5/4/58

Scripture: Ephesians 3: 1-19

The greatest thing in the world is not rocketry, nor a trip to the moon. It is not the bombs that can destroy the earth; it is not pride of power; --- it is love. Love is at the heart of the Christian gospel. And I would like to think about it, and talk about it with you for a while this morning.

Love is the greatest precept of any religion, and it is a particularly prominent part of the religion of Jesus Christ. It becomes powerful whenever put into action. If we accept love as the heart of our religious experience, we must be about the business of building what someone has called the Kingdom of Kindness. Not only will we love God in some abstract sort of way, but we will actively love God’s creatures -- our brethren of every sort -- some of them not so lovable at first sight, until we understand them better, and are better understood by them.

When Paul was writing to the Ephesians, he expressed this conviction: “That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.”

In the Scriptures, we find alternative responses which are made to the challenge of truth, of justice, of the Christian way of living. They are responses which we can and do make. We, here, all believe in God. We are Christians in name. We intend to follow Jesus --- but ...

We become uncomfortable in considering the story of a well-to-do young ruler who talked with Jesus about his own life. The Master, in swift, appealing phrases, outlined what the young man could do beyond all of the legal niceties and ethical exactness of his life up to that point. He could join the inner group of Jesus’ disciples. To do so, he would need to get rid of a lot of his possessions that took all of his time. It was a priceless opportunity. But the man could not take it at the cost of his possessions, his position and prestige, his power and his comfort. And so he went sorrowfully away from Jesus. [Matthew 19: 16-22].

That is a perfectly modern incident. Most of us fit into that man’s shoes; perhaps if not in his wealth, then in his unwillingness to go all the way with Christ. We belong to the church. But we are reserved about surrendering all to the will of God.

There is another reaction to be found in Scripture -- this one in the Old Testament book of Isaiah. The prophet had seen a vision of what he could be. He knew that he was unclean and unworthy. But it seemed to him that the evil was being seared from his lips as with a “live coal.” And when the call of conscience came to him, he answered, “Here am I! Send me.” [Isaiah 6: 6-8]. This, again, can be the picture of most of us, each of whom can answer in like fashion. When a need appears, as though the voice of God were inquiring: “Who shall go for us? Whom shall I send?” We can reply: “Here am I! Send me.”

Or, of course, we can say, “Surely, Lord, I would like to be your follower; but not at the cost of my accustomed way of living, not at the cost of people’s regard for my so-called respectability, nor at the cost of my property.”

We may not know exactly what words Jesus would use, were he preaching to us this morning. But it is not too difficult to imagine the lesson which he would impress upon us if he were to talk with us as he did with congregations or individuals in Galilee. And he does stand at the door of each heart, knocking there for the welcome that we can give, or deny, him. When he is allowed to enter, the chances are that we become tired of our narrowness, disgusted with our selfishness and ready to give over ourselves to his love. Then life lights up with new grace and power and purpose.

But we have a long way to go before we get love into action. Much of our personal life, and a great deal of our national life, falls far short of the ideal.

A boy was born into a certain missionary home in Japan. There was an honest effort to be Christian in that home. The members were trying to bring the Christian message, in word and deed, to Japanese folk who could be reached. The boy knew that multitudes of the Japanese people were not Christian. But the boy was not prepared to recognize that the nation from which his parents had been sent to the Japan mission was not all Christian. He assumed that the United States of America, his parents’ country and his country, was Christian, until he came to this, his country, on furlough with his parents. He attended school with the sons of government officials, and he soon found that there was much in them that is not Christian. He discovered, with shocked surprise, that racial discrimination was practiced in this nation’s capital. People of a certain color were not at that time allowed in most restaurants and theaters.

Thereupon he learned a hard lesson that he says he had never forgotten. No nation is Christian in any adequate sense. It is individuals who are Christian, or who may be Christian.

Only a few quick glances at our nation are enough to show that we have a long way to go before we become Christian. [This holiday weekend, a multitude of people will take to the highways for the holiday.] Last evening, upon returning by bus from the music contests at Merril, young folk from our city came upon the scene of a bad automobile accident. Someone had showed poor judgment and lack of love in action, in the use of the highway. And so autos were smashed, and the people in them had to be taken away by ambulance. [And we shall hear of accidental death on the roadways.]

