Comments on: “Peace be with you”: a sermon on Psalm 4 http://www.rustyparts.com/wp/2006/05/01/peace-be-with-you-a-sermon-on-psalm-4/ : Blogging Linear Interstellar Points : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:34:38 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: isaac http://www.rustyparts.com/wp/2006/05/01/peace-be-with-you-a-sermon-on-psalm-4/comment-page-1/#comment-2094 isaac Wed, 10 May 2006 12:57:31 +0000 http://www.rustyparts.com/wp/2006/05/01/peace-be-with-you-a-sermon-on-psalm-4/#comment-2094 Dewet, thank you for reading this sermon, and for the kind words. I think you are totally right about the connection between this sermon on Psalm 4 and the passage from I John. I don't know if you or your church follows the lectionary, but this passages assigned for this week are John 15:1-8 and I John 4:7-21, and those passages say just the sort of thing you're talking about: <em>"Jesus Christ as becoming flesh again in the community's life of love"</em>. Right now I'm preparing to preach this weekend so those passages from the Gospel of John and First John are weighing on my mind. So far, what's so striking to me about the I John passage is that in the end he brings it around to our love for one another. The passage makes us look real hard at our love for each other. For John, our love for God is displayed in our love for another. Our love for God passes through the other, the specific other, the neighbor. 4:12 brings this point home: <em>"No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us"</em>. God is invisible. We enter into the Love that is God when we love our brother and sister. We don't know we love God unless we love another. Sebastian Moore speaks the heart of the passage with such clarity: <strong>"the absence of a positive concern for others is the surest indication that God is not loved at all... No love of neighbour, no love of God... The only way of finding out whether I love my neighbour is to ask myself whether I ever do anything for him"</strong> (<em>God is a New Language</em>, p. 26). A few pages later Moore returns to this point: <strong>"For the Christian statement 'I love God' is the statement that I am troubled by the God who <em>is</em> Love and so am constituted 'a loving person,' a person reshaped by essential love and so made loving in the totality of my human, social situation. Thus 'not to love someone' is quite simply, to be without the love of God"</strong> (p. 29). I think Moore beautifullly speaks the heart of First John. What do you think? Oh, great point about Augustine and love, flesh, Word, and the community. If you get a chance, let me know what you think about this post from a while ago on Augustine and reading Scripture: "Augustine: reading for love":http://www.rustyparts.com/wp/2005/02/24/augustine-reading-for-love/ Dewet, thank you for reading this sermon, and for the kind words. I think you are totally right about the connection between this sermon on Psalm 4 and the passage from I John. I don’t know if you or your church follows the lectionary, but this passages assigned for this week are John 15:1-8 and I John 4:7-21, and those passages say just the sort of thing you’re talking about: “Jesus Christ as becoming flesh again in the community’s life of love”.

Right now I’m preparing to preach this weekend so those passages from the Gospel of John and First John are weighing on my mind. So far, what’s so striking to me about the I John passage is that in the end he brings it around to our love for one another. The passage makes us look real hard at our love for each other. For John, our love for God is displayed in our love for another. Our love for God passes through the other, the specific other, the neighbor. 4:12 brings this point home: “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us”. God is invisible. We enter into the Love that is God when we love our brother and sister. We don’t know we love God unless we love another.

Sebastian Moore speaks the heart of the passage with such clarity: “the absence of a positive concern for others is the surest indication that God is not loved at all… No love of neighbour, no love of God… The only way of finding out whether I love my neighbour is to ask myself whether I ever do anything for him” (God is a New Language, p. 26). A few pages later Moore returns to this point: “For the Christian statement ‘I love God’ is the statement that I am troubled by the God who is Love and so am constituted ‘a loving person,’ a person reshaped by essential love and so made loving in the totality of my human, social situation. Thus ‘not to love someone’ is quite simply, to be without the love of God” (p. 29). I think Moore beautifullly speaks the heart of First John. What do you think?

Oh, great point about Augustine and love, flesh, Word, and the community. If you get a chance, let me know what you think about this post from a while ago on Augustine and reading Scripture: Augustine: reading for love

]]> By: Dewet http://www.rustyparts.com/wp/2006/05/01/peace-be-with-you-a-sermon-on-psalm-4/comment-page-1/#comment-2086 Dewet Mon, 08 May 2006 21:13:36 +0000 http://www.rustyparts.com/wp/2006/05/01/peace-be-with-you-a-sermon-on-psalm-4/#comment-2086 I have great respect for your bold sermon on psalm 4. I appreciate the way you explain the fleshness of Jesus Christ in the midst of his followers. I surely would like to read through other postings of you. Recently I was reading the first epistle of John and it striked me how John describes Jesus Christ as becoming flesh again in the community's life of "love". It striked me how "un-gnostic" this is! I am reading a study of C C Pecknold on Augustine and discovered anew what important role the concept "Word became flesh" plays in his method of reading Scripture. Reading Scripture for Augustine means more than mentally making sense, its means performing the text in flesh. And if I do not have it wrong, Augustine knew that a community of fellow readers plays a vital role in all this. Thank you for the sermon. I have great respect for your bold sermon on psalm 4. I appreciate the way you explain the fleshness of Jesus Christ in the midst of his followers. I surely would like to read through other postings of you. Recently I was reading the first epistle of John and it striked me how John describes Jesus Christ as becoming flesh again in the community’s life of “love”. It striked me how “un-gnostic” this is! I am reading a study of C C Pecknold on Augustine and discovered anew what important role the concept “Word became flesh” plays in his method of reading Scripture. Reading Scripture for Augustine means more than mentally making sense, its means performing the text in flesh. And if I do not have it wrong, Augustine knew that a community of fellow readers plays a vital role in all this. Thank you for the sermon.

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