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One of the most often repeated and frequently elaborated commandments in the entire bible is the commandment to “Love one another as I have loved you”. Jesus had begun saying this early on in his teaching. He was asked about which commandment was the greatest. He said the commandment to love God with heart soul mind and strength was the greatest commandment, followed closely by this one, love your neighbor as yourself. But on this, his last night before his crucifixion, he re framed it in a striking way. He had gathered his 12 disciples together to celebrate the Passover meal together. During the meal, Jesus took off his outer garments, took a towel and began going around the table and washing his disciples’ feet. It was uncomfortable for them, to say the least. When he was finished he said “You call me your lord, and master, which I am. If I, your lord and master, washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another’s feet”. Then he gave them this commandment, which was to become the cornerstone of their life and teaching forever: Love one another as I have loved you.

Through out the rest of the meal he repeated this several times and several ways.  He said if you keep my commandments (this is my commandment, love one another) my Father and I will come and live with you… you will abide in my love… just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love…this my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. And again, greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend…this I command you, love one another.

Love one another, as I have loved you. Jesus lived it. His disciples had seen it in action for three and half years and saw it clearly the night they received this commandment. He had taught it, most simply in the sermon on the mount where he taught them to turn the other cheek, bless those who curse you, pray for those who spitefully use you and most famously “treat one another the way you want them to treat you”. And now it was an order, a command, a directive to translate all they had heard and seen into a life of loving one another in the same fashion that he had loved them.

It is clear as you read through the history and letters of the disciples after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension into heaven, that this commandment was taken seriously. At the direction of the Holy Spirit they started communities that were based around loving one another as he had loved them. The first offices established in the church were deacons whose job was to oversee care for the widows among them. When the church began to grow outside of its Jewish roots, into the Greek world, they were instructed to teach new believer to take care of the poor and at one point they even took a far reaching collection of money from churches all over the Mediterranean to help take care of the church in Jerusalem who was suffering from a terrific drought.

You also see this commandment to love one another as I have loved you as the focal point of all the admonitions and exhortations in the letters that were written to these churches. To the church at Rome Paul wrote “Keep the debt to love another always on your books”. In Corinth, “The greatest of these is love” and “the love of Christ controls and constrains me”. In Galatia “through love serve one another”. In Ephesus, “Root your lives in loving one another”. James calls it the Royal Law, the King’s Law, Peter urges his readers to “Love one another fervently”. And John, the beloved disciple when he was a young man, wrote these words at the end of more than 70 years of following Christ “Beloved, love one another for he who loves knows God and he who does not, does not have an intimate knowledge of God”.

As I think about the history of the church in the last 2000 years, I see this commandment worked out in all different times and cultures around the world. Followers of Jesus have always found in this commandment the fundamental charge, the prime directive for living in the footsteps of Jesus. I also see how many other problems could have been avoided had we followed closely these words and not gotten off track with lesser things.

Reading these words today, I am reminded that loving others as Christ loves me is not an option but a commandment, an order, a charge to keep. I see it more and more clearly that honest heartfelt discipleship always comes to grips with this command first and foremost. Following this commandment will require you to take up your cross everyday and leave something else behind for the sake of following him and keeping his commandments. But every day I experience the reality that those who keep this command are blessed with God’s very presence in their lives. The price seems small compared with the prize.

I’ve been thinking this week about a different way to think about the church.What would happen if the church saw itself as a community of farmers instead of a posse for the local sheriff?  Well, Sheriffs are hardworking, dedicated people who are waiting for people who are breaking the law and their entire goal is to keep people in line.Why would this even matter to a local church? Well, Farmers are hardworking people who tend what is, in the shape it is in, with a mind for what will be, when the time is right.

The implications of this change in perspective in my own life have been astronomical. Before becoming a farmer, I was a professional behavior modifier. I was constantly on the lookout for wrong behavior and trying to discover the best ways to change the people around me. I viewed everything, including myself, in terms of right and wrong behavior, good things and bad things, successes and failure. I grew increasingly frustrated because I thought that I was doing the work that God required of us.

