Tim Button-Harrison photo by Regina Bryan

Tuesday, July 6, 2004
Lessons from Love Feast
John 13:34-35
by Tim Button-Harrison

It is now widely known that on the eve of September 11, 2001 a secret project was being rehearsed. That evening, less than three years ago, nineteen men, unknown to the world, were going through their plans. Clothes were laid out. Tools to harm hidden. Bags arranged. Prayers made. And though not together in one place, they were unified in purpose – to commit violence, what they believed would be holy violence – against their enemy.

It is not widely known that on that very same evening – the night before September 11 – there was another group, nearly identical in number to the first, that was rehearsing a very different plan. From North Dakota, nearly 700 miles distant, some had come. From Minnesota. From across Iowa. To a country church in the heart of this land.

Who were they? Who were we? Ministers of our Northern Plains churches. We were women and men. We were young and old. We were progressive, conservative, liberal, evangelical. A very mixed company. And we had come for this purpose – to demonstrate love, what we believed to be holy love, for one another.

And now the tables were set. A simple meal ready. Candles lit. Communion cups filled. Bread laid out. Footwashing tubs filled. And now our District Executive, Connie Burkholder, and Dale Brown our district guest, now invited us to begin Love Feast.

We have many practices in our life together, but it’s been said Love Feast, more than any other, has formed us as a people – and as a people who truly and deeply love one another. Through our practice of Love Feast, for our now nearly 300 years, the Holy Spirit has most certainly been at work – rooting and grounding us in love – instructing and teaching us how to love – building us up as a community of love – making us to be salt, that we might flavor, and to be light, that we might illuminate this world with love through all our living.

Just look for a moment over this body and try to comprehend the love that has been shared within all our churches – between members, by deacons and pastors and Sunday School teachers, in small groups, service projects, Bible studies. If I went to your church I have no doubt I’d find much of what I find in mine. People deeply caring and praying for each other. People bringing meals to one another in times of need. People who love eating together every chance they get. People encouraging one another in faith and life and the sharing of gifts. And now add the countless deeds of mercy and kindness that we never even see or recognize.

But here’s what I want to ask this evening. How are we doing, brothers and sisters, beyond our local congregations? In our district life with one another and our denominational life together. In our connectional and covenantal life – how are we doing at following Jesus’ command that we love one another?

On the evening before his death, Jesus demonstrated love and Jesus commanded love. Knowing Judas would betray him, Jesus got up from the table and took off his outer robe. Knowing he would soon be arrested and bound and drug away, Jesus tied a towel around his waist. Knowing Peter would deny him and a sham trial be given him and the crowd turned against him, Jesus poured into a basin water and began to wash his disciples’ feet. And knowing he would soon be nailed to a Roman cross and die, Jesus, at the close of supper, said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. For by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Where and when, in our shared life together beyond and between our congregations, have you most seen love in action? These last several years I have seen love between us above all when those from different places and points of view have been patient and respectful toward one another and have been willing to listen and learn from each other. This was the Spirit among that varied group of Northern Plains leaders joined for Love Feast on the eve of September 11th .

But I have seen other forces as well – forces pushing us away from each other. Forces causing the distance between us to grow. And forces that have seemed all too ready to fill that growing distance with misunderstanding, mistrust and fear.

Friends, nothing less than Christ’s witness to the world is at stake. This world God so loves desperately needs to know our teacher and to be taught the way of Christ. And yet will the world recognize in us Jesus through our love for one another? Or will it happen that, in place of love’s unity, the world will see only more of what it already knows so well – mistrust across differences, defenses raised, wagons circled, unification born of fear, dissent discouraged, and the growing chill of silence.

The world knows all too well of that one project on the eve of September 11th – of a people unified by hate and dedicated to the practice of violence. O that the world might know even more that other project on that same evening - of a people joined in Christ, varied in our gifts, and dedicated to the practice of love.

Love is patient and kind, writes Paul. It is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. Nor is it irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but it rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And love never ends.

Today, brothers and sisters, perhaps as never before, we are called to go extraordinary distances, to overcome great divides, to put into practice Jesus’ command that we love one another.

It was midnight, April 15th, 2004. Del Keeney, our denomination’s new Director of Congregational Life Ministries, was about to be initiated into a little known practice of the Northern Plains – our once every three years 2000 mile round trip bus ride to the remote Mon-Dak region of our district.

The chartered bus pulled into the parking lot of Open Circle Church, Burnsville, Minnesota, south of the Twin Cities. Inside that bus were twenty Northern Plains District Board members, some of whom had already been traveling for hours. Four who had come from the Iowa-Nebraska line. Another almost from Missouri. Yet another from the southwest corner of Minnesota. And the rest from across Iowa.

Del climbed on board and found his way to the back of the bus where I greeted him as he plopped down across the aisle from me. As fate would have it, both of us were to find ourselves sitting directly on top of the rear axle of the bus.

Two hundred and fifty miles later, we left Minnesota and pulled over in Fargo, North Dakota. We were twenty-two bleary eyed sisters and brothers in Christ, now lumbering off the bus and staggering through a truck stop. We were twenty-five to seventy-five years old. We were women and men. We were from very different congregations. Some small, some relatively large. Some mostly liberal, others mostly conservative. Some rural, some urban. But at that moment, in the middle of the night in that truck stop in Fargo, North Dakota, we were all united in one common purpose – to find our way to the bathroom.

