Let me begin with a parable. “Have you ever felt like a frog? You know the type of thing I mean – stone cold, clammy, ugly drooping, green lifeless – all by yourself in the middled of a pond. I have – and I have met plenty of others.
The frog blues (or should I say greens) come when
- Want to be bright, especially first thing in the morning and you cannot
- You want to share but are selfish
- You want to feel thankful, but feel resentment
- You want to be honest with others, but keep wearing a mask
- You want to be somebody, but feel a nobody
- You want to care, but the required effort makes you indifferent
- You want to make friends, but will they?
If we are honest, we have probably all sat on that lily pad in the middle of the pond. Often we have sat there too frightened to jump off and swim. Maybe you are still on that lily pond, floating around and round – all froggy like, fed up and lonely.
Often we meet people at church who come across as frogs. They are so hard to love. Their personality does not attract others to them. They are either slow, shy, withdrawn and negative or they are dominant and autocratic. Cold unattractive frogs. You feel repulsed by them and want to ignore or throw a rock at them.
Once upon a time there was a frog. He was really a handsome prince under the nasty spell of a wicked witch. Only the kiss of a beautiful maiden could save him. So there he sat, unkissed prince of his lily pond kingdom. One day a beautiful maiden saw him, was overcome with pity, grabbed him and kissed him. Bingo! In a moment of time he stood transformed before her, a handsome prince. You can guess the finish!
So what is the task of the church? To KISS FROGS, of course!
Churches are full of frogs – those cold, clammy, ugly, drooping, green, lifeless things. We can all name people whom we find unlovable, who rub us up the wrong way; whom we do our best to avoid, whom we would never dream of inviting back home for coffee. Yet Jesus calls us to love such people, for he loved people such as us. “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know you are my disciples.” (John 13.34,35).
But how are we to “love one another”? How are we to kiss the frogs in our churches? For starters, we need to face up to the fact that love, if it means anything at all, must be expressed. So when a man is in love with a girl, he kisses her. Love is always more than gooey feelings. This was certainly true of Jesus. John tells us: “He had always loved those in the world who were his own, and he loved them to the very end” (John 13.1). In the light of that love he washed his disciples’ feet and gave his life on the Cross for everybody.
In turn, we are called to love one another in ways which are tangible and real. In the first place, to love is to greet people by name. Romans 16 is a remarkable chapter for there Paul greeted by name Prisca and Aquila, Epaenetus, Mary, Andronicus and Junia, Ampliatus and Urbanus, Stachys, Apelles, the family of Aristobulus, Herodion, the family of Narcissus, Tryphaena and Tryphosa, Persis, Rufus and his mother, Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, Philogus, Julia, Nereus and his sister Olympas.
Secondly, to love is to “encourage one another and help one another” (1 Thessalonians 5.11). The context here is one of death and bereavement. There were people in the church in Thessalonica, who were finding the deaths of their friends and loved ones hard to handle.
Thirdly, to love is to “help to carry one another’s burdens, and in this way”, wrote Paul, “you will obey the law of Christ” (Galatians 6.2). Paul assumes that we all have burdens of one kind or another. That is true, for I have yet to meet a person who is able to go through life trouble-free.