Psalm 71:1-6
In you, O LORD, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame. 2 In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me. 3 Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. 4 Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel. 5For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth. 6 Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you.
I Corinthians 13:1-8,11-13
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, 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. 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 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.
You probably already know that 50 percent of couples who get married choose I Corinthians 13 for their wedding. You probably also know that most pastors say, “Please, God, don't let them choose First Corinthians.”
You've probably also seen the movie Wedding Crashers and it proves this very point. Two guys are crashing weddings and they even go to the wedding service ahead of time. And Vince Vaughn makes a bet that they're going to go with First Corinthians 13. Owen Wilson says, “No, I think they're going with Colossians 3”. That's how famous this text is. The fact the matter is--and you all know this, especially if you've been married a long time--a young married couple has absolutely no idea what this text calls and demands of you when you're married a long time.
A few years ago, actor Alan Alda was interviewed just after his Parkinson's diagnosis. One of the questions that the interviewer asked him was: “You’ve been happily married to your wife Arlene for over 60 years. What’s your secret?” Alda replied, “Well, my wife would say, ‘Having a very, very short memory’.” And, although it's funny, it's also another example of the 1 Corinthians text.
About 15 years ago US News & World Report did a survey trying to determine what drove couples to divorce and what inspired couples to stay together. In their findings they discovered that if 1 in 10 comments to their spouse was sarcastic or a direct insult, the couple didn't stay together. However, if 1 in every 10 comments was an affirmation or something building up the other, then the marriage stayed the course and strengthened over time. It only takes that one thing; that one time where we don't remain silent; where we are impatient; where we insist on our own way that drives any relationship: a marriage, a friendship, a relationship in the congregation, a relationship in the community to falter.
In reading a number of commentaries on this text, they mostly read like a scientific examination of what Love; because it's really hard to define what love is, because it’s a felt experience. But one scholar, Richard Hayes, does clearly say that “love is essential for building up and deepening all relationships: romantic relationships, friendships, relationships in communities and in committees” and especially with the people that we don't understand or just don't get along with all that well.
So, first, this text is sort of giving us a guideline as to how we should behave- and how we should act in the most important relationships in our lives. And sometimes that's the very place where we are not our best selves. We want to be, but we're worn down, for whatever reason we hurt the ones we love most. And, certainly, with all the time we're spending with each other these days, for many, it's a little too much ‘together time’.
So back to our text. Paul is not writing this text to advise the church in Corinth how to behave in romantic relationships. Instead, is Paul is calling out the Corinthians on the fact that they are breaking down the church by comparing and inflating themselves above others; who has the best gift for speaking in tongues, who’s best at prophesying, or receiving revealed knowledge or working miracles.
So first the good news, I don't ever see that happening in this church, ever! I see it in other churches. I don't see it here. I don't see someone saying, “Oh, Marisa, I can sew better than you can. I'm going to take care of the banners this year.” Or saying to Evelyn,” I know how to be a clerk, too. I can take it from here.” Or to John saying, “I can record video better than you”. That's not the way this church is wired and that's a beautiful thing. But I do worry about the fact that sometimes you don't actually think that you are gifted; that you all have spiritual gifts beyond the things you offer to the church.
So, I'm going to give you a little homework assignment. I want you to stretch yourselves and I want you to look at this text and I want you to circle the thing or the things in the text (above) that you actually do well, right now.
(Pause)
So, okay, hopefully you all have at least one. Now I want you to take that same list and put some asterisks by the ones that you probably need to get a little better at.
(Pause)
I hope you didn't make too much of a list for yourself, because this is a really difficult task. But I'm going to give you a trick in a minute to help that.
So, Paul is talking to a church that's not necessarily our church, but the text is definitely talking to us as individuals in a way that we need to hear and be reminded of, because all of our relationships are strained right now. Relationships within the church are strained, in every church. Relationships within the community are strained. Relationships within our schools are strained. Relationships within our families and our communities because we didn't think we'd still be here, held back by the virus. And yet we are. So, although it's a different climate than what Paul is talking about, we still have to focus again on the main thing that we're about which is love. To outpour to others even when we don't feel like we have a whole lot left, but doing it in a way that's kind and gentle and generous--not giving with one hand and taking with the other.
Perhaps, you saw this beautiful story of a young postal worker sometime this week who had been delivering mail to an elderly woman and noticed that the mail was starting to pile up. The letter carrier got concerned and so she called the police to do a wellness check. When the police got inside the elderly woman’s home, she had been flat out on the floor of her bedroom for three days. She was dehydrated. She was hypothermic. And, thankfully, they got her to the hospital and she's on her way to recovery.
