Mine’s a High Heel

2^nd Sunday in Lent

February 21, 2016

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35

Do you ever find yourself waiting for the other shoe to drop?  Waiting for the next bad thing to happen?  Waiting for the next problem to occur?  Or having heard of two deaths, and remembering the saying that “death comes in threes,” even find yourself waiting for the next person to die?  Anyone? [Ask for a show of hands.] We spent this weekend waiting for the next person to catch the 24 hour stomach bug, which is why I’m the only one at church this morning.  I caught it first, on Friday, then Emily, then Isabel, and we spent Saturday waiting to see who would be next.  This is a waiting that’s expectant, you know it’s coming, yet you dread it at the same time. “Waiting for the other shoe to drop” means you’ve already heard the first shoe drop, and since shoes come in pairs, you’ve heard one fall, and you’re waiting for the second one, knowing that it’s coming, and it’s just a matter of time.  You’re awaiting something that you expect to happen, since in your mind you link it to another event that you’ve already witnessed.  And when you find yourself in that place of waiting for the other shoe, what do you do?  How do you deal with your worries about what’s coming next?  In the church and in our Scriptures this morning we find some good advice. 

First, in the church calendar, we observed Ash Wednesday eleven days ago, and that’s the signal that Easter is coming.  And what do we do with Easter coming?  We prepare for it.  That’s what the season of Lent is all about.  We get ready for Easter, we prepare to celebrate again Jesus’ resurrection and victory over death.  We have inserts about ordering Easter flowers to get our sanctuary ready.  [PG: We have midweek Lenten services to add another opportunity for worship to get our hearts and souls ready.] We’re adding a prayer of confession each week, as Lent is a time to turn back towards God, in whatever areas of our life that we’ve turned away, or perhaps areas we never fully gave over to God to start with.  Lent is about getting ready for Resurrection Sunday.  In the early church, they’d hold off on baptisms until Easter, so that new believers could claim new birth along with Christ’s new birth and resurrection, and they spent Lent in catechism classes, something like our confirmation classes today.  It was a serious business to get ready.  Ash Wednesday has passed, therefore Easter is coming.  Another example of preparation is during a pregnancy.  You find out you’re pregnant, and you start preparing for the new baby.  Clothes, diapers, sheets, a crib, diapers, bottles, maybe formula, toys, more diapers, there are all kinds of things you need to get ready for a new baby, and usually the community helps the family get ready for the baby with gifts and advice.  You know the baby’s coming, and so you prepare.  There are so many other examples I could give.  A common phrase among preachers is that “Sunday’s comin’,” and so you better be ready with your message for Sunday.  Or if you remember that forward-thinking church I mentioned a few weeks ago.  They knew the future’s coming, and so they prepared for it. 

When you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, whatever that shoe symbolizes, one concrete thing you can do is to get ready for it.  You hear of a couple close to you get engaged and you reasonably expect to be invited to their wedding, if you’re a lady, you start thinking about what you’re going to wear to the wedding, or if you need to go shopping for a new dress.  You hear about a baby coming, or a good friend’s birthday is coming up, you start thinking about what to do to celebrate.  Sometimes the preparation is all mental, and it’s getting yourself psyched for the big game, or ready to receive whatever news the doctor might deliver, or prepared for what you’re going to do if someone close to you dies.  Parents think about these things while they’re raising their children: what would happen if one or both parents were to die, God forbid?  Who would get the kids?  How would childcare work out? What changes would need to be made?  One of the best things you can do while waiting for the other shoe to drop is to get ready for it, and if you don’t know how, then pray about it and perhaps ask the advice of a couple trusted friends.

