Ouch! Talk about some “in your face” preaching! These words of Jesus come from the last book in the Bible: Revelation. Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation are the visions of Jesus delivered to the 7 churches of the world by a prophet named John. In Chapter 2, Jesus says to the church in Ephesus: “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Interestingly enough, the church at Ephesus was one of Paul’s most significant Jesus communities, and his letter to this church is in the New Testament as “Ephesians.” It’s clear that Paul treasured this church and that it had important standing in the secular world as a powerful voice for the Jesus movement. In that sense, it probably wasn’t much unlike our little Jesus community at Vine Street. Both churches have a legacy of strong faith and service to the needy in their communities. Both churches have solid institutional structures and strong lay leadership. They are both pillars in their communities and respected for their devotion to the way of Jesus. But, alas, both the church at Ephesus and the church at Vine Street are lacking in the one most important quality of a Jesus community: the unconditional, all-forgiving, never-ending love of Jesus Christ. These churches, like so many others, begin to look more like a good civic club rather than a school of the love of Jesus. Jesus knew well this danger. Jesus never started an institutional church movement. He never built a church building. He never made decisions by committee and he never ever called a board meeting. He could have. But he didn’t. Jesus knows what happens when a church loses that one most important quality that distinguishes it from all the other “do-good” clubs and organizations in secular society ~ the love! You might be wondering what I’m doing reading the Book of Revelation. Every other Thursday at the Eberhard Village assisted living center, I help lead a group of wise and faithful ladies in Bible study. This Thursday we started studying the Book of Revelation. Ironically, perhaps, they call themselves the “Circle of Love.” And it’s a good name! For certainly, they love each other with the same divine agape love that Jesus loves them with. But the truth is, ladies, Jesus wants more than that. And from all of us! Jesus came into the world and spread his love across all the earth so that somebody (anybody?) would decide to live like him. Jesus’s plan rests on the hope that some small community of devoted and faithful followers would actually decide to throw the world’s ways aside … leave judgment for God and others, and make their default response to every single child of God on the planet ~ unconditional, all-forgiving, and never-ending love. That’s why, in the 2nd chapter of the Book of Revelation, Jesus praises the church at Ephesus for being patient, for enduring, for calling out heresy, and for claiming the truth of Jesus. He does the exact same for this little church at Vine Street. But it’s also why he has something against us.