Probably more than 40,000 American people will die this year in highway accidents. Financial damage may run as high as 5 billions of dollars. We are informed that 4 years of highway accidents have cost the insurance companies much more than World War II cost them. Why does our nation have this awful record? Excessive speed, discourtesy, impatience, drunkenness, and criminal irresponsibility accounts for much of it. A California physician tells a great gathering of surgeons: “The average human being is not psychologically equipped to drive the modern speed auto.” Yet we gloat over the high horse power of our motors! Does this implement the Kingdom of Kindness? Where is love in action? For practical love is our chief hope in combating the terrible record on our highways.

Or look at the rates of crime, increasing to the alarm of responsible officials. In the next 12 months, over a million young folk, 21 years of age or under, are expected to have committed some offense serious enough to be apprehended by the police. And the rate of those older than 21 is hardly less appalling. Yet, for every one picked up by police, there are numerous others not apprehended for their bad behavior. Every two minutes, a car is stolen somewhere in the nation, half of them by mere kids under 15 years of age. But little is done to curb crime comics and violence in television, for these bring a profit to those who produce them. We are said to spend over one and one-half times the amount on crime that we do upon education. Does this indicate the reign of love of the Kingdom of Kindness in our nation?

Even the creeds of our churches, have more of theological dogma written into them than of the love outlined and practiced by Christ. And the church is, in this wise, much less effective than it could be.

Let each of us look critically and carefully into his or her own life for a while. I have faults; you have faults. How can we be transformed so that we may be “rooted and grounded in love?”

Well, do we not, first of all, have to seek forgiveness from God? Do we not need to humble ourselves from all false pride? Get rid of our delusions? And do away with our stumbling blocks? What, briefly, are some of these stumbling blocks?

One is indifference. A danger that confronts all of us is that we shall one day waken to find that we have been busy with the husks and trappings of life -- and have missed the great happiness of loving and helping others.

A fellow who gets around quite a bit had remarked on the shock that came to him when he discovered some years ago that certain articles he used were made possible by the labor of folk who worked 12 hours a day, seven days of every week. It spoiled his pleasure in his possessions until he had done all he could, as one individual, to get those working conditions changed. The same man is still raining questions about practical love toward teachers who get less to live on than the garbage collectors of some communities, or about some taxi drivers in Japan who work as much as 48 hours at a stretch. He can’t feel that his love is practical unless it is concerned with others.

Another stumbling block is our tendency to look for comfort and prosperity above other values. Jesus apparently lived in simplicity. And he lived life to its full. How much am I willing to give away, or go without? What are you glad to give? How do you and I feel about an honest check of our income tax returns on exemptions for gifts made? Even our government allows up to a 30% consideration on this point. How much of that opportunity do we use?

Years ago the indifferences of Tsarist nobility to the appalling need, disease, and deprivation of Russian peasants led to loss of their privilege, their property and in many cases their lives. It may be that our own indifference to the desperation and need of hosts of others, near and far, is damaging to our own mental health and dangerous to our own safety, as well as a denial of the love of God for his children.

We also stumble over our own cynicism and pessimism. We say of some wrong condition: “Yes, I know it’s evil, but we can’t do anything about it. We must keep still.” We say this about racial discrimination and class prejudice. And “we” are not just some people somewhere else. “We” are a lot of people here in our own community too. What are we doing about racial discrimination? What are we doing about immoral comics, what are we doing about undesirable pictures or television shows? What do we do about the points in our job, our business or profession that harm, rather than help? Are we willing to risk our profits for what is right?

Are we to be self-destroyed by our own indifference, ease and cynicism? Shall we be brought low by our own hatreds? Or shall we attempt the conquest of all sorts of evil with large doses of active love? Jesus once remarked, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” If we can manage to pull our attention off our own comfortable selves and put our mind upon God, we may be put happily to work in His spiritual Kingdom. This is what happened when Isaiah finally said, “Here am I. Send me.”

When we become, not Christians in name only, but active Christians, it is in the spirit of love that wants to serve. It means trying, every minute, to make our profession, our work, our job, serve the love of God. It means trying to help each one we meet. No devil gets claim on a person’s soul while that person is busy at serving the needs of others.

