Modern Worship

38:37 Let's pray together. Oh God, fill our lives with integrity, courage, and humility, that we might live with a fuller love for you and others. In Jesus' name, amen. If you want to know about love, just ask John. Either his gospel or his epistles will do just fine. In the gospel of John, the word love occurs more than in Matthew, Mark, and Luke combined. And in his epistles, first, second, and third John, the word love occurs in those epistles more than in any other epistle in the entire New Testament by far. John knows a lot about love. And you probably know that it's not just any kind of love that John wants us to know about. It's not just friendship love or romantic love or the fan base love or an obsession kind of love.

39:39 This is the highest and greatest kind of love there is. The Greek word is agape love, unconditional love. It is the love of God. And it's the very same kind of love with which we are to love one another. That's the kind of love that John really wants us to know about. You well know that this is not necessarily an easy kind of love. In fact, this is one of the most complicated and mysterious kinds of love there is. Because, in a way, this involves the ultimate paradox. On the one hand, how can God's love, which is so infinite and broad and expansive, fill us human beings who are so finite and broken and imperfect? That's a paradox.

40:35 But then it goes one step further. How can we human beings who are so finite and broken and imperfect possibly love with an agape kind of love so fully and broadly and expansively and unconditionally for other people? that is a hard kind of love, but that is exactly what John is asking us to do in today's scripture reading. Quote, since God loves us so much, so we ought to love one another. Which leads us to the pivotal question of the day. How expansive is your heart? is it on the one hand receptive enough to be filled fully with this expansive love of God in our hearts and at the same time is it inclusive enough to love one another fully this kind of love is hard to comprehend it is hard to live out and there are probably lots of times when we think to ourselves, we just don't know this kind of love at all.

41:48 1,400 years ago, the great Saint Benedict of Nursia wrote his famous rule of life. And in the introduction to the rule of life, he described the ultimate outcome, the ultimate result of the spiritual life, of following Jesus, as having what he called in Latin a dilatato corde. It's one of my favorite Latin phrases. Dilatato corde. Dilatato, D-I-L-A-T-A-T-O, means expansive. It means dilated. And then corde, C-O-R-D-E, means heart, like cardio. So St. Benedict said that the ultimate goal of following Jesus was to have a dilatato corde, an expansive heart. It means having a generous and broad and expansive heart that is both filled with the generous, broad and expansive love of God so that it can then be shared generously and broadly and expansively with other people.

42:55 That is the ultimate goal of the spiritual life. And it sounds like the great commandment, doesn't it? When Jesus said that the great commandment is to love God expansively with your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love your neighbor expansively, to love your neighbor as yourself. Listen to how St. Benedict introduces what we now call his famous rule of life. Quote, as we advance in the religious life and faith, we shall run the way of God's commandments with expanded hearts. There it is. And unspeakable sweetness of love. By the way, some 1100 years after St. Benedict of Nursia, there was a famous Anglican priest named John Wesley who himself was writing a lot about the spiritual life.

43:50 And when it came time for him to define the ultimate outcome of following Jesus, what he called being an altogether Christian, he chose to define the spiritual life as one in whom, quote, the love of God has been shed abroad in their hearts. It's very likely that John Wesley himself was influenced by Benedictine spirituality. Dilettato corde, or a heart shed abroad with love. So again, it begs the question for you and me this morning, how expansive is your heart and how inclusive is your love? Or if you really diagnose yourself this morning, I wonder if you would choose some other word other than expansive. Maybe you might do a little bit of a thought experiment this morning and say to yourself, well, my heart is not feeling so expansive today.

44:51 What word would you choose? Maybe it's restrictive. Maybe it's confined. Maybe it's narrow. Maybe it's guarded. What word would you choose? I wonder if some of you might choose a word like hurt. Your heart is hurt. Either from something you have done in your own private life or in some context of a relationship with someone else. Maybe you've been hurt by someone or you have hurt someone. Whatever it is, that hurt has compromised the carrying capacity of love in your heart. Or maybe you would choose words like divided or conflicted when you take a look at your relationships with someone else who's different from you, with whom you find yourself at odds.

