Sermon, 4 th after Epiphany, Year C, February 3, 2019 Church of the Nativity-Episcopal, Indianapolis The Rev. Susan M. Smith, Ph.D. Jeremiah 1:4-10 Psalm 71:1-6 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Luke 4:21-30 Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 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. 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. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. Luke 4:21-30 In the synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus read from the book of the prophet Isaiah, and began to say, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown...... 1
STRIVE for the GREATEST GIFT: LOVE I. Each part of the body gives a gift Last week, in I Corinthians 12, St. Paul used our very own bodies as a metaphor for the way we humans, and all of creation, are part of one community, one human family, one Earth neighborhood. He imagined, perhaps, the folks in Corinth teasing about who was more important surly the biceps are stronger than, say, the belly button or the sitz bones my yoga teacher keeps encouraging me to sit on. But Paul insists that each part has its function, and that the less beautiful or more embarrassing or hidden parts should be treated with more respect and care. It s as though he s comparing the biceps to the apostles, the arteries to the teachers, and the smelly feet to those who clean the church every week keep them invisible, cover them up, don t pay much attention to them. Of course, feet get some of the most wear and tear, and they are amazingly flexible and faithful and if they hurt, suddenly you ll do anything to care for them. I ve found myself apologizing to my own feet for the way I ve treated them sometimes and then I take them out for a foot massage. The Well-Done cleaning crew that comes in every Thursday does a wonderful job. And these guys are kind, funny, courteous, thorough and we d be in a huge fix without them. Our being here depends utterly on their kind competence, their invisibility notwithstanding. In this, I m sure Paul is right the hidden parts deserve great respect. We re all important, says Paul. Is everyone a preacher? a teacher? a cleaning crew? And Paul ends the 12 th chapter with the words, But strive for the greater gifts. II. but we all need and benefit from the Greater Gifts. Today he gives us some insight as to what those greater gifts are. They are faith, and hope, and love, what Thomas Aquinas calls the theological virtues. And the greatest of these is love. Love is the root and ground of every other virtue, all other gifts, Paul says. Without it, nothing works, nothing is of value. If I have a marvelous voice, like James Earl Jones (who just turned 88), 1 but I speak without love in my heart, it s noise, not music. If I have a Ph.D. and can lecture on climate change and answer everybody s questions and concern, but I don t love the earth, and I don t love the people I m lecturing to I should hang it up, because the people won t hear anything I say anyway. I remember driving by a women s medical clinic one morning in Anchorage, and some guy with his protest poster was on his way to work. Somehow I was more naïve back then, and I thought the prolifers were all compassionate folks, wanting to care for moms so they would care for fetuses so they 1 He was the voice of Mufasa the King of the Pride Lands in The Lion King, and also of Darth Vader in Star Wars. 2
wouldn t be prevented from growing to term. But not this guy. He stomped across the street and up the walk-way like a storm-trooper with the most angry, bitter down-turned mouth like he was going to meet the enemy. All I could think of was all the vulnerability in that clinic: from the mothers-to-be making devastating decisions they would never get over, to the doctors helping to give a life while also taking a life such a challenging and sympathetic place. And this guy charging up the sidewalk, honestly like he wanted to kill someone. He was on a mission, all right. But he had not love. I ve learned, as perhaps you have, that children cannot learn if they are not loved. Part of what makes teachers so special is that they love their subject matter, and they love their children. And the children pick that up, and are therefore willing to make mistakes, to try again, to stretch, to laugh, to risk, to learn, to make friends. (Otherwise, what s the point?) Remember the British expression for the minority party? Her majesty s loyal opposition. They disagree, they argue, they fight but in a context of loyalty for the Queen and love for the nation. If St. Paul is right, one of the problems we have in Washington right now is that Republicans don t love Democrats, and Democrats don t love Republicans. And they need to. We can disagree vehemently; but what we have in common, as Joe Biden said at Sen. John McCain s funeral in Arizona the good of our beloved nation and the community of all Americans is much bigger and more important than our different approaches of how to get there. Opponents and enemies are not the same thing. --but then, Jesus called us to love our enemies, too. Love. As the song in my parents era put it, Love makes the world go round. This is actually true. Love is a divine gift: in Latin, caritas. The word charity comes from this but remember that things given out of duty without love lack beauty well, such giving clangs and squeals, and gains you nothing. III. The kinds of love. The Greeks parsed 3 kinds of love 2 : A. Agape, or a noble self-giving love. We think of Christ having this love,--but not only this love. B. Philios or philia, brotherly/ sisterly love, as in the name of the city Phila+delphia, the city of brotherly love. Philios is the love of friends, of siblings: it develops with trust and shared experience, and it s what happens in a church when people do ministry together they get to know each other, and come to care deeply. They may not be alike; they may not agree; but their respect and appreciation for the character and challenges of each other creates a deep bond of love. Teasing and shared laughter allows brothers and sisters to relieve the tensions that arise from 2 Love is what enabled them to study love: Philosophers have studied love along with other virtues over the centuries. Philo + sophy means lover of wisdom. 3
