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Discipleship: Arms of Love

1 Corinthians 13

April 17, 2005

1. We have been rehearsing for our big musical as our way to get out the good news that God raised Jesus from the dead. So during these six weeks of Easter, we’re working to be better disciples, since disciples comprise this "troupe." As a kind of jumping-off place, I’m using the six keys to being an effective disciple in Glenn McDonald’s book The Disciple Making Church. The first key is having a heart for Jesus alone, realizing that only Jesus gives meaning to our existence. The second key is having a mind transformed by The Word, being so immersed in the biblical story that we know what God wants us to do. The third key to being a better disciple is having arms of love.

2. If you were going to create a picture, and entitle it "The Arms of Love", what would it look like? Would it be a picture of your grandmother? Grandmothers are famous for their arms of love. If not a grandmother, then maybe your "significant other?" I know it couldn’t be Venus di Milo – she doesn’t have arms any more. Do you suppose she hugged so many times her arms simply fell of? I doubt it! Any more thoughts? Kris gave me a picture last Christmas that I think should be titled "The Arms of Love." He and I were having a conversation about pictures and images of Jesus, and I told him I had never seen my favorite picture of Jesus; I had only read about it. I described it to him, and much to my surprise, he got online and found it! Here it is – and it graphically shows the next key to being an effective disciple. If these aren’t the arms of love, I don’t know what they look like!

3. Suppose, for the next few minutes, that you are this sheep (which, of course, we are). How would you qualify for love from this shepherd? Glenn McDonald lists four criteria to being loved the Western culture has developed over the past 300 years. First is to be beautiful. Unfortunately, any person’s beauty has more to do with genetics than anything else. Granted, someone can have extreme make overs to reduce the more glaring disadvantages of heritage, but by and large, what we have is what we got. The problem with that, though, is that even if parents passed on some good-looking genes, what is considered "beautiful" in America changes every few years.

4. If you couldn’t be beautiful, maybe you could be loveable. Be the kind of person others want to have to have around. Be clever, or gracious, or funny. The problem with that is what may be clever or gracious or funny to one person will be stupid or ungracious or boring to another. When one person has to measure up to another’s definition of loveable, the defining person (the lover) has enormous power over the lovee. That’s not good. Wednesday night Will was telling us about the terrarium he built in school, and they’ve ordered Lady Bugs and Roly Polys for it. Since they are both beneficial little critters, that got me to wondering (aloud) why Lady Bugs are such a popular design theme, and Roly Polys are not. The answer was because Lady Bugs are cuter and more colorful than Roly Polys. Or, in keeping with McDonald’s criteria, Lady Bugs are cute and loveable, while Roly Polys are gross, they are not loveable! .

5. But, if you somehow missed out on being beautiful or loveable, you can still try to be alluring. Stores everywhere stock products which promise to cover up natural odors with some fragrance that belongs to another species or the environment – Jungle Gardenia was my favorite years ago. According to the advertisements, those who do not use allure-enhancing products have a hard time qualifying for love these days.

6. There is still lucky. Maybe this sheep was in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, or unluckily, in the great "lottery of life,’ there is no guarantee that anyone will be in the right place at the right time to "win the jackpot." So those who are not beautiful or loveable or alluring end up living lives of quiet desperation, spending more time and money on shallow appearances than developing their inner resources.

7. If Jesus had graded this particular sheep on beauty, loveableness, allure, and luck, what do you think would have happened? He (or she) would probably have already fallen to its death. By our standards today, this lost sheep would have had to be a beautiful white swan skimming across the surface of a placid pond, or a graceful deer grazing in the glen to qualify for love. But no! Jesus risked his own life to save a smelly sheep! Although this side of the sheep looks nicely brushed and freshly bathed, I’m pretty sure the artist intended it as a theological statement – sheep cannot make themselves clean. Without outside intervention, sheep wool is matted with caked mud and cockleburs and maybe even a few Roly Polys! Why would Jesus take this risk? Because he had arms of love – God’s love.

8. God’s kind of love stops what it is doing to help those it doesn’t know, or does know and doesn’t like. God’s love doesn’t limit itself to its best friends, or its romantic lovers. God’s love is risky, there’s no doubt about it. Look at the distance he could fall! What if his foot slipped, or the rock he’s clinging to suddenly gave way? And what about that vulture? He could have fed on that sheep for days. This vulture is not at all happy that someone interfered with his next meal.

10. Jesus was God’s own son, "a chip off the old block," so to speak. With his own arms, he could love the way God intended, by seeking the good of other people, whether or not he liked them.

11. That’s the really good news! Jesus loves us, too! We don’t have to be beautiful or loveable or alluring or lucky to find ourselves wrapped up in God’s arms of love! And because God loves us, because we are disciples of Jesus, we must show that self-giving love as we go through each day.

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