Wednesday, July 24, 2013

[Pentecost+9] "We love, because God first loved us."

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how Love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love, because God first loved us.

-1 John 4:16b-19

When Molly preached this Sunday, she talked a lot about baptism and about the resistance many of us may have to getting baptized (or re-affirming our baptism) as adults.

She summarized these concerns in 2 questions. I'm going to re-phrase them a little:

1) What if I do it wrong? (How can I make/renew these baptismal promises, knowing I can keep them only imperfectly?)

2) What if it's wrong? (Or put another way, what if it -- Christianity -- isn't True?)

In my invitation email to the list-serv, I offered some preliminary thoughts on these questions:

1) What if I do it wrong?

Molly reminded us that in the face of our fears about our "worthiness," God's invitational love is greater than all our fears.

She mentioned that in C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair (part of our summer reading sermon series), Jill and Eustace flub all the instructions Aslan gave them -- except the last one -- and these mistakes are not without consequences, but when Aslan meets them at the end of the book, Aslan meets them with love, not punishment or scolding.

How can this assurance strengthen us in our daily lives?

2) What if Christianity is wrong/not True?

The Meditation printed in the bulletin on Sunday included a portion from The Silver Chair which Molly didn't preach on, wherein Puddlegum the Marsh-wiggle asserts that even if Aslan and Narnia and everything are make-believe, living as if they are true leads to a much better quality of life than the alternative.

Does the story that 1 John tells draw us in? What about that story is appealing to us? How can we live as if it is a True story?

---

In the future, this blog will include summary highlights from the weeknight Bible study, but since everyone else was otherwise committed this week, I'm just opening the conversation. I've highlighted the questions I asked in my introductory email, but I also invite your comments on anything else that struck you in reading through the text just now.

Feel free to comment anonymous/pseudonymously if you're more comfortable that way. Be respectful to all commenters.