How Do I Love? 1-30-22
Ps 71:1-6
In you, O Lord, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me. Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel. For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. Upon you I have learned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Prayer – God of infinite and unending love, deliver us from the unloveliness of our age. Loving God, we would not know what love is, had we not been the recipients of your love. Because your love has flooded into our lives, redeeming us, sustaining us, and changing us, perhaps we can learn to love others as you have first loved us. Empower us to love as deeply, as broadly, as fully and as completely as you love us. For your never-ending, ever-forbearing love, we give thanks – amen.
Our text this morning from Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth has probably been used for more weddings than any other text in all of scripture. What we forget is that the church at Corinth was bitterly divided and Paul believes that they were suffering from a scarcity of love for one another. The challenge for Paul was surely to show how Christian love grounded in God’s love is different from what the Corinthians may have thought love was in their society and culture. Our text this morning which often is incorrectly understood as praising the value of human, romantic love was written for a group of folks who were struggling with the difficult realities of relationships and communities.
As much as I would like to focus on the human side of this passage I am going to try and turn it slightly, turn it so that it talks more about God’s love for us, shabby, broken, helpless and sometimes hopeless us. Wonderful, giving, joyful and sometimes hopeful us. Listen to this passage one more time, but this time listen through the filters of this is God speaking to you and to me.
“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not give you love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love for you, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body as I did as Christ so that I may boast, but do not have love for all of my beloved children, I gain nothing. My love is patient; my love is kind; my love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. My love does not insist on its own way – I am not going to manipulate or force you to love; my love is not irritable or resentful; my love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. My love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. My love never ends. There are a lot of human things that are short-lived – prophecies, speaking in tongues, even knowledge is short-lived because you learn new things every day. From childhood to adulthood you strive to get it together and some days you do better than others. But in the end, you may have faith, hope, and love, these three are important and have meaning; and still the greatest thing you will ever experience is my love.”
Sounds a little different that way doesn’t it. Paul’s passage of love from this context reminds us that we are above all things are loved – that is the good news of the gospel – and loved not just the way we turn up on Sundays in our best clothes and on our best behavior and with our best feet forward, but loved as we alone know ourselves to be, the weakest and shabbiest of what we are along with the strongest and gladdest. If God really does love us, as God does, then we should be throwing our arms around each other like people who have just discovered that every single man and woman in these chairs is not just another familiar or unfamiliar face but is in fact our long-lost brother and our long-lost sister because despite the fact that we have walked in different gardens and knelt at different graves, we have all, humanly speaking, come from the same place and are heading out into the same blessed mystery that awaits us all. The staggeringly good news is that God loves the world – all of God’s children – as the song says red, yellow, black and white – God so loves the world that God is continually at work in your life and my life, in all lives in the world in order to draw us, in love, closer to God and to one another. (adapted from Frederick Buechner)
Nearly everyone believes God is loving, but there is considerable debate over the width, length, height, and depth of this love. For many in the Christian church, God’s love is conditional and limited, offered to some and not others. They believe God’s love is reserved for the chosen few and bestowed only on the obedient. God’s love becomes a reward, not a divine commitment. God’s love for us was the kind of love that Jesus modeled and taught. It was a love offered to the outcast, sinner, and those thought to be unlovable by the community of faith. God’s love doesn’t discern between neighbor and enemy – it is for all people.
If you are like me then I suppose you imagine that God loves because of our sterling character and pleasant demeanor, but when I suggest this possibility, Valerie’s uncontrollable laughter quickly deflates such delusions. The truth is that God loves every person as much as God loves me or you or even my laughing wife.
I believe that God is love and that everything God does, God does because of love. When this love is poured on the wicked, rebellious, and the resistant – adjectives that fit all of us on occasion – we call it grace. God’s unwillingness to abandon any of us, though I acknowledge there are times when we fill pretty alone, I believe deep in my heart of hearts that God works and has worked and will work in the lives of every single person to redeem and restore. God’s love is that simple.
