I truly approached this sermon text with much concern and a little alarm. Surely, of all Biblical texts, this one just speaks for itself… and yet, maybe after forty years, I had to be brave and trusting enough to see how I could speak of this text’s primal truth and perfect beauty.
The sermon text is below the sermon audio.
Sermon preached at Zion Episcopal Church
Sunday January 30th 2022
The Reverend Alan Neale
“Love: Banal or Beautiful?”
I begin with two texts (how greedy!) that I hope will somehow stay in the background of your thoughts during this sermon. I am not asking that you learn them from a first hearing (though they probably will sound familiar) but rather the thrust of their message rests in your hearts and minds.
The first is from Romans 5, verse 5 “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”. Note… not just the love of God but also love for God.
A theme picked up in our second text from I John chapter 4, verse 19 “We love because He first loved us”.
Let me read to you from Richard Rohr’s “The Universal Christ”, two quotations. “God passionately and relentlessly loves us in a highly personalized way, wooing us toward wholeness in a vocabulary unique to each soul” (pg 91) and “We are bookended in a Personal love – coming from love, and moving toward an ever more inclusive love” (pg. 95).
I think it is highly probable that, in over forty years of preaching, this is the first time I have preached on our text from Corinthians, chapter 13. I suppose, in some way, I share the reaction of multitudes of wedding couples to the suggestion that I Corinthians 13 be read at their wedding… “oh no, not that one… it’s at everyone’s wedding”. As if the simple repetition of profound truth somehow enfeebles the truth itself.
Maybe I share a little the thought that this passage is a little banal, trite, facile, even hackneyed.
And yet, friends, note this chapter 13 is placed solidly and firmly between chapters 12 and 14 of Corinthians, chapters in which St. Paul is fiercely berating his beloved Corinthian church for their individualism, their factionalism, their competitiveness and their shameful witness as Christians. This chapter is planted firmly in the cut and thrust, the constant bickering, the stubborn refusal to love, to be loved, to bestow love, to accept love. St. Paul’s ultimate solution to this sorry ecclesiastical mess is not conflict resolution nor skilled mediation but rather… a hymn in praise of love!
This week as I reflected on I Corinthians 13, three aspects of love requested my attention.
Love as endowment – verses 1-3.
Love as energy – verses 4-7 and
Love as eternal – verses 8-13.
Love as endowment. The first three verses of this priceless celebratory canticle of love underline what must be basic for us as we consider how we love and how we experience love; these verses expand on our opening texts… to love is to be a gifted person, gifted by God. By specious machinations, by self-generated piety the Corinthian Christians had developed techniques to speak in diverse languages, to utter prophecies, even to perform acts of wonder… but it was all loveless.
They had even competed to be the most generous, the most sacrificial, the most lavish… but it was all loveless. They had forgotten the simple yet profound truths of our opening texts… we love because… God loves us; we love God and are loved by God because… the Spirit has been poured into our hearts. Love as endowment.
Love as energy. In verses 4-7 there is a searing catalogue describing love at work, energetic love; it is searing because surely we cannot but feel some shame as we reflect on this catalogue.
Let me read from the Message translation:
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Oh my… just as well this comes before the Confession in our liturgy, yes? But please do not be burdened nor overwhelmed. To quote Rohr again, “God loves you be becoming you, taking your side in the inner dialogue of self-accusation and defense” (pg. 79).
And, if you want a simple spiritual exercise, try this… just put Jesus before each line of this verses 4-7 and then somehow… it will not be easy, add your name to the end of that sentence. I read in a meditation yesterday, “God is not asking us to be successful. He is only asking us to try to be…”. Let’s leave the perfection business to Jesus… yes? Love as energy.
And, love as eternal. In verses 8-13 Paul tries his heaven’s best to communicate to us, his reader, this primal truth… love is eternal. It knows no beginning, as if somehow sparked into action, and it know no end, as if somehow it will expire. There is no condition our minds can create, no situation our hearts can surmise, no circumstances our fears can craft that will outlive, outlast, outdo love for love is eternal.
Thirty-six years ago, a priest (some thirty-three years old) visited a convent for a silent retreat. He faced a most significant decision, a decision ensconced in love. At the end of his retreat, a nun gave him a quotation from John Donne. Let me read it to you,
One of the most convenient hieroglyphs of God is a circle, and a circle is endless.
Whom God loves he loves to the end;
And not only to their end, to their death, but to his end;
And his end is, that he might love them still.
As you have guessed, I was the priest and blessed Sister Edmee was the nun.
So as we worship, let us sing about loving; let us pray to be more loving; let us hear stories of powerful and transforming love; all with the intention of shaping our everyday lives into loving… For God’s love has been poured into our hearts; and we love because God first loved us.
Alleluia. Amen