When you’re actively doing something to get ready for an event, then you’re also likely to be less anxious about it.  I love the way today’s psalm begins, “The Lord is my light and my salvation, so why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?”[1]  The psalmist’s point being, of course, that we don’t need to be afraid of whatever’s coming, and we don’t need to worry about it, either.  Usually it’s an angel in the Bible that says “do not be afraid,” but in our Old Testament reading this morning, it’s God directly saying to Abram, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I will shield you from danger and give you a great reward.”[2]  Now, the story with Abram, who becomes Abraham, is how God is going to protect him, since at this time Abram and his wife, Sarai, have no children and in that culture children were your guarantee of the future and your protection.  Abram doesn’t think he has a future.  The other shoe that’s going to drop is that he and his wife are going to die childless and no one will carry on their family line and no one will take care of them in old age.  That’s what Abram’s worried about.  Yet God tells him, “Don’t be afraid.  I will protect you.  I will take care of you.”  Yes, old age will come.  Yes, you will die one day.  Spoiler alert: nobody gets off this rock alive.  And as we also heard echoed in our psalm, that’s still no reason to be afraid or to worry.  Whatever the other shoe is, it’s going to come, so don’t waste your time and energy worrying about it or dreading it or being afraid of it.  It’s going to come, and at the same time, “God is our light and our salvation.”[3]  Therefore, there is no reason to fear anyone or anything. 

This picture from Christianity Today came across my Facebook feed while I was writing my sermon: [4]  

You don’t have to figure out the shoe that’s dropping, or all the consequences.  And I am hoping that by now you have figured out what the shoe is in your life.  Anxiety and fear happen when we think we have to rely on ourselves and we forget that God is in the planning and preparation, too.  We forget that “God is our light and our salvation,”[5] we forget that “God is our shield,”[6] we forget that “God has kept us safe thus far, and God will lead us home,”[7] to quote our closing hymn.  The next doctor’s appointment, the next disagreement with a family member, the next car repair, the next preacher, the next person to die, these things are all going to happen, at some point or another.  They’re simply part of life.  And I know it’s much easier said than done, but don’t be anxious about all these things.  If you remember in Matthew, Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear… [God] knows that you need all these things.”[8]  God knows all these things that are coming.  He knows the shoe that’s going to drop and exactly when it’s going to drop.  So, instead, Jesus continues, “seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.[9] Therefore, stop worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”[10]  Worrying about your shoe isn’t going to help a single, solitary thing, except maybe help your blood pressure go up.  Quit focusing on your anxieties and your cares, and instead focus on God and God’s kingdom.  And if you get really stuck, try praying.  Turn it all over to God, because he’s the one with the plan, he’s the one who will see you through.

Indeed, as we hear in all of our Scriptures readings this morning, God will provide.  In Genesis, God promises Abram an heir who is his own son.  Abram believes God and a few chapters later Isaac is born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age.  In Psalm 27, we read that God “will shelter me in his own dwelling during troubling times; he will hide me in a secret place in his own test; he will set me up high, safe on a rock.”[11]  A few verses later, the psalmist says that even if my parents both abandon me, God will take me in.[12]  God will provide.  Even when the other shoe drops, God will still take care of us.  In Philippians, Paul points out that our citizenship is in heaven and we look to a savior that comes from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.[13]  God is our salvation, and God provides our salvation.  We do not have to save ourselves.  Indeed, we cannot save ourselves, or anyone else.  That’s why God sent Jesus, his only Son, to save us and everyone who believes in him.  John 3:17 says, “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, [or to judge us], but to save the world through him.”  That’s why Jesus’ response to King Herod in our Gospel lesson today is to tell the king that he’s “throwing out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day… will complete [his] work.”[14]  On the third day, Jesus rises from the tomb and defeats death, and fear, and anxiety, and all those shoes we’re worried about.  Not the first day, or the second day, because even Jesus had to prepare and get ready, first for his death and then for his resurrection.  And he had to get us ready.  As we slowly are perfected in this life, as we slowly become more like Jesus and reflect his image, Jesus is getting us ready for that last day, when the last shoe drops.  He’s getting us ready to celebrate his resurrection.  He’s getting us ready to bring us home.  He’s getting us ready, and taking care of us all along the way. 

