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My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Sunday, July 9, 2017

“The Gospel in Storybooks: Corduroy” John 15: 12-17 Eph 4: 9-10

The story of Corduroy was also amongst my favorite growing up. It tells the story of a little bear who had spent quite a long time living on a department store shelf. Corduroy yearned for a forever home, but time after time he was passed over. Finally, one day a little girl came and told her mother that she always wanted a bear like the one in the green overalls - Corduroy. The bear could feel his hope surge - would be finally get his home? But the mother told the little girl that Corduroy didn’t look very shiny and new, especially since he was missing a button. 
We are now in the second week of our sermon series about finding the Gospel message, or the good news of Jesus, in children’s story books. Last week we looked at A Porcupine Named Fluffy and saw how God changes our identity when we come to accept Christ as our savior.  This week we pick up Corduroy by Don Freeman. 
All the little bear desired was to be wanted. He wanted someone to pick him. How many of us can identify with that feeling? We want someone special to pick us to be their spouse. We want someone to choose us to be their friend. We want the employer to really want us to be their employee during job interviews. Part of human nature is to want to be wanted. 
The good news is that we have been chosen. Specifically, we have been chosen by Jesus Christ. One of our scripture lessons this morning came from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and it contained their really complex saying about Christ ascending and descending. What is Paul trying to get across? At its core, Paul is saying that Christ chose us. Christ chose to leave Heaven and to descend down to earth to be with us, human beings, so that we would have the opportunity to be in right relationship with God. Jesus chose the way of the cross because Jesus chose us, chose to die for us. It’s hard for us to warp our heads and hearts around.  
I love what happens next in today’s storybook. Corduroy becomes so distraught by what he hears the mom saying about his missing button that he takes it upon himself to try to go find it. He wander around the department store until he comes across the furniture section. There he finds a button sewn on a mattress that he assumes must be his. He tries so hard to pull it off that he falls backwards off the bed and knocks over a lamp.
Brothers and sisters, how many of us have been there? We try so hard to make things happen that we end up causing a mess? As humans, I think of the things that we struggle with the most about salvation is that we cannot earn it. We cannot earn God’s favor. We cannot make God chose us. We constantly live into the tension of not being able to earn God’s grace but living out of the beauty of the gift we have been given, and sometimes we go too far to one side or another. We try too hard and forget that God has given us a beautiful gift. Or we don’t live a life that reflects the gift that we’ve been given. Hear me, friends, we cannot earn God’s love because it was freely given to us on the cross. We simply need to accept that gift in our lives - the gift of God’s saving love for us.
When Corduroy woke up the next morning, the little girl had returned with her own money. She said that she chose this little bear, the one that she had always wanted. When they arrived at her home, Corduroy realizes that this is his forever home. In fact he even says, “This must be home. I  know I’ve always wanted a home.” Lisa, the little girl went on to pick him up and placed a button on him, saying that she loved him just the way he was but that he would be more comfortable this way. Finally, Corduroy realizes that this is what friendship looks like. 
Christ chose to not only make a way for our salvation brothers and sisters through the cross, but to make a way for us to be called friends of God as well. In the Gospel of John we find sayings of Jesus about the truths of love and friendship. To love one another is one of the greatest needs that we have in our lives, yet we aren’t always good at it. And the disciples aren’t always good at it. So we need Jesus to model for us what love looks like, and Jesus essentially says that love is sacrifice. 
Now hear me, there have been many ways that this passage of scripture has been used and abused over the years. We cannot demand that another person sacrifice for us. We cannot tell another human being what sacrifice looks like for them. But Jesus did say that love looks like laying down one’s life for one’s friends and that looks different for each of us. 
In an age where we sometimes physically move away fro our friends, sacrifice may look like driving to visit someone who is dear to us. In an age where work demands more and more of our time, sacrifice may mean having a set time on your calendar when you talk to your friends and see how they are doing. In an age, where being face to face with one another is no longer the norm, sacrifice may be taking a friend out for coffee. 
I think we all know what Jesus is saying in this passage, that he is going to lay down his literal life for the disciples and for the world. While studying abroad, one of the first places a friend and I found ourselves was in a memorial garden for fallen heroes in Melbourne Australia, where these words were etched in stone. There are some that literally give their lives, but that may not be what sacrifice looks like for all of us.
What Jesus is saying to all of us is that love isn’t just this internal feeling that you have. Love expresses itself in actions. Writing that letter. Giving of our time. Picking up a phone. Going to volunteer. The love in action of Jesus Christ bears fruit. It makes the name of Jesus known. It lets that Christ-light shine in the world. And like the love that little Lisa showed to Corduroy, this type of love restores and creates something new in the name of Jesus.
We have a lot of sayings and slogans around friendship. In the 1995 Disney film Toy Story, the theme song proclaimed, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” In the church we sing “What a friend we have in Jesus.” And we say things like “that’s what friends are for”. But I don’t think any of those truly capture the earth shattering reality that Jesus calls us friends. Friends are a gift from God. They help us. They show us compassion. They know us and love us anyway. They call us to be better versions of ourselves. They teach us patience, kindness, and forgiveness. They teach us how to care for one another. 
I always tell folks that I would much rather be known as a church where we are friends instead of friendly. Anyone can do friendly for one hour a week, but being friends changes us. And being friends like Jesus taught us to be, friends that show love in action and bear fruit for the Kingdom of God together, that truly changes us from the inside out and changes lives. 
Over the years many research studies have been done about how people come to know Christ and repeatedly the same thing comes back. 75-90 percent of people who come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior do so because of a friend or relative. Because of people who walk beside them and show love in action. 

The world needs us, brothers and sisters to share the love of Jesus Christ. The love of sacrifice. The love in action. Are we willing to go into the world and do so? Are we willing to love for the sake of the Kingdom of God? Amen. 

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