FIRST (SCOTS) SERMONS LOVE IS A VERB

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1 FIRST (SCOTS) SERMONS LOVE IS A VERB Scripture Lessons: Jeremiah 31:1-4, 31-34; 1 Corinthians 13 This sermon was preached by Dr. L. Holton Siegling, Jr. on Sunday, August 13, 2017 at First (Scots) Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina. 1 Corinthians 13 (NRSV) The Gift of Love 13 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, [a] 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, [b] 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. Leader: People: This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God Let us pray Almighty and everlasting God, may the words of my mouth and the mediations of each of our hearts be pleasing, be acceptable, and even joyful in your sight. For you are our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. We got our Golden Retriever, Cupar, when he was about four years old. We named him after a village in Scotland that hosted a fabulous little Strawberry Festival - we came across it during our first Pulpit Exchange many years ago. Cupar was with us for ten years and was just the greatest expression of love. Sadly, just a few days after our move to Charleston we found ourselves on the back deck participating in a pet memorial service. We celebrated Cupar s life as a member of our family by sharing stories and specific memories that stood out in our minds. 1

2 We talked about everything from that insistent tail wagging of his to his canine smile (dogs can smile, you know). But if I had to choose my favorite memory it would probably be how, at the end of each day, Cupar knew whether our family was together or not -- and if any one of us happened to not be home, he would sleep at the front door... if waiting. I share that story with you this morning because Cupar helped our family to better understand the nature of love, and to realize that love is not a static thing...that love actually happens. When I was a student at Princeton Seminary there was a saying at the time - God is a God of verbs! And what was meant by that is when we read the Bible there always seems to be action associated with God. We don t have to look very far to see God creating the world, causing the flood, placing the rainbow in the sky, leading His people out of bondage, raising judges, speaking through the prophets, anointing kings...god is always busy doing something! So here s my contention: if God is indeed love - as the Bible says that He is - and if God is continually about the business of creating and redeeming and sustaining -- if God is a God of verbs -- can we not then also say from within our Christian context that love is a verb? Consider what the Bible has to say about love...and, believe you me, it has a lot to say. In fact, the word for love appears almost 300 times in scriptures. Not surprisingly, the word love is often used to describe the intense affection that one person has for another. Take King Solomon, for example. In the 6th chapter of the book that bears his name, he goes on and on about the woman he loves. Here s just one verse... Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from washing, all of which bear twins, and not one of them is bereaved. Now, husbands, if you were to turn to your wives and say something like that, they might think you ve lost your mind, and yet so it is with our very human relationships when love enters the equation. We sometimes say and do unusual things. But Biblical love is not limited to human relationships! Take God, for example. In our Old Testament Lesson this morning, when God talks about the adulterous nation Israel -- God s very chosen people who had been seduced by the world --listen to what God says... I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Again I will build you up, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel! Now when God uses that language, God is essentially saying that Israel s unfaithfulness will be a thing of the past -- why, even her infidelity will be erased! And this remarkable transformation - this forgiveness - it is made possible by none other than the power of God s love! Our New Testament Lesson this morning is one of the best chapters in the whole of the scriptures when it comes to love. One could rightly say that the Apostle Paul has done a 2