45:48 maybe your heart is divided and conflicted. Or maybe you would use words like jaded, cynical, pessimistic, nihilistic. When you take a look at the conditions of the world and all of the bad news that so many of us are facing, whatever it may be, whatever word you might choose, you might find yourself with a heart that is anything but expansive, A heart whose capacity to love has been compromised, which means that you cannot fully fulfill the love of God and you cannot fully share the love of God with others. So how exactly do you suppose one gets a dilettato corde? How does one have an expansive heart?

46:45 Well, as human beings, there are primarily two ways for our capacity to love to grow. And I will say we love the first way. We don't love the second way. But it's the second way that is more common. The first way is through joy and pleasure and celebration and freedom. When good things happen to us, when we feel love, our heart can grow. but you and I well know the commonality of pain and hardship. And sometimes it is pain and difficulty that makes our hearts grow. I know I prefer the first way, but I know that in my life, and if you take a look at yours, it is that second way that has pushed you in ways that you were not expecting.

47:42 But it can be very powerful because I bet that if you take a look at the grand history of your life from when you were young until the age you are now, I bet you would discover that when you have endured seasons of pain and hardship and suffering, and when you have managed to navigate through those hard times, you and I have been able to increase our caring capacity for that pain. We've been able to make it through and our hearts have been enlarged with an ability to hold more pain than we could before. And what that means is that we now have an increased caring capacity, not just for the present pain, but to be able to handle future pain, to be able to navigate through future hardship, right? But here's the thing, that very same increased caring capacity for pain translates to an even greater and equal carrying capacity for love.

48:44 That's the paradox. That's how our hearts grow. Sometimes it is through joy and pleasure, but oftentimes it is by knowing how to manage pain. And by the way, that is not just true of our private personal lives. It is also true of our relationships. think about it this way. Isn't it interesting that the very people you love the most also are the very same people who have the potential of hurting you the most or that you can hurt the most. Both things are true. And it's not just people, by the way. Isn't it interesting that the same thing can also be said about causes and movements and organizations. Those very same institutions that you feel so passionate about and make you feel so alive are also the very same institutions and movements that can cause you the greatest disappointment and even hurt. And those institutions can include everything from a favorite sports team that gives you pleasure but also breaks your heart to other kinds of systems like workplaces or communities or even a church or a country.

50:12 What we love the most can also cause us the greatest frustration. It's complicated. Friends, I know these times are very hard for so many of us. but these times of struggle whether it's individually or relationally or socially they can have a way of stretching us pushing us and moving us toward greater depth and maturity in our life this is not to say by the way that God causes our suffering or that God allows suffering to happen to do us some good but it is to say that suffering can expand our hearts to be able to hold both greater pain for the future and to hold a greater love for the future. Think about it this way.

51:09 I bet that if you look at the grand scheme of your life, you can handle much more hardship now than you could when you were little. I mean, those things that you were facing when you were just a youngster, what you thought was just so hard and unable to carry, you not only manage those things, but you're able to handle so much more now than you could before. And in those moments in your past, when you thought your world was falling apart, you not only survived them, you're able to survive more than you thought you could at the time.

51:45 An expansive heart can come from greater love and it can come from greater pain. Sometimes both at the same time. It's a beautiful, complicated mystery. And yet, even still, sometimes we don't feel like we know love at all. Which brings us back to John. Here's what's really interesting about John, whether you're talking about the gospel or the epistles. These books that are so focused on love, whose underlying theme is about the agape, unconditional, expansive love of God, are also the very same books that were written in the context of great pain and conflict. The Gospel of John was written to a community that was undergoing the greatest hardship ever undergone in the history of the early church, the brutal persecution by the Roman Empire.

