Last Tuesday, after what we church workers call Easter Monday, I  looked at my sermon text and I wondered why I laid out a sermon series rooted in First John.

Unlike most of the Bible, First John does not tell a story, at least not in a traditional sense with a storyline, plot, and characters. If I had selected today’s Gospel lesson from John there is a lovely Easter story: Jesus appears to the Disciples, showing his hands and feet, but somehow Thomas’ missed it so Jesus shows up later for Thomas.  The Gospel story flows neatly and ends with a blessing “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” 

Besides its lack of clear story lines, First John piles up one theological idea on top of the next in a way few Biblical books do.  For example, In just five of our verses today, First John stacks up at over eight unique theological arguments… 

1)The message is “God is light”

2) We lie if we claim to live in God but our lives lack light 

3a) living in light creates community with Christ and one another

3b) Christ cleanses us from every sin 

4a) If we claim, “We don’t have sin,” we lie to ourselves

 4b) if we confess our sins, God forgive us our sins and cleanses us from everything bad 

5a) If we claim, “We have never sinned,” we make God out like a liar 

5b) and such denials of our sinfulness shows God’s Word has not taken hold in us

Unpacking those 5 verses could take the next two hours!

Besides its lack of a clear story line and a tendency to pile on theological propositions, First John uses too many pronouns. The writer pours on over 60 pronouns in the opening 16 verses. These 60 pronouns make it hard to know who exactly is the “we”, “they”, or “him” the writer is referring to.  The opening line declares “We announce to you what existed from the beginning”  without telling us who the “we” or the “you” or even  the “what” is. We have to figure it out, guess or read a commentary.  The Book of Romans can be theologically dense, but it begins “From Paul” and then uses 17 verses to build connections and context with “those in Rome who are dearly loved by God.” First John does not identify a clear author or audience. It is arty, ethereal and mysterious. Such open-ended prose  can lead to some pretty bad proof-texting when people isolate and apply verses with a wooden literalism. For example 1:8 warns us not to say that we don’t sin, but verse 3:10 tells us those born of God can’t sin. Literalism always ends up painting us into a corner! We need an artful eye.   

First John embraces mystery, poetic theology, and something akin to coded language.  Whereas the Apostle Paul is pretty straight forward “we preach Christ crucified which is a scandal to some and foolish to others” ( 1 Cor. 1) First John floats around the ether with lines like “what we have heard, seen with our eyes, handled with our hands, about the Word of Life, The Life revealed, the Eternal Life we testify about… !”  In a few verses the writer uses 3 unique names for God, but does not clearly identify Christ until later! First John never tells us specifically what “they” saw, heard, or handled.     

And yet at times First John can be very direct using the word liar more than any other book in the Bible- using “liar” 5 of the 12 times it is appears in the New Testament: “The one who claims, “I know him (Jesus),” while not keeping his (Jesus’) commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in this person.” That is direct!

So why wade into this little book that stacks up theology, uses too many pronouns, deals in mystery and then tosses in zingers?  Well surely our Creator values diverse expressions, people love both classical and country. God speaks through the Psalms and other’s Paul’ Letters. I would invite you to read First John this coming week. There are only 5 chapters, and at 105 verses it is shorter than a few Psalms! Why not read one chapter each day and maybe you will come to love First John like I do.  

I have always loved First John maybe because it is about love- it holds so many lines that could be turned into love Songs.  Consider that only Psalms, Song of Solomon, and John’s Gospel use the word “Love” more than First John. About one fourth of the 105 verses in First John include the word “Love”.   First John’s hits include “God is Love”, “walking in the light”, “Love and hate”, “love overcomes”, “How will I know?” “Love prefects”, “Lovers and liars”, “Love wins” and more.  John’s word pictures invite us to ponder the power of God’s Love in our everyday lives.  So let’s break down a bit of First John this morning. 

We are calling this series “Love Songs from First John” .Back in the eighties Whitney Houston sang:

Ooh, how will I know if  he really loves me?

Ooh, how will I know? (don’t trust your feelings)

How will I know? (love can be deceiving)

How will I know?

First John can’t tell you if your crush really loves you, but it tells us how we can know we belong to Christ: How do we know if we are grounded in God’s Higher Love? “This is how we know that we know Jesus: we keep Jesus’ commandments! If we say, “I know Jesus’ ‘ but don’t keep Jesus’ commandments, we are liars,(harsh) But the love of God is truly perfected in whoever keeps Christ’s word. This is how we know we are in Christ; we live in the same way as Jesus lived.”

Inside First John’s over-stacked theology sandwich is a beautiful promise: God’s Love is within us and revealed through our living. Christianity is more than believing things. Christianity is more than doing good things. Christianity it’s about God‘s love given to us and empowering us to live lives of love. God’s Love and forgiveness dwell in us and perfects us in the work of Love. When we accept that we are loved and forgiven we partner with God’s love, then Love becomes the pattern of our living.  God’s Love empowers us to be loving. But there is a flow in that our acts of love activate God’s Love- and over all this God’s boundless forgiveness picks us up over and over again. 

All of us can practice love.  Paul tells us Love is patient, kind and truthful. Love isn’t jealous, braggy, arrogant, irritable or rude. Love doesn’t seek its own advantage, keep a record of complaints, or content with injustice. Love overcomes, trusts, hopes and endures all things. (1 Cor 13) That is quite spiritual work out- and yet Love is the only thing that we take from life. It’s worth our best hard work. 

 Most of us at some point could shoot a basketball through a hoop.  We have enough hand eye coordination and strength to shoot a basket.  Cailen Clark has perfected her shot, leading her to be the all time leading scorer in college basketball history, dazzling to watch. She has taken her god-given gifts and perfected them in the gym, where she shoots 100 three’s and 200 other shots every day while running at a full clip. She lifts weights and does squats at a fast aerobic pace so as to build fast twitch muscle endurance so it’s there at the end of the game. She does dribbling drills for hours. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/05/well/live/caitlin-clark-iowa-training .

 Now God does not care who wins tonight’s national championship nor will God judge Catien by her jump shot,  but God does care how we love one another. Do we know God loves us? And knowing we are loved, what do with the Love of God given to all of us? Do we practice and work on perfecting Love? Do we renew our souls each day with Sermon on the Mount drills and weekly Christian community and worship each week? Do we put in the practice to become Christ-like? Do we connect with God’s love already within us?   Do we practice patience, kindness, truthfulness, justice, trustworthiness, hopefulness and endurance so that faith, hope and love bud in us?

The Love of God activates our love: as we practice the presence of Love, the Love of God transforms us.  It is a mysterious loop. The love of God empowers us to love, but loving Christlike actions perfect our love. Love has its effect. As we give we become generous, as we love we become loving, as we forgive our way becomes forgiveness, as we pray we become prayerful, as we stop judging we lose our judgemental attitudes, as we do justice we become just,  and we act like Christ we become Christlike.  (Matt 5-7, Luke 6) When we slip off track, God’s love is always ready to restore us. 

I hope you will read a little First John this week, let its run-on theology soak into your soul. And think about this question: how am I allowing God’s Love to perfect me? May the boundless Love of God work its way into our lives! Amen