I listened to what the postal worker had to say. And, you know what at least from my perspective, there didn't seem to be an ounce of pride. She was just grateful that she trusted herself enough to go and get some help. But others of us would love to keep telling that story, because we want to puff ourselves up and feel better about ourselves.
But “love does not insist on its own way”. Paul is calling us, not only to be loving, but love unconditionally. And this is not easy for any of us. And it may be that we think we love others really well; but deep down inside, we beat ourselves up for the smallest of things--the things we still can't let go of—"I can't believe I said that 20 years ago at a party”. “I can't believe that I failed at that job. Or that marriage or that I’m a failed parent”. But that's not of God, friends. That's not of God.
There are small and simple ways that we can help be with each other. And, as we know, having pets is a joy, especially for dogs and cats. They give us unconditional love. There's a joke that if you leave your house for 10 minutes and you come back, your dog is going to greet you and wag its tail as if it's the first time you're ever meeting. This is a beautiful thing! Do you do that when your spouse comes back in the door? Do you do that when your child comes back in the door? Or are we too distracted with our technology or something we're perseverating on, that we do not take time with our closest relationships.
There’s a beautiful story about a little boy who disappeared from his home. He's about four years old. He was gone for about 45 minutes. His mother got frantic and could not find him. When he resurfaced his mother said, “Where have you been?” He said, “I was next door talking to the old man.” (His wife had just passed away.) And she said to her son, “Well what did you say to him?” “Nothing. He said nothing. I just climbed in his lap and helped him cry.”
Somewhere along the way, my friends, when we grew up to be adults, that tenderness--that unconditional love--it got watered down. It fell away. The invitation in this text has little to do with kicking off a wedding, but it has everything to do with the building up of relationships.
So, I want us to look at this text again in a new way and I want us to do this in a way that is life-giving and affirming, because although Paul talks about love here, but he’s really talking about God. So every time we see the word “love”, I want us to read out loud together and insert the word “God” instead of the word “love”. So I'm going to start with Verse 4 and let's read it aloud together.
God is patient. God is kind. God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. God does not insist on God's own Way. God is not irritable or resentful. God does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. God never ends.
Friends, if that's the case, then we have a lot to live for; a lot to rejoice about; a lot that we can spread to others. It gives us a chance to respond to people in a more loving and tender way. And that's why I paired it with this Psalm which is actually in the lectionary. In Psalm 71, the psalmist is saying “I take refuge in you even when things are going terribly wrong. Even when people are unkind and unjust and completely out of their minds, I still can take refuge in you. It's not easy, but I know you God hear me all the time, because you love me, unconditionally.”
Let’s go back and look at the text again. There's one more exercise I want us to do and I want to do this for the next week. I want us to keep reading this text in the first person, so that it reminds us how to be with our children and our spouses and our neighbors and especially the people who make us crazy. And this time I really want you to speak it out loud, even though we have our masks on, because this is the only way, friends, that we can grow and be more and more in line with the life in the ministry of Jesus Christ.
So again starting at verse 4, let's insert the word “I for the word Love”.
I am patient. I am kind. I am not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. I don't insist on my own way. I'm not irritable or resentful. I don't rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoice in the truth. I bear all things. I believe all things. I hope all things. I endure all things. I never end.
If we said that over and over and over again, maybe we could get rid of those habits and those behaviors that we don't like about ourselves and don't help our relationships. I know it's a tall order, but we've got to start somewhere. And especially in this time, when we all are out of patience and we’re out of kindness, God can intervene and show us how to endure just one more week or one more month of the time that we are in now.
This morning I picked up an email from a daughter of a former church member by the name of Mary Engert. Mary was a very faithful person of this congregation as was her husband, George. Mary moved to New England probably 10, 12 years ago and she carried her faith with her. Her daughter sent me an email with a picture of a handwritten sign that she must have gotten from Presbyterian Women and it was hanging on her wall and she read it every day. It says, "I believe in the sun, even when it's not shining. I believe in Love even when I'm alone. I believe in God even when He is silent.” Below that phrase it literally says First Presbyterian Church of Boonton. She's been gone 12 years from this church and the love that she found in this church she carried with her a thousand miles to the north. That speaks to how we love, learn to love, continue to love and how God calls us to love one another. May it be so. Amen.