The Greatest of These is Love

 Epiphany 4 C 2022 – St. Mark’s, Charleston. 1.30.22    And the greatest of these is love.

Note to the reader:  Please remember that preaching is an oral form of address and this manuscript reflects that.

Last fall I had the joy of officiating at a wedding for a young man and his beautiful bride.  He was someone I had known as a child in a church I served, and what a happy day it was...

We love it, don’t we, when we see the beautiful face of love - at a Baptism, a wedding, graduation, celebration of accomplishments – when hope and joy and love inter-mingle and blossom .

Sometimes, though, love does not look so beautiful or so hopeful.  I’m thinking of my Uncle who cared for my Aunt Jennie in her final years as she suffered from dementia and breast cancer.  He had some help but did much of her personal care himself.  It was agonizing  to watch the decline of a once beautiful, bright and strong woman.   I asked him how he could stand it.  He said.. “it’s just that I love her.”

I think of all of the family members who set aside their lives to care so faithfully for their parents or other relatives in their extreme old age or parents who care for disabled children .

And, at present, the ICU nurse or doc – struggling with yet another patient dying from Covid. I’m thinking of the Alan Hawes photos and CBS interview this past week.  The photos show  the truth of agony, sacrifice and loss and, yet ,another face of love.

      Here's the link  - Click to view -   Alan Hawes CBS interview

  Then, there is the costly love of speaking out the truth of a situation knowing that it might cost everything – including the relationships one treasures.  We see this in our Gospel reading today when the hometown folks turned on their star boy.

And, there is fierce love that does not let go – a fierce costly love that seeks to make things right – for fierce love is often the driving force behind the hunger for justice.

And can we look on the suffering and death of Jesus Christ on the cross and say, this is what love looks like?

We catch a glimpse of the costliness of love in St. Paul’s great poem on  love most often heard at weddings – sometimes at funerals... If I have not love, he wrote, I am nothing.  When I hear this, I am both inspired and convicted.  How far short I fall.  Love is patient ..got me right there.

I’d like to take a bit of time and reflect on this passage from 1 Corinthians and God’s invitation to us through these word.

While we often hear these verses as a free-standing reading, their meaning deepens as we remember the context in which he was writing because he was writing to address some urgent issues in the Church at Corinth .

I am SO thankful for First Christian Church of Corinth because they were an absolute mess. They had almost every kind of problem a church could have –conflict and power struggles left and right,  fights all over the place, fights between members, fights between leadership and members, and many factions.  One especially sticky problem was that some members had experienced charismatic gifts like speaking tongues, prophesying, speaking words of wisdom, gifts for healing, but, instead of these being a blessing to the Church family, those who had received them  judged those who had not as somehow less than.  They were the Elite Super Christians and everyone else was second class.  The Church also struggled with promiscuity and immorality in the members– they were in standing in contrast to  a culture where anything was just fine-  –An  example,  more than a little problematic, was the guy having an affair with his mother-in-law.  And, on top of all that, church members came from ALL kinds of backgrounds:  rich , poor, former temple prostitutes, street people  and powerful citizens.  These were people,  anywhere else other than church, whose paths would not have crossed as equals in a million years.  Paul looked at them, saw the conflicts and struggles and diagnosed the problem -  a lack of love  for each other and he prescribed the cure–   agape love- 

Jesus had said  (and Paul would have known these words) – a new command I give you --- love one another as I have loved you (John 13.34)  – and, also he said  what good is it if you just love those who love you – even the tax collectors do that – but I say to you “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Mt. 5:43 ff)  Remember that the tax collectors in Jesus’ day  would have been considered the most morally compromised persons  

I want to remind you that the word used here for love is agape..it is not a fuzzy warm  glowy feeling...NO,  this is love that first commits to doing no ill, no evil to the other and  secondly to seeking their well-being and good. And, it is costly.. it can get you crucified.  And yet it is our call – it was the call to the Corinthian Church and it is the call to St. Mark’s, to St. Francis, and to each of us...

To love God and our neighbors, to love each other  even our enemies......and to love and care for people God sends our way. – and there is no doubt that it’s hard..

If there is someone who has hurt us or those we love or who is doing damage in some larger sense – it is so tempting, just to write them off, to disengage...and, alongside that, there is a  very human tendency to turn inward and look out for number 1 – Covid has not helped as we isolated and distanced staying our bubbles..it has made many of us more inwardly focused on our selves than perhaps is helpful.

Yes, to love others is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks we undertake as we attempt to follow Jesus but here is some very good news... we do not have to do this in a vacuum – for when the spirit of the living God is alive and active in us – and we believe that we have recd this spirit at Baptism, that it is stirred up at Confirmation, nourished by word, sacrament and being part of the fellowship.  When that spirit is alive and active in us,  we just need to be willing to open the inner flood gates and to let God in Christ love others through us...to love is not a feeling... it is an act of the will... 

So, in this season of revelation , of epiphany, what can we learn today about who this Jesus is for us and for the world? This Jesus - whose light is spreading...  This Jesus - who came to show us in his teaching, miracles, life, death and resurrection – who God is.. what God’s true character is,  what is God’s desire toward us, and how our God, the creation of molecules and mountains would have us live with each other.

I want to invite you to listen again to a portion of our reading from Paul but I am going to change up some of the language – if you will indulge me.

If I speak in  tongues, but don’t have the love of God at work in me, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 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 don’t have the love of God at work in me, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I  sacrifice myself  but don’t have the love of God at work in me,    it’s worthless.

4 God is patient and kind; Not jealous or boastful; not arrogant or rude. God does not insist on God’s own way; is not irritable or resentful; God does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This is who our God is....and skipping to the end –

so faith, hope, and the love of God towards us remain,,, but the greatest of these is the never-ending love of God.

Let your soul rest in that for a minute.  

St. John reminds us in his first letter (1 John 4)  that God is love.   He writes...7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

  Jesus came to show us that God’s love is for us..indeed , for all people and the entire creation... and our call is to be that love for and toward others – 

This week....Love one another –love your neighbor, Love your enemy, where there is hatred, let us sow love....., Show the love of God in Christ to those whose paths cross ours this week.  Let the warmth and light of that love draw them closer to God...Maybe this is someone at home- a family member, or in a store, or here at church, or perhaps it's a call to speak the truth in love to a situation that is just not right..that is causing injury.  This week, let the love of God be at work in and through you.

Pray with me please...

Lord Jesus, you know our frailty, pour your love into us anew.. and grant that we might will to love those we meet this week. Just as you, the Father and the Holy Spirit – One God-  have willed to love each of us eternally.  For, we ask this in your name, Lord Jesus and for the healing of the world.  AMEN.