God’s grace, peace
and mercy be with you. … My focus is the First Letter of John where we read: “Little
children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”[1] Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the
psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the
Lord.’”[2]
Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we
listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply
as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.
A baby. The
singular most effective way to change shopping habits. By the time a baby
reaches its first birthday, parents spend $7,500 at stores like Target. That is
why retailers study purchasing habits. If you are pregnant, retailers convince
you through coupons and specials to spend $7,500 in their stores. That said, I
will examine habits in light of our readings and Lutheran tradition.
Two weeks ago, we
heard that John’s motive for writing to his church was to warn members about
the dangers of philosophies that tempted them from following the Way, which is,
the Person and Teaching of Jesus Christ. In today’s passage, John encouraged
Christians to persevere as true brothers and sisters living in the world. He reminded
them that not only the secessionists, those who walk in darkness, hate them,
but also the world hates them because the world hated Jesus. The world hates Jesus’
followers.
Because the world
hated Christians, John exhorted them to love not “in word or talk but in deed and
in truth.”[3]
He called them to lay down their lives for one another. Here, he
referred to a specific event in history, Jesus’ crucifixion.[4] John echoed Jesus’ words
in the Gospel, “I lay down my life for my sheep.”[5]
Jesus’ voluntary
crucifixion was not only the supreme sacrifice, but also the indispensable
means of forgiveness.[6] As we heard two weeks ago
and will hear next week, Jesus was the propitiation for our sins. Jesus is
propitiation and propitiator. He lovingly paid our debt with his own flesh and
blood.
John’s Christians
expressed true love in the supreme sacrifice of laying down their lives for one
another and through lesser, mundane means.[7] In John’s church, charity
did not always imply laying down one’s life, but it always involved helping
another at some personal cost. By cultivating such love in the community, John
strengthened the Church’s identity and severed malicious behavior at the root.[8]
When John wrote, “If
anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart
against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” he referred to the
heart as the seat and source of love, sympathy and pity.[9] Implanted in us to keep us
on the straight and narrow, the heart knows right from wrong. It prompts, nags
and condemns us. In Romans, we read, “[The Gentiles] show that the work of the
law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and
their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.”[10]
Yet, there are
times when the heart distracts, confounds, refuses to believe the truth or
shuns all comfort and betrays us.[11] Jeremiah wrote, “The
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand
it?”[12]
Who can understand
the heart? … When should you not trust your heart? John’s answer was: When the
heart questions or doubts God, who is greater than you, your heart is not your
friend.
John knew unrighteous
sinners walking in dark shadows falsely accused Christians. Because Satan
accused Christians day and night, John offered a strong dose of encouragement
to squash the inner voices of anxiety and self-doubt.
He reminded
Christians to approach God as the One who knows everything about their hearts,
and is still able to forgive. God knows human folly and guilt, disgrace and
shame, and thoughts and words before one thinks or speaks them.
Moreover, Christ our
Advocate stands at God’s right hand. Through his intercession, God’s knowledge
of human misery results in the exoneration that the heart desires rather than
the condemnation that the soul fears.[13]
To silence the
heart, and refuse to submit to its distractions, betrayals and condemnations,
and to focus instead on God and the sweet Gospel of forgiveness, is to turn the
turmoil of trouble to joy.[14] John wanted Christians to
be confident enough to ask God for whatever they needed. This “whatever” was
not some magical thing by which they could twist God’s arm, forcing Him to
carry out some human wish that He would not execute. Rather, Christians could
ask for what they did not know or have. Having received it, Christians should
thank God who alone knows the needs of His children and provides for them.
Because God alone
knows our needs and provides for them, John’s Christians could love one another
as God commanded them. Their love for one another proved God abided in and
among Church members.
About this
passage, Martin Luther taught, “If our conscience makes us fainthearted and
presents God as angry, still ‘God is greater than our heart.’ Conscience is one
drop; the reconciled God is a sea of comfort. The fear of the conscience, or
despair, must be overcome, even though this is difficult. It is a great and
exceedingly sweet promise that if our heart blames us, ‘God is greater than our
heart’ and ‘knows everything.’”[15]
Luther went on to
say, “Although our sin is great, … His redemption is greater.” Luther’s
insight, as noted by the renowned Catholic Scripture scholar, the late Raymond
Brown, was resisted by Calvinists and Catholics alike, but has won the day
among most Christians.[16]
Our sin is great. His
redemption is greater. Basic Law and Gospel. The Law convicts us because we are
guilty of sin. The Gospel frees us because God is loving and merciful.
Our loving and merciful
God abides in us – as individuals and as church. How then, brothers and sisters
in Christ, do we show love and mercy to one another? To repeat myself from two
weeks ago: forgiveness. The mature Christian forgives habitually.