Now, you still have to go to that doctor’s appointment or have that conversation or go shopping for that dress to wear to the wedding.  God is our light and our salvation, and we still have to do the work he has given us to do.  He’s not going to do it for us, or let us stay hidden for eternity.  We still have our part to play.  The difference is that we can prepare for it, we can change our attitude about it so that we’re not anxious or afraid, and we can remember God’s promise to provide.  It’s a promise you can stand firm on.  It’s a promise that will be kept, because God is faithful and does keep his promises.  I originally chose “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” for our last hymn, and as I was sermonizing and that line from “Amazing Grace” came to me, I changed it.  Celebrating God’s faithfulness is good.  Yet today I want us to remember that God has already brought us safely through “many dangers, toils, and snares.”  He’s already seen us through many shoes that have dropped.  God is good like that.

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[1] Psalm 27:1, NLT

[2] Genesis 15:1, GNT

[3] Psalm 27:1

[4]https://www.facebook.com/ChristianTodayInternational/photos/a.10150979664014916.440987.188340264915/10154026515234916/?type=3&theater

[5] Psalm 27:1

[6] Genesis 15:1

[7] “Amazing Grace,” UMH 378

[8] Matthew 6:25, 32b

[9] Matthew 6:33, KJV

[10] Matthew 6:34, CEB

[11] Psalm 27:5, CEB

[12] Psalm 27:10

[13] Philippians 3:20

[14] Luke 13:32

Mighty Refuge

"A mighty refuge is our God..." but God won't do your work for you.  I found this out last night, preaching at St. Matthew Lutheran Church for the Lenten service for the first time.  The opening song was "The Cares Chorus" - "Cast all your cares upon him..."  Last night my care was preaching, and I got really nervous.  Almost psyched myself out, because I got so nervous and didn't tell anyone until after it had built up.  So, cast your cares on God, sure.  A mighty refuge, yes.  And I still had to get up there to preach.

Earlier in the day a neighbor, who I hadn't met before, asked if I was a good preacher.  I told him it depends on who you ask.  However, I also added that my previous church would definitely all agree that I was a better preacher when I left than when I started.

Unless I spend gobs of time on a sermon, and write out a good manuscript, I don't even ever begin to feel comfortable preaching.

Part of it goes back to being painfully shy, literally, as a kid.  I was holding back tears last night, that's how bad it was.  Nerves, stage fright, whatever you want to call it, I'm still shy sometimes, and last night it hit.

I didn't prepare a manuscript, because I thought an outline would be good enough and my limited time yesterday (during my one year old's afternoon nap) would be better spent doing other things as well (like getting ready for Sunday!).  I would have been less nervous if I'd had all written out what I was going to say.

Now, St. Matthew and Piney Grove folks all said I did a good job, I'm great, it was a good sermon, I didn't need to be nervous, and someone didn't even fall asleep who sometimes does.  And I realized there was something else I could have told the neighbor.  I've never been criticized on the content of my sermons.  What I have to say is good.  Where I run into trouble sometimes and with some people, is how I give the sermon.  My delivery isn't always great, and for some people, it gets in the way of them being able to hear the message.  That, of course, goes back to my not really wanting to be a public speaker and my preference to NOT stand up in front of a whole bunch of people and talk.  It also goes back to some people's style preferences, and some preferred styles I don't do very well, or am considerably less comfortable using them, like preaching from an outline (which I've done three times in the past three months now!).

Moses may not have known what to say, and Jeremiah claimed he was too young.  Well, my challenge is being too shy, and yet I am way less shy than I used to be.

