There is a very strange ritual that takes place on golf courses.  Golfers yell at their golf balls.  As though they can alter its trajectory mid-flight, golfers yell, “Stay up!”  “Come back!”  “Hurry!”  “Sit down!”  “Go in the hole!”  You don’t have to be the sharpest tool in the shed to know that, once the club strikes the ball, the laws of physics take over.  Depending on the golfer’s skill, the quality of the ball, the kind of club used and how well it’s swung, a course of flight is fixed that nothing on the delivery end can serve to alter.  What will be will be. 

What if our lives were like that?  Depending on the depth of the genetic pool from which we’re born and other influences like the skills of those who parented us, the quality of the schools we attended, the good and bad influence of people in our most formative years, a few accidents and just a little sheer luck, what if all those combined to set our lives on a predetermined course that nothing could alter?  What if, collectively, the whole human race is on a trajectory toward some mysterious, fateful conclusion and, here on this golf ball sized planet racing through infinite space, we’re just along for the ride?  What will be will be.  What if?

Here is what the resurrection of Jesus means.  Though all of those things and our sin, too, have played a role in affecting what got us where we are and even the future direction of our lives to some extent, God has not just stood at a distance and yelled at us, “Straighten up!  Come back!  Hurry!  Sit down!  Behave!  Go right!  Go left!  Stay in the middle!”  In Christ, God has entered the human experience and by his sacrificial love altered the trajectory of human experience, forever.  “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us . . ..”  God, in Christ, altered our lives by giving his.  The one who set it all in motion, reached out in love and, mid-course, altered what would have otherwise been a death flight.  Since love has come and, in the resurrection, come back again, what will be is not what just would have been.  The silence breaks into morning.  That One Star lights the world.  The lily springs to life and not even Solomon . . ..  Let it begin with singing and never end!  Oh, angels, quit your lamenting!  Oh, pilgrims, upon your knees in tearful prayer, rise up and take your hearts and run!  We who were no people are named anew God’s people, for he who was no more is forevermore (Ann Weems, And the Glory).  Love has penetrated our darkness and morning, love’s new morning, has truly broken.  What will be is not just what would have been.  That’s called hope.

Hope is not some inert force free-floating the universe alluding our grasp or a reward for always making the best, smartest choices.  Hope, alive in the person of Christ, has invaded our experience to give us life we would not have otherwise had.  That’s what love has done for us, given us hope.  Then, it has invited us to participate in altering the course for others from death to life, from cynical fatalism to hopeful running!”  “He laid down his life for us--and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” 

Too often, far too often, the church has stood at a distance and only yelled at the world.  Sometimes, even when it thought it was a loving thing, it yelled, “Sit down!  Straighten up!  Be good!” but did nothing to affect empowerment for change.  Other times, it has yelled hopeful messages, only to hear its own voice echo back against the walls of human indifference.  God, in Christ, has proven, even modeled for us, that yelling at a distance does no one any good.  If you want to love, it will take more than words.  “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”  But, how do we do that and who will teach us?

For that matter, who taught you to love?  Many would say they learned how to love from their mothers.  There are exceptions, of course.  Just as some people have a difficult time accepting the image of God as a loving heavenly Father because of horrible memories with their earthly father, there are people for whom Mother’s Day is not a happy day for the same reasons.  But, though others helped and though she was not perfect, would most of us know of love if not for our mothers?  Even though love is sometimes hard to define, in Mom’s presence we knew what love felt like. 

What did you learn about what it means to love, no matter who taught you?  Is love something you practice every day with everyone you meet or do you love selectively, dishing it out only to those you deem most deserving?  Are there people who angered you years ago you’ve chosen never to love again, maybe a fellow church member?  Or, do you move as quickly as possible toward forgiveness because, after listening week in and week out to the story of God’s unconditional love for you, you couldn’t fathom looking God in the face if you knew he knew you were holding grudges?  Are there certain members of your family you love and others you’ve frozen out because of some unresolved conflict, maybe a conflict from so long ago that no one in the family even remembers how it got started?  Or, have you chosen not to keep score because you know that nothing kills families quicker than keeping score and, besides, you don’t want your score kept either?  Are there limits to your love, boundaries, rigid, fixed lines in the emotional and spiritual sand you just won’t cross or do you keep pushing the envelope just to see how far love might take you even with the most unlovable people in your life?  Most of us learned to love, the way I learned to preach. 

