbidden fruit more than they loved God. It is also this disordered love that Jesus came to heal. The Lord said through the Prophet Ezekiel, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). The healing that Jesus brings to our souls fulfills this great work. In doing so, Jesus gives us freedom from the law, because we are no longer trying and failing to obey a set of statutes. Instead, we are living a transformed life. No longer will we say, “I can’t do ____ or I’ll go to hell.” Instead, we say, “I want, I desire to do or not do this, because I love God and I love my neighbor.” 

In John’s first epistle (John is the great preacher of love), he writes, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7). Preaching on this and the verses that followed, St. Augustine said some radical things: “Love, and do what you will: whether you hold your peace, through love hold your peace; whether you cry out, through love cry out; whether you correct, through love correct; whether you spare, through love do you spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good” (Homily 7.8 on the First Epistle of John). “Love, and do what you will.” That sounds very permissive. “I loves you, baby, and I can do whatever I want.” No. That is not what Augustine is saying. He is saying, “If—and that is a mighty big ‘if’—if my love is rightly ordered, if I truly love God, and if I truly love my neighbor as Jesus has loved me, then I am free from the law, because in my heart I will desire to do the right thing—I will fulfill both the law and the commandments of Jesus.” No longer will I have to do something. I’ll want to do it out of my love of God and neighbor.

I will have to preach a variation of this sermon time and time again. Why? Because we’ve been trying since day one to get it right, and only One, only Jesus, has succeeded. However, in Him and through Him, we are learning. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus has sent, we will continue to do so.

Are you loving as Jesus loves? No? If you work on only one thing in your life, work on that. By doing so, you can’t help but walk closer with God.

Let us pray: Grant, almighty God, that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy, which we keep in honor of the risen Lord, and that what we relive in remembrance we may always hold to in what we do. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.