First Presbyterian Church of Willmar
February 3, 2013
Sermon: “A
Still More Excellent Way”
1 Corinthians 12:31- 13:13
As I thought about some things in scripture this week – John
3:16, the Beatitudes, I Corinthians 13 – I concluded that too often we become
too sentimental about some of the key passages of Christian scripture. Then I thought, “What does ‘sentimental’
actually mean?”
The dictionary says it means something that is “a: marked or governed by feeling,
sensibility, or emotional idealism; b: resulting from feeling rather than
reason or thought.” Looking at the
synonyms was a real eye-opener: “mawkish,
romantic, soppy, slushy, gushy, maudlin, syrupy, emotional, corny, sloppy,
schmaltzy, sappy, overly romantic .”
It would appear that thoughts such as “eyes wide open” or
“realistically” don’t go well with “sentimental.” When we read scripture it should be with our
eyes wide open, but I would reiterate my belief that we view so many key
scriptures – perhaps even the life of Jesus – through sentimental lenses.
Is that a way of avoiding the harsh reality that scripture
means to speak to us?
When Paul or Jesus speak of “love,” they are speaking of the
most difficult part of Christian life.
The gospel of love is the very hardest gospel of them all. Paul puts it on a scale of greatness that
makes it greater than all the other gifts that God has given to us. It’s greater than healing. It’s greater than prophecy. It’s greater than teaching. It’s greater than anything that you can do
even if you claim to be doing it in the name of Jesus.
Unless we live out our hope; unless we live out our faith
through the act of living our lives directed and defined by the love of Christ,
then it is all for nothing.
You can proclaim your hope in the future of God’s kingdom and
life eternal. You can espouse your faith
in Jesus as the only judge whom we must ever face. But if in the proclamation of your hope and
the affirmation of your faith you fail to accept the all-encompassing love of
God as your own motivating life force, then it means nothing.
You cannot hate one another and love God. You cannot hate the “outsider” and love
God. You cannot hate anyone who isn’t
you and love God. You cannot hate your
fellow Christians and love God. You
cannot claim that you have a faith that saves YOU unless you in your own life
can share God’s love with all of God’s creation. It would be better for you to risk your own
damnation than to hate another.
But wait, “hate” is almost to easy. We say, “I don’t really hate anyone, it’s
just that ….” They say that “hate” isn’t
the opposite of love; “apathy” is the opposite of love. You can’t ignore the plight of “the other.” You can’t turn your back on those in
need. You can’t turn your back on the
victims of poverty, disease, lack of education, injustice, racial or religious
prejudice, greed and violence. You can’t do that and love God.
This whole exercise of trying to define love by citing its
opposites is really just a way to avoid defining love. Jesus defined it through His life and His victory
over death. Paul defines it here in I
Corinthians. This isn’t some romantic
idealization of an emotional reaction.
This isn’t a sentimental thing.
This is life lived by followers of Christ.
This is how we are to treat one another and everyone whom we encounter: “Love
is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful; it
does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never
ends.”
This is “the more excellent way.” This is not
sentimental. This is hard.
What do you suppose a church would look like that was truly
defined by the love of God?
It would be a mistake
to take “love” out of the context in which Paul has placed it. Love without faith will produce romantic
sentimentalism. It is faith in the unseen
might of God, the unseen mercy of God, the unseen love of God that places our
lives in the proper context for living.
It is faith in God that reminds us of our role in God’s
creation. In the world it is important
to blow your own horn, to make sure that you get the credit for your
achievements and accomplishments. And a
church that trumpets its power and success is a church that has been captured
by the laws and powers of this world.
The church of success is far from being the church of faith, the church
defined by sharing God’s love.
The church of faith that courageously lives by the unseen
love of God here and now, is also the church that hopes with the certainty of a
starving child whose father has left promising to return with bread, or like a
patient whose only hope for wellness runs through a painful course of therapy
or treatment. As surely as our faith in
God animates our love in the present, we hope for that promised day of Christ’s
return, the day when we too shall see clearly, face to face.
Like so many things in this life, the more we practice hope
the greater our hope becomes!
So Paul tells us, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these
three; and the greatest of these is love.”
What could be greater than
our faith in God? What could be greater
than the humility of faith that never forgets our place in God’s creation? What could be greater than the confidence of
a hope that longs for the coming of God and the moment of Christ’s return?
What is greater – but not isolated from them – is the love
that right now is certain of God’s presence and closeness everywhere. What is greater is the love that embraces
God’s love and knows that God desires nothing so much as that we love God.
What could be greater than a faith that hopes for and clings
to its salvation in Christ? What is
greater than a hope that is prepared at any moment for death, trusting in the
unseen and eternal care of God? Jesus
told us time and again that what is greater than all that is the love that
serves, forgetting everything for the sake of the other, and even risks its own
salvation so as to save others: “Those
who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake
will find it. [Matt 10.39]”
Paul tells us that these three abide. Through faith alone we are justified before
God. Through hope we live today knowing
that God is asking us to prepare the world for the day when God surely will
reign over this world in glory. Through
faith alone we are justified before God.
Through hope we are prepared for our end and the world’s new
beginning. Through love we are made
perfect to live today as agents of God’s enduring love, sharing the news of
that love with the world.
This is not sentimental.
This is the hardest part of the Gospel.
The sign of God’s perfect love in this world remains the cross, and the
church which is defined by God’s love is the church living under the sign of
that cross.
Jesus asks: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do
what I tell you? [Luke 6:46]” Why do you
call him “Lord, Lord?”
Amen.
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