By strange coincidence, in two separate events this past week I was reminded that my first trial runs at preaching were not from behind a pulpit in a church or in a seminary classroom.  As it turns out, my dad tells me that on Sunday mornings, after we were dressed but before we left for church, I’d haul my two sisters into my bedroom and make them sit and listen while I preached.  I have no memory of what I said or how long I took to say it but I’m sure that I was only mimicking what I saw and heard every Sunday morning at church.  My gestures and inflection of voice were probably carbon copies.  Even after I was called to preach and began doing it in real pulpits in churches, much of my early preaching was nothing more than mimicry.  In time, I discovered that, if I was going to become the preacher God created me to be I was going to have to get beyond mimicry.  Someone was going to have to teach me and it was going to take lots of practice.

Most of us learned to love by mimicking those we thought loved us.  Some of us learned better than others.  We’ve all been invited to let Jesus be our master teacher.  “He laid down his life for us--and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.  How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?  Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”  We’ve been given the power to do more than just stand at a distance and hope our yelling will make a difference.  We’ve been invited to participate in helping alter the trajectory of human experience by practicing the kind of love Jesus taught us.  Love that looks and acts and sounds like this.  (At this point, a layperson reads 1 Corinthians 13:4-13) 

Love overlooks little inconveniences.  Love assumes that every person it touches is hurting somewhere.  Love looks out for others, not merely for itself.  Love gives the benefit of the doubt.  Love sees with eternal eyes.  Love never, ever, ever quits looking for another way to love.  As John Killinger says, “We have to learn to love.  And oh, it is so hard and takes so long for love really to become love and not mere rhetoric, for love to be caring – deep, genuine caring – and not concern for one’s own posture or image (Killinger, Christ in the Seasons of Ministry).” 

May I offer you a specific alternative for doing that?  Did you know that, because of government cutbacks, one social service agency after another has been closing in this city until now, the Mission: Oak Cliff Care Center across the street is the only place needy people can access free food and clothing within four zip codes, from the Trinity River south for at least eight miles and from I-35 west for at least as many miles or more?  At the current pace, over 60,000 people will come into that little building this year looking for food and clothes.  Because of natural disasters including the Oklahoma tornadoes, much of the food MOC was able to purchase at huge discounts through the North Texas Food Bank has been diverted to other cities.  One day recently, the only food available through the Food Bank was some kind of blue sports drink and frozen fish heads.  There is never enough money and there are never enough hands.  And, there is no other church in this city where, if someone wants to actually help alter the trajectory of someone’s life by putting a Jesus kind of love in action, such a phenomenal opportunity exists to do so within fifty feet of the front door.  Could you give money or time?  Could you shelve groceries or sort clothes?  Could you clean out your closet and bring those extra clothes your planning to fit into again someday?  Someone is already the size you hope to be someday.

I understand that Oprah Winfrey is about to leverage her billions into a revolutionary program for African orphans.  She claims this will alter the course of untold thousands, if not millions, of orphans.  It’s easy to think, isn’t it, that if we had her billions, we could make a difference, too.  Worse, it’s easy to think that only if we had her billions could we make a difference. 

Here is what we learn in the Jesus school.  It doesn’t take billions to alter the trajectory of human experience.  He laid down his one life for us.  What will be is not just what would have been.  It only took one life to alter the course for uncountable billions.  That’s what love looks like.  One life at a time, laid down for someone else.  You and I may not have billions, but we do have all Jesus requires.  We have one life.  We can lay it down.

Will we?