January 13, 2008
Rev. Kip Gilts

 "Simplify:  Love Others"
II John 4-6

          We were to be gone for nine days.  The temperature was in the forties on day one and again on day nine.  It would get up to 93 degrees in the middle of the week in the middle of Mexico and we were instructed to bring one backpack filled with all of our clothes, toiletries, Bible, journal, pen, bug spray, and sunscreen.  I considered the proposal preposterous.  I asked Katie Shannon, our college coordinator of this trip, “Why?” She said it would teach us that we could live more simply. 

I did the best that I could.  Here is my backpack – one medium sized, hard-sided Samsonite suitcase. I was certain that there would be one or two more rebels when we gathered in the church parking lot on January 3^rd for our departure for Tamazunchale, Mexico.  When we began loading the trailer, I noticed 23 backpacks and one medium sized, hard-sided Samsonite suitcase.

Later that day I was asked if we were in the midst of a sermon series for the first of the year.  I said, “Yes, a two-part sermon series entitled, Simplify.”  I hoped that the questioner would not catch the contradiction.

I fear that this happens to us more than once in life.  We have become so attached to so much that a backpack seems preposterous.  However, when Jesus was asked what was necessary for eternal life, he pulled out a backpack with only two items, “Love God wholly and Love your neighbor as yourself.”  That’s all you really need – simplify.

Laurinda had the opportunity to address the first of this two-part imperative.  I am blessed with the opportunity to speak to the second part: Love others.   John the Elder authored three short letters, which are placed toward the end of the New Testament.  In fact, the shortest book of the Bible is 2 John.  That is because his message was quite simple: Love God and Love Others.  Listen to just three verses found right after the salutation in this short letter.  These words are found in 2 John:4-6.  Hear now the Word of the Lord:

The Word of God for the people of God.  Thanks be to God.  In this passage John emphasized to his audience the primacy of love for each other.  Let us pray.

          So here is the point:  You don’t need one medium sized, hard-sided Samsonite suitcase for life, only a backpack filled with two divine expectations: Love God and Love Others.  Simplify.  Let me warn you, in case there is one person that doesn’t already know, the second part of this imperative is considerably harder than the first.  After all, God is good and others are… well…human.  The simplest and most difficult thing you’ll ever be asked to do is to love each other.  Listen to that - The simplest and most difficult thing you’ll ever be asked to do is to love each other. 

          I have been reminded in this last week and a half of two things about love: love talks and love walks.


Love Talks to Each Other

          John told his friends in verse 12 that his preference was to come and see them, but for the time he would need to be content to write to them.  That distance, however, did not keep him from hearing about their witness.  He said that he was overjoyed to hear about what some of them were doing.  Their love was being spoken about throughout the world.  Love talks and you simply cannot keep it quiet.

The group that went to Tamazunchale saw this happen every day, whether in Mexico or Texas.  Last Wednesday we went to a mountain village called Tenextitla.  We went to the community center, which was an open-air pavilion.  When we arrived about forty people were there to meet us.  Within an hour of our arrival, 300 - 400 people crowded together to hear music from the Tamazunchale Praise Team, watch a drama from our college students, do Vacation Bible Study crafts, receive seeds, clothes, toys, eyeglasses, and visit a doctor.  The message was clear – God loved them and so did their neighbors.  The day was a partnership of love as village pastors and parishioners had prepared a lavish feast of cornbread, chicken, chile, and beans all wrapped in banana leaves baked over an open fire.  Later, I had the chance to color pictures with a few of the over 200 children who had walked from miles away to be part of this day and receive some much needed supplies.  On the top of each picture, I asked the child to write his or her name and then I wrote my name with the letter ‘y’ between our names.  Many of you know the letter ‘y’ is the word ‘and’ in Spanish.  We had partnered together on the picture, sharing for those moments the love of Christ.  Thank you Anatalia, Guinitina, and Luis. Your love is speaking to everyone here today.  I hope my love is being translated into Spanish as well.  I’ll bet it is, because that’s how love works – it talks to each other.

Love is translated from one language to another, from one culture to another, from one experience to another.  Haven’t you ever experienced an act of God’s love from someone and been quick to tell someone else about it?  Isn’t it great to know that the same thing happens when you express God’s love to someone?  It’s nice when someone says something nice about you, but it is divine when someone says, “So that’s what God’s love looks like.”

The simplest and most difficult thing you’ll ever be asked to do is to love each other.  But when you do it, love talks.

Love Walks with Each Other

In John’s first letter he told his readers that they were lying if they said they loved God and did not love each other.  It is theologically impossible.  Love is not a two question quiz that you can score a 50 on if you answer one question right and the other wrong.  It is one question with two parts.  If you miss one part, you miss the entire question.  The question is, “Do you love God and do you love others?”  There is no or in the question. 

Love walks with each other in truth.  John said in verse 4 that they were walking in the truth, which is critical.  They needed to be headed in the right direction for the walk to be beneficial.  But just what does it mean to walk in the truth?