52:43 These are people who were being arrested and tortured and in many cases killed for their profession of faith in Jesus. Yet, John is the very same gospel who more than Matthew, Mark, and Luke combined talks about love. Reminding those early Christians that if you can expand your capacity for carrying pain, you can carry greater love. Look at the epistles. The epistles of John were written to a community that was bitterly divided and conflicted. threatened by forces that were ripping its unity apart. These were people who were having a hard time agreeing. And yet the epistles of first, second, and third, John emphasized love as the greatest way of all. So whether we're talking about his gospel or his epistles, John understands that sometimes the greatest pathway to love is by enduring hardship.

53:45 And that can help us in those times when we really don't feel like we know love at all. In 1959, author Saul Bellow published a Pulitzer Prize nominated book called Henderson and the Rain King. It's about a fictitious character named Eugene Henderson, who in his fifties was undergoing a bit of an identity crisis, trying to discover his mission, his purpose, his reason for being on earth. That quest for personal meaning led him to, of all places, Africa. And to get there, he hopped on a plane. And during that trans-oceanic flight, he realized that his was among the first generation to not only be able to fly, but to be able to see the tops of the clouds. He pondered that.

54:41 And so he wrote in his journal these words, We are the first generation to see the clouds from both sides. Well, 10 years later, after the publication of Henderson and the Rain King, that novel found its way into the hands of one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, Joni Mitchell. She was reading that novel, came to that part where Eugene Henderson talks about being able to see the clouds from both sides. And that opened up her wonder and curiosity about what it meant to see the clouds from both sides. She thought about how clouds are a bit of a paradox. How clouds can bring both joy and hardship. Clouds, on the one hand, are so evocative.

55:38 They can conjure up the playful side of us. Because of the clouds, we can creatively imagine shapes and beautiful things in the sky that invoke that kind of childlike wonder within us. But those very same clouds, those very same clouds have equal capacity for disruption, for causing hardship. Clouds can block the sun when we want to bask in the sun's warmth. Clouds can bring rain to ruin our picnics. Clouds can bring snow to challenge us in inclement weather. Those clouds that can bring great joy and imagination can also bring great disruption. Both things are true about clouds. And in that moment, she thought this.

56:32 Sometimes she thought, I don't know clouds at all. and you may know where I'm going with this. That reflection on the plane inspired Joni Mitchell to write one of the greatest songs ever written called Both Sides Now. It begins with a stanza about what clouds are like. This is what she wrote. Rows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air and feather canyons everywhere. I looked at clouds that way. but then she sings about the other quality of clouds. Quote, now they only block the sun. They rain and snow on everyone. So many things I would have done, but clouds got in my way. I really don't know clouds at all.

57:27 If you ever heard the song, you know that the whole song is not just about clouds because then she carries the metaphor forward to talk about life, talk about how life often evokes creativity and play and wonder and freedom and joy, but also life can bring hardship and pain and suffering. And then she also talks the very same way about love. Love. How love can bring us such joy and exhilaration and freedom, but love can also be so complicated and so mysterious and bring such hurt. to the point where she says this line in the song, I really don't know love at all. Which brings us one last time to John and John's gospel.

58:24 Because John is all about love and his gospel is the only gospel to give us this famous, fascinating, complicated, image of love. It takes place in the gospel of John chapter three, and it's a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in the middle of the night. And Jesus tells Nicodemus this very strange story from the Old Testament. He says, hey, Nicodemus, do you remember that story of Moses and the Israelites wandering in the wilderness? And Nicodemus, do you remember that time when the Israelites were bitten by venomous snakes and many of them were killed and how they were suffering in pain because of all of this hardship. Do you remember, Nicodemus, what God had Moses do? Such a strange thing that God had Moses do, right, Nicodemus? He had Moses take one of those venomous snakes and stick it on a pole and raise that snake high into the sky. You remember that?

