Love and Relationships: What's God got to do with it?
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13
Before I begin the sermon, I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you to everybody for being here. If you are newer here, or here for the first time, thanks. I know it's not alway easy to walk into a new church, but it is good to have you here with us. Thank you, too, to the tried and true folks for being here. Your support is important. I don't know if I've said this before, but I do believe that God is still speaking, and I just want to say that I think God is going to do something special in this congregation, so I'm here, and I'm excited to be a part of it. So thank you.
And in the spirit of God still speaking to us, please pray with me.
Prayer for guidance
Now, if anyone has been to a wedding, you may be familiar with the passage I just read. In it Paul writes what you could call a beautiful hymn to love. And it sounds so nice, doesn't it? As Lynn mentioned before, this is her favorite scripture. And it's easy to understand why. Love is patient, love is kind, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. It just sounds wonderful and inspiring. And that's nice.
But why is it so hard to live it out sometimes? Why is it so hard to be loving and kind, patient and enduring like that? Why can't we be that way with each other? What gets in the way?
I want to tell you a story from when I was in seminary. My first year of seminary I lived in student housing, and met some friends there. We supported each other and had a lot of fun together--lots of times making fun of Feminist Theology. (Not that I have anything against Feminist Theology, it's just easy to make fun of, I guess). Anyway, after we got kicked out our second year--not for making fun of Feminist Theology, just because they only had enough housing for first-year students--after that, we decided to get an apartment together. Unfortunately, it didn't work out so well. Let me put it this way--there were 5 women and one bathroom.
When little things would come up, I tried to follow Paul's advice, at least as I'd always understood it. Which was to have the kind of love that doesn't bring up these things, but endures them. That this love was the kind of thing that would, if you did it right, keep you from ever disagreeing or being in a conflict with someone else.
Toward the end of the year, I came home--wait, let me back up a minute. My pet peeve was actually to do with the dishes and the kitchen. I liked to be able to have the dishes clean before I started cooking so that I wouldn't have to either do someone else's dishes or else pile mine on top of theirs and make a big mess. So, I come home one day about 11 months in, and someone had spilled an entire small bottle of juice all over the floor. So, I was trying to be patient and kind, and I kind of walked around the big spot on the floor. "Maybe they just haven't noticed it yet," I was thinking to myself.
But this made my one roomate really mad--she yelled "Stop doing that! I've already cleaned the floor, and I even used hot water!"
Well, I was totally upset by this. I went and got a bucket and soap, and I cleaned up the floor, but I didn't want to talk to those roommates again. And we haven't really talked since them. Which is a real shame. It really is.
So, when I was re-reading the passage from Corinthians, it was jarring for me, because I was thinking to myself: well, I tried to do that, I tried to be patient and kind, to not bring things up, you know? But there's a line in there that I hadn't really noticed before, which is this one about the truth. Love doesn't rejoice in wrongdoing, it rejoices in the truth. Or as we heard it tonight, "Love rejoices in the flowering of truth." And I think that for there to be a good love, a good relationship, that honesty needs to be there, too.
Because the truth is, Paul wasn't writing to a couple that was about to get married. He was writing to a church in the midst of conflict. Where people were saying "My ministry is more important than your ministry," or "I should be able to choose the music for worship," or whatever. He was writing to people in the middle of their disagreements with each other.
So this passage is really about how to be loving in the middle of disagreements, so that afterwards, we can still come back together with that love intact. Which is easier said than done.
What I think helps me, in the middle of difficulties, and when I'm trying to be loving and honest at the same time, is this: to remember God's love for me. To remember that I'm cared for and loved no matter what I do. It makes it easier to let go a little, to be more patient, knowing how patient God is with me.
So I have for you tonight some small tokens of God's affection. Please take one red heart, which has a small love-note from God on it, and a pink or white heart as a reminder about someone who needs to know they are loved. And while the hearts are being passed, I'd like to listen to a song by Kirk Franklin and God's Property. It's called "Love."
May you be blessed with the knowledge of God's love that helps you be patient, kind, and loving, even during the most difficult times. Amen.
Before I begin the sermon, I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you to everybody for being here. If you are newer here, or here for the first time, thanks. I know it's not alway easy to walk into a new church, but it is good to have you here with us. Thank you, too, to the tried and true folks for being here. Your support is important. I don't know if I've said this before, but I do believe that God is still speaking, and I just want to say that I think God is going to do something special in this congregation, so I'm here, and I'm excited to be a part of it. So thank you.
