Matthew 5:43-48
February 19, 2017
“LOVE NON-MUSHY”
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Everybody hugs each other these days instead of shaking hands or waving hello; have you noticed that? I don’t remember seeing that growing up; yet somehow people seemed more loving back then. Today everybody closes their voice mails by saying, “Love ya,” which I think is a more casual form of “I love you.” And did you notice that all our service vendors these days want to develop a personal relationship with us – calling us, emailing us, even sending me birthday cards. Valentine’s Day always seems to bring out the mushy, sentimental displays of love and romance. But the elevated divorce rate is a sure sign that the commitment and forgiveness of real love are gone with the wind. Today Jesus weighs in on the subject of demonstrating love, and he has a suggestion. Maybe we should learn to love in a way that goes way beyond what the world considers to be loving. Maybe we should learn to love like God loves. Maybe we should learn to love with a non-mushy love.
1-God’s love is not mushy. What exactly does that mean? How is God’s love so different from the mushy, shallow, sentimental love that we humans are so given to display? In a word, God’s love does not depend on the worthiness or the attractiveness or the response of those upon whom he sets his love. St. Paul defined God’s love for the Romans when he wrote: God demonstrated his own love for us in this; while we were still sinners – Christ died for the ungodly. God didn’t choose you and me like a husband choses a wife. He didn’t look to see if we were attractive, or if we liked him, or if we would say yes. God chose us in eternity to be his own, long before we were able to earn or respond to his love. Jesus died for us while we were still sinners, while we were still kicking and screaming and fighting against the very idea that we needed a Savior from sin. From the moment of our conception we were saying no thanks to God’s love even while he was showering us with love.
The word for God’s love in the Bible is the word grace. Grace is undeserved love. God loves us because he is a lover, not because we are so lovable. God loves us because of who he is and not because of who we are. And he remains committed to us with that love even when we do not love him back. A husband dearly loves his wife. But if years go by and his wife doesn’t love him back, his love starts to fade. Parents dearly love their children, But after years of persistent rebellion and disobedience, the parent grows weary, even of loving his own flesh and blood. Not so the love of God! God’s love is solid and unchangeable, not mushy. God’s love is built on the solid foundation of his firm desire to draw us to himself, not on our mushy, changeable willingness to respond. Paul told Timothy: “Even when we are faithless, he is still faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” Even when we don’t believe he loves us, he still loves us – and that will never change.
2-Pagan love is mushy. In sharp contrast to God’s love, most of the love we see around us in the world is mushy, changeable, moveable, fickle, unsure and uncertain. Jesus gives three examples of that kind of love. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? He says if we only love those who love us back, we will have no reward in heaven. He says if we only greet our own people, if we only say hi or are nice to people who are good friends – we are no different from pagans. He says if we only invite people to our house who are going to invite us back, we are just like the hated tax collectors, who were only interested in themselves.
Jesus’ message is that our love must be different from what the world considers loving. It must be higher, bigger, deeper than chocolates and roses. It must go beyond food pantries, hugging, marching for peace, going green, and wearing pink. Shallow, superficial, worldly love always looks something in return. It always looks to be noticed, appreciated, rewarded and returned.
3-Our love will reflect God’s love. God’s love for us in Jesus Christ is different, truly different from what the world shows as love. The world loves its friends and hates its enemies. That’s just the way the world is. But, Jesus said, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.To be children of God mean to love like God does. It means to love without putting conditions on your love. When God makes it rain, he doesn’t only water the grass of people who go to church. The church-skipping, God denying unbeliever gets the same rain for his lawn. When God makes the sun come up in the morning, he not only gives light and warmth to people who believe in Jesus. He makes the sun shine on people who say he doesn’t exist and didn’t even create the sun. God not only loves the whole world, he shows his love to the whole world. When God sent his Son Jesus, he not only sent him for those who would eventually come to faith in Jesus. Christ died for all. He’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He’s the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Is it possible for you and me to love like that, to love like God, to love our enemies like God loved us when we were his enemies? With God all things are possible. With God nothing is impossible. When God’s love penetrates our hard hearts, it softens them to show a bigger, better love than those who don’t know God. Is it possible to love your spouse long after your spouse no longer loves you? Of course it is. That’s why Christian marriages last forty, fifty and even sixty years. Is it possible to love your children long after they have forsaken their upbringing and forsaken the Lord? Of course it is. That’s why Christian parents are still encouraging their children into their forties to come back to the house of God. Is it possible to forgive that guy who despises you and even cursed you out? Of course it is, because God has forgiven you for a lot worse things than that guy ever did to you.
Conclusion: Don’t be satisfied with showing the kind of mushy, superficial love of the world around you. Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. God has called you out of the world to set you apart and be his own special people. God’s special people demonstrate God’s special kind of love. The world marches in peace parades. You go and bring real peace to your dying grandma by going to visit her in the nursing home and reading the Bible to her. It’s okay to send valentines cards to people who are attractive to you. But go across that street and invite that single mom with no job and three kids to come over to your house for dinner. Go ahead and close every email with love ya, but then open your mouth and your wallet so that the love of God in Christ Jesus can be proclaimed to the whole world for which he died. Go ahead and go green to save the planet, but then go and proclaim that eternal life is worse than global warming. Love like God. Love non-mushy. Amen.