Sunday, January 28, 2007, 07:00 AM -
Sermon,
Wedding
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Preaching that grabs the heart; teaching that reveals eternal mysteries; faith that wears down mountains of doubt; generosity ten times the size of a tithe that gives everything back to God; all of these, any of these, would define a great church. Such a church would be quoted in the paper and celebrated by its members. We have the best preaching, teaching, faith and generosity! We are blessed by God! Everyone would want to go to such a church! They are the winners.
Paul has struggled with various groups arguing that God had blessed them best. He attempts to quiet that competition by pointing out that all the gifts are given by one Spirit for the good of the entire body of Christ. But he ends the section with a teaser at the end of chapter twelve. “But I will show you a still more excellent way.” That way is our reading today, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Love's Way.
Here he lists what people would consider great spiritual gifts: preaching, teaching, faith, generosity, and sacrifice, and cuts them all down to nothing without love. Of all the things we can say about ourselves, or others can say about us; the one thing that will remain after all is said and all is done, is how much did they love? Maybe that would be a great annual report, a standard committee report, a monthly newsletter headline: How did we love this year, this month, this day?
Have you noticed that being rich is necessarily a guarantee of happiness or even success in life? The movie Dreamgirls with 8 Academy Award nominations is the latest story of a person who gains the world but loses love. Curtis, played by Jamie Foxx, builds a recording empire and a castle of a home
which he is left alone when his wife leaves him, tired of his betrayal and all consuming focus on money and success. Of all the grandiose shows and wonderful choreography in the movie, the scene most moving is this simple one done with lighting: his grandiose home vanishes as the light shrinks away from it to show just him, alone in the spotlight, just a shadow. If I have the great recording company, and live in a mansion, but have not love, I am homeless and alone.
The Beacon Journal took pains in its report that the Akron Baptist Temple had 7,000 members in 1963; now it has 1,500, less than a fourth. It didn't report on how much love they had. The world counts heads, God counts hearts. If I have numbers to fill great auditoriums, and impress the press
but have not love
I am a empty chair.
I was talking to a person about the church building. They wanted to rent it and would pay more if they could do whatever they wanted to the rooms, paint and remodel. I told them that was a deal breaker. “But we would pay so much more” was the argument. We aren't here for the money. If we have a successful partnership bulging with activity and profit, but have not love, we are bankrupt.
The world wants amazing things. We see this in the Gospel. They want “Real miracles, sensibly priced” (Leap of Faith). Jesus says that miracles are not for everyone and thus turns an appreciative crowd into a murderous mob. The way of the world is to make a profit or die trying. But as Paul tells us in Corinthians, Jesus has a different way. Look at the last verse of the reading. Here we have a mob ready to toss him off a cliff for daring to tell them that God granted miracles for widows and foreign lepers and not them his own people. Yet, Jesus manages to walk through them and go on his own way. His way is not the way of the world, it is another path, the way of love.
When have you been on that cliff? Did a false accusation drag you up there? I remember a bank president, a member of the church I served. accused on the front page of the small town paper of sexual harassment. He wouldn't come to the door when I visited him. The mob was ready to throw him off. What is pushing you up the cliff: financial problems, loss of a job, unemployment, a wayward son, daughter, grandson or grand-daughter? The world will push you and push you if you let the mob have their way. But you can choose love's way, like Christ, and pass through the midst of them.
It is difficult to go through the midst of the crowd on Jesus' way, the way of love, for you must leave irritability at the meanness of the mob or resentment at the unfairness of friends, and gather up a load of patience, bearing and enduring all things in love. In the words of Reinhold Niebuhr in the Serenity Prayer, “Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it” and loving it just the same.
A couple was celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. They were asked how they managed to stay married and in love all those years. The wife said, “When we got married, I decided to make a list of 5 things that he did that I wouldn't get mad at; that love list has kept our marriage together.” She was asked what was on the list and replied, “Oh I never got around to writing it down. Just every time he did something to make me mad, I would say to myself, he's lucky that is on the list.” Love bears all things, endures all things.
The world screams for fairness and success, reward and miracle, fame and fortune. Yet Love's way whispers, come through the crowd, away from the cliff that desires for success and power will lead you up and push you off the end.
Everything but love ends. We want to forget this. We want our family name to continue. We want to leave our mark. We want our values to continue. Sometimes we even want our lives to continue at all costs. Look at verse eight, knowledge will pass away, prophecies will end, great spiritual displays like tongues will cease. For all that we build up is incomplete. We can make a hollow idol of our house, our car, our family, our job, our bank account, our church, our worship ways, our health
but all those will pass away, and before they are gone, if they are without love, we will find they are nothing.
Bobbie Probstein, in Chicken Soup for the Soul tells of having a vision of her mother, who was claimed by Alzheimer's.
I said, “Oh, Mother, I'm so sorry that you had to suffer with that horrible disease.” She tipped her head slightly to one side, as though to acknowledge what I had said about her suffering. Then she smiled - a beautiful smile - and said very distinctly, “But all I remember is love.”
All God remembers, all that makes anything memorable, all that lasts, is love.
Copyright (c) 2007 Advanced permission is given for non-profit, for-prophet use of the above at no charge as long as it is reproduced unedited with notices and copyright intact. Written copies are provided after they are preached as a courtesy for the personal, private, appreciative use of the congregation of Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church, their families and friends to support the ministry of Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church and its pastor the Rev. J. Christy Ramsey. Join us Sundays! 8:15 Traditional Worship and 10:15 Blended. Mingle in our Gathering Room between services and take advantage of Christian Education opportunities.