John 15:9-17

I don’t know when I first heard the song, but I know it was in church, as I supposed, it was for you.

Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,

Little ones to him belong, they are weak, but he is strong;

Yes, Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me

The Bible tells me so.

It is about love. That’s what the lessons today are about, and the hymns we sing. From the moment we are born until the moment we die; and every second and every minute and every hour and every day and every week and every month and every year and every decade, the purpose of life is God giving you and me the time to learn how to love, as God loves. The purpose of time, of every moment is that God is teaching us what it means to be truly loving people. That’s what it is all about. That’s what it has always been about.

The shape of God’s love in us is forever changing throughout our lives. The shape of God’s love in us never stays the same. Walk through the stages of life and love, and we can discover how God’s love is constantly changing in us.

If you are three or four years old, and we have these little people at our house, the shape of love is that of a three year old. A three year old comes up and without ever asking or thinking about it, throws her or his arms around you, kisses, hugs, licks and slobbers all over you. (Not my older three sons; no sir! My older kids would not be caught dead doing that, but the love of a three year old gushes right out all over you.

Then, the shape of love begins to change because God’s love in us is forever changing. You become a little older and now in fifth grade. How I would remember Billy and Ralphy, and Ernie and Eddie; we would take out our knives and try to make them stick into the trees; build tree huts, play catch in the street. What a grand time. Just boys. No girls. We had nothing to do with girls. It was just we guys. That was the shape of love in us when we were young fifth graders...all and totally boy.

Time passed. The shape of God’s love in you and me changed again. Ninth grader, remember falling in love, so passionately in love. My parents were out. I yearned to see this love of my life. So I took the Italian motor scooter ( Vespa) out of the garage – it was not licensed, registered or insured, nor did I have a driver’s license. But I drove it to her house, took her for a ride, got a flat tire, we limped it back home, just in time before my parents came home to notice my disobedience for the sake of ninth grade love. This wasn’t the kind of love I felt when I was a five year old or a fifth grader with the boys; no, this love was the real thing.

The years passed. College came, and I fell madly in love with Erika. Not with the love of a five year old; not with the love of a fifth grader, not even the puppy love at 15. These feelings were more intense in a young man. That was the another shape to love. I never fully anticipated what it felt like to have one’s own children. The ecstasy, the joy, the thrill, the worry. This was definitely another, newer shape and shade of God’s love in me.

The years went quickly by in our marriage, and I discovered that there was a quality of love that had always been there, but was something different than years before. It was this quality of friendship where one’s spouse becomes your best friend; better than a best friend. This love is deepening.

And now before we knew it, there are grandchildren. What does one say except that most grandparents know this different kind of love for grandchildren? The joy. The happiness. Without all the work. Without all the responsibilities.

Life changes quickly....seems to be on fast-forward these days. I watch old people a lot in my job. In this parish and in others I have seen many take care of each other as they grow older; the diseases, the incapacities, the stokes, the cancers, the bedpans, the baths, being forced to put them into a home that can care for them in a way we cannot. It breaks one’s heart to put one’s partner into an Alzheimer’s unit. The shape of love has moved far past the passions of yesteryear. The shape of love has moved even past the friendship that had deepened through the decades. One now has the possibility of loving someone who does not recognize you. Their face and heart do not know you except for fleeting moments. That, also, is part of the changing shape of love.

Death comes; the house or the apartment is empty. Time is empty. The shape of love is a great big gaping hole in one’s heart...and the memories.

Yet, it is still true: Jesus loves me, this I know.

From the moment we are born until the moment we die; every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, and every moment in between, God is trying to teach us one thing. To love as God loves. And the shape of that love is ever changing. The shape of love is always expanding. Foolish is the person who thinks that she or he knows what love is at 15, or 25, or 55, or 75, because the shape of God’s love in us is forever expanding and changing in our lives.

"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. I have said these things to you so that my joy may

be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

How does one come to this conclusion in love, that God is love?

Did the writer of the Gospel and the second lesson look at the history of the human race and come to the conclusion that God is love? It seems to me that looking at human history, most of what one sees is war and killing throughout the centuries.

Did the writers look at Mother Nature and come to the conclusion that God is love? I think not. You look at nature and its beauty, and see its mystery, artistry and mystery, but you can’t conclude that God is love.

Did the authors look at other world religions and conclude that God is love? I think not. World religions have been fighting with each other from time immemorial, each one claiming to be true.

How then, did the author come to the conclusion for the first time in history that God is love? He looked at the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The author looked at the quality of love in Jesus, for his parents and family, for his disciples, for all the lepers, blind, lame; they looked at the quality of love that led Jesus to die on the cross on behalf of everybody.

They saw that Jesus has been raised from the dead and has conquered death itself.

If this is true, then God wants us to grow in love. In the Bible, God does not command us to grow in intelligence, as if the core of the universe is intelligence. If that were true, God would tell us to get smarter and smarter.

If the very essence of the universe were power, then God would be essentially power, and would want us to grow in power, more power, more powerful still. But because the core of the universe is love, and God is love, then God wants us to be like God, to experience love, to grow in love.

A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night’s dinner. In their rush through the streets to catch a cab to the airport, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping, they all managed to get into the cab, rushing to get to the airport and not miss their flight.

One salesman paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with what he was feeling, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned.

He told his buddies to go on without him, that he would call his wife that he would take a later flight, left the cab, and went back to the girl. He was glad he did.

The 16 year old girl was totally blind. She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.

The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.

When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, "Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you ok?"

She nodded through her tears.

He continued on with, "I hope we didn’t spoil your day too badly."

As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, "Mister..." He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes. She continued, "Are you Jesus?"

He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Slowly he made his way to catch another taxi, with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: "Are you Jesus?"

Do people mistake us for Jesus? That’s our destiny, isn’t it: to act in love that people can tell the difference as we live and interact with a world that is blind to Jesus’ love, life and grace.

You are the apple of Jesus’ eye, even though we, too, have been badly bruised by a fall. Jesus stopped what he was doing, picked us up on a hill called Calvary, and paid in full the our damaged fruit.