Message: Love and Fear
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. (1 John 4: 18 NRSV)
Words I remember from childhood that I too have spoken in recent years, ‘I love you; I just don’t like you right now.’ Not sure I sit comfortably with these words knowing they have come out of my mouth not in a moment of love but out of frustration and a bit of fear of not being able to cope with the new stages of parenting that come with every new day sometimes.
Yet, I am reminded that even when mistakes were made and all is not well, love remains in its humanly imperfect and learning way. And even in our understanding of God’s love that casts out fear, remains, and faces up to the ugliness and evil of the world, our understanding of God’s love remains in our still less than perfect way (this side of eternity). The Bible itself is testament, in both the Hebrew and Greek books, to the imperfect ways we seek to walk in God’s ways, follow God’s teachings, and love God while being loved by God.
One of the loudest and challenging critiques of Christianity to date, is how hypocritical our claim to follow the God of love is when so many who proclaim faith breathe hatred, fear-monger, and even violently harm those we declare other or beyond God’s redemptive love. Christians, in some circles, preach fear and hatred while the world cries out for love and belonging.
Please, do not misread me, I am not preaching that following Jesus’s way is all hugs and puppies, sweetness and light, easy and simple – all you need is love. The love, the tough love, the heart wrenching love we seek to know and grow in through God’s gift to us of Jesus’s example and the Holy Spirit’s guidance is not simple or easy all of the time. Yet, in the letter to the followers of Jesus in Corinth, love endures and remains and strives to do better day by day in community. Love is active and engaged. Love is not reclining letting it all just happen sending out good vibes and ‘thoughts and prayers.’ Love is in the trenches of life, listening, walking, working, hurting, seeking, struggling while also being present where love is needed most.
I know many of you will have heard the words of 1st Corinthians chapter 13 a few times, if not a dozen or more, yet familiarity may help in our loosing sight of the power and strength of love spoken of to a community seeking to follow Jesus. A colleague of mine Stephen Ogston asked ChatGPT (AI – artificial intelligence) to translate the Greek of 1st Corinthians 13 into a 21st century understanding with more modern imagery and here is what came out:
“1 Corinthians 13 -
1 If I could speak every language on Earth and in heaven,
if I could wow people with words in speeches, songs, or social media posts,
but didn’t have love,
I’d just be making noise — like an empty notification or a clanging alarm.
2 If I had the gift to predict the future,
if I could decode all life’s mysteries and understand every science, if I had a faith so powerful it could achieve the impossible, but didn’t have love, I’d be nothing.
3 If I gave away everything I owned to charity,
or dedicated myself fully to good causes,
even sacrificing my health or reputation for others,
but did it without love,
it would mean nothing.
4 Love is patient when waiting for replies;
love is kind, even when the world is harsh.
It doesn’t envy someone else’s success on Instagram;
it doesn’t brag about its own achievements.
5 Love doesn’t belittle others in comments;
it isn’t obsessed with getting its own way.
It doesn’t lose its temper at customer service;
it doesn’t keep a score of who’s wrong.
6 Love doesn’t find joy in spreading gossip or fake news, but celebrates when truth and honesty prevail.
7 Love always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.
Technology will become outdated;
our knowledge will be surpassed;
our predictions will one day be irrelevant.
9 Right now, we only know part of the story,
and even the smartest people see just a piece of the puzzle.
10 But when everything is made clear,
all these incomplete things will fade away.
11 When I was a child, I thought like a child —
I was impatient, self-centred, and short-sighted.
But now that I’ve grown, I aim to put childish ways behind me.
12 Right now, it’s like looking at life through a blurry screen, but one day, we’ll see things clearly—face to face. Right now, I only understand in part,
but one day, I’ll fully understand, just as I am fully understood.
13 So these three remain: faith, hope, and love.
But the greatest of these—the one that changes everything—is love.”
When Jesus spoke in the synagogue, the gathering of the community of faith, to say to them that God was working in their midst the ‘year of God’s favour’ and the healing of the brokenness, the fear of disappointment snuck out from behind their amazement and they said ‘isn’t that Joseph’s son?’ Also the passage shows their fear of the reminder of what God’s love has looked like in the past where the chosen people were not always the ONLY ones receiving God’s mercy, grace, love, and healing when times were challenging as the two stories Jesus speaks of in Luke 4 are of outsiders showing faithfulness, seeking God and receiving God’s love and help in their need.
I wonder what the hometown people hearing Jesus were afraid of in that moment when their anger rose to the surface. Were they afraid of what God’s love was capable of for those they didn’t like, let alone love? Were they afraid God’s love embodied among them would ask more of them than what they wanted to give? And, this one stings a bit personally, were they afraid of being wrong by thinking God’s love was only as big and powerful as they thought possible?
I came across these words in a thought for the week on the web and I cannot say it better so will quote Roots on the Web:
“When Jesus began preaching, Israel had become inward-looking and isolated from other nations. It was not fulfilling its God-given mission to be a blessing to the nations around them. Jesus listed examples of God’s grace experienced by foreigners and outsiders – his audience rioted and wanted to kill him. Throughout Jesus’ ministry, we see him unafraid to say difficult things to the people God chose and loved. Similarly, Jesus will also sometimes say hard things to us, not because he doesn’t love us but precisely because his love is so great he cannot leave us set in ways that will hurt us or others. If we are brave, we will hear this message of tough love and be changed for the better.”
