June 1, 2014
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
I read in a Christian magazine recently about a pastor visiting someone in a nursing home when he heard one of the residents saying a sweet, odd rhyme: “I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.” This woman was not the person the pastor came to visit but while he was sitting in the atrium, he noticed her staring out the window and saying those childlike words: “I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.” She repeated them again and again and again.
While the pastor was trying to focus on the man he came to visit, he caught himself wondering about their neighbor and her whimsical rhyme. Did she ever say anything else? Of all the words to remember, why these?
As the pastor was leaving the nursing home, his curiosity got the better of him. He searched for a nurse and, feeling a little sheepish about interrupting her work, approached her. “Could I ask you an odd question? The woman who sits in the atrium. She says this little rhyme over and over. Do you know why she does this?”
The nurse smiled and repeated the words with a dramatic flair: “I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig!” She had obviously heard the rhyme thousands of times—and she wasn’t the least bit tired of it. “That’s Thelma,” she explained. “She taught first grade for more than 30 years. Her little rhyme was her own special way of greeting the children each morning. As she helped them remove their coats, she would whisper those words in every little ear. It was her way to let each child know that each child possessed a special place in her heart.”
In our passage for this morning, Jesus said, “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (John 14:20) means the depth of loyalty and commitment that is typically reserved for the closest members of one’s family. This kind of love is what Thelma had for her first grade students.
Church Love
In Matthew, Jesus tells us to love our enemies. Jesus teaches us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. ln our Reception Ministry, we are to love our neighbors. We take the “great commission” in Matthew 28 where Jesus commands us to go into all the world and make disciples through baptism and teaching. Clearly, we are to love people and the world beyond our church.
But in John’s Gospel, Jesus is telling us to love one another. In John 13:34-35, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Does this sound too inwardly focused on internal concerns? Or is this “love” among believers a great part of our witness to a world full of nonbelievers? I think the latter. When the church fails to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit and thereby fails to live together with one another in love, it suggests that Jesus may not have fulfilled his promises to us here in John’s Gospel. Yet when the church shows the world a quality of loving community that is nothing short of miraculous, the world sees solid, institutional evidence that Jesus is indeed Lord, the Son of God, the light of the world.
Remember the song we used to sing as youth, “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love?” While it’s a bit sappy to say that we’ll love one another, it reveals a great truth. When we love each other, we would implicitly be going out into the world to make disciples.
Before his crucifixion, Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit who gives us what we need to be obedient to Jesus’ command. He doesn’t expect us to love on our own. Jesus reminds us that if we believe that he is Lord, then we ought to live like it, particularly in our behavior with fellow Christians.
Church Fights
I have found that, in some of our efforts at evangelism, that the greatest impediment to reaching the world and making disciples for Christ is the church. How often have you shared Christ with someone only to have that person counter, “After I experienced a horrible fight in the church in which I grew up, I haven’t been back.”
We would hear their stories of congregations behaving badly. And only after you do, you might say, “I’m sorry that happened to you in a church. We are sinners who are being saved by Jesus and sometimes our sin gets the best of us. Are you willing to give Jesus’ people another try?” Now maybe not in those very words but something like that.
Sometimes people can’t see the love of Christ because of the unloving behavior of those whom Christ has clearly commanded to love one another.
One of the first apologists for the Christian faith, Tertullian, says that this was the major reason why the church defeated the Roman Empire without firing a shot or raising up a single army. The world looked at the church and exclaimed, “See how these Christians love one another.” But today, I’m afraid that some people are saying, “See how these Christians fight like cats and dogs with one another.”
When Martin Luther King’s movement was challenged by assaults from the forces of racial injustice. King said in a famous sermon that the church would respond by
out-loving its enemies, out-suffering the perpetrators of violence, out-loving those who would show hate.
Cherishing One Another
I was thinking about what Thelma was feeling in her heart when she whispered in each little ear of her first grade students: “I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.” This kind of love is not given out of duty in a job or expected out of obligation. This love is more like: “I am behind you” or “I am standing with you.” We may say, “You are in my heart and mind.” It’s a kind of cherishing love.
When we say, “I cherish you,” we are sharing a kind of love that inspires deep commitment and stubborn loyalty. It is about a merging of heart, mind and will. All this may be difficult to put into words, but it is immediately recognizable to those who have experienced it.
Thelma gave this kind of love to her students. That is, she gave them a sustained cherishing love, not mere mindless repetition. This is why she greeted every student with a hug and a rhyme—and it’s why, even now, she can’t stop greeting them. Her students reside in her. And for those who accept this rarest of gifts, she resides in them.
“I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.” Does she always do that?” the pastor asks the nurse.
“Oh, no!” she replied. “Only when she is very happy.” The nurse paused. “But then again, Thelma has had a good life, and she’s happy most of the time.”
Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he gives us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit so that we may learn how to cherish one another with love. The world will continue to see Jesus when we love one another because he lives in us. God feels an eternal joy, a joy that arises out of cherishing love.
Today, God has not seen fit to give the church a great deal of power, as the world judges power. I believe this is a good thing. We are not the richest or most influential organization in Chinatown. We are given one gift that the world finds elusive. We are given one thing to demonstrate to the world why Jesus Christ makes possible a family that the world cannot produce by the world’s means.
Just take a look at each other. If we all had a say about who should be here this morning, I bet you that we would want them to be just like ourselves. There would be no disagreements or different opinions or contrasting viewpoints. If we had our way, we would not be together this morning.
To us is given love, and an Advocate, the Holy Spirit that prods and pushes us, empowers us forward in love, particularly to love one another in the church.
Like Thelma, let’s be happy with one another and follow Jesus’ command that we love one another. Just as he has loved you, we also should love one another. By this everyone will know that we are Jesus’ disciples, if we have love for one another. (John 13:34-35)
I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig!
Let us pray.
Christ Jesus, you promise to send your Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to empower us and to lead us to walk in your path. By the power of the Holy Spirit, teach us to love one another, particularly to love one another in our congregation. Help us to be compassionate with one another in our differences and disagreements, to try to listen deeply to one another, to share one another’s burdens, and thereby to witness to the world that your Advocate makes possible a loving, caring, cherishing community of love, even among people like us. Amen.