“From Glory to Glory”

Transfiguration Sunday

February 7, 2016

Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12 – 4:2; Luke 9:28-36

(Or watch here: https://youtu.be/UNmQvAYzQ9c )

            The single most interesting thing I learned during my sermon research this week is why some medieval and Renaissance artists put horns on their depictions of Moses.  The most famous one is the sculpture of Moses that Michelangelo created in the early 1500’s. The reason Michelangelo put horns on Moses is because of this reading from Exodus where Moses comes down from Mount Sinai with his face shining brightly.  ‘Horn’ and the verb ‘to shine’ both have the same root in Hebrew.  Isn’t that interesting?  How we usually translate Moses’ face as shining, you could technically translate as that he had horns.  And, actually, one old version of the Bible called the Vulgate, which is a Latin translation popular in Michelangelo’s time, says Moses had horns.  So, there’s a piece of Bible trivia for you. 

            Now, we’re also told, in any version of the Bible, that Moses had to wear a veil over his face after talking with God, because of how his appearance was transformed.  (Imagine that, talking with God changes your appearance!)  However, Paul says that the veil is now taken away by Christ,[1] and “all of us are looking with unveiled faces at the glory of the Lord as if we were looking in a mirror. We are being transformed into that same image from one degree of glory to the next degree of glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”[2]  This idea of being transformed into his image, from one degree of glory to the next, is also really intriguing.  In the North Carolina Conference, each quadrennium, or set of four years that the bishop is appointed to the conference, the bishop sets a theme based in Scripture.  For the quadrennium running from 2012 to 2016 the theme was “From Strength to Strength,” from Psalm 84:7, “They go from strength to strength; the God of gods will be seen in Zion.”  There we go “from strength to strength”; here in 2 Corinthians we’re told we go “from glory to glory.”  Isn’t that an interesting phrase?  Did you know you’re going “from glory to glory”?  In some translations it says we’re “gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him” or we’re becoming like him “in an ever greater degree of glory.”[3] 

Now, why would that be? Some of us have been at this perfection business for years and years, probably some of us here for over 80 years!  Why is this an “ever greater degree of glory” and where does it end?  What’s the highest degree?  Well, before we get there, let’s start at the lowest degree.  No matter how old or how young you were when you first started following Jesus, no one starts out immediately after baptism as the perfect image of Jesus.  “No one falls head first into the pool of God’s transforming love and emerges fully formed as a perfect reflection of Christ.”[4]  That’s just not how it works.  Made in the image of God, yes.  A perfect reflection of Christ when you first meet him, no.  That’s why there are multiple references in the New Testament to being infants in Christ who are fed with milk, not solid food.  In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul writes, “And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as … infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food.”[5]  1 Peter 2 says that if you need to, be “like newborn infants, [and] long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”[6]  Finally, Hebrews 5 also makes the distinction between infants and more mature Christians, apparently admonishing people who should be more mature in the faith and yet are not.  The author says, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.”[7]  When you first start this journey, no matter how old or young you are, we all start off like infants and gradually grow in the faith and gradually become more mature and more a reflection of Christ. 

Here’s the other thing about infants that’s relevant to the spiritual journey: “only infants need to be fed.”[8]  They are not responsible for feeding themselves or for finding their own food, they’re not even able to!  But as babies become toddlers, they start to want to feed themselves and are eager to control how much they eat and what they eat.  And this analogy holds true for spiritual nourishment as well, as we mature in Christ, it becomes our responsibility to feed ourselves and no longer look to someone else to feed us.  “This means that we practice the means of grace. We immerse ourselves in scripture. We fellowship with believers. We become missional, having been sent out into the world. We understand that God is the source of all spiritual nourishment, but it is up to us, as maturing followers, to feed ourselves from that bounty.”[9]  One degree of glory is learning that we are responsible for feeding ourselves, we are responsible for our own development as Christians, not the pastor, not the church, not our parents.  Jesus found times by himself to pray and times to pray with others, like in our Gospel this morning.  We start off as infants in Christ, and slowly becoming more like him from one degree of glory to another means we become responsible for our Christian development. 

