Living in Philadelphia (1 John 3: 1-17) 4/22/12

            If you stand at the top of the steps leading up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you can get a breathtaking view of Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the Center City skyline. Our nation’s first capital, the home of Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, is still quite a great city.  Walk to the bottom of the same steps and you can stand beside a bronze statue of Rocky Balboa—a real life monument to a motion picture hero who is all fiction, the greatest fighter who never was! America. Isn’t it wonderful! Granted, the statue stands at the entrance to an art museum and it is, after all, a piece of art. But we should not ignore the tragic irony that we oftentimes idolize that which is fiction while we reduce to the mundane that which is profound.

           William Penn was granted a charter for the colony of Pennsylvania in 1681. Penn was a Quaker. It is said that he had been subjected to religious persecution. I’m not quite sure how that works. History tells us that King Charles II granted Penn the charter as partial repayment of a debt. I don’t know how much a man is likely to be persecuted when a king owes him. Anyway, Penn named Philadelphia from a Greek compound word: philia, meaning love or friendship, and adelphos, meaning brother or brotherly. So Philadelphia means brotherly love. Not a bad name for a place. The city has more outdoor sculptures, public art and murals than any in the country. Maybe that’s why Rocky can survive long after his retirement from the big screen. Now he’s pop art.

          I don’t know about the persecutions of William Penn, but I do know something about the apostle John. In the first five chapters of Acts, he and Peter are arrested twice, thrown in a public jail, and beaten for their witness. They were charged to maintain silence on threat of death. Their answer was to rejoice “that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” [of Jesus Christ] (Acts 5:41). Some sixty years later, the young lion is now a wise old teacher. He is still very much the beloved disciple. John is credited with founding six different churches, one of which was named—you guessed it: Philadelphia. 1 As he writes to the young church, he cautions against false doctrine and watered down theology. John’s theology is always poetic, always penetrating, littered with references to light and the word. In the third chapter of 1^st John, it is written not with layers to be penetrated, but rather with a clean and clear statement of truth. John wants us to live in Philadelphia.      

          Brotherly love. The concept appears early in the Bible. “Am I my brother’s keeper”, asks Cain of God in Genesis 4. And God answers him: “the voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.”  Abraham argues with God himself to save Lot and other kinsmen from destruction with the city of Sodom. Judah bargains with his brothers to save young Joseph’s life. Prince Jonathan pledges his loyalty to his friend David and values their friendship over his rights to the throne of Israel. In the 15^th chapter of his gospel, John quotes Jesus: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Brotherly love is as big as it gets. Jesus wants us to live in Philadelphia.

           Who is my brother? I have a brother and a sister and I love them. I think I would do most anything for them although I haven’t been tested on that. I don’t think that’s what John was talking about though. Who is my brother? I have a neighbor in his late seventies who has just received an unpleasant diagnosis about his health. He and I talk. He proctors my seminary tests and we sit around the kitchen table. His son recently took his own life. That hurt my friend a lot. So we talk. Who is my brother? I have a former pastor friend who is out of a job right now. She needs the money but she needs the work more. We talk every week. We just check in with each other. Who is my brother? There are three little girls who come to this church now. We found them and they found us when their daddy was dying. The two younger ones like to get a hug from me when they get here. They connect me with their dad in some way that words don’t explain. But hugs do. Who is my brother? He and she fill up the pews of this church every Sunday and their spirit quenches my thirst for brotherly love in a way that I have seldom known.

          There are a number of messages in this passage from 1 John, but the one that grabs me today is verse 11. John says: “For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” Greater love hath no man, said Jesus, and one by one, his disciples laid down their lives for their friend and for the gospel he brought. James was beheaded; Peter was crucified upside down at his own behest. Others were crucified; several more beheaded including Paul, the thirteenth apostle. They saw and believed and understood. They gave their lives in obedience to their belief in the gospel. John was like Chingachgook, the last of the Mohicans. At the end of this wonderful story by James Fennimore Cooper, the great chief buries his son Uncas. He prays to the Great Spirit for his death to come with speed, for all his nation is there at the council table of God waiting for him. Like the Mohican chief, it was John’s fate to be the last man standing, the only one who died from natural causes. John worries about his flock and writes to them to remind them of the great commandment.

          “Whoever does not love abides in death,” says John. He is not equivocal. He does not give alternatives. Live in love, says John, or live in death itself.  Don’t be surprised if the world hates you. People don’t know what to do with people who have their act together. If you love your brother, you will stand out like a sore thumb. If you love your brother, you cannot fail to find God.

          Do you love your brother? Chances are he or she is not your flesh and blood. Chances are she talks too much or his hygiene could use some work. Your brother in God’s kingdom is your fellow man and woman. John will not let us off the hook. He says if we have resources and our neighbor is in need, then to not minister to that need is to close our heart to that person. To do that is to reject the love of God. It is not enough to talk about it. John says that loving God is an action. Love is a deed, not a feeling.  It is the one requirement by which all others are measured. Jesus said it in the gospel of Matthew (22: 39) and we call it the great commandment. John repeats it here in his letter. They were both quoting or paraphrasing the words in Leviticus (18:17) where the Lord spoke to Moses and said:” You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him...you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

          We all need to live in Philadelphia. It is a place, but not only in Pennsylvania. It is a place in our hearts. When we see it for what it should be then we understand why statues are carved, why flags are flown, why sacraments are observed.  They remind us of that to which we aspire, of those whom we would emulate. Living in Philadelphia is living in brotherly love. John’s advice to the church is to live in the love of our fellow man and to let that love rule our hearts. This is the way to Christ. His was the example. Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life…or to live…for his friends.   

1 Foxe, John, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2004, p. 6.