At 3 o’clock the next afternoon, after bouncing across nearly 1000 miles of highway, we pulled into Froid, Montana, and came to a halt at our destination, the Big Sky Church.

How far, brothers and sisters, are you and I willing to go? What distances travel? What divides overcome – of geography, of culture, of theology, of Biblical interpretation – to live out together Christ’s command that we love one another?

That evening, less than three months ago, in the furthest corner of Northern Plains District, brothers and sisters from thirteen very different and unique congregations joined together for Love Feast.

Spending two out of three nights sleeping on a bus can do funny things to a person’s head - not to mention the sewer fumes we all endured on the return journey. So I don’t know if this idea is inspired or crazy. But ever since that trip (and by the way, it’s either the fourth or fifth time I’ve traveled to our Big Sky church, at least twice by bus, and twice by train) - ever since that trip I’ve been wondering, what would happen if it became our aim to hold Love Feast not just with those in our local congregation but also with brothers and sisters beyond our local congregation, and perhaps especially with those for whom we’d have to cross some distance or even divide to join?

One of the older members of our Board, born and raised Brethren, said, after that Love Feast at Big Sky, he’d never before participated in Love Feast with people beyond his local congregation. I know this was also true for others.

What congregations or even other districts could you reach if you were willing to get on a bus and go a thousand miles?

That evening in Montana, less than three months ago, and also that evening before September 11th, less than three years ago – as people from different congregations joined together in Love Feast – I saw Jesus in our midst bringing down the fences. I sensed the Spirit among us teaching us anew how to love one another. I witnessed a people of faith saying NO to this world’s spirit of isolation and division and fear. And I witnessed those same people proclaiming a bold YES to the rich heritage that has been passed down to us – of covenant community - of practical Christianity - of putting faith into action – of loving one another.

I once read a different translation of John 13 verse 32. For the word “commandment” it used instead the word “prescription.” ȁI give you a new prescription, that you love one another.” Now this got me thinking, which is always a dangerous thing. What happens to us as a faith body if we’re not taking Jesus’ new prescription – if we’re not following Jesus’ new commandment?

Could it be that our practice of Love Feast is very much like a prescription that helps us to stay in love with one another? And could it be that without our following the love commandment, that without our taking the love prescription, that without our doing the things we faithfully do and recall and re-live during Love Feast – the self-examination, the discerning of the body, the washing of each other’s feet, the eating together, the partaking of the bread and cup – that without these love inevitably fades and fear inevitably grows and with fear all the estrangement and misunderstanding and hurting that is born of fear?

Love Feast is not simply a re-enactment of something that happened long ago. Love Feast is a spiritual practice for today. And as a spiritual practice Love Feast opens us, in our personal lives and in our body life together, to the work of the Holy Spirit here and now. Through each of the different parts of Love Feast, and through the Love Feast as a whole, we are being instructed and we are being transformed. We are being taught ever anew by the Spirit how to love one another. And by that same Spirit we are being continually remade and renewed as Christ’s Body.

Imagine, brothers and sisters, coming together not only with those from your own congregation but with those from different congregations, and perhaps very different congregations. And imagine if your coming together began with prayerful self-examination.

So much that is hurtful and unloving in our world, and indeed also our church, happens because we have failed to first examine ourselves. Instead we first judge one another. But the Spirit has been teaching us another way. That our renewal as Christ’s Body, as a people ruled by Christ’s love, begins with us each looking into our own hearts.

And imagine, brothers and sisters, if then together we truly practiced Paul’s admonition to discern the body that we are. This means searching ourselves as a community and asking ourselves some tough questions:

Where is there brokenness or pain in our church body?

Who are the most vulnerable or hurting ones among us – those who have been overlooked or excluded or even humiliated by our actions as a church?

And how can we work together for greater love and love’s unity?

I wonder, if we were to practice discerning the body together, what the Spirit might teach us and how the Spirit might lead us?

And imagine if then together we washed one another’s feet - and if then together we joined in the simple meal of love – and if then together we shared in the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ. Imagine the lessons the Holy Spirit might teach us. Imagine the fences the Spirit might bring down.

I found something out the other day. Annual Conference hasn’t always been held over the July 4th weekend, so we could get a better rate. Years ago, our Annual Meeting was held at the time of Pentecost, the time we remember and celebrate that first outpouring of the Holy Spirit which gave birth to the Church. And you know what else I discovered? In those days, at the very start of our Annual Meeting, before any business or deliberations, we held Love Feast.

Our calling today is loving one another across our distances and differences. And our challenge today is to find ways, to make time, to take time, to examine our hearts, and to discern the Body that we are, and to kneel and serve one another, and to nourish our bodies and spirits, and to take into our lives the broken body and shed blood of Christ - together – that we might be taught anew, for this day and for this hour – how to love one another.

There is still much flavor in this salt that we are.

And there is still much brightness in this light that we are.

And there is still much love in this body that we are.

So then share, sisters and brothers, and boldly share, and without fear or hesitation share the saltiness that we are. And may the flavor grow.

And so shine, sisters and brothers, and boldly shine, and without fear or hesitation shine the light that we are. And may Jesus more and more show.

And finally, love, sisters and brothers, and boldly love, and without fear or hesitation love one another – that the whole world might know – we are disciples of Jesus Christ – because we love one another. Amen.