Living From Love
Sermon by Rev. Mary Alice Mulligan, Ph.D.
Scripture: Jeremiah 1:4-10, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Two weeks ago, we listened to a piece of 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, where Paul describes an organic model of church. Each person possesses gifts which, like different body parts, are needed for our life together. Every person’s talents strengthen the congregational body. And each gift is for the common good. Paul points out the importance of everyone’s God given abilities, emphasizing that no one’s gifts are more important than another’s and no one’s gifts are expendable. After Paul sets them straight on the necessity of each gift, he describes a more excellent way of being spiritually mature. He writes 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. He has just called us together to make one body with all our gifts, then he shows us how we are to be whole together. We are to be a body radically shaped by divine love, for love is God’s holy and eternal way of life. Paul’s iconic description of divine agápe love touches someplace deep and right within us. Please read the entire 13th chapter of Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, that is 1 Corinthians 13.
We love the love chapter. Probably from the first time we heard those beautiful sentences, they were implanted in our hearts as some of the most wonderful lines in the entire universe of language. “Love is not envious or boastful.” One of the other translations says, “[Love] keeps no record of wrongs.” Gorgeous words.
For most of us, the passage immediately invokes memories of weddings – for some, our own wedding. During the service, those words are read like nuptial promises to assure the couple about their future: love bears all things, endures all things. Love never fails. The wedding ceremony is filled with romantic dreams of a life of love-filled bliss when we hear 1 Corinthians 13.
Others of us may remember the love chapter being read at a funeral, indicating the amazing life the deceased lived characterized by these divine traits of Christian love. The brother of the person they are honoring may remind the gathered friends and family that although she raised 9 children, no one ever remembers her being irritable or resentful. The minister may then describe the love of Jesus Christ which never rejoices in wrongdoing and how the one they remember reflected the love of Jesus rejoicing in the truth in her dealings with everyone.
Others of us may treasure 1 Corinthians 13 as our personal go-to devotional scripture when we need to sense the love of God surrounding us through difficult times. Anytime we hear the smallest line from the love chapter, we immediately warm to the words, perhaps even closing our eyes to bask in the beauty of Paul’s confident description of God’s divine agápe. We love the love chapter.
Which is good because the description is for us. Paul writes for us to see how we measure up, as individuals and as a congregation, according to the more excellent way of God’s love.
In the midst of rigorous workouts at the local gym, athletes may watch themselves in a wall mirror. At first, they seem to be admiring their perfect physiques, when actually they are critically studying their form, asking: how straight is my back? Am I lifting the weight smoothly? They look in a mirror to see how to improve.
St. Paul holds up a mirror for Christians, saying here is what we should see when we critically study our form. Do our lives reflect the traits of divine love? For instance when we want to return someone’s rudeness with at least equal rudeness, Paul’s mirror reminds us “love is not rude.” Agápe love gives no loophole, like “love can be rude only if someone deserves it.” No, holy love is not rude, no matter what. Those who follow Jesus Christ are to see their lives reflected in his mirror.
In congregations where people have divergent backgrounds, disagreements can arise about the best course of action. Two people may have similar histories and very different opinions; two school teachers disagreeing about whether the children should stay in worship or leave for Sunday school. Or two business people can disagree whether to repair or replace the air conditioners. Such disagreements can turn into ugly altercations with other folks taking sides, threatening to withhold pledges, move membership. We’ve probably all heard horror-stories of congregations splitting over the color of carpeting… in the parlor. How can such a thing happen? It's easy if they forgot to look in the mirror to see Christians who love God and follow Jesus Christ are people who do not insist on their own way.
St. Paul calls us to live out of God’s love, bearing, believing, and hoping all things. Disagreements approached with holy love can easily fade. In six months, people will not even notice what color was actually chosen for the carpet. But love endures. We see our real selves reflected in Paul’s mirror – for better or worse. His description of divine love is for us.
So, we can live from love. Divine love is the source of Christian life. If we think of St Andrew Church as a body, then God is our heart, pumping love to very one of us, to nourish and shape us. Which is good, because although Paul shows us what love looks like, we don’t always succeed in following his description, because we are puny humans after all. We don’t always want to be kind. We like keeping mental records of the wrongs done to us. And when someone we don’t like gets the short end of the stick, we have a tendency to rejoice. But here’s the saving grace: Imperfect as we are, in more ways than we can count, still God’s love envelopes us. The One who knows us best (even our rotten sinful parts) loves us. God’s love never ends. And amazingly, the divine love of God is active within us. Of course, we can choose to be impatient, rude, unkind. But the love of God is available to us as a fuel source for our lives, for our decision-making. Since we are eternally held in the unshakeable love of God, we are safe forever, so we can give in to God’s desire to shape us into that more excellent way. We can hold off our impatience just a bit longer, let go of our drive to get our own way, forgive the meanness done to us. Through divine love, God can transform even stubborn us into those who look in the mirror and see we are getting more in line with how God’s love is supposed to be manifest in followers of Jesus.
Each of us is part of a society that seems locked in a zero-sum game, where everyone acts as if one person’s wellbeing necessarily diminishes someone else’s chance to get ahead. But divine love claims quite the opposite is true. Not zero sum, but expanding sum game. When each person does well, we all benefit. Think of the one out of six US families who live with food insecurity. If those hungry children had stable, nutritious meals every day, their brains would develop more properly, which means they would grow up to enrich the entire society with new scientific discoveries, artistic gifts, enriched teaching, glorious literature, and deeper philosophic and theological adventures. When one person struggles in life, we are all lessened; but as each does well, we all benefit. Those Cape Cod fishers are right. A rising tide truly does lift all boats. Love, lived out with a genuine commitment to Jesus Christ, the church, and each of God’s beloved children, makes life better for all.
Someone once said, “What’s in the well comes up in the bucket.” Our day-to-day behaviors have their source in the internal well of our being. What’s in the well comes up in the bucket. We are invited to absorb the love of God so fully that holy love becomes the well out of which our actions flow. We can live from God’s holy love.