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"Command and Conquer", John 15:9-17, 1 John 5:1-6

Date: May 17, 2009, Sixth Sunday of Easter
Author: Pastor John Linn

“The more things change the more they stay the same.”
“The more things change the more they stay the same.”

Over two thousand years before this phrase was coined the writer of Ecclesiastes made this observation: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.”

“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.”

During our pilgrimage to the Holy Land I was reminded of the truth of this ancient wisdom. Visiting for the second time “The Land of the Holy Places,” the name adopted by early pilgrims before it was shortened to “The Holy Land,” I saw things through a somewhat different lens this time around. On my initial trip, seeing everything for the first time, I was pretty much consumed with merely trying to absorb all that I saw. But this time was different. Having seen many of the sites before I had the luxury on this trip to spend time reflecting on the implications of the events of the Bible. I found myself making mental comparisons of life in Jesus’ day, politically, religiously, and socially with that of the world today. I found myself pondering the divide that exists between life in the Kingdom of God, the life Jesus inaugurated, life as God would have us live it, and life as it actually exists today, life as we know it. As I reflected on these things I had thoughts that could be summed up by this: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” “The more things change the more they stay the same.”

Visiting for the second time and not being overwhelmed with the newness of it all there were moments to reflect on the legacy of Jesus’ ministry. What have been and what are the results of his life and mission? What has been the impact of his words and the life that he lived on the world: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” I thought about how we humans act, how we treat one another. How individuals relate to each other, how husbands treat their wives, how parents treat their children, how friends and strangers relate to one another, how governments relate to their citizens, how citizens relate to their governing bodies, how members of one religion relate to members of another, how nations interact with other nations. I thought about the many relationships amongst people and the relationships between groups of people. I thought about the degree of love and respect exhibited in these relationships and I wondered has any progress been made? Have we learned anything about loving each other in the two thousand years since Jesus said: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Or is it the case that the more things change the more they stay the same?   

In Egypt we learned that there are over two million children in the Cairo area alone that have been orphaned not as a result of their parents dying but as a result of being thrown out of the house onto the streets. Our Egyptian guide Gigi explained to us how this unthinkable situation has come to pass: According to Gigi Muslim law allows husbands to divorce their wives simply by saying the words, “I divorce you,” and it is done. The women are then thrown out penniless with no assets whatsoever to support themselves, sometimes their children go with them sometimes not. The fact that the wife might bring home a larger paycheck than the husband changes nothing. In divorce all household assets remain with the husband. She’s thrown out of the house with only the clothes on her back often forced to move in with relatives. If she remarries, which often happens—Muslim law allows men to have multiple wives and many Muslim men do—it’s often happens according to Gigi that the children the woman might bring with her into the new household not uncommonly end up on the street as they are booted out of the house as soon as they displease the woman’s new husband. This explains why a metro area of twenty-two million people has over two million children without parents many of whom live on the streets. The children are discarded like unwanted furniture forced to survive in an impoverished, overcrowded city on their own. It’s unimaginable and yet true. It’s a shocking situation. And cause to make me doubt that we have learned anything about loving one another. Cause to make me wonder if Jesus words have fallen on deaf ears: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”    

In Israel we saw more evidence of the gap that exists between life in the Kingdom of God, the life Jesus inaugurated, life as God would have us live it, and life as it actually exists today. Our Israeli guide would not discuss “the wall” or the checkpoints both of which together effectively serve to keep the Palestinians confined like animals, but the significance was not lost on us. In the very place where Jesus spoke about a Samaritan man caring for a man that had fallen into the hands of robbers, a story intended to break down barriers between people and demonstrate that we’re all one humanity called by God to care for one another, we saw with our own eyes the alienating effects of strict segregation. At one checkpoint we got a birdseye view of several murals painted on the Palestinian side of the wall, a reinforced concrete structure thirty feet tall. One mural showed a face peering through a barbed wire fence. The caption read: “To exist is to resist.” We were told that a Palestinian living in Bethlehem who works in Jerusalem must pass through checkpoints on the way to and from Jerusalem. Two hours or more are required to pass the checkpoints each way. That’s a minimum of four hours each day to pass checkpoints in traveling from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, a round trip distance of twelve miles. The result? Most people have thrown in the towel, they have given up. The difficulties and hassles of four hours or more of checkpoints to travel twelve miles is just not worth it.  

Clearly armed guard checkpoints and thirty foot high walls constructed on the same ground that Mary and Joseph traveled over to give birth to the Prince of Peace is not the kind of life God intends. The broken relationship between Jews and Arabs surely grieves Jesus who came that his Spirit of peace would be poured out on all flesh.    

I could sight other examples but this is enough I think to demonstrate that it’s not difficult to reach the conclusion that: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done.” “The more things change the more they stay the same.” At least when it comes to the way people treat one another. There seems to be just as much inhumanity today as there was two thousand years ago.

I have a friend who has become disillusioned with Christianity. I disagree with him for disengaging from the church. I think if anything the source of his disillusionment should spur him to become a greater witness for the cause of Christ. At any rate his disillusionment is this: He doesn’t believe the church gets Jesus message. Instead of resembling Jesus and exemplyfying his love the church too often resembles the world. Summing up his critique in his own words is this comment that he recently wrote to me, “I constantly am frustrated that it seems so impossible to get people to think there is any real solution to our human problems than resorting back to the same solutions cave man used millenia ago.”

I cite this critique of the church and of the world because it resonates deeply with reality.

In our reading from First John the author uses a word that in the NRSV is translated “Conquer.” It’s used three times. “…for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. 5 Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”  I like the choice of the word “conquer.” The RSV and NIV translate the Greek with the word “overcome.” The reason I like the word conquer is because it sets up a stark contrast. A stark contrast exists between conquering the world using the method of the cave man, namely brute force, a method that is every bit as popular today as two thousand or twenty thousand years ago, with the method proposed by the author of first John, love. What is born of God conquers the world the author says. What is born of God is love. Love conquers the world. Love is the solution. Love is the solution to the problems that face humanity. Jesus commands us to love. When we do so our faith in his love conquers the world. Command and Conquer.

For as fascinating as crusader history is—we saw a very impressive twelfth century crusader fortress in Akko—it’s shocking to me how badly we Christians got it wrong. The Pope gave the command and off to conquer the crusaders went. All in an effort to keep the Holy Places in Christian hands. How could they not understand that Jesus cares far more for the people of the world than the site commemorating his death and burial?      

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Yes it seems there is plenty of evidence to convince a person that “The more things change the more they stay the same,” and that “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” But while there is plenty of evidence that not much has changed in the way humans treat one another there is also plenty of evidence to convince of the importance of Jesus words and the importance of abiding in his love. Instead of causing disillusion all this evidence should inspire us to redouble our commitment to Christ and see the relevance and the truth of the message that he incarnated. It may be true that the world hasn’t learned much about love in two thousand years, but isn’t this all the more reason to pray for his grace that we might abide in his love and show the world a more excellent way? Amen.

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