Love in an Age of Apathy Charlie Dunn June 7, 2020 Last Sunday, we began a new teaching series on the Fruits of the Spirit. These are the character traits of Jesus that God, the Holy Spirit begins to grow in our hearts and our lives as we are walking with God. We certainly need those Fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, all the more so in our hearts, amidst all that is happening in our country today. Beginning in Galatians 5:13, here's what the Apostle Paul writes, this is God's word. “You, my brothers and sisters were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather serve one another humbly in love, for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command, love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want." "But if you're led by the spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you as I did before that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Well friends, amidst all that we are facing in our country right now, in the wake of the extra judicial, brutal killing of George Floyd, amidst all of the pain, anger and the frustration that so many people are feeling as we recognize the racial injustice that continues to stain our country today. It may feel as if this global pandemic of the coronavirus suddenly feels like yesterday's news. For the 10 weeks of quarantine, my wife Brandi and I, we've been working from home together. We've enjoyed that extra time. Every day we have lunch together and we watch the TV show The Office. Earlier this week, we were watching episode two of season eight of The Office. Robert California, played by James Spader is the CEO of the paper company. He comes into the office of the manager, Andy Bernard, who's played by Ed Helms. And Robert, he asks Andy if he's attracted to one of their coworkers named Erin. Andy begins to share some of their complicated relationship story when Robert abruptly cuts him off. He says, "Andy, I'm afraid you have lost my interest." We laughed because we can relate with that feeling. Maybe where you ask somebody a question and then quickly they give you more information than you want, and you lose your interest, but you would never say it. We laughed because he says what you and I might only ever think, "I'm afraid you've lost my interest." Yet what if this laughable scene from The Office actually depicts a reality that is anything but laughable. What if it actually shows us what is the very opposite of love? What if in some way it conveys what may be for many of us who are white as Americans, the way that we have felt about racial injustice in our country? Maybe you see a news story, you see something like the brutal, horrific killing of George Floyd and it upsets you. For a moment you're angry, you sense that injustice, but it doesn't take long before maybe we say with Robert California, "I'm afraid you've lost my interest." If anything, these protests over these past several days, if anything, even if you would decry some of the cases of looting or violence that have come from a few of them, nevertheless, these protests have insisted upon our ongoing interest. They have demanded our ongoing attention. Elie Wiesel was no stranger to racial injustice and oppression. As a Jewish man, he was a prisoner of the concentration camp Auschwitz during Nazi Germany. As he looked back on the Holocaust, as he looked back on what would allow so many supposedly good and decent German citizens to essentially do nothing in the midst of such horrific evil, the death of millions of Jews, he came to this conclusion. He said, "The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference." It's apathy, because love is a willingness to act for the good of others. The first time I ever read Martin Luther King Jr's “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” I was a freshmen in college. Yet words that he wrote so many decades ago seem to be so relevant and convicting for us still today. He says, "We will have to repent in this generation, not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people." He says, "More concerning even than the actions of white supremacists or members of the Ku Klux Klan," he says, "Are the non-actions of white moderates who might prefer order to justice." What I've been recognizing in my own life over these past few days is that there is a significant difference between saying, "Look, I'm not a racist," to actually being somebody who is anti-racist. Someone who is willing to use their platform, to use their influence, to speak out against racial injustice, to be willing with our friends, our family members, our coworkers, to refuse to just sit idly by in the midst of racist jokes or judgments. Because the opposite of love is not hate, but its indifference. We see that in the very heart of God, don't we? Here in Galatians 5, Paul speaks of the works of the flesh. He says that those whose lives are marked by these works of the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God. He's saying ultimately they will face the judgment of God for sin. Maybe you say, "Doesn't the Bible say, though, that God is love?" Absolutely. But remember, love is not indifferent. Love is not apathetic towards sin. In fact, it's God's love that moves him to anger towards sin. It's God's love that moves him to anger when he sees a police officer abusing his power to squeeze the breath out of a man made in the image of God and he thinks he can do so with impunity because of the color of that man's skin. It's God's love that moves him to anger when he sees injustice, when he sees people diminished and demeaned and discriminated against because of their race. Yes, it's God's love that moves him to anger when he sees the destruction of property, when he sees looting, when he sees violence and hatred toward police officers too. It's God's love that moves him to anger. When he sees us treating each other in certain ways, when he sees our sin tear at the people that he has created and at his good design for his world. Like a father who sees his child making self-destructive choices, like an artist who sees her artwork being destroyed. It's God's love that moves him to anger over sin because the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. So if you and I are to begin to love in the way that Paul describes in Galatians 5, if the fruit of love is to begin to grow up in our hearts, especially towards people who may look different from us, well then, it's going to have to overcome our apathy and our indifference. You might say, "Well, if indifference is the opposite of love, well then what is love?" Paul tells us in verse 13 of this passage, he tells us to humbly serve one another in love. In other words, love is not primarily an attraction, but action. That love is a willingness to take action for the good, the interests, the needs of others to serve the interests and the needs of others. As Bob Goff puts it, love does. It doesn't just say, "Hey, I care about you," but it actually shows that care through action. Some of you may know that a member of our church family, Leslie Baker was tragically and horrifically murdered in her own car in her own driveway on Memorial Day. I was struck as I read the comments of one of Leslie's good friends about her. She said, "When you needed it, Leslie was the first to send a card, to make a phone call, to bring you a meal. She didn't ask, what do you need? She was one of those people who just knew what you needed and she brought it and she gave it." I think that's part of what radiated through her was her faith and her love of God, a love that would take action. That love acts on behalf of another. Further, Paul tells us in verse 14, he says that the whole law can be summed up in this one command of Jesus, “love your neighbor as yourself.” In order to do that, love also means then a willingness to empathize, a willingness to try to put ourselves in our neighbor's shoes, to try to see the world from their perspective, through their eyes.