And in the spirit of God still speaking to us, please pray with me.
Prayer for guidance
Now, if anyone has been to a wedding, you may be familiar with the passage I just read. In it Paul writes what you could call a beautiful hymn to love. And it sounds so nice, doesn't it? As Lynn mentioned before, this is her favorite scripture. And it's easy to understand why. Love is patient, love is kind, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. It just sounds wonderful and inspiring. And that's nice.
But why is it so hard to live it out sometimes? Why is it so hard to be loving and kind, patient and enduring like that? Why can't we be that way with each other? What gets in the way?
I want to tell you a story from when I was in seminary. My first year of seminary I lived in student housing, and met some friends there. We supported each other and had a lot of fun together--lots of times making fun of Feminist Theology. (Not that I have anything against Feminist Theology, it's just easy to make fun of, I guess). Anyway, after we got kicked out our second year--not for making fun of Feminist Theology, just because they only had enough housing for first-year students--after that, we decided to get an apartment together. Unfortunately, it didn't work out so well. Let me put it this way--there were 5 women and one bathroom.
When little things would come up, I tried to follow Paul's advice, at least as I'd always understood it. Which was to have the kind of love that doesn't bring up these things, but endures them. That this love was the kind of thing that would, if you did it right, keep you from ever disagreeing or being in a conflict with someone else.
Toward the end of the year, I came home--wait, let me back up a minute. My pet peeve was actually to do with the dishes and the kitchen. I liked to be able to have the dishes clean before I started cooking so that I wouldn't have to either do someone else's dishes or else pile mine on top of theirs and make a big mess. So, I come home one day about 11 months in, and someone had spilled an entire small bottle of juice all over the floor. So, I was trying to be patient and kind, and I kind of walked around the big spot on the floor. "Maybe they just haven't noticed it yet," I was thinking to myself.
But this made my one roomate really mad--she yelled "Stop doing that! I've already cleaned the floor, and I even used hot water!"
Well, I was totally upset by this. I went and got a bucket and soap, and I cleaned up the floor, but I didn't want to talk to those roommates again. And we haven't really talked since them. Which is a real shame. It really is.
So, when I was re-reading the passage from Corinthians, it was jarring for me, because I was thinking to myself: well, I tried to do that, I tried to be patient and kind, to not bring things up, you know? But there's a line in there that I hadn't really noticed before, which is this one about the truth. Love doesn't rejoice in wrongdoing, it rejoices in the truth. Or as we heard it tonight, "Love rejoices in the flowering of truth." And I think that for there to be a good love, a good relationship, that honesty needs to be there, too.
Because the truth is, Paul wasn't writing to a couple that was about to get married. He was writing to a church in the midst of conflict. Where people were saying "My ministry is more important than your ministry," or "I should be able to choose the music for worship," or whatever. He was writing to people in the middle of their disagreements with each other.
So this passage is really about how to be loving in the middle of disagreements, so that afterwards, we can still come back together with that love intact. Which is easier said than done.
What I think helps me, in the middle of difficulties, and when I'm trying to be loving and honest at the same time, is this: to remember God's love for me. To remember that I'm cared for and loved no matter what I do. It makes it easier to let go a little, to be more patient, knowing how patient God is with me.
So I have for you tonight some small tokens of God's affection. Please take one red heart, which has a small love-note from God on it, and a pink or white heart as a reminder about someone who needs to know they are loved. And while the hearts are being passed, I'd like to listen to a song by Kirk Franklin and God's Property. It's called "Love."
Love
Kirk Franklin & God's Property
Love, a word that comes and goes, but few people really know
what it means to really Love somebody
Love, though the tears may fade away
I'm so glad Your love will stay
'Cause I love you and you've shown me, Jesus
What it really means to love
The nights that I cried you loved me
When I should've died you loved me
It's a mystery to me now I'm glad to see, Jesus
When all hope was gone you loved me
You gave me a song that you love me
Now I can go on 'cause you love me
It's a mystery to me now I'm glad to see, Jesus
Now I know what it really means, what it really means,
What it really means, to love....
Patient, kind...that's love.
May you be blessed with the knowledge of God's love that helps you be patient, kind, and loving, even during the most difficult times. Amen.
posted by Amy Sens at 7:04 AM
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