Love Divine and Dusty
When you hear the title for our sermon series, Love Never Fails, Love Conquers All, what comes to mind? “Nice words, but get real.” “In an ideal world, not in today’s world.” But the love we are talking about is not just any kind of love. This is not the love we encounter in the world today, the love we hear and see on our screens. This is not the love that allows everyone to do what they want, a free for all. This is not the love that tolerates sin and injustice.
No, the love we are talking about is radically different from the love of the world. It turns everything upside down. It is revolutionary love that changes people and the world. It is love that endures, that risks, that joyfully sacrifices. It is the power of love that brought this universe into existence. It is the love that chose to express itself as a baby born in poverty. This love is so genius, so radical, so astounding, so awesome that it brings us to our knees. This love is possible and real because Jesus made it possible. This is love divine and dusty.
1. Divine Love Gets Dusty
“Being in very nature God … “ — Because Jesus is God because He loves because He is love, He emptied himself of his divine glory and power. He made himself nothing. He dressed himself in human skin. He became human. He, who is God, who was in the beginning and created all things, that God, eternal and all-powerful, came and made his dwelling, pitched his tent among us. Divine love gets dusty.
This is the awesome wonder of the incarnation, that the divine would get his feet dirty in this world, a world full of violence, oppression, and suffering. Into this world, the Son of God came as a defenseless child, born to an unlikely pair of peasant Jews, born in a stable, in a small town. What was God’s plan? To overcome a world of violent suffering by living a life of sacrificial love. Emmanuel, God with us, entered fully into life. He wept with those who wept. He pitched his tent alongside the suffering. Love divine is love dusty. And now Jesus calls us to do the same. John 13:34–35 — “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
We are to have the same mind as Christ, to be like Christ. Because He loves with love that is divine and dusty, we are to love in the same way. For his divine love in us to become real, it must become dusty. It is not enough to just talk about love. We must put love into practice.
How are we doing with putting love into practice? It seems this storm, raging around us, and fear have paralyzed us. Fear of the unknown, insecurity, discomfort; fear of suffering, of persecution; fear of loving by laying ourselves down; fear of people, especially those different than us, fear of extreme groups, immigrants, refugees. These fears steal our compassion, cause us to pack up our tents, and retreat from the dusty, violent world. But faith loses its meaning when it’s not anchored in dusty life, in dusty love. Unless we involve ourselves in the problems of the world, whether it’s next door, down the road, across the hallway, on the streets, or around the globe, our faith becomes shallow, superficial, unconvincing, and even shrill or clanging, like Paul’s cymbal in 1 Cor 13.
True, authentic faith is expressed in love. The love of Christ in us compels us to engage the world in its dust and dirtiness. The history of the church is full of examples of where love divine and dusty transformed people and communities. Mother Teresa in India. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa proclaimed and practiced this theology of love. Once during a riot that erupted during the funeral of a political leader, he prevented the death of a white policeman by throwing himself across the man’s body as he was being stoned.
As kingdom people, we love best when we are willing to get dusty like Jesus, when like Jesus, we pay attention to those suffering on the margins. As kingdom people, we love best when we seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, when we seek and work for justice, mercy, and truth. How can you love by getting dusty like Jesus? What needs or injustices are ignored or unattended in our community and society?
2. Together We Love
We are created to be together, in community, for fellowship. We are made for love, to love and be loved. We need one another to be fully human as God intended it to be. We are created in the image of God. God is the Holy Trinity, three persons in One, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three persons together in unity as one being, one God. Three persons together in an intimate and loving fellowship with one another. Created in the image of God we are created for and find our purpose and meaning in communion and union with God, and in communion and unity with one another. That’s why Jesus prayed in John 17 that we will be one as He and the Father are one.
Jesus Christ came to restore that fellowship, and in doing so He created a new humanity. Ephesians 2:15–18 — “His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.”
Galatians 3:26-29 — “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
It is with good reason that Paul insists that Jews and Greeks, slaves and free people, men and women live together as one through Jesus Christ. All three of these pairings represented the deepest forms of relational hostility of that time. Jews looked down their noses at Greeks, and Greeks despised Jews. Men were dismissive toward women, and women were embittered toward men. Free people saw slaves as subhuman, and slaves resented free people. He calls for an end to such divisions, because Jesus put to death to such hostilities. He came, preached, and made peace. Because in Christ Jesus we are all children of God. As such we are radically different than the world. We are no longer American or South African, black or white, Republican or Democrat, rich or poor. As believers, we are first and foremost children of God, kingdom people. And as such we shall love one another through the unifying love of Jesus. We shall also love the unbelievers and our enemies.
Our humanity is bound up together with our fellow believers in churches, here in Douglas County, in the US, and across the world. Together, we are all part of the body of Christ, locally and globally. We need one another. “ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it”(1 Co 12:26). We are different, unique with different cultures, gifts, and views, but together we are one body. Together we stand. Together we fall, Together we will rise again. Christians from differing perspectives can learn and mature as they listen humbly and carefully to one another. As sincere believers, we can disagree on certain matters, sometimes quite strongly, and still maintain great respect for, love one another, and work together for God’s kingdom. ILLUSTRATION BILLY GRAHAM & RC SPROUL
Our humanity is also bound up with unbelievers, here in the US and across the world. They are also human, created in the image of God, loved by God. God wants them to be saved. We are sent to them to demonstrate God’s love for them. ILLUSTRATION MUSLIM FRIENDS
3. Christ Died for You
Jesus Christ, love divine and dusty, conquered sin, death, evil, and Satan. Love divine and dusty gave us new, eternal life. So why do we doubt that love never fails, that love conquers all? Why are we of little faith? Why are we looking at worldly powers, politics, money, violence, and guns to save us? All things the Bible tells us not to seek or trust, things which will become our idols.
Why don’t we obey our Lord’s command to love? Why don’t we follow his example and love as He loves? Let us stop talking about love. Let us step out into the dust of the world, and take the risk to be radically different. In today’s world, God’s love, love divine, becomes love dusty through us. We are the hands and feet of Christ. Through love in action, we show the heart of Christ, love divine, to the world. The only way to do this is to get dusty and muddy, to engage the world and enter into the messy relationships with others, with fellow believers who have different views, with unbelievers who have different beliefs, with our enemies who want to persecute us.
When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper today, we celebrate love divine and dusty. When we gather around the Lord’s table, we have fellowship with the Holy One himself, and we remember love divine that became love dusty, broken, and bloody to save us. We have fellowship also with each other, and we remember that we are one body together in Christ, children of God.
And when we go out from here today, strengthened in our faith by the Lord’s Supper, we go with the mandate to love as our Lord did. Christ died for me. Christ died for you. But that is not all. Christ died for everyone. So next time you walk down the street, take a good look at every face you pass and see, and in your mind say, “Christ died for you.” Yes, Christ died for that phony, that crook, that gay person, that drug addict, that homeless beggar that democrat, that republican, that liberal, that antifah, that extreme right-wing white supremacist, that saint, that Muslim, that Hindu.
But how will they know if we do not love them with Christ’s love, love divine and dusty?