November 6, 2011
Morning Prayers
Ever living, and ever loving God, we come today in thanksgiving for this day. For the joy of gathering in this place to praise your name. It is good to be here, God.
We come seeking your wisdom and guidance always, but especially this day. Pour out your spirit on us that we may do your will and see your call for this congregation. Help us, no matter what decisions we make, to know that you are with us and that you call us to love one another.
We come seeking guidance for our nation. We pray for our President Barack, our Vice-President Joe, our Senators Rob and Sherrod, and our Representative Jim. Give them wisdom, mercy, and compassion in all they do.
We come seeking guidance for our state and our city. Bless all who will vote on Tuesday with your wisdom as we choose the paths for our future.
We come as a people who are not whole. There are sick among us and known to us, and we pray for their healing--both those we have named aloud, and those whose names we call out to you in silence.
Remind us, O God, that above all, we are not here for each other, but for all your children in a hurting world. Give us the compassion and courage to reach out to others in your name.
We lift all these prayers in the name of Jesus. Amen.
I Corinthians 13
1 ¶ If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, 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 do not have love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 ¶ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 ¶ Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;
10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
“Faith, Hope, Love: These Three”
This passage has earned a beloved place in the hearts of Christians over the centuries--and deservedly so.
It has been called Paul’s “Hymn to Love,” “The Love Chapter,” the “Love Letter,” among many others. It has been a favorite to read at weddings over the years, although I wonder about its value for that.
You see, this passage is all about love--but not romantic or spousal love. This passage is about love in a very sick church.
Let’s look at a laundry list of problems in the church at
· item-the members were dividing themselves by the names of the one who’d baptized them.
· item-there was rampant sexual immorality in the church. It had been reported to Paul that one member of the church was sleeping with his mother-in-law.
· item-members were suing each other in the civil courts, rather than trying to remedy their disputes within the church.
· item-they were fighting over whether or not people should marry in the church. (maybe this works as a wedding text, after all)
· item-they were fighting over the role of women in the church.
· item-they were having potluck suppers but not allowing the poorer members to share in the food.
· item-they were fighting about which kinds of service (and which gifts of the Spirit) were superior to others.
And that’s just some of the high points.
And Paul begins to address these problems by talking about the gifts and the body.
The gifts given by the Spirit are not ranked--they’re just different, like the eye is different from the hand. He writes, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you.’”
That reminds me of something Joey Jeter wrote in his book Re/Membering. He writes that when we speak of the church and re/membering the body of Christ at the table, the opposite of re/membering is not forgetting, its is dismembering. For any part of the body to say to another--either with words or feet--“I have no need of you,” is to dismember the Body of Christ.
God has so arranged the body that different parts have to work together in order to function.
After describing how the different gifts can function together, “He asks, “are all apostles? Are all prophets” are all teachers?” and so on. And then he says to strive for the greater gifts.
Which brings us to this chapter, and the greater gifts are faith, hope, and the greatest of all, love.
Let me say that entire series of sermons have been preached on this one chapter--so I can hardly do it justice. Let me just lift up a few points.
1. While this letter was written to a sick church, we are not a sick church, at all. Crossroads? Yes. Sick? No.
2. Paul writes that even if you have all the gifts available to you--like speaking in tongues, prophecy, faith to move mountains, giving away everything--all this, but without love, it means nothing. Nothing we can do in the church, whether it be ministering, being a trustee, a Sunday School teacher, a musician matters if we don’t do it with love. Jesus said all the law and prophets hung on two commandments--Love God, and love neighbor. So it is in the church. Without love, we are nothing.
3. Love is patient; love is kind. If these two descriptions of love were all we had, it would be pretty good. Can we approach all our interactions in the church with patience and kindness? I believe we can.
4. Paul writes about what love is not. Not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude or insistent in its own way. To love is to acknowledge that we won’t always get our own way.
5. Love bears all things and endures all things--and dare I say it--endures together, even when we--no, especially when we disagree.
The greater gifts are these--faith, hope, and love. We are here because our forebears had faith and hope when they first me in the blockhouse and made their journey down the generations to this beautiful place. Without faith and hope, they would never have dreamed that the people who call themselves Disciples would still have such a place in this city. But, I suspect that in addition to faith and hope, they also had lots of love in all their dreams and decisions. Were it not for love, we would not be here. May it be so for us today, and wherever God calls us to be in the future.
Offertory Invitation and Prayer
The invitation to give comes from Jesus, who said, “Give, and it will come back to you.” Sounds like a good investment, don’t you think?
Giving God, Thank you for all your gifts. Bless these that we return to you, and bless us always to your service.
Benediction
Go out into the world in peace, knowing that you are children of God, called to be the church in all that you say and do. Comfort the afflicted, welcome the stranger, and above all, love. Love.
Love. Amen.
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