Love is the Maple Syrup; Gratitude is the Pitcher

16 October 2011

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Away We Go is a movie about Burt and Verona, two thirty-something professionals who go on a road trip to find home, that is, to find just the right place to raise the daughter they are expecting (Verona is hugely pregnant), staying with friends and family as they go. I stole a line from this movie for my sermon title. In Montreal, Burt and Verona stay with college friends Tom and Munch, and their four children. Late at night, after putting the kids to bed the four are at a diner together talking about life and love and marriage and children, and Tom, to illustrate a point, makes a house of leftover pancakes for sugar cube Burt and Verona and their baby, and he says:

“Look at that, is that a home? Is that a family?”

“Yeah,” Burt replies.

“NO!” Tom counters. “That’s just the raw materials. The people, the walls the furniture, that’s just stuff. That’s not a home. That’s not a family. What binds it all together is this.” And he holds aloft a pitcher of maple syrup.

“This is Love. Your patience, your consideration, your better selves. Man, you just have no idea how good you can be. But you have to use all of it. All of it…. The love, the wisdom, the generosity. The selflessness. The patience. Patience.”

And Tom continues to pour maple syrup all over the pancake house until it fills the platter and overflows onto the table.

Love is the maple syrup, the mortar, the glue, the stuff that transforms people into family, and a house or apartment into a home. Love is the stuff that sticks us together.

But what holds the love? What keeps it from dissipating into thin air or spilling all over the floor? Love is like a liquid; it takes the shape of its container—a pitcher, a bottle, a thimble—a person. A person who cannot communicate love is like a pitcher without a spout or a corked bottle that can’t be opened. There may be goodness inside, but, it has to come out somehow to do any good.

Don’t be like Olie, who loved Lena so much, he almost told her. (Ba-da-bump, cha!)

A man named Gary Chapman wrote a book several years ago expounding on five languages of love, and they aren’t English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. No, they are the languages of physical touch, acts of service, giving and receiving gifts, the language of presence, and words of affirmation. Some of us are more conversant in one of these languages; of course it is best to be multi-lingual in love.

The apostle Paul was particularly good at speaking the love language of affirmation, by expressing his gratitude for the people to whom he wrote his letters. “We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, remembering your faithfulness.” (I Thes)

“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you….” (Philippians)

“I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.” (Ephesians)

The bonds of love between the apostle and the congregation were strengthened by these words of gratitude. Each was reminded of the other’s faithfulness. Gratitude is the pitcher or the spout through which the love flows. Love builds up the church, strengthens the body of Christ, and cements the relationships of brotherly and sisterly affection between members. Paul was writing about the church, but of course, the same is true for families.

I know that I often take my family for granted. I was reminded of this by my Korean foreign exchange student, fifteen-year-old Min Young, whom we hosted several years ago. After dinner, every evening, as he stood to clear his plate, he offered a courtly little bow and thanked me for the delicious supper. Even when Richard did the cooking, he thanked me. It is probably something his mother and father insisted he do, and it was very sweet. It made me realize, however, how many times I had risen from the table without thanking anyone.

How simple it is to say “thank you.” Each word of gratitude is like a dollop of love, sweet goodness, sticking us together. A word of gratitude says: I see you; I know you; my life is better because of you. It’s not simply good manners: expressing gratitude is a spiritual discipline, which opens our eyes to the goodness and Godliness all around us.

Love is the maple syrup, gratitude is the pitcher with the spout that lets the love pour out over us, to stick us together. Love sticks us together and makes us family. Love sticks us together and builds us into the body of Christ, the church.

Because God has poured love over us, we have love to share, a pitcher that is never empty. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Count Yourself Blessed

Sunday, October 2, 2011

I was a very quiet child. I liked the luxury of solitude. For the youngest of three children, solitude was a luxury. I enjoyed those wonderful days when I got to go to grandma’s house by myself, without my brother or sister and without my cousins, when I was left on my own to discover the wonders of Aunt Gerry’s room or grandma’s pantry. Sometimes grandma’s friends or neighbors would stop by and because I was such a quiet child, they sometimes forgot I was there. And they got to talking as if there wasn’t a child in the house.