3 wonderful job, by God s grace, of putting love into words. But Paul has done an equally good job of showing us that love cannot remain there...not in words, that is! You see, talking about love is not enough. I can tell the members of my family that I love them all day long, but if at no point during the day do I actually show my love, then my words soon become meaningless they might as well be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. In my case, love needs to wash the dishes and take out the trash -- it needs to throw the frisbee run over to my sister s house and put the kids in the golf cart or sing before going to bed. So how much more is it the case when we are talking about the kind of Christian love that would bear all things...believe all things...hope all things...and endure all things? Think of it this way: for love to never end, it means that it actually started...it means it is currently happening. We know that the first and greatest commandment is for us to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength and that the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves. But considering how open-ended those commandments appear to be with regard to love, it s really no wonder that a young lawyer spoke for all of us when he sought some clarification on the matter. And who is my neighbor? he said. Jesus replied by sharing with him what we have come to know as the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the parable there is a priest, a Levite and a Samaritan, each of whom had the potential to be a neighbor to a person in need. Though it is clear from the parable that it is the Samaritan that ends up being the one who goes out of his way to help, Jesus nevertheless asks the question: Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? In other words, which person loved their neighbor enough to do something about it? And the answer was as clear then as it is now, The one who showed him mercy. But just in case the lawyer failed to recognize that the issue at hand is not who is my neighbor, but rather, whose neighbor am I, and just in case the lawyer failed to make the connection between being a neighbor and doing what a neighbor does, Jesus reiterated his point by saying: Go and do likewise. And so that is what we do One day, by God s grace, when we stand before our God in heaven, we will hear those words: Come, you that are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. In other words, You loved, and when we love even one of the least of these, we love God. 3

4 This is one aspect of our call to First (Scots) Presbyterian Church for which we are particularly thankful. We are thankful for the love that actually happens in this place! To see that people in our community are fed every week...to learn of our own students engaged in passing out school supplies to children who are less fortunate as part of Hands of Christ to witness prayer stoles being fashioned for our Confirmation Class that hasn t had their first meeting yet to hear about extended communion where we will take the Lord s Supper to our homebound members Stephen Ministry. You ve heard of that. As far as I can tell we have an excellent Stephen Ministry model. And do you know what Stephen Ministry is? You know the best thing we can say about a Stephen Minister? Is that he or she shows up! That s what people who are going through a difficult time can count on from their Stephen Minister, a loving and faithful presence. Goodness knows that I d be remiss if I didn t say thank you for the kindness and love we have experienced in recent days. From last week s welcome reception to the cards and calls upon my father-in-law s passing last week - the flowers that the staff sent on behalf of the church they were beautiful! It was on Wednesday when our family traveled to Greenville, SC, where we celebrated the life of Martha Ann s father, Gary King. At the service, I shared a story about the family s frequent trips to the various beaches of our South Carolina. Gary would always drive the lead vehicle and sometimes, as one might expect, while traveling down some two lane highway the caravan would come upon a slow driver in the right lane. Gary would dutifully wait for the line to become dashed and then he would proceed to safely pass on the left. What Martha Ann remembers about those road trips was how Gary would never ever get back into the right lane until Martha Ann had successfully made that complete pass and returned to the right lane herself...it was as if he was guarding her protecting her. Friends, if the truth be known, we are here this morning because of another man who not only talked about love, but who demonstrated love...the one who faced the ongoing and upcoming the consequences of our sin and faced them head on, and gave us by grace through faith the opportunity to get home safely. He is the very one who seeks and saves the lost -- the one who knows his sheep and even when one of them is missing will go out and find that one that has wandered -- he is the one who knows when his family is together, but unlike our dog Cupar who waited at the door, Jesus stands at our door and knocks, a relentless grace! A Relentless love! This is my commandment, Jesus said, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one s life for one s friends. Praise be to God that his redemptive love did not reside solely in the synagogue - it was not something that Jesus merely talked about from time to time. The love of God in Christ lived 4

5 and died and rose again, and, even now, the love of God in Christ is continually revealed to us by the inward witness of the Holy Spirit. There s God as a verb again! Indeed, God s love is always at work in our lives, and know this, that unfolding drama of redeeming love, when we join it with the love of our own hearts and minds when that happens, our life and the life of the world cannot and will not remain the same - not when there is a Christian in its midst, and certainly not when love is a verb! Let us pray... Gracious and loving God, we give you thanks and praise for the ways that you are at work in our life and in the life of the world. By your Spirit may we continually be about the business of loving you and our neighbors! In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit we pray, Amen. 5