The mature
Christian forgives habitually. … How? By believing that our loving and merciful
God abides in us, and by practicing
forgiveness.
Tell me if I am
wrong. Most Christians do not practice
forgiveness habitually. I start with me and look no farther than our church
doors. If I am wrong, correct me, but I am willing to bet most of us do not
practice forgiveness habitually.
We practice
ruthlessness, blame, cruelty, hatred, indifference and numerous other bad
habits – sins – that are far from Christ’s supreme sacrifice and lesser,
mundane ones like having the world’s goods at our disposal and opening our
hearts when our brothers and sisters are in need.
What does it take
to replace bad habits with good ones? To replace blame with forgiveness,
cruelty with mercy, hatred with love? To help answer my question, let’s go
shopping.
In 1984, a UCLA professor
set out to answer a basic question: Why do people suddenly change their
shopping routines?[17] A year of research
revealed that most people bought the same brands of cereal and deodorant week
after week. Habits reigned supreme. Except when they didn’t.
The professor
discovered what has become a pillar of modern marketing theory: People’s buying
habits are more likely to change when they go through a major life event.
Marriage, divorce, buying a new house and changing jobs alter consumers’ buying
habits. And the biggest life event for most people is having a baby. Parents’
habits are more flexible at that moment than at any other period in an adult’s
life. Target and other retailers capitalize when you change your spending
habits.
Retailers benefit
from your change in spending habits after you experience a life-changing event
like having a baby. My question is: Has the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead – a life-changing event – changed your habits?
Let’s examine our
habits in light of our reading and our Lutheran tradition. John wrote, “We
ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. … Let us not love in word or talk
but in deed and in truth. … We have confidence before God; and whatever we ask
we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus
Christ and love one another.”[18]
The application of
God’s Word is easier read than practiced, easier discussed than done, easier
heard than lived. Living God’s Word is easier when life’s breaks go my way
rather than against me. Easier when I receive God’s grace rather than sinners’
scorn. Easier when I have hope in God rather than despair. Nevertheless, as Luther
said, “Despair must be overcome even though this is difficult.”[19]
Satan prefers you
never overcome despair and hope in God. Satan prefers you never overcome your
old habits. Luther, John, Jesus and His Church prefer you overcome despair and
bad habits. What do you prefer? Do you prefer being your sinful self or would
you prefer being a loving and merciful person? Will our world be a better place
if you respond to your brothers and sisters with a closed heart or with a
Christ-like heart? Do you want to be a chump for Satan or a champion for
Christ?
“Champions don’t
do extraordinary things. They do ordinary things, but they do them without
thinking. … They follow the habits they’ve learned.”[20] So said Tony Dungy when
he interviewed to become a head coach in the NFL. Dungy turned the Tampa Bay
Buccaneers, perennial losers, into winners. He did it by getting men to replace
old habits with new ones. He did it by getting men to believe in themselves.
Dungy says, “Belief is the biggest part of success in professional football.”[21]
We can say the
same about our lives as Christians. We believe God is greater than our hearts.
We know the Resurrection changes lives more than marriage, divorce or the birth
of a baby. Touched by God’s merciful love, we know we can change, but when life
is tense and tough, we return to comfortable old habits.
Too often, saved
Christians, resort to vulgarities, lies, blame, denial, violence, gossip and
other sinful habits when challenged, chastised or confronted. We return to
comfortable, sinful habits when life is tense, tough or tempting.
We must believe
change is possible to change our habits permanently. Usually, that belief
emerges with the help of a group. For Christians seeking to replace old, sinful
habits with new, loving and merciful habits, change will happen when we, the
Church, hold one another and ourselves accountable. We will do that when our love
for God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and His children motivates every
thought, word and deed. We will do that we realize that God Father, Son and
Spirit loves us as His children, His babies.
If people can stop
smoking and drinking; if people can lose weight and perennial losers can become
champions, we can change our sinful habits because God loves us and through the
Church, the Holy Spirit gives us the means to make it possible. We have the
means to make it possible, if only we live God’s Word and Sacraments. For those
you love and for the world, live God’s Word and be God’s Sacrament. Children of
light, pray to the Holy Trinity for that grace, and when you do, may the peace
of God that surpasses all understanding keep your heart and mind in Christ
Jesus.
[4]
Bruce G. Schuchard, 1 – 3 John. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House (2012),
382.
[8]
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: Third Edition.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press (2010) 502.
[9]
Schuchard, 389. See fn 337.
[13] Schuchard,
391f. See fn 354
[15]
Ibid, 391. See fn 348.
[17]
Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks (2012),
191ff.