          Again our experience in Mexico helped to reveal this to me.  Worship in Tamazunchale was a foreign experience and the language differences were only the beginning.  We did not know most of the songs.  The worship services last about three hours, were held outside under a tent, with gravel and lots of mosquitoes at our feet.  I don’t remember the last time when applying “Off” was a pre-service ritual.  During the Tuesday night worship service, David, the lead singer for the Praise Band shared his faith story of how his spiritual vision had been blurred and the voice of God had been silent in his life for some time.  He prayed to see more clearly and to hear the still small voice of God speaking to him.  As tears began to stream down his face, it was obvious that God was answering his prayer.  I prayed with him that God would do just that.  “Give him a clear vision and let him hear your voice speaking to his soul,” I prayed.  Yet, I felt so inadequate.  David could not even understand the words of my prayer. 

          Then the same voice that seemed to be speaking to David, spoke to me, “Do you love Jesus?” the voice simply asked.

          “Oh yes”, was my response.

          “Then you are walking in the truth as are all of these around you who can answer that one question affirmatively, ‘Do you love Jesus?’”

          Do you love Jesus?  Because if you do, you will do as He did.  You will walk in the truth.  You will love others: rich and poor, insiders and outsiders, Mexicans and Americans, black and white, us and them.  Love walks with everyone truthfully.

          Love walks with each other together.  John was quite clear about this.  It was not a new commandment, but it was a commandment, a divine expectation.  It has never been an option.  Love one another.  God expects it.  That means if we love one others we will walk together, which is different than sharing the same stretch of road.

I am sure that you realize by now that after spending nine days with twenty incredible college students and three extraordinary adults in Jesse and Becky Parr and Linda Marr, I have enough living examples of God’s love to fill a year’s worth of sermons on this subject.  However, none of them demonstrated Christ’s love and desire for unity more than what I witnessed Saturday night around midnight.

About ten of our college students had put together a skit that was to be presented in the town square of Tamazunchale on Sunday night.  They worked on the concept and choreography for several days.  They had rehearsed it most of Saturday afternoon.  It was an excellent skit about God’s love for us, the distractions and temptations that can lead us away from God, and the determination of God to win us back.  I saw the second dress rehearsal and was moved to tears by its power. 

At last it was time for the final review.  The students called for our host pastor to offer her feedback.  It was a little before midnight and she watched in silence.  When they finished all eyes were focused on Mary Saldivar.  Finally she spoke. 

“That’s it?  I had to get permission from the Mayor and the City Council for a stage and sound system to be set up in the City Square.  I told people that American college students were coming to present the gospel.  I was expecting a one and a half hour presentation and I am looking at a five-minute skit.  Tomorrow is a holiday in Mexico (The Day of the Holy Kings).  There will be a lot of people in the Town Square. There has to be more.  There has to be much more.  This is good, but it is not enough.  There must be more.”

As she walked away from the students shaking her head in disbelief and what looked like disappointment.  I look at the deflated students, stunned by the bomb that had just been dropped.  They all looked to Katie Shannon, who simply said, “We cannot go to bed.  We need to have a team meeting.”

Jesse Parr and I looked at our watches, after midnight, and decided that “we” was intended only for college students and retreated for the house.  As I walked away I saw twenty college students, every one of them that had made the trip, move in closer together in the middle of the street, determined to respond in unity to the challenge.  I went to sleep that night to the sound of college students outside my window saying, “What if we do this? Who would be willing to share your faith story? Who will interpret? Who doesn’t have anything to do yet?”  It was the sound of unity.  It was the sound of a team committed to walking with each other together, not merely sharing the same road.

The simplest and most difficult thing you’ll ever be asked to do is to love each other.  It is so easy to get defensive, to feel as though I have already done my part, or to grumble.  Love gets beyond that and walks with everyone.

Mary was right.  There has to be more.  It is easy to express love in some token way, rub our hands together and ask, “What do you think God? I donated clothes to poor people, I gave money to Habitat for Humanity, I spent nine days on a mission trip to Mexico, I played with a child who had not played for a long time, I embraced a drunk who had lost all hope in life…What do you think?”

I am quite certain that God’s response is, “This is good, but it is not enough.  There has to be more.”  Love one another is not a commandment that is addressed episodically, it is a walk that is to be expressed consistently, at every opportunity.  There has to be more.  When there is more, love talks to everyone, people began to tell others of the person or the community of faith that consistently and effectively reflects God’s love.  When there is more, love walks with each other in truth (in their love for Jesus) and together (not simply sharing a stretch of road).

In this new year, while resolutions are still being formed, let me invite you to resolve to simplify in 2008.  You don’t need an entire suitcase of resolutions.  You only need a backpack labeled, “Love”.  Simplify: Love God and Love Others.  That is really what matters most.  However, I do want to remind you that the simplest and most difficult thing you’ll ever be asked to do is to love each other.  Amen.