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First Lesson: Jeremiah 1: 4-10 Responsive Reading: Psalm 71: 1-6 Second Lesson: 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 Gospel Lesson: Luke 4: 21-30 Grace and Peace from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
The great truth of human existence is that we all want love in our lives. We want a spouse that we love, children that we love, a church that we love, and neighbors whom we love living next door. If everyone wants love why is it so hard to find? The truth is love would be easy if everyone were patient, kind, and self-controlled. Love would be easy if people always practiced responsible lifestyle decisions. Love would be easy if people were to be considerate of other people’s feelings even when they are angry. Love would be easy if we never encountered any people in our lives without any problems. I could ask for a show of hands this morning if the people that you are called to love are always easy to love. I guess very few hands within this room would go up. Where we as Christian people often misunderstand love is thinking of it as an emotion, rather than a way of life. Sure it’s easy to say that you “love” your bride looking radiant walking down the aisle on a wedding day. Love is much tougher though when you’ve had your fourth major argument of the week and gone storming off into your room in the seventeenth year of one’s marriage. Today’s epistle reading is one of the most famous scripture passages in all of Christianity known as the “love” chapter from 1st Corinthians 13. I’ve told the story of the Corinthians before. The Corinthian’s were a church in conflict. The Corinthians had divisions between the “old guard” and “new guard”. The Corinthians had divisions between those who were loyal to their former preacher and congregation founder Paul and those who were loyal to their young, charismatic preacher who had grown the church by leaps and bounds in Apollos. People said that Paul was boring, whereas Apollos was considered to be more of an entertainer than a preacher. The Church in Corinth was probably not unlike a lot of other congregations in their divisions: people said nasty things about each other, people’s pride forced them to dig in their heels, and no one was going to relent until things ended up being their way in the end. So Paul writes a letter known as 1st Corinthians as a way to helpfully bring guidance to the dispute in the midst of some many different personalities coming together. So the most famous passage from 1st Corinthians known as the “love chapter” had nothing to do with weddings, but rather everything instead to do with nasty, bloody church fights. So how does Paul understand Love? The love chapter is worthy of further reflection this morning by looking at some of its key phrases. Love is patient[1]: I’ll always hear people say to my parents “Aren’t you proud to have a son who is a minister?” The truth is that is much more going on underneath the surface than what you see today. As I’ve talked about before, I do not get here without my parents’ patience. When I’m in 8th grade, there were days at Chisago Lakes Middle School that I barely made it through any classes without being kicked out on account of being disruptive. My study habits and focus were poor even for a fourteen-year-old boy. They figured that I would implode in public education, and I had close friends whose lives have ended up in some dark places. I end up at Chisago Lakes Baptist School; they were going to rightfully throw me out until I made a last-ditch plea to the Principal Bob Eiseman. I remember my Mom one morning telling me that my Dad laid in bed crying last night not knowing what might happen to you. Even at the end of high school, the journey with trying my parent’s patience was far from over. Seminary was not easy. There were nights that I figured going into the ministry was nothing other than a terrible life decision. If it weren't for my parents’ patience encouraging me to stick with a career in the ministry, someone else would be standing before you this morning. I’m sure there were plenty of nights when they wished that I got my act together sooner. Patience is a hard attribute to possess because it requires us to acknowledge that not everyone is going to go through life according to your expectations[2]. The reason that patience is so important as Christian people is that God’s plans for someone’s life don’t often take place over the course of days, but rather they often take place after years of struggle and grace. Patience is important because we never know when resurrections around us might take place. Love is kind[3]: I want to tell you the story of Scott and Melissa[4]. Scott and Melissa met through online dating. Scott worked in nursing home administration; Melissa was a school-teacher. Melissa was also a single mom with two young children at home. Scott and Melissa start chatting online, they develop a bit of rapport, and they agree to go on a date. Scott had a busy week, but he arranged for the chance to have dinner with Melissa a few hours away on a Friday night. The date didn’t go well! Melissa’s nerves were evident. The first twenty minutes consisted of Scott receiving nothing more than one-word answers. When Melissa finally began to open up the conversation was forced. Scott and Melissa for whatever reason just didn’t click. Scott realized something about Melissa within their conversations. Melissa had been burned by other men in the past: men that were substance abusers and men that made Melissa feel worse about herself every single day. Melissa had trust issues and justifiably so. So Scott and Melissa’s date ends with an awkward tap on the forearm. Most people would never communicate with each other, again. Scott though had different ideas. Scott decides to write Melissa the following Monday highlighting all the attractive qualities that she had as a person. Melissa was taken back as she had looked from kindness her whole life from likely sources but found it in an unlikely source of a bad date. We often misunderstand “kindness”. One of my favorite books is Evolutionary Psychologist Robert Glover’s No More Mr. Nice Guy. Glover’s hypothesis is