 Now, what we choose from to feed ourselves is God’s bounty, as God is the parent who still provides and the source of all spiritual nourishment.  However, much like being at mom and dad’s house, we don’t always get to pick what’s on the menu.  Sometimes we have a say in it, and sometimes there are going to be Brussel sprouts or the casserole everyone loves but you.  “Sometimes God puts things on the menu that are not particularly appealing to us. This does not mean that they aren't nourishing and necessary.”[10]  Some nights you may go hungry, but it’s your own fault for not eating.  That’s part of what it means to become mature.  I distinctly remember the night I ate cabbage, around sixth grade or so, because I was really hungry and I couldn’t get anything else to eat until I’d eaten what was on my dinner plate.  It was good for me, I didn’t like it, but I was hungry so I ate it.  So, the next time you hear someone say they’re not being fed at church, perhaps gently nudge them and ask if they simply don’t like what’s on the menu!

The last thing about being transformed from one degree of glory to the next is that transform has to do with changing form, not content.  In my linguistic days I had to learn the importance of not just what you say, but how you say it.  If I stand up here and read my sermon without every looking up, chances are it’ll be received differently than if I were to memorize it and walk down here among the pews.  [Walk down to the pews.] I’m saying the same words, but I’m changing the style of preaching.  And I’m shy enough and nervous enough that I like to stay up here with my script or outline or whatever I’ve prepared.  I get stage fright, otherwise.  [Return to pulpit.] Art criticism also deals with form and content.  It may be a picture of a vase of flowers, which is the content, and then however it’s done, whether with oil paints or pastels or charcoals or a photograph is the form, and the form affects how you see the vase of flowers.  In the church, this is where the contemporary worship style came into play and setting old hymns to new music or singing with a guitar instead of an organ.  The content is still the same, it’s still worship of God, but the form has changed.  Some of us adapt easily to electric guitars and drums; for others of us, it’s hard to worship God when we’re not dressed nicely, with the clothes to match the occasion.  And so, especially in smaller churches like ours, you find a mix of styles, where some of us wear ties and others of us wear sneakers, where we use new songs and old songs, where there are many traditional elements, because that’s the kind of worship our sanctuary was designed for, and we mix in a few things that are newer. 

            And so you can see that both us individually and us together as the church are being transformed from one glory to the next, slowly changing more and more into Christ’s image.  The mission statement of The United Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, transforming the world from glory to glory as well.  And the second sentence of that mission statement, which we don’t usually hear as often, says that “local churches provide the most significant arena through which disciple-making occurs.”[11]  The transformation of the world goes back to the transformation of the local church, which is caused by disciple-making, or the transformation of people into disciples, we who are being transformed into Jesus’ image, from one degree of glory to the next.  It’s a process, it’s a journey, but it’s not one we ever go through by ourselves.  And God offers us nourishment for the journey.  On today’s menu is God, his body, broken, and his blood, spilled out for us.  You may not like it, you  may not like your serving size, you may not like the form of this particular loaf of bread and this particular brand of grape juice, but this is what’s on the menu and God invites everyone to come to his table.  There is enough for all.  So, come, and be fed.

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[1] 2 Corinthians 3:14

[2] 2 Corinthians 3:18, CEB

[3] Ibid., MSG and GNT

[4] Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1, p. 451

[5] 1 Corinthians 3:1-2

[6] 1 Peter 2:2-3

[7] Hebrews 5:12-14

[8] http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/6640/the-problem-with-being-fed

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] The United Methodist Book of Discipline, ¶ 120

Taking the Cliché Out of Love

4^th Sunday after the Epiphany

January 31, 2016

Jeremiah 1:4-10; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

(Or watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2DUbFjY8RI&feature=em-upload_owner#action=share )

