All You Need is Love?
May 5, 2024 Sixth Sunday in Easter
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Deuteronomy 6:1-9 John 15:9-17
“All You Need Is Love?”
Melissa K. Smith
1967. The year of the “Long Hot Summer” where more than 150 race riots erupted across the United States.
1967. The twelfth year of the Vietnam war with no end in sight.
1967. Martin Luther King Jr. denounced the Vietnam War in a famous speech.
1967. Kansas City Chiefs lost in the first ever Super Bowl.
1967. The Cold War persisted.
1967. The space race persisted.
1967. Doug King was born.
1967. A year of tension, a year of chaos, a year of division.
1967. The song, “All You Need Is Love” was released.
John Lennon was aware of the chaos in the world. He was also aware of the power and platform he had. When the Beatles were invited to be part of the first live multi-national broadcast television program, Lennon specifically wrote the song, “All You Need Is Love.” It’s a simple song that is incredibly catchy – lyrics like “all you need is love” and “love is all you need” are repeated over and over again – reinforcing his message: in a world that is casting a shadow of death, don’t forget that all you need is love.
I find myself looking at the events of 1967 and comparing them to 2024. Wars that seemingly won’t end and don’t make sense; growing tensions with other nations; riots and fights within our nation based on disagreements about basic civil rights… I grew up listening to the Beatles and when I find myself listening to “All You Need Is Love” I have found myself asking, “why?” and “how will that solve the problems of the world?”
And then I turn to the Gospel, and I see that John Lennon was getting somewhere. If he believed in Jesus Christ, would he have gone all the way? “All you need is God’s love?” Who knows – and I am not about to become a songwriter let alone change the iconic songs of my childhood.
This morning we were invited into the upper room with Jesus Christ as he is eating his last supper with his dear friends. The year was around 33AD and, like 1967 and 2024, it seemed like everything was coming to a head.
The Romans were in charge with no end of their occupation of Israel in sight; Jesus was about to be put to death, and the world did not understand that their savior was there. He was there. And they were about to kill him.
Jesus took the time to teach his disciples once more before he was betrayed, and the passion narrative begins.
It was in this sacred space, this precious moment of time between friends and their beloved teacher that Jesus chose to teach them about love. In the midst of the chaos, in the uproar and disappointment of life, in the face of the impending betrayal, Jesus taught about love.
He says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”
Jesus is telling his disciples – “all you need” is to abide in his love. This takes us a step out of the idea that “love is all you need” and invites us into the reality that love is not just a feeling or mood, it is not just a state of being; it is a reality that can be experienced by obeying the Triune God and upholding the Word of God. Jesus is also not belittling the present realities that his disciples are facing – or the realities that we are facing. He is helping to reframe our understanding of this world and our lives by giving us a foundation to work from…we need to function from a place of love.
Our passage this morning comes just after Jesus explains that he is the vine, and we are the branches. The vine is life – branches that are not connected to the vine wither and die. We must abide in Christ because he is life – in him is life and love, apart from him is death. John 15 says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” When Jesus invites us to abide in his love he is inviting us into life with him.
“All you need” is to abide in God’s love and share his love. Jesus tells us that to abide in his love we must keep his commandments. 1 John 5 tells us that God’s love is his commandments. It says, “For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome…”
His commandment is not burdensome. What is his command? You heard the Shema this morning. - שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד – Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord. To obey God’s commands is to love God. If we love God, then we abide in his love.
The Shema – the command to love God with all of who we are – is echoed in Jesus’ command to love. Before his death on the cross, Jesus invites us to welcome the echo of love so that we might remain in his love.
Jesus is the embodiment of God’s love for us. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” God loves us and sent us his son so that we can abide on the vine of life.
God’s command isn’t burdensome, but it is challenging. It requires all of who we are. The Shema says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” Loving God requires all of who we are. Through Jesus Christ, God gave us his all – why would we not give him ours? One scholar explains that everything that Jesus endured before Easter – his passion and crucifixion – affects and changes our post-Easter reality. He died so that we might live. Jesus gave it all…all to him I owe. Because of Jesus’s death our current reality is life. How else can we respond but to love God? To obey God?
Love is Jesus’s ethic. It is how he instructs us to live our lives. He says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John’s gospel is distinctly different than the synoptic gospels in regard to this command – all the other gospels tell us that the Greatest Commandment is to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.
In John’s gospel, Jesus is encouraging us to love others as Jesus loves us. Jesus is raising the bar. Jesus explains, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Love others as Jesus has loved us. How has Jesus loved us? He gave up his life for us. He died in our place. He saved us. Our command is to love, and this task is all-encompassing. It requires our all – it requires our life. And Jesus does not say “love the people who look, think, vote, and sound like you.” He says, “love others.”
Following Jesus is not meant to comfortably fit into our daily routine. It is meant to be our routine. That does not make it a burden but a priority. Love others. Because love – love from God and sharing his love with others – is all we need.
John Lennon knew the world needed to hear a message of love in 1967. It is clear that we need to hear that message now, but the message that the world needs is the echo of Shema, the echo of the command and invitation of love. If we proclaim the love of God, we too can perpetuate the echo and ensure it rings throughout the world.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Deuteronomy 6:1-9 John 15:9-17
“All You Need Is Love?”
