sermons
Summer at Reservoir
What Does Love Look Like?
Steve Watson
Jun 30, 2024
A few weeks ago our executive pastor Trecia and I had a meeting with someone who was helping us with some church business. It was a pretty good meeting, but the most interesting part happened at the end. I asked him:
if you were us, do you think what you’ve been sharing with us is good news or bad news?
And he said
I think it’s good news,
and he told me why. And he said,
and you know in life, the way things go can be really unpredictable, but God always helps.
And he said:
can I tell you a funny story?
And I said:
please, do.
And he said:
right before our meeting, I was in my car texting someone.
See, yesterday, someone tried to scam my business and take a lot of money from us. And I don’t know his name or where he lives, but I had a cell phone number he had texted from, so I decided to text him back. So I texted him, and I wrote: God’s going to judge you for what you’re doing. So you should change your ways and ask God for mercy now, while you still can.
And as I was listening, I thought a lot of things at once. I thought: I don’t know if I’ve ever known someone who texts back to strangers trying to steal his money. And I also wonder what it’s like to write a text like that: God’s going to judge you. Or what it’s like to get a text like that either.
But the thing was – the guy wrote back. He wrote something like: I actually feel horrible about what I’m doing. How do I turn my life around? Or something like that. And so my business acquaintance tells me that they’ve been texting back and forth a bit, and he’s shared a story about Jesus, and how merciful he is to people who ask for God’s help in making things new in their life.
And honestly, my first thought was like: wow, this guy’s intense.
But my second thought was like: I like this guy’s vibe.
I have no idea if what he’s doing is smart. Like texting back and forth with someone who’d tried to scam him instead of just blocking his number. No idea. And I’m not giving you advice to do stuff like this either.
But I was like: I like that when confronted with a human being behaving badly, this guy did what he needed to protect himself.
- But he also didn’t get overtaken by worry or anger, he sort of wondered: what does love look like?
- Like what’s my part to squeeze the best out of this situation?
To see if a junky situation can turn God’s way, can turn into a great story, can turn for the good. And he’s giving it a shot.
I think that’s cool, this weird thing this guy is doing and the question I find underneath it, which I think is like the very best question we can keep asking in our lives, and especially in bad times, or just weird times. What does love look like?
I’m giving sermons here and there this summer from the fifth book of the Bible’s New Testaments, the memoirs of the early church called the Acts of the Apostles. And here’s one of these weird times, bad times, where someone wonders what does love look like? And a cool story ensues.
Acts 8:1-5, 26-40 (Common English Bible)
At that time, the church in Jerusalem began to be subjected to vicious harassment. Everyone except the apostles was scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.
2 Some pious men buried Stephen and deeply grieved over him.
3 Saul began to wreak havoc against the church. Entering one house after another, he would drag off both men and women and throw them into prison.
4 Those who had been scattered moved on, preaching the good news along the way.
5 Philip went down to a city in Samaria and began to preach Christ to them.
The phrases that stick out to me here are “vicious harassment” and “good news.” Vicious harassment and good news.
Acts just told the first story of a martyr, someone killed for his faith. It’s my namesake, Stephen. A big meanie of a control freak named Saul and his associates are beating people up, throwing them into prison, and in one case at least, killing them. Vicious harassment.
No one I know and love has been killed for doing good, but I’ve seen vicious harassment first hand. I’ve had people turn on me and harass me when I thought I was doing the right thing, but it made them uncomfortable.
I’ve been a school teacher and school principal too, so I’ve seen kids get bullied many times. I’ve seen some sad person who’s just losing at life try to feel powerful again by saying mean things about someone else, trying to make them feel horrible, so they won’t feel so bad themselves.
It’s horrible, when we’re harassed. It’s not too great really when bad things of any kind happen to us.
And we ask a lot of questions when bad things happen.
- We might ask questions like: why me? Why did this have to happen?
- And questions like: why is this so hard? And: when will it get better?
- And sometimes we might ask questions like: “How will I protect myself?”
My friend who had the scammer going after his company’s business was asking that question. Or we might ask a similar question: “Who’s looking out for me?”
I think pretty much everyone who gets bullied asks that question.
- Who’s going to stick up for me?
- Or stick up with me?
- Who’s looking out for me?
And I want to say:
those are all good questions. They’re all questions we need to ask.
And the main character in Acts probably asked those questions too. The main character we are going to meet is named Philip. Philip was good friends with Stephen, the man who was killed. They worked together. And Philip was alive, but he was also one of those people being harassed in Jerusalem. People from his own town, his own faith, his own community, hated what he stood for, and they were trying to make his life miserable.
And I’m sure he might have asked questions like:
- why me?
- And why is this so hard?
- And can I do anything to protect myself?
- And who’s going to stick up for me?
But as Acts tells the story of Philip, he seems to think maybe God is asking a different set of questions. Maybe God is asking:
what good can we squeeze out of these hard times? What can we do now?
