On December 31, 406 A.D., the Rhine River froze solid.  Suddenly, the natural barrier between the barbarians on the northern side of the river and the cultured but decadent Romans on the southern side was gone.  Hordes of cold, hungry Germanic and Celtic people walked across the frozen River. It was the beginning of the end.  Rome had the best army in the world, but even Roman arms could not cope with this mob of unwashed, uncouth, uncivilized foreigners.  A brief four years later Alaric, the chief of the Goths, sacked Rome, and the entire empire collapsed only seventy years later.  Rome had enjoyed twelve centuries of unimpeded success.  Suddenly in only a few years, mighty Rome had fallen.

            In his highly pessimistic book published recently, A Bed for the Night, author and journalist David Rieff concludes that things are going from bad to worse in our own world.  For the better part of the past ten years he has observed the barbarians of our world -- and their humanitarian counterparts -- in places like Bosnia, Sudan, Rwanda and Afghanistan.  His conclusion: the humanitarians are failing, and the barbarians are winning.  He quotes Alberto Navarro, former director of the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office, who says, “Mankind is slowly, but in a very determined way, going back to barbarism.”¹  

            But in the midst of the chaos of the collapsing Roman Empire, we find faithful Christians like St. Patrick preaching the gospel of Christ’s love in Ireland and, according to historian Thomas Cahill, saving civilization.²  And in the midst of the violent and tragic 13th and 14th centuries, as the Black Death, much like our current AIDS epidemic, reduced the population of Europe by one-third, as ruthless crusaders in the name of Christ sacked cities and ravaged the countryside along the trade routes to Jerusalem, exacerbating the conflict between Muslims and Christians which we are still living with today, we find faithful Christians like Francis of Assisi and his followers preaching the gospel of Christ’s love.

            And in 18th-century England as the rich grew richer while the poorer grew poorer in the upheaval of the industrial revolution, as Christianity became trapped in the churches and cathedrals of the nobility while the poor sought escape from their misery in their gin lanes where you could get drunk for a penny and dead drunk for tuppence, we find John Wesley preaching the gospel of Christ’s love in the open air to farmers and coal miners and saving England from bloody revolution.              And in our own era during the past hundred blood-drenched years as tens of thousands of Christian martyrs have died for their faith, we find Christians, some famous, some obscure, patiently proclaiming the gospel of Christ’s love.

            As our own civilization shows signs of disarray, as masses of hungry people from Bolivia to Bangladesh observe via satellite television the incredible wealth of Europe and America and covet it, as we see barbarism rising while civilization declines, who are the people who will stand in the gap and preserve civilization?  Or, if Western civilization collapses again, as it has in the past, who will crawl out of the ruins and begin again to process of rebuilding it?

            You will!  We will!  In the midst of a world where tremendous energy is being expended in tearing things down, we Christians, as people who take Jesus’ command to love seriously, are the ones entrusted and commissioned to build things up.  There are myriad things that tear down: spend ten minutes watching the Jerry Springer show and you’ll see plenty of them.  Paul lists them frequently in his letters.  In the great love chapter, I Corinthians 13, Paul lists the things that tear down human lives:  impatience, unkindness, envy, boastfulness, arrogance, resentment.  But, by contrast, while these things tear down human lives and human civilization, love builds up human life and a humane society.  Hatred is a wrecking ball.  Love is a builder.³

            Think with me, then, about the foundation that love builds upon.  Then, about the building that love constructs. 

 

THE FOUNDATION

 

            The foundation that love builds upon is the words and the person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus says, “Whoever hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like the man who builds his house on a rock.”  In past weeks, I’ve suggested that the best definition of love is the person and ministry of Jesus Christ.  And that’s true.  But I’d like to be more specific about what that means.  We Christians are fond of the asking the question, “What would Jesus do?”  Good question!  Do you know the answer to this question?

            I’m afraid that for many Christian people the answer would be rather vague.  Jesus would be kind.  Jesus would be loving.  Jesus would be nice.  Sure!  But what would he do?  It’s no good asking the question, “What would Jesus do?” if we don’t know what he did!  Or, if we’re very vague about the specific things that Jesus taught.

            Why has situation ethics become so popular among Christian people as well as among the rest of society?  Situation ethics says that we do not live by rules and regulations about what is right or wrong.  Instead, we live by the law of love.  We do in every situation what love would do.

            But what would love do in a given situation?  And there we’re stuck if we have only a vague idea of what Love did when Love walked among us in Jesus Christ.  The famous example in Joseph Fletcher’s book on situation ethics about Frau Bergmeier, the German housewife imprisoned by the Russians in the Ukraine during World War II and separated from her family in Germany, demonstrates our pathetic ignorance about how Love behaves.  Frau Bergmeier discovered that she could be reunited with her family if she were pregnant.  Pregnant women prisoners were considered by the Russians to be a liability.  So Frau Bergmeier asked a friendly camp guard to impregnate her which he was only too happy to do.  She was released from the camp and returned to Germany and her family.  And Frau Bergmeier was lauded by Joseph Fletcher as someone who was not bound by the rules and regulations but who acted on the basis of love.⁴ 

            But compare Frau Bergmeier’s experience to that of Corrie and Betsy Ten Boom who were also imprisoned in a concentration camp during World War II.  Betsy died in that concentration camp.  Corrie remained in prison until she was released at the end of the war.  They could have done magnificent things for their family and church if they were not in prison.  Why didn’t it occur to these two Christian women to do what Frau Bergmeier to get themselves released so they could take care of their family and be of use to their church?  It didn’t occur because they knew better!  They knew what Jesus would and would not do, and clearly adultery was one of the things that Jesus would not do.  Comparing Frau Bergmeier and the Ten Boom sisters, there’s no question in my mind as to which has had the greater positive impact on our Church and our world.

