“Love Never Fails”
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
When I was a Junior in high school, some friends of mine and I were hanging out in a local park, smoking dope and drinking beer.
And we started talking about the future--what we were going to do after high school.
One of my friends, Jim, spoke and said: “I’m going to keep doing what I am doing right now for the rest of my life.”
And I thought to myself, “Not me.”
“I’m going to be a United Methodist Pastor someday, like my uncle.
I’ve seen how he loves and what is important to him.
I have watched how he interacts with others.
And I’ve seen it in my parents too, and in the lives of the people who go to our United Methodist Church.
I know there is a more excellent way…a better way to live.
And I feel called to be a pastor.
I don’t know how I’m going to do it.
I’m going to have to clean up my act somehow.
But that is what I am going to do.”
The day before I left home for college, the pastor of my church came to our door.
He had a gift for me.
It was a small leather bond Bible.
He said something to the effect of, “I hope you will read this.”
And it was, in fact, the first Bible that I did really, really read.
And it played a big part in the transformation that took place in my life that kept me moving toward what God was calling me to be and do.
I am so thankful for the many, many wonderful loving people in my life who have helped me along the way in this journey of faith.
Without them and without my faith, I don’t know where I would be—and I don’t want to know.
I bet most of us here this morning can relate.
Who are the people who have helped you become who you are this morning?
A mother?
A father?
A grandparent?
A friend?
A church member?
An entire church?
All of us, I pray, have special people who have loved us into being who we are today.
Would you 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 exhibit 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)
Not long ago, 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.
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, transmitted by God through faulty humans, is all that matters.
And a church or a ministry—no matter how fancy or expensive isn’t worth anything without LOVE!!!
Love is what saves us.
Love is what makes us human.
Love is what gives us 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 10 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 of people changed because, of course, they didn’t want to anyway.”
Thankfully, God didn’t make it easy for him to escape his call.
Instead, God resurrected his call to ministry during his family vacation.
While he was reading and praying at a 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 dysfunction: “Hi my name is Deanne and I’m 12-years-old,” she said.
“My sister is Kristy and she’s 10; and my brother 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 eyes, he said, “Deanna, Kristy, Mikey: Do you know 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.
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 that Paul wrote them to the Corinthian Church nearly 2,000 years ago.
He wrote them because there was a pastoral crisis in the church.
The church members were refusing to share what they had with the poor.
They were also 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 tmhey were doing.
They were about to implode.
And so, Paul wrote to them about the ONE thing that matters most—LOVE.
He said that no matter what they do individually or as a church—it’s absolutely worthless garbage if they don’t have love.
Do you know how the Church of Jesus Christ grew from being just a few rag-tag folks with little education and no political clout to being the largest religion in the world in just a few hundred years?
Love.
“Look how they love one another,” people would say, “I want to love like that.”
I had the morning news on this past week, the day when the temperatures had dipped real low.
The news anchor was talking about how, the wind-chills in Chicago were nearly 50-degrees-below-zero.
Then she said, “There are 16,000 homeless people in Chicago.”
Can you imagine?
There are a lot of homeless people here in Chattanooga as well.
And one thing I have run into over the years, over and over again, is the fact that this city doesn’t really have a decent homeless shelter.
Imagine if we were to turn this 47,000 square-foot-building into a homeless shelter?
What would that look like?
How would that transform us?
How much love would we have pulsing through the corridors of this place?
How much growth would take place at Red Bank United Methodist Church?
How many folks would look and see what this church is doing and say: “Look how they love! I want to love like that!”???
We could do it and God would bless it.
Before Jesus went to the Cross, He spoke to His disciples saying: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
That’s what Christianity is all about.
Is God’s love flowing and alive?
Do we care deeply about our neighbors?
Are we putting our faith into radical action?
Are we feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving a cup of cold water to the thirsty?
Our capacity to flourish as Christians, as the Church 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.
When I was a teenager, on break from college, I was standing in line in church for Communion.
It’s what we are going to be doing in just a few moments.
I was standing behind my mother who loved me into being who I am…
…also standing in front of me, waiting for the bread and the cup was my dad—the person in my life who, quiet possibly, showed me the most pure unconditional love than anyone I have ever known.
He passed away about a 2 ½ years ago.
In any event, at that moment I had an epiphany event.
It was very emotional for me, it was as if I was—just for a brief second—transported into another dimension or something.
It was like I was glimpsing some far-off future—a glimpse of heaven, if you will.
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 and receive the love and grace of God.
It’s symbolic, of course.
But it is a foretaste of that heavenly banquet.
And it’s all about love.
And I don’t want anyone to miss experiencing it.
How about you?