            I was once given a necklace with three charms on it.  There was a cross, an anchor, and a heart.  The cross stood for faith, the anchor symbolized hope, and the heart was for love.  Faith, hope, and love, bound together forever by Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 13.  And the greatest of these three, the best of them, isn’t faith, as good as faith is.  Faith will one day become sight.  Faith will turn into knowledge.  And the greatest of these isn’t hope, as good as hope is.  Hope will one day end in fulfillment, or if you’re unfortunate, disappointment.  Hope will also end.  But both faith and hope are grounded, and rooted, in love, which never ends.  And so love is the greatest of these three.  We’ve been reading the past couple weeks in chapter 12 about different spiritual gifts, and Paul starts off chapter 13 by saying that even if he has great spiritual gifts, like teaching and prophecy and speaking in tongues, all those ones we talked about a couple weeks ago, even if he has wonderful spiritual gifts, but doesn’t have love, he’s like a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  Even if he has faith that can move mountains, but doesn’t have love, then he is nothing.  And even if he gives away everything and sacrifices everything, but doesn’t have love, then he gains nothing.  And so love is necessary for all these things to have meaning, because otherwise they don’t make any sense.  Love binds them all together. 

1 Corinthians 13, even though quite often read at Christian weddings, wasn’t written to address love between a couple.  The church at Corinth that Paul writes to is made up of several small house-churches, with around 30 people or so meeting at each one.  So, a group of people, a little bit smaller than our gathering, who came together in someone’s house for worship.  And among that group was quite a bit of diversity, people from different classes, different backgrounds, and because of that diversity there was a bit of conflict.  So Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is a letter to a community that’s having trouble staying together, that’s having trouble figuring out how to all get along.  That’s why Paul talks about love in 1 Corinthians 13.  They’re guidelines for how this small church can stay together and keep worshiping together.  Yes, good guidelines also for a marriage, and good guidelines for a church. 

            I wanted to include that last verse of chapter 12 in our reading because it really is an introduction to the whole passage.  In that verse, Paul writes, “Strive for the greater gifts,” as he wraps up chapter 12 about spiritual gifts, and then says, “I will show you a still more excellent way,” that better way being love.  However, if you look at the original Greek, it doesn’t say a better way or a more excellent way, but something more like “a way beyond measuring.”  Love is a way that is beyond measuring.  And “that is important because measuring themselves, their abilities, and their status relative to one another seems to have become something of an obsession within the Corinthian church. Paul wants to move them past all of this to a way that is ‘beyond measuring.’”[1]  Love is the way that can set them free from the competition that is disrupting the Corinthian church.  Competition is about measuring and comparing and while it’s healthy to an extent, in encouraging each other to be better, it can become unhealthy and disruptive if we’re always trying to one-up each other or “keep up with the Jones’.” 

Measurement can be healthy when it keeps track of where we’ve been.  For instance, a couple weeks ago all the churches in our conference submitted our statistical reports for 2015, and if you compare 2014 and 2015, there are several significant differences. 

Cowenton:                                          2014                            2015

Average worship attendance:              37                                44

Children in SS                                     3                                  7

# of households giving                        33                                42

Apportionments                                  $100                            100%

Piney Grove:                           2014                            2015                2016

New Members                         0                                  2                      3 +?

Children in SS                         0                                  6

Children in VBS                      0                                  7

Grants                                       0                                  2                      2

Hispanic Ministry                     0                                  started

These are measurements that are achievements to be celebrated, not causes for remorse.  This is looking back at where we’ve been and where we are now, not for disruption or mourning but in a loving way that honors our past and accepts where we are now.  That’s why love is a way that’s beyond measuring, beyond competition.  My husband and I both have a healthy sense of competition and at times fall in the trap of trying to outdo each other on who had to deal with the worse event of the day: a two hour commute in traffic in the rain, or a blow-out diaper?  And the thing is, that kind of comparison isn’t healthy and it wasn’t helpful or nurturing to our relationship.  What we need, when we talk about bad events, isn’t someone trying to say, well, I had it worse, but what we’re looking for is sympathy for our plight.  Someone to say, “Yeah, that was awful.  I’m sorry that happened.”  A listening ear is what we need, not a competition.  When we’re hurting, or when we’re celebrating, when we’re sharing, we want to be received with love, not with a measurement. 