Mother Teresa spent forty years ministering to the poor and dying of Calcutta. Though she never directly challenged orthodox Catholic theology, her willingness to care for Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims brought her heavy criticism, especially since she never insisted on conversion to Christianity as a prerequisite to her service. When asked why, she responded, “We treat all as children of God. They are our brothers and sisters. We show great respect for them.” She loved as God loved, even though she personally struggled with her own understanding of God’s love in the face of all the suffering she saw.
There is perhaps no question more important than the inclusiveness of God’s love. Does God love every person? Is everyone a child of God? Should we consider everyone a brother or sister? If we answer these questions positively, we accept the responsibility to care for all people regardless of their history, race or religion. If we answer these questions negatively though, we absolve ourselves from the obligation to love those we find unlovable. A theology of love begins with the assumption that all people are God’s cherished children and deserving of love. This is the type of love that Jesus embodied in his life and ministry. Regrettably, many Christians have been unwilling to accept the inclusive love of God found in Jesus – this theology of inclusion and acceptance and love seems foreign and pretty difficult when we are called to love both our enemies and our neighbors.
God’s love for each of us is just as unsolicited, unmerited, and unconditional as was God’s love for the people of Israel. Jesus came to demonstrate the depth and breadth of God’s love to the world. God comes to us in him, wanting to share, to communicate the goodness, the joy and the love that is God’s. God wants to love us into the fullness of life.
All we have to do is say “YES!” But saying “Yes” to God is not a simple matter because making our lives into lives of love is not a simple or easy thing. To choose love as a life principle means that my basic mind set or question must be – what is the loving thing to be, to do, to say? My consistent response to each of life’s events, to each person who enters and touches my life, to each demand on my time and nerves and heart, must somehow be transformed into an act of love. Sometimes I do well with that and well, other times, not so much –
It has been some years ago while living in SC, we had a pretty powerful fall thunderstorm and a rather large tree on my neighbor’s property split and feel across both my chain link fence as well as an architectural fence along the front of our yard. Valerie and I were sitting in the living room when we both heard a loud crack and then a crash boom. The power went out and we knew a tree had fallen. I went out to the front yard and said, “Ah, crap, or something like that.” A few minutes later my neighbor came out to see what had happened. Her adult son was with her – she looked at the damage and didn’t seem too concerned. I casually walked up to her and said, “Can I get some insurance information from you?” “That is an act of God, I am not responsible. Your insurance can take care of it.” She then walked back into her house. I was kind of flabbergasted and I can assure you that I didn’t have a whole lot of love for my neighbor at that moment. Not surprisingly she never offered to pay any portion of the $1500 deductible either. Since then another limb has fallen from the same tree and damaged the same chain link fence after I had it repaired once already – and again, no offer to fix or pay for damages. If I am honest with myself and with you, I can’t say I have a whole lot of love for that old neighbor. I honestly have a little bit of work to do on this love of neighbor thing.
And I know that if God’s love is true – then how I love others is a direct reflection upon that question. We are most like a God who loves when we love like God does.
How do I love? That is the question that is left before each of us this day. It is a question that naturally arises from how we understand how God’s loves us. How do I love my children? How do I love my spouse, my partner, my family, my friends, my work colleagues, my neighbors? How do I love the lady at the cash register at Ingles; how do I love the person who cut me off as I was riding down Clemson Blvd; how do I love the person who molested me as a 9 year old kid; how do I love my son when he cut contact with me off because I was holding him accountable for his behavior; how do I love the little girl who lives across the street when she left the gate open and my Golden Retriever went missing and was picked up by animal control and I had to bond her out of puppy jail? How do I love those who haven’t necessarily shown love to me? Is my love conditional on their love – is that how I understand God’s love? At the end of the day, I am left with the realization that if I am going to live “Yes” to God’s love, then I am going to have work through what it means to love as God loves – and that is our task – my task and yours – may God bless each of us in how we love – this day and each – thanks be to God – amen.