Readings (click here for full text of the readings):
   Isaiah 45:11-13, 18-19; Psalm 33; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:9-17

• Garden party – Westport society
• 3- and 4-year-olds ate lobster and sushi
• Didn’t know many people – talked to a couple we’d just met
• Asked us our opinions about art, religion, politics
• We gave our answers
• They would nod encouragingly, and when we finished they would inevitably start their reply with, “Well, yes, but…”
• They seemed to be saying, “Well, sure, that’s nice and all, but what’s really important is …”
• So it was that they became known to us, and to our friends who threw the party, as “the yes-buts”
• As in, “How are the yes-buts doing?”
• Or, “Oh, you know that couple you were talking to at the party, the yes-buts”
• I was reminded of them this week as I looked over the lessons, because I think we Christians are the “yes-buts” of religious society
• We make things that are pretty simple to start with, pretty darn complicated
• We write catechisms and commentaries
• We come up with all manner of rules and regulations
• Have to be baptized to do this
• Have to be confirmed to that
• Have to be male, or straight, or conservative to do those other things
• But Jesus was pretty darn straightforward, simple, and direct
• 1 John reading
• Let us love one another
• Love is from God
• God is love
• God loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins
• We ought to love one another
• If we love one another, God lives in us
• God is love
• Those who abide in love abide in God
• We love because he first loved us
• Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also
• John reading
• Abide in my love
• If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love
• You must love one another as I have loved you
• I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another

Reasons why we have a hard time with this:

• We want some reward for all the stuff we do that doesn’t have anything to do with love
• We do lots of things:
• Read the Bible
• Say our prayers
• Go to church
• But if we take today’s readings seriously, that stuff doesn’t matter all that much
• Because if we take the Bible seriously, then that guy walking down the street who’s never been to church, never read the Bible, perhaps never heard of Jesus Christ – if that person loves his brothers and sisters, then God lives in him just as much as God lives in us, perhaps even more
• We’re like the laborers in the vineyard, in the famous parable, who show up at the crack of dawn, and expect to get paid a whole lot more than the stragglers who wander in just before the 5 o’clock whistle
• But Jesus taught that God can accept whomever He wants to accept, and if the bottom line in the parable was that you just had to some work (any work!), then the message of today’s readings is that all you have to do is love, and you’ll abide in God
• We want things to be verifiable
• This is important stuff we’re dealing with: do you abide in God, or not?
• Story of Romans 10:9-10 when I was a kid
• All this stuff about love is challenging
• How much love is enough?
• Do we really have to love everybody? Or just the people we get along with?
• And how much do we have to give up?  How uncomfortable do we need to get? How much do we need to sacrifice?
• And so we do a lot of other things that are easier to add up
• Going to church on Sunday mornings
• Reading the Bible here and there
• Praying before meals, or before we go to sleep
• And then we feel assured
• But today’s readings are all quality, not quantity
• And they’re all about love, because without love, none of what we do is worth anything
• Going to church doesn’t mean anything if you don’t love others
• Reading the Bible doesn’t mean anything if you don’t love others
• Praying doesn’t mean anything if you don’t love others
• We underestimate how hard it is
• We say to ourselves:
• Oh, yeah, of course you should love people
• Everybody should do that
• But I go above and beyond, and do all those good deeds we’ve been talking about
• But in the end things like going to church and reading the Bible are simple, and easy, compared to love
• Because when Jesus was talking about love, he wasn’t just talking about having warm feelings or saying nice things
• He was talking about giving up your only coat so that someone else can stay warm
• He was talking about giving so much of your money to the poor that they end up having more than you do
• And he was talking about literally giving up your life so that someone else could live – just like Jesus did for us

• Return to the yes-buts
• So, in the end, we might think that we’re going above and beyond the call of duty by doing all those other things
• We might think that the love stuff is pretty simple and we have it down pat, and we’ve “graduated” to more demanding things
• But in the end, the reason that Jesus talked about love and not much else was because that’s all there is
• It demands everything from us, even our very lives
• Love includes all the good things we do, and it goes beyond them
• Because love isn’t just about what we do, it’s about who we are
• It’s about being glad that the guy who never went to Church and never cracked a Bible gets the same reward at the end of the day that we do
• It’s about realizing that we never do enough good deeds, because God is asking for quality, not quantity
• And it’s about realizing that the quality God demands of us requires us to give up everything we hold dear – our place in religious society, our preconceptions, our piety
• In our supposed piety we are, indeed, the yes-buts of religion, as we listen to the simple, repetitive, life-changing wisdom of Jesus, telling us that we have to love our brothers and sisters, and we reply, “Well, yes, but …”
• Let us not delude ourselves into thinking that we are expanding on the gospel, for it is enough in itself
• All we’re doing is shielding ourselves from the life-changing demands of the gospel
• So today let us listen to the call of the Gospel: to love others as God loves us, and in so doing to abide in Him
• And after we’re done listening to the gospel, let us not say, “Well, yes, but …”
• Let us merely say, “Yes,” and go out into the world, to love as God commanded us

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