And another question that’s related to that one is that maybe God is asking:
what does love look like here?
See, this is one of the big lessons of the book of Acts. That people are going to do their thing, they’re going to do good things and bad things and wise things and plain stupid foolish things. But no matter what we do, the Spirit of God will not stop.
God doesn’t wait.
Bad is bad. After all, they talk about people dying and about prison here. Prison in Acts, by the way, is always bad. Prison in Acts is a technology of control and violence. A sermon for another day.
But God doesn’t wait. God won’t stop working bad for good.
And Phillip has learned this, so he starts asking those same questions God asks:
What am I here for now? And: what does love look like?
And a really great story ensues. Let’s read a little more from Acts.
I think I’m going to read the story in little bits and pieces and keep talking about it, OK? Here we go.
26 An angel from the Lord spoke to Philip, “At noon, take the road that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.)
27 So he did.
What does love look like?
Love has geography.
Someone tells Philip he should go to Gaza. Take the desert road from Jerusalem to Gaza.
And Philip thinks this someone is a messenger from God. Because that’s what the word angel means – a messenger.
Why that particular road? Why go out into the desert? Most of us don’t choose desert roads.
Philip probably has no idea why. But he trusts his gut, he feels that this is God’s idea, so he goes. Because love narrows our options.
There’s no such thing as loving in general. We only love particular people, particular places, particular things. You can’t say: I love dogs, but then when a particular dog comes along, you kick it or tease it or whatever. No matter what you think about dogs in your head, if you treat a particular dog that way, you don’t love that dog.
Love takes commitment. Love has geography. Commit to no one and nothing and nowhere, and you won’t love.
So Philip says,
I’ll go to that desert road, and see what love looks like there.
Maybe the Spirit of God wanted love to flow from Jerusalem to Gaza. Right now hate and soldiers and missiles and violence are flowing from Jerusalem to Gaza, and maybe God hates that, because there is nothing creative or redemptive or loving about that. And so maybe we need to ask what love looks like on this road today?
For Jesus, we do know that he said his good news was meant to travel way beyond Jerusalem. At the start of Acts, he said to his friends:
bring my good news to Judea and Samaria and to all the ends of the earth.
But it wasn’t until this chapter in Acts, and Philip going to Samaria first and then on to Gaza that this started happening. And Philip only went to those places because he and his friends were getting beat up and put in prison and killed in Jerusalem.
And again, that was a bad thing. But the Spirit of God doesn’t wait. God wonders.
What good can we squeeze out of bad? What does love look like now?
And so Philip heads to the desert road.
Let’s see what happens there.
Meanwhile, an Ethiopian man was on his way home from Jerusalem, where he had come to worship. He was a eunuch and an official responsible for the entire treasury of Candace. (Candace is the title given to the Ethiopian queen.)
28 He was reading the prophet Isaiah while sitting in his carriage.
29 The Spirit told Philip, “Approach this carriage and stay with it.”
What does love look like?
Love pays attention. And love shows up.
When Philip had this sense that he needed to go talk to the man getting a ride in a carriage, there were a hundred reasons to not do that.
This man was a stranger, and lots of the time, we’re taught not to talk to strangers, and a lot of the time, that’s right.
Philip could probably tell that this man was very rich and very important. He wouldn’t want to bother him. And he might be afraid that if he tried to talk to this man, he’d just get ignored or rejected. The carriage probably wouldn’t even stop if he ran over there, and he’d look silly.
This man looked different from Philip too. They were from different countries. Maybe they wouldn’t understand each other. Maybe it would be awkward.
But the Spirit of God thought it would be a great idea for these two people to talk. A great story was going to happen here, if Philip would just pay attention and show up. And it’s good for us, and good for the world that he did.
Love pays attention. And love shows up.
Let’s keep going.
30 Running up to the carriage, Philip heard the man reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you really understand what you are reading?”
31 The man replied, “Without someone to guide me, how could I?” Then he invited Philip to climb up and sit with him.
What does love look like?
Love shows up. And love asks questions.
Do you understand what you are reading?
Philip sees a very important man from very far away, and he just happens to be reading one of Jesus’ favorite parts of the Bible. So he asks:
do you understand what you are reading?
A lot of people wouldn’t ask that question. It could sound nosy. It could even sound rude if it came off the wrong way. And maybe it’s not a perfect question, but Philip followed Jesus, who had to be the most curious and attentive person who ever lived. He was always asking people questions. Because questions help people think, and questions show people they are important. And questions invite people to talk. So Philip asks a question.
I grew up in a family that didn’t ask so many questions. But I guess like Philip, I learned from Jesus and from people who were good friends to me, that love asks questions. And that once you get in the habit, it’s not hard to ask questions like:
- what are you reading?
- Or what was that like for you?
- Or would you like to tell me what happened?