More than 25 years ago in the city of Baltimore a class in sociology went into horrible slums of the city and selected the names of 200 children who appeared to have the worst of prospects for decent lives. The class members filled out 200 cards with the names and records to each of these selected slum children and labeled each card: “Headed for jail.”

25 years later, another class began checking those cards to see what actually had happened and how accurate had been the prediction of the first class. They were immeasurably surprised to find that only 2 of the 200 had ever been in jail! What was the reason? It turned out that the answer was just one teacher. This teacher, who was called Aunt Hannah, just said that she loved those kids in that slum section, and believed in them. When one of them stole, she helped him to “go straight.” She created positive recreation for all the children. She transformed that slum!

A fellow named Dwight Moody was in his late teens, an uneducated, rather crude fellow, working in a shoe store. A man named Edward Kimball talked to him about the transforming friendship of Christ. Moody gave his life to Christ’s love. He, in turn, lighted a wonderful fire in such lives as John R. Mott, Robert E. Speer, Sherwood Eddy, Wilfred Grenfell, and lots of others. Have any men or women, boys or girls, been transformed by our introduction to Christ?

Consider one of these men a little further. Over 40 years ago, a young fellow became secretary to Wilfred Grenfell. They toured the entire coast of Labrador. Three times their craft went aground; once they lost an anchor; once an iceberg cracked into them and they had to shovel the ice into the sea. Some of the important crew members were unable to endure constant seasickness and had to go ashore, leaving the burden of their work on others. The secretary had to administer anesthetic for the doctor, had to extract teeth, to give lectures, had to hand out library books in each town, go ashore and arrest men charged with serious crimes, serve as court reporter when Dr. Grenfell presided as Justice of the Peace. It was a rugged life! He said that Grenfell found that fishermen were seriously exploited by unscrupulous merchants who toured the coast. The fishermen got only half of what they should have been paid for their fish. Then they were charged twice as much as they should have been charged for their supplies.

So Grenfell helped the fishermen form cooperatives, to pool their catches of fish, ship the fish to St. John’s and sell it for a fair price. There they bought supplies at a fair price. It was wonderful for the fishermen, but it antagonized the traveling merchants who complained to the Canadian government that Grenfell was ruining life on Labrador with the cooperatives. Canadians complained to New York businessmen who had supported Grenfell, and so Grenfell’s Board of Directors passed a resolution ordering Grenfell to start no more cooperatives. They said: “We want you to do medical and religious work, not to start cooperatives.”

Grenfell could have turned his back on the call of need and closed his cooperative work. After all he had orders from his board! But he felt that that course was not the call of love. So he sent his resignation to his people immediately. The Board was so convinced that his ministry to Labrador ought to continue that the members rescinded their action and allowed him to continue his help to Labrador fishermen with help in forming cooperatives, founding hospitals, orphan homes, and schools. One Labrador fisherman said to the young secretary: “There will be more folks as’ll miss the doctor when he dies than’ll miss King George.”

Grenfell believed deeply that the sickness of the world can not be cured by force or fear, but by a change of heart in each individual, based on love for God and for neighbor. Jesus even went so far as to say, “Love your enemies; do good to them that despitefully use you.” [Luke 6: 27-28]. Does not this have a powerful comment upon our proportionate support of wars, past, present and future, as compared with economic, technical and cultural assistance?

The power of love is like that of a drop of water. A drop of water is inconsequential by itself. But freezing in a crevasse, it can crack mighty rocks; transformed into steam it can move mighty machines.

There is power unlimited here in this congregation this morning if active love shall be released into all areas of our living.

Let us start today to rebuild our way into Jesus’ way, building a kingdom of kindness out of active love.

Let this kind of loving concern motivate our personal lives in our families, in our church, in our community. And let it motivate our patriotic concern for our nation. It could do a lot in our handling of the poor peoples’ problem, in gun control, in safety on streets and highways, for “The love of Christ surpasses knowledge.” Amen.

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, May 4, 1958

Wisconsin Rapids, June 30, 1968

Waioli Church, February 15, 1976