“The Greatest of These IS…”
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
All the people we named and lit candles for earlier in this service, I had gotten to know pretty well.
That’s one of the blessings of serving the same church for 9 years.
Lynette Woods, Pat Murdock, Helen Westbrook, Mary Bates, Samie Nation—they all had faith, hope and love.
They all served God and this church.
Some hadn’t been involved directly with this congregation for a while due to illness or whatever.
Others were very active in our lives just a year ago or less.
In preparing for this sermon, I read through the funeral eulogies I wrote for each one of these saints, and was reminded that all of them, in some way, have helped me in my own journey of faith—in my own experience of following Jesus.
I bet many of you can say the same.
But without this church—without being part of the Body of Christ—we couldn’t say this.
Many of you have served alongside Pat, Mary, Helen, Samie or Lynette.
Perhaps you made meals together on Monday nights to take out to the homeless in our community.
Maybe you served in a small group or circle together.
Perhaps you worked on this building together, painting, replacing air filters, changing lightbulbs, cleaning or even fixing broken toilets.
Whatever it was, these people have helped you become who you are this morning.
Or how about the other people we lit candles for?
Who were they?
A mother?
A father?
A grandparent?
A child?
A friend?
All of us, I pray, have special people who have loved us into being who we are today.
Some of them are sitting in this room with us this morning.
Some are far away.
Some are even in heaven.
Would you just take, along with me, a few moments to think of the people who have helped you become who you are?
Those who have cared about you and wanted what was best for you in life.
Those who exhibited some of the qualities of love we have just read about in 1 Corinthians 13.
A few seconds of silence.
Whomever you’ve been thinking about, how pleased they must be to know the difference you feel they’ve made.
(pause)
Last week I was at a continuing education event where the leader asked us to answer this question: “What makes it difficult for you to acknowledge what is wrong in this world?”
My answer was: “My vocation as a Pastor.
There is so much need, and we are constantly trying to help people but the need never ends.”
Our world is so broken.
And, in this life, it’s not going to get any better.
But this is the very reason why we need Jesus.
This is the very reason that it’s not the bells, whistles, showing off—you name it that counts—True unconditional love is all that matters.
And a church or a ministry—no matter how fancy or well-endowed isn’t worth anything without LOVE!!!
Love is what saves us.
Love is what makes us human.
Love is what gives us faith and hope.
God is Love.
Two years ago a friend of mine nearly ditched being a pastor.
He started focusing only on the negatives of his job: The Saturday-night sermon-anxiety attacks, a pitiful raise, the disintegrating basement tiles in his parsonage.
After 8 years of frantically meeting needs, pleasing people, and tracking down plant stands for weddings he was burned out.
He told me, “A dangerous ice slowly spread throughout my heart—the ice of cynicism, an attitude that didn’t care if people changed because, of course, they didn’t want to anyway.”
But God didn’t allow him to escape his call.
Instead, God resurrected his call to ministry during his family vacation.
While he was reading and praying at an elementary school park, three children with bag lunches, dirty clothes, and dirt-streaked faces plopped themselves down on the grass beside him.
Before he could move, the oldest child launched into a complicated story of family dysfunction: “Hi my name is Deanna, and I’m 12,” she said.
“My sister is Kristy, and she’s 10; and my brother’s name is Mikey.
Actually, though, we all have different dads.
My dad is dead; Kristy’s dad disappeared; and Mikey’s dad beats him up, so my mom is divorcing him.
My mom and her boyfriend are at the casino because they need time alone, so she bought us all a barbecue burrito at the gas station and told us to stay at the park for two hours.
Can we sit by you?”
My friend said yes and then asked them if they lived in town.
“No,” Deanna answered.
“We used to live in town, but my mom lost her job.
I don’t like living in a tent.
By the way, what’s your job?”
“Well,” my friend said, “I’m a pastor.”
After a long silence, she asked, “Mister Pastor, can you tell me something?
I’ve heard stories about Jesus walking around healing people, loving people.
Why doesn’t He do that anymore?”
The three children were now simply staring, with big, love-hungry eyes at my friend.
He started talking to them about Jesus.
And with tears welling up in his own eyes, he said, “Deanna, Kristy, Mikey: Do you have any idea how much Jesus loves you right now?”
That’s how God rebuilt my friend’s call to ministry.
God broke his heart again with God’s love for these three children.
As long as there is anyone in this world who is hurting, those who are walking with Jesus, will hurt as well.
Love hurts with those who hurt and rejoices with those who rejoice.
Love is “patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.”
These words come to life when we realize just how lost we are without this Agape—unconditional love of God.
They also come to life when we realize why Paul wrote them to the Corinthian Church nearly 2,000 years ago.
There was a pastoral crisis in the church.
The church members were refusing to share, they were envious of one another’s spiritual gifts, they were boasting about their own gifts, seeking recognition for themselves and jockeying for position.
They had lost their way.
There was no love in what they were doing.
They were about to implode.
And so, Paul wrote to them about love.
And he said that no matter what they do as a church—it’s absolutely worthless garbage if they don’t have love.
To belong to God’s Church is to be an agent of love in the world, not seeking our own advantage, but working on behalf of others.
A friend of mine once said that burnout in the ministry isn’t caused by working too hard—it’s caused by losing your sense of mission.
Another way of saying this would be that burnout in the church is caused by focusing on the negative and allowing a dangerous ice to slowly spread throughout your heart.
We are energized by love.
That is what this Christianity stuff is all about.
It’s not about, “Who has the nicest building?”
“Who has the best sounding music?”
“Who’s parking lot is filled with the most expensive cars?”
It’s about: “Is God’s love alive and flowing?”
“Do we care about our neighbors?”
“Are our ministries—no matter how large or how small—done because of and in the love of Christ?”
Our capacity to flourish as Christians and as human beings is only realized to the extent that we are able to live in the love of God revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ.
As some of you know, my wife’s 63 year-old-father, was just diagnosed this past week with stage 4 lymphoma.
Trying to get a sense as to just how bad things are, I called a brother-in-law who happens to be a doctor.
He, of course, knows a whole lot about it, but not everything.
One thing that puzzles him is that my father-in-law’s white blood count is normal.
“I don’t know what to make of this,” my brother-in-law said.
“I don’t know if this is a good sign or a bad sign.”
Then he added, “And apparently the Oncologist doesn’t know either.”
Then, I said, “It’s amazing, no matter how well educated people are on this subject and no matter how much they deal with it, they still don’t completely understand it.”
To this, my brother-in-law agreed, “Yeah, no matter how far we have come with science and technology—we can only go so far.
There is still so much we don’t know.”
Then, I said, “It’s kind of the same with Pastors.
I mean, I have a Master’s Degree in theology and I study about God each and every day, yet I still don’t really know much at all.”
I suppose that is why Paul says, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
And so the most important thing is LOVE!!!
In 1st John 4 we are told: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him…
…No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
When I was a teenager, I was standing in line in church for Communion.
It’s what we are going to be doing in just a few minutes.
I was standing behind my mother who loved me into being who I am…
…also standing right in front of me, waiting for the bread and the cup was my dad, who died a year ago this past August 16th and for whom I lit a candle this morning…
…he too, loved me into being who I am.
I had an epiphany in that moment.
It was very emotional for me.
It was as if I was glimpsing a bit of heaven—of the future.
I was standing in line with my mom and dad—the two most influential people in my life, and we were all waiting to accept an receive the love and grace of God.
It’s symbolic, of course.
But it is a foretaste of that heavenly banquet.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