differences and to hold the bond of love. Remember that you do not have to like someone to love them. C. Eros is the third. This does not mean erotic attraction. In a marvelous book called The Passionate Life, Sam Keen demonstrates that eros is the creative love that gets you up in the morning. It s what makes you want to get up close to a lady-bug and watch her fold her wings back under her, or pay attention to a fly or a mosquito cleansing each of its 6 legs one at a time while balancing on 3 and using the other 2 to carefully wipe it down. It s what makes you want to paint, or carve wood, or knit scarves for mariners or for Jeff Gray to give out to homeless folks from his police car on frigid days. It s what makes you want to share a household with another, to create a baby together, to start a homeless shelter for teen-agers unwanted by their parents or step-parents, or to stay up all night in our parish hall with the Boy Scout Troop, cooking gourmet dinners for teen-agers. It s what makes you want to laugh and sing and dance and read and make music together and play chess. It s what makes you start the Foundation for a Better Life or the Joyful Heart Foundation to change the culture to eliminate bullying. It s passion! It s what enables folks to turn devastating realities into redemption action. Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, for example. Or the Brookwood Community in Houston founded by a mother as a place where her son could thrive in spite of his disabilities: A God-centered educational, residential, and entrepreneurial community for adults with functional disabilities. We re supposed to be passionate but when we re angry or hurt or even afraid, love calls us to turn toward redemption, healing and hope, and to keep paying attention. IV. We have to LEARN to love: it requires intentional maturing. Because love is not a feeling. Love is a choice, involving both the mind as well as the heart. 3 Therefore, love is something we grow into. It s something we learn. If we set our will, our intention, our desire, our energy toward learning how to love, we can grow up into it. We are born with the ability to love; but at its richest, love is something we learn to practice and to choose. It requires maturity. And this is why I think St. Paul adds that part on the end of chapter 13: When I was a child, I spoke like a child. But now it s time to put away childish ways. Love is NOT SHALLOW. It s not easy. It requires thought, watching others, practice. It needs role models and, yes, a community practicing together, like us here at church: committed to learning together how to love. It s time for us to grow into acting lovingly, like the Good Samaritan, even if we don t do it very well, even if we re not sure how this is supposed to work or to feel. Because we will never get the full view this side of heaven ( now we see... dimly ). 3 And why would we choose it? Because we are one family, one body (as in I Cor 12); and, as the Roman playwright Terence wrote, and Maya Angelou repeated, nothing in the human condition can be foreign to me. Terence reads: "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", or "I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me." 4
But even though we don t know how to love very well, or even what Real Love looks or feels like, Paul does give us a few touchstones to hold onto. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way... [WOW you could preach a whole sermon on that one!]. Love is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love never gives up, and it never ends. God never gives up on us. And God s love for us never ends. That s a good start on remembering to never, never, never, never give up on someone else. Never give up on them. Never. Because in the end, Love is what survives of us. 4 Our bodies will be turned to dust. Memories of us will ultimately fade from the earth. But the love we receive and the love we give while we re alive that, my friends, lives on. LOVE NEVER ENDS. So even if we don t feel very loveable even if we re self-loathing from time to time, or even often. Even if we can t quite believe that God s redemption includes us, or that our lives have much meaning none of that changes the fact that GOD LOVES US each of us all of us together so much that he would die for us. For you. For me. God keeps picking us up and giving us another chance, another joy, another passion, another person or creature who needs our self-giving affection. It s truly miraculous, this love. It s what survives of us. It never ends. Count on it. Practice it. Try loving someone you don t like. It ll change your life. It ll give you joy. It will! And now, my friends, all three of these never-ending virtues abide, in us and among us: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love. Amen. The Rev. Susan Marie Smith, Ph.D. 4 From poet Philip Larkin: what survives of us is love. 5