But something began to change in my view of God Himself. I began to be aware of His incredible patience with me, that he was not tired of my failures. I saw Jesus statement in John 15 that his Father is the husbandman, the gardener, the farmer, who owns and tends the vine. I suddenly saw that God was not a sheriff, but a farmer himself, always having the end game in mind.

Well, if God is not a sheriff, why would He want me to be a sheriff? And if God is a farmer, wouldn’t He want me to be a farmer like Him? God showed Himself multiple times in the bible as Slow to anger, compassionate, merciful, pardoning. And he declares that Love is patient, not taking into account a wrong suffered. And he calls us to forgive, to extend mercy, to turn the other cheek, to pardon and cover one another’s weaknesses.

That’s when it hit me…a church full of farmers would be a different type of community than a group of sheriffs. They don’t look for crops to be ready to harvest in the spring, they expect rain in the spring, heat in the summer , and harvest at the end of the summer and into the fall. They live closely tuned into the weather and the needs of their fields and equipment.

Farmers are used to living in situations that are perfect. Machinery breaks down, weather won’t cooperate, what worked last year doesn’t always work the same this year. They have to be patient, they work and wait, and then when the time is right, they harvest the crop.

Gardeners are also farmers. They know when to start things in the greenhouse, when to prepare the soil, when to plant, when to water, when to transplant, when to trim.

Sheriffs hide behind billboard and look for lawbreakers that they run down and penalize. They are not wrong, the people are speeding and the law does allow for them to punish the wrong doers. But that is not the churches job. The purpose of the church is to nurture the people of God until they have grown up enough to produce fruit.

I have tried this week to put into words an answer to the question: Why Church? The topic is near and dear to me because I get a lot of questions from people who are struggling with this issue. It has become such a big issue that people who love Jesus and don’t go to church are now numbered in the millions. Some people call them “None and Dones”: When they fill out a questionnaire that asks their church affiliation, they mark “None”. And when you speak with them about church they normally say something like “I am done with church”. Hence, “None and Dones”.

But I personally love the church. I realize that the church has problems and that no church does everything right, including my own. But I keep coming back to the statement that Jesus made when He said “I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it”. G.K.Chesterton said that many people have spoken of the death of the church through the years but now, they are all dead and the church is still alive.

There is something mysterious about the church and its relationship with Jesus. The bible uses different metaphors to describe it, such as bride of Christ, body of Christ, and temple of the Holy Spirit. These all speak about a relationship that is vital and intimate. As the bride of Christ, we are pledged to Him and looking forward to the day when we will be with him. Revelations 19 says that the bride has made herself ready for the marriage supper of the lamb. The apostle Paul says that Jesus loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify her and cleanse her. His ultimate goal is to her without spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish, on that wedding day. That’s a very special relationship.

Referring to the church as the body of Christ carries the idea that the Christ as the head and the church as his body is intimately, organically, and vitally connected to one another. The authority that Christ has by virtue of his death, resurrection and ascension, is given to the church to bring forgiveness and redemption to all who will believe. Acts 17 declares that “In him we live and move have our being”. This reminds me of Jesus saying that He is the vine and we are the branches. It speaks clearly about our life being derived from and not independent of His life. And the picture of the body speaks of many different parts connected and working in harmony with one another and wit the head.

The last metaphor is that of the church being the temple of God.  This is actually more than a metaphor. It is a new reality. Jesus moves the place of God’s worship and presence from the temple to the people. We don’t go to church, we are the church. And as the place where God dwells, the Holy Temple, the church has the great privilege of belonging to “the Holy Spirit of God”. The goal of the church is not the church. The goal of the church is the purposes of God worked out by His Holy Spirit in our midst.

So these 3 metaphors and Jesus own words about the church being His church causes me to view the church in a different light. If it’s His church, it is eternal. If we are pledged to Him in marriage, we need to get ready. If we are His body, we need to cooperate with one another. And if we are the temple of God, we need to talk about the church with respect, and maybe a little bit of awe. After all, it is the dwelling place of God.