Sermons for the Month
DATE: February 8, 1998
SERVICE: Epiphany V
TEXT: I Corinthians 13:1-13
Sermons for the Month
"Love is a Many Splendored Thing"
DATE: February 8, 1998
SERVICE: Epiphany V
TEXT: I Corinthians 13:1-13
"To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
(Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-13)
This much loved poem from Paul's letter to the ancient Corinthian is one that is used in approximately 80% of all wedding ceremonies. Its is meant to celebrate the virtues and ethics that are inherent in love. Because it is used at so many wedding, there is some danger in hearing it only as a beautiful ode to romance. However, Paul does not use here the Greek word "eros," the word Greeks use for the romantic love, wedding night love but rather "agape" the word they reserved for self-giving love, Jesus dying on the cross kind of love. When you read this passage with this love in mind, you discover its muscle and bone.
I call your attention, for example, to the way it begins. Paul makes it clear that when agape love is lacking, even heroic deeds are not able to rescue us or our relationships from disintegration. Nor will moving mountains and making great sacrifices cut it. Agape love is required if the act, however dazzling, is to be worth the effort.
Eugene O'Neil wrote a very touching set around the turn of the century. Christmas was approaching and a very poor couple wanted to buy each other a gift. Having no money, the husband pawned his pocket watch to buy his wife a comb to hold up her most cherished long, luxurious hair. When he came home to present the gift, he was amazed to discover that she had cut her hair. Out of love for her husband, she had cut and sold her lovely hair to a wig maker to present him with a gift--new chain for his pocket watch.
O'Neil's point: Love is not so much about great, heroic feats of daring-do; it is about common acts of self-giving courtesy.
Romantic, erotic, sexual love often looks for, however, the grand gesture; the great, noble deed; something bold, decisive and magnificent. Banners in the sky, three-tiered cakes, the bride in a long, white gown, the groom in a tux, a grand reception, vacation getaways, large orchestrated events! letting the testosterone and estrogene kick in to make something big and ostentatious happen.
But Paul says such things are nothing without the common everyday courtesies, of agape love: patience, kindness, forgiveness; a love that is not envious, boastful or arrogant, irritable or resentful; a love that takes delight in the truth, bearing and believing.
In short, love is ... cleaning the toilet! It's taking out the garbage! It is suffering patiently through the day-to-day irritations of life. It's living faithfully through the big setbacks and the small victories. Love is, to paraphrase the Lutheran Book of Worship marriage service the joining of two people to "share ALL that is to come."
Of course, there is an element of heroism as two people "share all that is to come" --but a heroism of a different type. "Sharing all that is to come" includes winning the battles over arrogance, pride, stubbornness and the need for control. . Sometimes you have to be heroic in fighting off envy or resisting rudeness. Sometimes your husband, wife, friend or co-worker will help do that when another is invovled Other times, however, the victory is over yourself, and not someone else.
In some ways, "falling in love" is like a conquest: winning each other's love and consent, conquering your own reluctance to give up some of your independence. Staying in love, however, is not about winning. Rather, it is about settling in for the long haul, helping your loved one to win. Love is a journey on the long path of patient growing and listening. That is why Paul turns to talk of patience as soon as he finishes the part about heroic deeds.
The world says that we can prove our love by heroic, splendid deeds. Paul and the gospel teach us, however, that it is the other way around. Because we love each other and because God loves us, we are able to do all manner of heroic deeds, not the least of which is the adventure of enduring, believing and hoping for all things good and beautiful, unfolding the secrets you can for now, only see dimly, yet fully believe.
Now let's look quickly at how the poem ends. Paul speaks there of how some very important gifts will pass away. He names knowledge, understanding of the future and miracles as gifts we will one day no longer have. He compares this change to growing up. Getting married, of course, is one sign of growing up, but it is not the conclusion of growing up. It is a step only a step along the way. And it is a new way.
Have you ever notice how long-married couples often seem to develop into mirror images of one another, having similar movements, habits, and thoughts. This is not an illusion, as an ongoing study at the University of Washington reports. The longer people stay together, the more likely they are to reflect each other. They eventually share thoughts, perceptions, even mathematical skills. The study is based on tests given every seven years to 175 couples over the past thirty years. Twenty-two couples have been tested regularly.
Marriage is a path of growing that is made richer with possibility. Paul calls it prophecy. We would call it knowledge or experience: In marriage you learn not only a lot about your spouse but also your self that you did not expect to learn. Marriage is a path offering the gift and the labor of communication: Paul calls it tongues, but he means the ability to speak of the mysteries of life to each other, the mysteries of the heart, the mysteries you do not yet see or understand but are nevertheless real.
The fact is, we either continue to grow, or we will pay a higher and higher price as we age for remaining as we are now. Growth is not be simply from childhood to adulthood, but from one adulthood to the next!
Paul's image of the mirror describes the journey. Marriage is entering a commitment that is new. Before marriage, your love for your "significant other" was in response to what you knew about each other and what you could do for each other. After marriage, your commitment and adventure is to know the continuing mystery and unfolding secret that is the other, so that you can give that gift to the other. That is, you will know yourself only in part until the other tells you the secret you have not yet discovered about yourself.
I would ask all husbands and wives and their families gathered here this morning to move together from wherever you are into a unit and then to stand. (ALLOW TIME FOR MOVEMENT)
Husbands and wives, take one another's hand and with me, reaffirm your intention to share with each other your joys and sorrows and all that your years will bring. Will you love and honor each other as husband and wife for the rest of your lives? If so, answer "I do!" RESPONSE: I DO
Now as families, I ask you to face each other and promise before God and in the presence of these witnesses to be faithful members of your family, supporting each other in love through the good times and bad, in sickness and in health, forgiving and strengthening one another as the days unfold, serving God and others until death parts you. If so, answer "I do!" RESPONSE: I DO
Christians experience this same phenomenon in their relationship to the Lord Jesus. The Master's powerful presence impacts his servants, who find themselves progressively losing their own traits and acquiring his. God's children try to express in their own lives, the perfect beauty of Christ's. So, as a community of Chirst, I ask you to share your hand with a neighbor and pledge to worship our Lord, hear his Word and share in his supper, proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, and strive for justice and peace in all the earth. If so answer, "I do!"
RESPONSE: I DO
Hugs and kisses are now appropriate! (USHERS DISTRIBUTE CANDY IN BASKETS) AMEN