            The foundation that love builds on is not some vague notion about the nature of love.  On the contrary, the foundation is Christ and his very specific words about what love is and does.  We get into serious trouble when we speculate about what we think Love might do in a given situation without knowing what Love actually did and what specific things Love, as incarnate in Jesus Christ, actually taught us to do.

 

 

THE BUILDING

 

            Now, let’s ask: what sort of building is Jesus calling us to construct on the foundation of his love?

            Nothing fancy, nothing ornate, nothing spectacular.  Just a place where we can invite Jesus to live.  Just a place where we can invite our neighbors, and they will feel welcome.  This is how we build our individual lives, this is how we build our churches.

            Our temptation is to go for the spectacular.  We want the biggest church in town, we want the biggest financial budget, we want to be on television, we want to get our names in the newspapers.

            Jesus is not impressed with such things.  Listen to him: “Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’  Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’”

            Here is a sobering word for church leaders.  We leaders can go through the motions of ministry.  We can even build huge ministries that benefit thousands of people.  We can, in the words of Jesus, gain the whole world.  But if we do so without paying attention to the words of Jesus, we can lose our souls.

            “If I speak with the tongues of men and angels,” Paul tells us in I Corinthians 13, “but have no love, I am only a noisy gong or a  clanging cymbal.”  I could preach sermons that would knock your socks off and still not do what Jesus calls me to do.

            Or, “if I have prophetic powers,” Paul continues, “and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, but do not have love, I am nothing.”  I could be smarter than the Harvard faculty and blow you away with my brilliance, but if I did so without love, I would be a zero.

            Even “if I gave away all my possessions and delivered my body to be burned at the stake,” Paul concludes, “if I did so without Love, [without Christ,] I would gain nothing.”

            So, if these things do not impress Jesus, what does?  What does love build on the foundation of Jesus’ words?  Jesus gives us a simple formula.  You build with human need in mind.  “So in everything,” says Jesus, “do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

            The famous Golden Rule that we talk so much about.  Jesus says, “Don’t just talk about it.  Do it!”

            I want to add a follow-up question to “what would Jesus do?”  It is: “what does my neighbor need?”  When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them for they were like sheep without a shepherd.  What did Jesus do?  He taught them and he fed them.⁵  He told people about himself and he met their needs.  We can scarcely improve on Jesus’ strategy: we tell people about Jesus and we meet their needs in the name of Jesus.

            So, the structure we put up on the foundation of Jesus’ words and actions is one that will minister to the needs of human beings.  We build our individual Christian lives with that in mind, and we build our churches the same way.  If our actions and our programs do not communicate the love and healing of Jesus Christ, we should eliminate them.

            I want to close with a story that shows the way love builds up what hatred tears down.  It is about a seminary professor who was vacationing with his wife in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  One morning, as they were eating breakfast at a little restaurant, they noticed a distinguished looking, white-haired gentleman moving from table to table, visiting with the guests. The professor leaned over and whispered to his wife, “I hope he doesn’t come over here.” But sure enough, the man did come over to their table.

            “Where are you folks from?” asked the stranger.

            “Oklahoma,” they answered.

            “Great to have you here in Tennessee.” the stranger said. “What do you do for a living?”

            “I teach at a seminary,” the professor replied.

            “Oh, so you teach preachers how to preach, do you? Well, I’ve got a really great story for you.” And with that, the gentleman pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with the couple.

            The professor groaned inwardly and thought, “Great!  Just what I need -- another preacher story!”

            “See that mountain over there?” said the stranger pointing out the restaurant window.  “Not far from the base of that mountain, there was a boy born to an unwed mother. He had a hard time

growing up, because every place he went, people always asked him, ‘Hey boy, who’s your daddy?’  He would hide at school recess and lunch time from his fellow students.  Even at church he would come late and leave early to avoid hearing the mocking question: ‘Hey, boy, who’s your daddy?’

            “When he was about twelve years old, a new preacher came to his church.   One day, the new preacher ended his sermon early and said the benediction so fast the boy got caught and had to walk out with the crowd.

            “Just about the time he got to the back door, the new preacher, not knowing anything about him, put his hand on his shoulder and asked him, ‘Son, who’s your daddy?’

            “The crowd got deathly quiet. He could feel every eye in the church looking at him. This new preacher, though, sensed something was wrong, and using discernment that only the Holy Spirit could give, he said to that scared little boy, ‘Wait a minute!  I know who you are. I see the family resemblance now. You are a child of God.’  With that he patted the boy on his shoulder and said, ‘Boy, you’ve got a great inheritance. Go and claim it.’”  With that, the boy smiled for the first time in a long time as he walked out the door.  He was never the same again.  Whenever anybody asked him, ‘Who’s your Daddy?’ he’d tell them, ‘I’m a Child of God.’”

            The distinguished gentleman got up from the table and said,  “Isn’t that a great story?” The professor responded that it really was a great story!  As the man turned to leave, he said, “You know, if that new preacher hadn’t told me that I was one of God’s children, I probably never would have amounted to anything!” And he walked away.

            The seminary professor and his wife were stunned.   They called the waitress over and asked her, “Do you know who that man was who just left that was sitting at our table?”

            The waitress grinned and said, “Of course. Everybody here knows him. That’s Ben Hooper. He’s the former governor of Tennessee!”⁶

            Love asks the questions: what would Jesus do?  And, what does my neighbor need?  And then love builds.  Love builds on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ and his words.  Love builds human lives and with those human lives love builds a humane society and a great civilization.