While Jesus spoke hard words to hear and Paul’s words to the Corinthians were not easy to live out, we are charged and called to not shout from the rooftops of how others aren’t doing but first consider how we are following. Jesus’s tough words were for the good gathered in the holy place and a reminder of the Good News for the poor, the broken-hearted, the oppressed, the blind, the prisoners. The tough love was for those who thought they were doing ‘okay’ enough and the good news of God’s love was stretched beyond the easy, simple expectations.
I know that the words spoken on a Sunday morning are just noise and smoke and mirrors if not lived, embodied and wrestled with the whole 7-day week. Love and fear fill the world, but at times we practice more fear-mongering as people seeking to follow Jesus than doing the tough love work on ourselves (and I say this to me as well) of daily remembering who God is calling us to love, how God is calling us to love, and where God is calling us to embody love even when it is tough and not easy.
Perfection in love has not yet been reached in our way of being church together, yet day by day Jesus invites us to cast out fear, embrace God’s ways, and walk humbly in love with Jesus. We may only see and know in part for now, but we are fully known and invited to share what we know of God’s love so others in our inner circles and on the margins of our communities would see, hear and know of Jesus, God’s love embodied. This Jesus who walked through the midst of the angry, fear-filled crowd and went on his way filled with the mission to reach others with God’s love. Let us live out God’s love through Jesus.
Prayers from Roots on the Web:
Call to worship
God is love.
Those who live in love, live in God and God lives in them.
Let us receive afresh the love of God for us and for those around us.
A prayer of adoration
Holy God, you are full of love for all your people,
even though we do not always appreciate it
and respond as we ought.
Holy God, your persistence and patience amazes us –
you go on loving us even when we know we don’t deserve it.
Holy God, your generosity overwhelms us.
Holy God, you are beyond our imagining
– you are so much more.
Holy God, may we learn to be closer to you, to listen more, to feel more, to know more of the immensity of your love.
Holy God, this is our prayer. Amen.
A prayer of confession
We are sorry, God, that we are often weak and helpless.
Come O God, you are our Saviour, forgive us.
We are sorry, God, that we do not always like to hear the truth because it hurts.
Come O God, you are our Saviour, forgive us.
We are sorry, God, that we so often lack motivation
to speak out about the way of life and the gift of love you give to us.
Come O God, you are our Saviour, forgive us.
God, who is full of mercy, hears our confession,
knows our penitence
and forgives us our sins, our wrongdoing,
our outbursts and our silences.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
A prayer of thanksgiving
Almighty, everlasting God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so much of who and what you are has been gifted to us by those around us.
We give you thanks and praise.
So much of our relationship with you and our spiritual growth
has been gifted by those who worship with us.
We give you thanks and praise.
So many of your examples of love comfort us, uphold us, sustain us
and create in us a yearning to love more as we are loved.
We give you thanks and praise.
Amen.
Prayers of intercession
God of strength and gentleness, we bring to you in prayer:
those whose lives are really tough,
those whose homes have been damaged by storms or flood or fire,
those who have no homes and no resources,
those struggling to meet the needs of those they care for,
and those denied access to education and the basic joys of life, especially the women of Afghanistan.
Lord Jesus hear our prayer
We pray for all those called to speak tough words.
We especially pray for:
your Church throughout the world
that she would be the voice of truth and justice and mercy,
those persecuted for sharing the gospel,
and our fellowship of faith here, that we would be people of integrity and courage as we tackle the challenges that face our communities and our nation.
Lord Jesus hear our prayer
We pray for all those entrusted with making tough decisions:
we pray for our politicians as they manage budgets
and make policies affecting so many lives,
we pray for those in the NHS as they manage both crisis and the day-to-day needs of patients,
we pray for all managing household budgets that are stretched and for those overwhelmed with anxiety.
Lord Jesus hear our prayer
We pray for those who have received tough news, particularly those we know who are:
struggling with illness, with redundancy, with the breakdown of a relationship,
with bad results, and those who have been bereaved suddenly and shockingly.
Lord Jesus hear our prayer
We pray for those making tough journeys:
for the people of Gaza as they return home to rubble,
for those in the DR Congo fleeing their homes as violence rages in the streets,
for those being forcibly removed from their homes,
for those going to refuges who are fleeing abuse,
for those visiting loved ones who no longer recognise them,
for all those whose journeys end in tragedy, especially those killed in Washington,
for those going on their final journey and for those who journey alongside them.
Lord Jesus hear our prayer
We pray for everyone struggling to cope with the tough headlines we see on our screens and in our papers day after day.
We pray for those whose lives we glimpse and are moved by:
for all the young lives threatened by and lost to violence,
for all those impacted by the dark web,
for all struggling with the pressures of social media,
and we pray for one another and for all in need of your tough love today - your challenging, affirming and transformational love. Lord Jesus hear our prayer Amen.
A prayer for all ages together
God, thank you that you love us enough to say difficult things to us.
Thank you that you help us to change.
Please continue to fill us with your love
and to make us better at showing it to those around us. Amen.
A sending out prayer
Loving God, thank you for your great love for us,
love which is patient, kind, protecting and persevering.
Help us to take your love out with us this week
and show it to those who feel they are outside of your family.
Give us your heart for those who don’t yet know you.
We ask this in Jesus’ name.
Amen.