The other day I was having lunch with someone I care about very much, and he had just told me something he was embarrassed about and how he had said sorry for what he had done. And the old me would have thought: oh, he’s embarrassed, I’ll just change the subject, just say: that’s OK, and move on. But instead, I asked:
do you mind telling me more about what happened?
And then he did, a lot more. And I could tell that it helped him to tell the story to someone. And it gave me the chance to tell him I understood and that I knew God understood and that God loved him very much still and wasn’t angry with him and that God would want to help him not end up in a situation like that again and talk about what he was doing to get some help. And I thought: oh, I’m glad I asked that question.
The Ethiopian man was glad to be asked this question as well about what he was reading. This is what happened next.
32 This was the passage of scripture he was reading:
Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter
and like a lamb before its shearer is silent
so he didn’t open his mouth.33 In his humiliation justice was taken away from him.
Who can tell the story of his descendants
because his life was taken from the earth?34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, about whom does the prophet say this? Is he talking about himself or someone else?”
35 Starting with that passage, Philip proclaimed the good news about Jesus to him.
What does love look like?
Love listens.
This might be the most important part of the sermon. Love listens.
Philip listens carefully as the eunuch, this very important man, reads the Bible and asks his questions about it. He listens so well that he notices that this man is like the person in the story. He’s very important but other people made choices about his life that mean he can never get married and he can never have children, and there was nothing he can say or do about that.
And Philip listened so well that he realized both the person in the Bible story and the person he’s talking to are like Jesus in this way, and that Philip can tell this man more about Jesus and more about how much God sees and understands and loves him.
All because love listens. Because God’s been listening to all of us forever. And Phillip listens now.
I didn’t come into the world as a very good listener. I have this difference in my brain called ADHD that I only learned about as a grown up. And this means different things to different people who have it. But one of the things it means to me is that I can be super focused sometimes, but I can also be impulsive. I can do things really fast without thinking. And one of those things I can do when I am super focused and impulsive is I can interrupt people when they are talking with the thing I want to say.
And when I do that, I can be kind of embarrassed because I know that interrupting is not good listening. So I have learned to stop and just say sorry quickly when I do that and try not to feel over-bad about myself. But I’ve also learned a few things about being a good listener.
Like it helps to just close your mouth and let the other person take their time after asking a question.
And it helps to pay attention and use your imagination and your feelings when the other person is talking, so that you’ll have compassion for them, and you’ll want to ask them to tell you more, and want to say things like:
that sounds really interesting, or that sounds really hard.
And I’ve learned, as I’ve said, that this is mostly what God is doing. Because God pays really close attention to all of us, and God listens really well. God cares about everything because God is everywhere, and God is love.
Sometimes when I’m in a hard time, just remembering that God is listening to me and God really cares about everything I care about turns around the hard time for me and makes it OK. And sometimes I remember that God is curious, not judgemental and that God is creative, not stuck. And God is hopeful, and God probably has good ideas about what to do next. And that all helps a lot too. It helps me get curious about the best ideas for what’s next, no matter how hard things are.
Listening is really important, so love listens.
Let’s finish our story.
36 As they went down the road, they came to some water.
The eunuch said, “Look! Water! What would keep me from being baptized?”
38 He ordered that the carriage halt. Both Philip and the eunuch went down to the water, where Philip baptized him.
39 When they came up out of the water, the Lord’s Spirit suddenly took Philip away. The eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing.
40 Philip found himself in Azotus. He traveled through that area, preaching the good news in all the cities until he reached Caesarea.
What does love look like?
Love gives what it has.
Once in a while, love needs to give really big, like hero big, sacrifice big, epically big.
But usually not. Usually when we show up and pay attention and ask questions and listen, usually then we can just be ready to be a little bit useful, even if sometimes being useful can be a little unusual.
The Ethiopian official has been thinking about God for so many years, and learning about Jesus puts everything together, so he is ready to be baptized, to do the thing you do to say: I’m my parents’ child but I’m also God’s adopted kid, and I want to follow Jesus in this life. This man is ready. He even sees the water, all he needs is for Philip to help him out.
Love goes for it in being useful.
And then sometimes, life moves on, and you need to move on to. Because life is full of change. We can’t go to the same school forever. We can’t have the same job forever. Sometimes we can’t even have the same friends forever. People change, life is always changing.
My kids are all growing up so, so fast, and they’re ready to start moving away from home and setting up their own lives that I’ll be part of, sometimes a big part of, but not in the same way. And right now I’m getting used to that. My wife Grace and I, we’re getting used to these changes, and sometimes we’re really happy about them, and sometimes really worried, and sometimes really sad, but it’s still happening. And we’re learning like Philip that you don’t stay in the carriage forever. So love lets go too. And love moves forward for hope.
Because in the end love lets go sometimes. Love doesn’t control. Just like God doesn’t control. But love always hopes, love always trusts, and love, my friends, never fails. God is love, and we can keep becoming love too.
Can we pray?