59:38 Well, in a way, friends, we can imagine what that symbol of the snake on a pole might mean from both sides now. Because from the perspective of those Israelites, they looked up at that snake on a pole and brought all of their pain and their suffering and their hardship. And God was able to see that snake on that pole from above and see redemption and healing and love. Both things were true about that symbol. In the midst of their pain and their suffering, that's when their capacity for the Israelites to know God's love expanded.

1:00:27 And Jesus told that story to Nicodemus to set up what is the greatest, most famous verse, not just in the gospel of John, but arguably in the entire Bible. Because by the way, Jesus told Nicodemus that story in John chapter three, verses 14 and 15. And I bet you know what he then says in the 16th verse of John's third chapter. You could probably say it with me. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him would not perish but have everlasting life.

1:01:13 The cross. The cross raised high in a way that from below, we can bring our sin and our hardship and our finiteness and our brokenness and whatever word you would use to currently describe the state of your heart, you can bring that to the cross knowing that from above, God is showing us agape love, expansive love, full love. friends your life does not have to be sinless in order for God to love you fully and your life doesn't have to be perfect in order for you to love others with the perfect love of God and what that means is that in any given moment good or bad joyous or arduous you can know God's love fully for you and you can love one another because God can expand your heart and through the cross, we can know love after all.

1:02:26 You can grow to sense God's love for you when you don't feel lovable. You can love other people who are the hardest people for you to love. You can be resilient and courageous when times are scary and when the world seems like it's falling apart and you can be part of offering the world and this country more love, even at a time when it wants nothing to do with this kind of love. God can expand your heart and expand your life, both the good times and the bad times, the triumphs and the tragedies. And you can see God's love from both sides now. And you can come to know agape love after all. And that's why this kindness campaign matters. This kindness campaign that is kicking off today is so much more than just a timely counter message against a polarized political climate.

1:03:20 Although that's important. It is also so that you can undertake what is the most important and greatest project you will ever undergo as a human being for you to have a more expansive heart, for you to more fully receive the love of God and to more fully share it by loving one another. And by the way, that's why these journals are so important. These journals that are available to you will not only give you practical ways for you to demonstrate God's love for one another and give you ways to track what you are doing for others, but it can be a repository for your greatest joys and struggles, triumphs and tragedies as you push yourself to grow greater in the love of God, which by the way, does not entirely rely on you. God is at work in your life to expand your heart.

1:04:17 And as you chronicle this journey through these journals, you can sense your heart slowly growing and growing into a fuller kind of love. And by the way, that's why those yard signs are so important. Many of you by now have picked up yard signs that say love one another and you have proudly displayed them on your lawns and in your workplaces. And that's not just to be a witness, by the way, to those who happen to drive by and see those signs, although that's really important. And it's not just to be a counter witness to all of those political yard signs that are all over the area, although that's really important too. This campaign is important and those yard signs are important because regardless of how many other people see those signs, there is at least one person who's gonna see that sign at least many times a day.

1:05:13 You'll see it. You'll see your sign. And every time you do, it will remind you of the one thing that Jesus commands you to do. First and foremost, above all else, to love. To love God and love others. and even when you don't fully feel the love of God for yourself or you don't feel like loving others, those moments will be invitations for you to see the suffering and the hardship of your life as opportunities for God to expand your heart, to increase your caring capacity for both love and pain, to see love from both sides now, to have a dilettato corde, an expanded heart, the love of God fully shed abroad within you so that you, frankly, can ultimately become the sign high and lifted up for people to see through you and in you the expansive love of God.

1:06:23 Let's pray together. God thank you for your love it is undeserved it is unconditional it is free and it is hard to understand and we confess to you those parts of our hearts that are limiting our capacity to experience your full love for us free us expand us help us to endure the suffering of the moment so that we can first and foremost know your love given to us through Jesus on the cross and then take that love into the world to love one another with an expansive heart, a dilatato corde. Bless all of us during this campaign. Bless the journals, bless the yard signs, but most of all, bless the inner work that you are faithfully doing in us so that others might experience your love through us.

1:07:24 We pray all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.