Lectionary Texts: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30
This is the
season after Epiphany, the season of light in the darkness. The season begins
with the story of the wise ones, astrologers from the east following the light
of a star, and recognizing the spark of the divine in the child Jesus. As we
continue through the season that spark becomes a flame, and the light of Christ
shines brighter each week, until, at the end of the season we will see Jesus
transfigured… but that is not until next week.
This week,
the Gospel lesson is the second half of the two-parter that began last week
when Jesus read the scripture and preached in his home synagogue in Nazareth.
In the gospel of Luke this story serves to identify Jesus as the Christ, the
Messiah, long before anyone else in the story has figured it out, but of course
the readers and hearers of the gospel know this already. And what happens in
Nazareth literally foreshadows what will happen again and again. It is the job
description of a prophet: a prophet tells the truth, announces good news, and gets
run out of town.
This Gospel
lesson is paired with the Old Testament lesson from the call of the prophet
Jeremiah, one of the greats, who also was regularly run out of town for telling
the truth. Neither of these scriptures bode well for a new pastor! It’s hard
not to take this personally. Today’s appointed texts—appointed ages ago by a
dispassionate committee of the ecumenical and international Revised Common
Lectionary—are quite a set up! But don’t worry about me. I knew the risks
before I put on the uniform.
Fortunately,
in between those two challenging texts we have perhaps the best thing the
apostle Paul ever wrote (if he indeed wrote it) that beautiful hymn to love
that we hear so often at weddings. “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of
angels….”
I have
preached on this text at dozens of weddings and I am always struck by the irony
of the choice. Paul never married, and in another section of the same letter
Paul encouraged all Christians to abstain from marriage, to remain single as he
was. So I don’t think Paul would have ever imagined that his words would be so
often read at weddings! Because 1 Corinthians 13 isn’t about marriage. It is
about love, but not exclusively romantic love.
It is about
compassion, that defining characteristic of the God we have come to know
through Jesus, who took the Ten Commandments of Moses and boiled them down to
two—love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. Be compassionate because God
is compassionate. Love, because God is love.
It is
simple. So simple. Lennon and McCartney had it down—All you need is love. And
in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. All things pass
away, all things except faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is
love.
It is
simple really. Except it’s difficult.
The life of
faith is a lot like the game of golf. Lois Mussett asked me the other day if I
play golf, to which I answered, “I own golf clubs. I have played golf.” I have
played enough to know that golf is a simple game. Get that little ball into
that little hole. Do it in as few strokes as possible. Simple. Except, it’s
difficult. Sometimes, occasionally—no, if I’m honest I should say rarely—I manage
to hit the ball from the tee to the fairway, fairway to green and take two
putts, the way it’s supposed to be done. But more often play badly. I have hit
the ball with what seems to me to be a perfectly sound stroke and sent it whizzing
into the woods to the right of the fairway. I have topped the ball, and watched
it dribble off the tee box and come to rest short of the fairway. I have
four-putted, on a number of occasions. No, Lois, I wouldn’t dare say that I play
golf.
Love is
simple. And sometimes it is easy. It is easy to love the loveable, to be mutually
encouraging, and to rejoice with those who rejoice. But love isn’t always easy,
sometimes it is difficult, and lonely, like the love of a father captured in
this poem by Robert Hayden, called “Those Winter Sundays”
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the
blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather
made
banked fires blaze. No one ever
thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold
splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd
call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that
house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as
well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely
offices?
“Love’s austere and lonely offices”—that is the language of
the church, a reference to daily prayers, which can be solitary, monastic
rituals. Love’s austere and lonely offices are simple but superhuman acts of
patience and kindness, selfless and thankless service to others. Love’s austere
and lonely offices are eased by a lifetime of practice, and by the
companionship of Christ, and the encouragement of the church. Love’s austere
and lonely offices at the sickbed, loves austere and lonely offices at the
graveside, love’s austere and lonely offices in the nighttime, these are the
offices that it is sometimes a privilege for the church to share, sometimes a
privilege for a pastor to share. Love’s austere and lonely offices are in fact
the very experiences that prepare us for the breaking of a beautiful dawn.
Yes, the
life of faith is simple. It’s about love. And it’s difficult. It’s about love.
That is why we do not go it alone, we walk together, as the church. As the
church, we practice love in small and simple ways, day after day, week after
week, so that when we are called to more challenging acts of love we will be
ready. We stoke the furnace of faith so as to make banked fires blaze, when we
need them.
That’s my
line. That is the work that I am called to do is to stoke the furnace, to feed
the flame, to lead the movement, to keep the main thing the main thing. The
church exists to make the love of God known, to teach the language of love, to
help the whole earth know the love of God that we have come to know through
Jesus. This is the work to which we are called together, each using the gifts
we have been given to build the church up in love. God will be with us. Thanks
be to God. Amen.