Melissa K. Smith
1967. The year of the “Long Hot Summer” where more than 150 race riots erupted across the United States.
1967. The twelfth year of the Vietnam war with no end in sight.
1967. Martin Luther King Jr. denounced the Vietnam War in a famous speech.
1967. Kansas City Chiefs lost in the first ever Super Bowl.
1967. The Cold War persisted.
1967. The space race persisted.
1967. Doug King was born.
1967. A year of tension, a year of chaos, a year of division.
1967. The song, “All You Need Is Love” was released.
John Lennon was aware of the chaos in the world. He was also aware of the power and platform he had. When the Beatles were invited to be part of the first live multi-national broadcast television program, Lennon specifically wrote the song, “All You Need Is Love.” It’s a simple song that is incredibly catchy – lyrics like “all you need is love” and “love is all you need” are repeated over and over again – reinforcing his message: in a world that is casting a shadow of death, don’t forget that all you need is love.
I find myself looking at the events of 1967 and comparing them to 2024. Wars that seemingly won’t end and don’t make sense; growing tensions with other nations; riots and fights within our nation based on disagreements about basic civil rights… I grew up listening to the Beatles and when I find myself listening to “All You Need Is Love” I have found myself asking, “why?” and “how will that solve the problems of the world?”
And then I turn to the Gospel, and I see that John Lennon was getting somewhere. If he believed in Jesus Christ, would he have gone all the way? “All you need is God’s love?” Who knows – and I am not about to become a songwriter let alone change the iconic songs of my childhood.
This morning we were invited into the upper room with Jesus Christ as he is eating his last supper with his dear friends. The year was around 33AD and, like 1967 and 2024, it seemed like everything was coming to a head.
The Romans were in charge with no end of their occupation of Israel in sight; Jesus was about to be put to death, and the world did not understand that their savior was there. He was there. And they were about to kill him.
Jesus took the time to teach his disciples once more before he was betrayed, and the passion narrative begins.
It was in this sacred space, this precious moment of time between friends and their beloved teacher that Jesus chose to teach them about love. In the midst of the chaos, in the uproar and disappointment of life, in the face of the impending betrayal, Jesus taught about love.
He says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”
Jesus is telling his disciples – “all you need” is to abide in his love. This takes us a step out of the idea that “love is all you need” and invites us into the reality that love is not just a feeling or mood, it is not just a state of being; it is a reality that can be experienced by obeying the Triune God and upholding the Word of God. Jesus is also not belittling the present realities that his disciples are facing – or the realities that we are facing. He is helping to reframe our understanding of this world and our lives by giving us a foundation to work from…we need to function from a place of love.
Our passage this morning comes just after Jesus explains that he is the vine, and we are the branches. The vine is life – branches that are not connected to the vine wither and die. We must abide in Christ because he is life – in him is life and love, apart from him is death. John 15 says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” When Jesus invites us to abide in his love he is inviting us into life with him.
“All you need” is to abide in God’s love and share his love. Jesus tells us that to abide in his love we must keep his commandments. 1 John 5 tells us that God’s love is his commandments. It says, “For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome…”
His commandment is not burdensome. What is his command? You heard the Shema this morning. - שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד – Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord. To obey God’s commands is to love God. If we love God, then we abide in his love.
The Shema – the command to love God with all of who we are – is echoed in Jesus’ command to love. Before his death on the cross, Jesus invites us to welcome the echo of love so that we might remain in his love.
Jesus is the embodiment of God’s love for us. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” God loves us and sent us his son so that we can abide on the vine of life.
God’s command isn’t burdensome, but it is challenging. It requires all of who we are. The Shema says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” Loving God requires all of who we are. Through Jesus Christ, God gave us his all – why would we not give him ours? One scholar explains that everything that Jesus endured before Easter – his passion and crucifixion – affects and changes our post-Easter reality. He died so that we might live. Jesus gave it all…all to him I owe. Because of Jesus’s death our current reality is life. How else can we respond but to love God? To obey God?
Love is Jesus’s ethic. It is how he instructs us to live our lives. He says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John’s gospel is distinctly different than the synoptic gospels in regard to this command – all the other gospels tell us that the Greatest Commandment is to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.
In John’s gospel, Jesus is encouraging us to love others as Jesus loves us. Jesus is raising the bar. Jesus explains, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Love others as Jesus has loved us. How has Jesus loved us? He gave up his life for us. He died in our place. He saved us. Our command is to love, and this task is all-encompassing. It requires our all – it requires our life. And Jesus does not say “love the people who look, think, vote, and sound like you.” He says, “love others.”
Following Jesus is not meant to comfortably fit into our daily routine. It is meant to be our routine. That does not make it a burden but a priority. Love others. Because love – love from God and sharing his love with others – is all we need.
John Lennon knew the world needed to hear a message of love in 1967. It is clear that we need to hear that message now, but the message that the world needs is the echo of Shema, the echo of the command and invitation of love. If we proclaim the love of God, we too can perpetuate the echo and ensure it rings throughout the world.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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