that the reason that people often act “nice” isn’t for good reasons but often reasons of pride. People will often merely act all “nice” to merit the approval of others when their response deep down inside is anything but nice. Nice guys are obsessed with what other people think about them, rather than living out the goodness of one’s convictions. Nice guys tend to be unhappy because people can sense their selfish motives. One time I went to see Grandma at the nursing home. Grandma tells one of the nurses that her outfit looks good. The nurse walks away when Grandma turns to me and says “I think that outfit is ugly.” The main point of today’s sermon is what Grandma did was not kind. Grandma said something to try to get the nurse to feel a certain way about her. Kindness would have been acknowledging that the nurse had a different sense of style than you do. Kindness would have been determining the other person’s self-worth in some other way than by their wardrobe. Here is what we don’t get about kindness. Kindness comes from a position not of weakness; kindness rather comes from a position of strength[5]. Kindness is the ability to extend grace and mercy when the other person is down on themselves. True kindness requires a totally flipping of the script of basic human relationships. Way too many human relationships go wrong when people believe that they have to win their relationships. They have to win a friendship or win a marriage. If one adopts this need to win relationship mindset, then the only guarantee in life is that all their relationships will be dysfunctional. What we often fail to remember as people of faith is that our self-worth is not defined by our accomplishments or comparison to others, rather our self-worth is determined by how we are all byproducts of God’s grace and mercy. Love does not dishonor:[6] Let me reflect briefly this morning on the Bible story from which Sychar gets it name, the story of the woman at the well.[7] Let's assume this woman at the well had grown up in a poor home. Mom had left; Dad never gave much in the way of affection. This woman as she grows up can only derive popularity from her looks. The problem is she never had good models for relationship skills. She hadn’t learned the way of love. She keeps getting married, again and again, only to see every marriage fall apart. This woman’s self-esteem keeps falling lower and lower. Finally after five husbands and a new boyfriend, she encounters Jesus. Jesus could have judged her like everyone else in the world judges her. She probably believed that she was dishonorable at this point in her life. She believes that her past would ultimately shape her present. Jesus confronted this woman with different ideas. Jesus told her that she was worthy of honor, whether she believed it or not. Jesus preached that everyone deserved grace at even the darkest points of their existence. The thing about being a preacher in a small town is that you tend to hear a lot of things. You hear when people are estranged from children, you hear stories about people’s temper. You hear stories about people’s drinking. You hear stories about people sleeping around. In my years as a preacher, I’ve heard all these things and had to plan funeral sermon in response. What do you say at times like these? Pastor Andy Stanley makes the following point[8]: ‘Think of the most valuable thing you own- for confirmation kids, it could be their smart-phone, for others it could be their home or their truck. For some, it might be a piece of jewelry. Think of the item that you would protect in a fire more than anything other’. The question needs to be asked, “Do we treat other’s emotional well-being the same way?” Do we seek to remember that even in the midst of the most heated arguments that who we are staring at is a beloved child of God? Who we might be arguing with is the biggest influence in the life of their child. The words that we speak to those around us can change lives long after we’re gone. To honor, someone is to treat them in the most charitable way possible. Luther in his explanation to the 8th Commandment declares “We should fear and love God that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him or give him a bad name, but defend him, speak well of him, and take his words and actions in the kindest possible way[9].” To put the best possible on someone else’s actions is one of the toughest callings of love. The following understanding of love might take someone years to grasp. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me[10].” What these words mean is that love finds its basis, not in childhood fantasies; the calling to love is rather based on real-world realities[11]. One of the marks of real maturity in life is coming to accept that people out there will think different than you, they will act differently than you, and people will get on your nerves for every possible reason under the sun. These people are still worthy of love. Love cannot be a feeling that comes and go as the wind blows; love must rather be a calling or vocation that does not promise to be easy. Love is unnatural, because those around you will disappoint you, and you inevitably will disappoint others. There is no such thing as the right person to love whether a child, spouse, neighbor or friend[12]. Love cannot be separated from the extension of grace. Love above all us is sustained by forgiveness, understanding, and truth. The following type of love is God’s greatest gift to us as a people. Amen [1] 1st Corinthians 13:4a [2] Stanley, Andy. Love, Sex, and Dating. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing. 2014. Book. P.79 [3] 1st Corinthians 13:4a [4] Scott and Melissa aren’t a true story, but based on a true story of people I know and choose to conceal. [5] Stanley, Andy. Love, Sex, and Dating.P.80 [6] 1st Corinthians 13:5 [7] John 4 [8] Stanley, Andy. Love, Sex, and Dating.P.85-86. [9] Luther, Martin. Large Catechism. [10] 1st Corinthians 13:11 [11] Stanley, Andy. Love, Sex, and Dating. P.74 [12] The following idea is based on Andy Stanley’s chapter “The Right Person Myth”. Stanley, Andy. Love, Sex, and Dating. P.21-33 Comments are closed.
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