            Verses 4-8a contain sixteen statements about love.  “Here, love is a busy, active thing that never ceases to work. It is always finding ways to express itself for the good of others.”[2]  Love shows patience.  Love acts with kindness.  Love does not give in to jealousy and it does not brag.  Love doesn’t compare negatively because it doesn’t even keep records of wrongs.  Those statistics are not a record of wrongs, they are simply a record of where we’ve been, for better or worse, which is how love is.  Love doesn’t end, it’s there for better or worse, for the good times and the bad times.  That’s what love does.  Concrete things like shoveling snow for a neighbor or at the church, visiting the sick, feeding the homeless, working to build up our life together, doing the little things that need doing around the church, listening to those who are hurting, helping out where you can, refraining from criticism and unhelpful comparisons.  This description of love that Paul writes isn’t meant to a flowery abstract explanation, “but of what love does, and especially what love does to one’s brother or sister in the church.”[3]  What Paul has been talking about all along here is getting along in the church, how to be Christ’s body together.  And so he tells us about how love works and what love does, love that is real love, unconditional, steadfast love that comes from God.  Love never ends, the last of those sixteen statements, because God’s love never ends or fails or falters.  We are to love each other how Christ loved us, laying down his life for his friends.  Not to be trampled on like a doormat or abused, because Paul does say that love “isn’t happy with injustice”, and yet he also says that love is patient and kind.  Love doesn’t put up with excuses, and so God calls Jeremiah out on his excuse, telling him, “Don’t say you’re too young,” or too old, and at the same time reassures him, “Don’t be afraid, I will be with you.”  That’s how love works. 

            And it’s interesting, because Paul doesn’t ever talk about how love should make us feel.  He doesn’t say that if you do all this, you should feel good about yourself.  He doesn’t actually talk about feelings at all, which is kinda funny, when you think about it, since love is supposed to be a feeling, at least according to our pop culture.  But here, “love isn’t measured by how good it makes us feel. In the context of 1 Corinthians, it would be better to say that the measure of love is its capacity for tension and disagreement without division.”[4]  And that’s the beauty of the witness of the church, when it works well, when we truly love each other.  We don’t always get along.  We’re not always going to see eye-to-eye.  The church is not meant to be a group of like-minded individuals; we’re meant to be the family of Christ.  And in families, there are always disagreement.  However, in healthy families and relationships, there is room for those disagreements and they don’t tear apart the family.  We can still stay in relationship with each other, because we love each other, and that love comes first, before any other opinion or fact.  Love trumps all, and when we know that, then we have room for differences without division.  I know that has been a problem in the past, and it’s a problem whenever you have two or more people together.  But it’s like Isabel explained to me in the car this past week on the way home from school: “Nathan is my best friend.  But he doesn’t like purple.  I like pink and purple.  Nathan doesn’t like purple.  That’s ok.  I just like purple all by myself.”  To be best friends, you don’t have to agree on everything.  To be in the church, we don’t have to agree on everything.  And when we know we love each other, and that all that is said and done is out of that love, then we can weather all kinds of storms, whether they break records or not. 

            You see, “when folks enjoy being together, share celebrations, and walk through hard times with grace and love, the beauty of their shared life is deeply compelling.”[5]   And something about us is compelling enough that people want to join us.  This morning we’re welcoming new members.  They’re coming in with their eyes open, they’ve been among us for a while and they know that there are some differences among us, but they also know that we love each other and we have come to know and love them as well, and so this morning we welcome them with open arms.  If you’d please turn to page 33 in your hymnals and if _______ would please come up, we’d love to make you official members here among us.

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[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2734

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Christine Pohl, Living into Community, p. 3