Love Is a Divine Calling

Jeremiah 1:4-10 1
Corinthians 13


Rockville United Church
The Rev. Suzanne Rudiselle

January 28, 2007

God is love. We learned that at the very beginning of our lives. If we were lucky we saw that love reflected in our parents and grandparents - or perhaps some other caring adult. If we went to Sunday School we heard that from our teachers and perhaps memorized it as our first word of scripture committed to memory. “God is love.”

As life progresses we discovered that the word love means a lot of different things to different people. The word is used casually as in “I love to dance. I love that new boy in our class. I love chocolate!” Which means I like those things a lot. It is used to express devotion with those three little words, “I love you!” And there are times when in spite of the words or the profession of love, what we see is not what we imagine. The term can be used manipulatively to keep another in bondage. That is a terrible perversion and not love at all.

An older well-to-do woman, dropped out of her church circle and the choir. She said her new husband wanted her to be available to travel with him. She came to church one Sunday with her dark glasses on, and said she had walked into on open cabinet door. Then her arm was broken - another clumsy accident she said. You can guess what we finally learned that in the name of love her husband was abusing her.

The son of an older couple had a father who was a well known, highly regarded evangelist. The father often told his audience that he loved his son, but when they were at home, the son’s experience was not of a loving father, but an emotionally detached and demanding presence.

A prominent religious leader proclaims God’s love but has ugly, derogatory things to say about people of whom he disapproves. “The danger for us preachers is that we might become self-righteous and unlovely, thinking our “judgment is God‘s judgment.”; that we might becoming negative, forgetting that preachers are also under God’s scrutiny and judgment. ( Elizabeth Achtemeier Jeremiah)

On the other hand a father devotes his life to his severely disabled son giving him every advantage a “normal” child could have –including pushing his wheel chair in the marching band - at the expense of his own dreams for a career. A woman takes in crack addicted babies and nurses them back to health while she encourages the mothers to get clean. A family says it has so much love to share that they adopt older orphans who have been passed from foster home to foster home and create a loving supportive family.

My parents grounded me for what I considered a minor infraction of their rules and said they did so because they loved me. Ha! I thought. If they loved me they would overlook my disobedience and let me do what I wanted. However, I did not do that again and their concern and their continued care gave me a glimpse of love in spite of punishment. Much later I would remember when my own children needed a correction in the course of their lives, and I acted out of love in the same way my parents had acted. They didn’t like it much at the time either. You know of the difference between words and substance; the difference between self-centered and self-sacrificing love, and the ultimate joy of correcting and nurturing love

Love is complicated - not just a warm fuzzy feeling but a spiritual gift. Paul is writing a letter to the church in Corinth in response to concerns of dissension, sexual immorality, legal disputes, abuses of the Lord’s Supper, and the use spiritual gifts in the community. They are a diverse lot, representative of the whole spectrum socially and economically, and having a variety of practices and attitudes. Their faith is relatively new and their unity is in jeopardy. Paul hears the one-ups-manship as people rank their spiritual gifts in order to elevate themselves.

Paul does not denigrate the other spiritual gifts but eloquently reminds them of the preeminence of love. Using the analogy of the body and reminding them of the interdependence of the body parts, he shows them that love must govern the exercise of all gifts if they are to live together as the body of Christ.

John Calvin thought this was a reprimand of the Corinthians and that by confronting the Corinthians with the ideal they would recognize their faults. Margaret Mitchell said love was “an antidote to factionalism and the principle of Christian social unity.” Paul wrote about agape love as the necessary mutual concern and consideration within the community of the church. Love is the criterion by which we should assess all we do.

Richard Hays pleaded, “Rescue this text from the quagmire of romantic sentimentality” of elaborate frilly weddings. Frankly I like to hear this chapter read at weddings. It is a wonderful foundation for a couple to hear what love is - patient and kind; and what it is not, envious, boastful, arrogant rude, and to remind the couple that love isn’t always easy but it bears and believes and hopes and endures. It removes the rose colored glasses and looks realistically at fallible human beings and sets out a principle for a successful and happy marriage. It is no less so for a community.

I am convicted every time I read or hear these words about the way I live in my family, with my husband, in community, in the church. Are you? Does love under-girded my every action? Am I patient and kind in service to others? Do I act for all the right reasons? Am I a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal-- rich in gifts but using them without love, -- soothing my ego rather than loving the other? It’s so easy to deceive ourselves, to fall into competitive and unseemly ways, failing to recognize that our knowledge is incomplete and our understanding is limited and our ability to love is grounded in and accessed through God’s love.

Russell Geereart, who owns a construction business in Montana, went to Mississippi to volunteer for a week of house building. He said he planned to see what was needed and then return with his crew and make a lot of money. He saw that the devastated homes and hard-working residents helping each other. He saw volunteers from all over the country taking time off from work and family to assist in the rebuilding. He saw love in action and it transformed him. He has gone back with his crew –each at their own expense.

Last week the Rev. Beth Braxton, retiring moderator of National Capital Presbytery preached one of the best sermons I’ve ever heard, on Philippians 2 – “Let this mind be in you that is also in Christ Jesus.”. Do we have the mind of Christ in us? Can we find that which is loveable in another, even with those with whom we disagree? Do we see the Christ in another? Are we willing to allow love to control our thoughts and minds and hearts? When Paul affirms that “love is not boastful or arrogant,… it does not rejoice in wrongdoing”, he is suggesting that love is respectful, love is esteeming, love has the capacity of finding something loveable in the other.” (Ann Svennunsen, New Proclamation, p.119)

One of the questions I ask a couple before they marry is “Who loves you? Is it conditional or unconditional? How do you know? Either we learn how to love from being loved or we spend a lifetime seeking to fill that void in our lives, searching for that love which gives us our self-esteem and confidence and a place in the world. We need love, real love in action, guarding and protecting, allowing freedom and encouraging growth, needling and nurturing. We need to receive and give love.

Now here is the good news! God is love. God is loving. God loves you unconditionally! God takes on human form so that we can see what love looks like and how it behaves. Love begets love. Love will sacrifice for the well being of another. Love challenges wrong doing. Love calls to account. Love is wide eyed and aware and still compassionate and hopeful. To be in the presence of love is life-giving.

Love is a divine calling! Love will call you to speak truth, to stand fast against evil, no matter how young or old you are, no matter how experienced or not. Just as God called Jeremiah and used him powerfully to speak God’s judgment and grace, so God can and will use you and me. And when love prevails, when love under girds and sustains, then the body of which you and I are part can become one.

God is love and if we love one another God lives in us and God’s love is perfected in us. And with your gifts and my gifts and all our gifts embraced and sustained in love we can be the one Body of Christ in this place.. And so let it be.