Sermon Tone Analysis
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Isaiah
1 samuel
Perfect Love Casts out Fear
While here in Pittsburgh the violence at the front of our minds is the terrible tragedy at the Tree of Life Synagogue, that incident didn’t stand alone as the only targeted violence in recent weeks.
There were two people shot in Kentucky because of their race.
And just Friday evening, a man walked into a yoga studio and killed 2 people, injuring 14 more.
Just as the shooter in Pittsburgh had made terrible anti-semitic statements online, the yoga studio shooter was targeting women.
The man who shot two people at a grocery store in Kentucky made racist comments to other people at the scene.
I said last week that the answer to the troubling violence we are seeing in our country and that we continue to see is love.
The way to overcome divisive hate is, at the heart of things, so overwhelm it with unifying love.
This week’s passage, which I’d chosen several weeks before any of that happened, seems to fit perfectly in continuing that exploration.
There is a great deal of fear in the public eye right now.
But there is also a great deal of love in the public eye as well.
That’s encouraging, because 1 John says, “Perfect love casts out fear.”
I can obviously only speak for myself, but when I hear that phrase, it always makes me reflect on how imperfect my love must be because I have plenty of fear.
Heck, love itself is terrifying.
It’s not even just the idea of love being strong enough to push out fear that is difficult, it’s the fact that love is a risk in and of itself.
It’s scary to love.
Love means risking loss or hurt or betrayal.
It feels safer to not love.
Love is hard.
It’s hard enough to really love the people for whom love is supposed to be natural - spouses, children, parents - let alone everyone else.
And when we’re in a time of trauma like our city is feeling this past week, it’s really hard to love everyone.
There is a bad guy.
There are people who disagree with us on how to fix the problem.
There are internet trolls and angry people.
Even though. . .
that’s our calling.
“Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
Last week, we visited the ancient story of Cain and Abel- brothers- one a murderer, the other his victim.
Clearly not a story filled with love, in spite of the fact that the two are brothers.
Cain struggled to love even his own biological brother.
This week, John tells us in no uncertain terms that we can’t love God without love for one another.
“Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
Let that sink in.
Even though. . .
that’s our calling.
“Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
With stunning brevity, John tells us what God is and what God is not.
John might have said that God is power or order or goodness.
In our insecurity and longing for protection, we often yearn for a God who can control nature and prevent sickness or violence, a God who will protect us from all harm.
In a world of moral confusion, we wish for a God who lays down the law with complete clarity and holds everyone accountable, catching the cheaters and rewarding the faithful.
In our hunger to possess, we might even imagine a God of prosperity, one who promises to make us rich if we obey a few principles.
Whatever may be true about God’s power or moral order or generosity, John avoids all these descriptions in favor of the simple word agape or love.
It is not power or law or prosperity, but self-sacrificing love that is the heart of the truth about God.
How do we know this?
Not by imagining or philosophizing or intuiting, but by looking.
God has acted in love, sending Jesus Christ to overcome the destructive and divisive power of sin.
God has defined God, and God’s chosen self-definition is love.
We do not have to guess what God is like.
We simply have to look at what God has done.
We cannot see God, John tells us, but we can see what God has done in Jesus Christ.
If you can’t manage to love the people around you, you’ve missed the mark on loving God too.
There is a T-shirt I’ve been tempted to get that says, “Love thy neighbor” then it lists a whole bunch of groups of people that are often the target of hate: “Love thy homeless neighbor.
Love thy Muslim neighbor.
Love thy gay neighbor.”
etc.
But loving others is scary!
Especially if others are different in some way.
And what if we don’t get it right?
What if we don’t love them enough or in the right way?
This passage in John sets up two polar opposites: fear and love.
God is love and fear is the opposite of love.
Usually we think of hate as the opposite of love, but John says the opposite of love is fear, not hate.
Hate is really just a side effect of fear - fear of other, fear of being hurt, fear of the different or the unknown.
Trouble in the World
The world is a scary place, full of reasons to be afraid.
The past week’s events have shown that scary things can happen anywhere.
It’s interesting that we’re in the midst of this sermon series on fulfilling our calling and getting rid of our baggage at one of the most important times in our lives to be living out our call as Christians.
Why did
When people don’t feel heard, there is a fear of being forgotten, left behind, etc.
While we might never really know all that went into Robert Bowers’ decision to enter a synagogue on October 27th and kill 11 dear souls, this much we know: he was looking for a place to be heard.
He was trying to find an outlet for what he had to say.
Surely, there was a fear of not being heard that went into what he did.
An article from the Post Gazette this week featured a Jewish doctor who was married at and whose children’s bat and bar mitzvahs were held at Tree of Life Synagogue.
Dr. Cohen is the director of Allegheny General Hospital and he was moved to meet and talk to Bowers on Saturday.
While not excusing Mr. Bowers, Dr.Cohen said, “Here’s someone all alone and all he hears is the noise in his head all the time.”
With stunning brevity, John tells us what God is and what God is not.
John might have said that God is power or order or goodness.
In our insecurity and longing for protection, we often yearn for a God who can control nature and prevent sickness or violence, a God who will protect us from all harm.
In a world of moral confusion, we wish for a God who lays down the law with complete clarity and holds everyone accountable, catching the cheaters and rewarding the faithful.
In our hunger to possess, we might even imagine a God of prosperity, one who promises to make us rich if we obey a few principles.
Trouble in the World
The trouble is that the world is a scary place, full of reasons to be afraid: many of them valid.
The past week’s events have shown that scary things can happen anywhere.
It’s interesting that we’re in the midst of this sermon series on fulfilling our calling and getting rid of our baggage at one of the most important times in our lives to be living out our call as Christians.
This is a time where EVERYONE’S baggage is showing because we’re all feeling really vulnerable.
The world needs the gospel message of love more than ever when tragedy strikes, but when tragedy strikes is the hardest time to get that message out.
We’re not all doing it perfectly right now.
This poor beaten up city is acting all kinds of ways because of our raw, up and down, strong emotions.
It’s a minefield out there, friends.
It’s bad enough when mass tragedy hits another place, but here?
Pittsburgh?
Our home?
Every time I hear the word “Pittsburgh” on the radio, it makes me tear up all over again.
I have spent so much time and energy this week trying to edit and filter and preach the gospel message in a dark and difficult time.
It’s emotionally exhausting.
One of the things I’ve been trying to process is why Robert Bowers did what he did.
Why did what happened last Saturday happen?
One thing that has been noted is that he was, as one article states it, “pretty much a ghost.”
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