I overheard a lot of things I wasn’t meant to hear, much of it unintelligible and mostly boring. One thing I learned about grown-ups is that they were not very happy most of the time. Or maybe, it just seemed that way because in Grandma’s parlor, or at her kitchen table, people felt free to tell her how they really felt. Sometimes, when someone finished their litany of complaints against the world, a long pause was followed by a sigh and someone would say, “Well, count your blessings.” Oftentimes, that was followed by a chuckle, and sometimes a confusing—to a five-year-old anyway—blend of laughter and tears together. And a little more hot water for your tea.

When I was a teenager, I was old enough to sit at the table in grandma’s kitchen and recite my own litany—my list of disappointments, my case against my parents, my sister, Ronald Reagan, the universe, and everything. When I was finished, grandma would say. “Debbie (she’s the only person in the world allowed to call me Debbie so don’t even try it), you have to count your blessings. Now would you like some more hot water for that tea bag?”

But I was too young and far too earnest to laugh. The injustice of the world was too great to be eased by a little gospel, that’s what I thought at the time anyway.

            But the truth is, Jesus and grandma were right. All things must pass away… and all things have, including my parents, my sister, Ronald Reagan and grandma, and I miss (almost) all of them dearly.

            The apostle Paul wrote to the church: I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.  (Philippians 4:12)

            And the secret is in counting ourselves blessed, in any and all circumstances.

            Blessed are you who who are poor, for all God’s creation is yours. ‘Blessed are you who are hungry, for you will eat and be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep and mourn, for the time will come again when you will laugh. (Luke 6:20-21, paraphrased).

            Blessed are you when you are confused, for all things will become clear. Blessed are you when you are lost, for you will be found. Blessed are you broken hearted, for your heart will be mended. Blessed are you who have sorrow now, for you will rejoice.

            And I say to all who live and breathe: Count yourself blessed. Amen.

Is Paul really all that?

This question came to me through our "Uncommon Lectionary" exercise:

Why is Paul's theology given such prominence as compared to the gospels? Shouldn't the experience of those who were with Jesus in his lifetime take prominence over Paul, who only knew Christ after the resurrection?

Which inspires me to ask a couple of questions in response: Is Paul's theology given prominence? And, do the gospels pre-date Paul?

The second question is an easier answer so I will address that first. When Eugene Wehrli taught Introduction to New Testament at Eden Seminary in 1987, he began with 1 Thessalonians, because that is, according to people smarter than me (and maybe even smarter than Dr. Wehrli), the earliest book in the New Testament. Dr. Wehrli organized the syllabus chronologically, so we began with the Pauline letters, then the gospel according to Mark, then Matthew, Luke-Acts, then I think we went to the pastoral epistles, the gospel of John, and the Revelation.

As far as we can tell, Paul died before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. That seems to be the event that inspired the compilation of the gospels, from the oral tradition, the collective memory of Christians and perhaps from some written collections of the sayings of Jesus. Apparently, the first Christians were expecting Jesus' imminent return at the end of the age in their lifetimes. As they got older, they realized they might need to write something down if they wanted to share the stories of Jesus with future generations.

Is Paul's theology given prominence in the New Testament? Paul is pretty prominent, and his prominence is well-deserved. He built a global church (well, an empire-wide church anyway) without a written gospel to leave behind, without a leadership pipeline, without an army of administrators to aid him, without any support and with occasional hindrance from headquarters in Jerusalem. Take a look at how much of the New Testament is attributed to Paul. It's significant.

In church history, Paul's popularity waxes and wains, I suppose. Martin Luther was wild about Paul, so was John Calvin. John Wesley, not so much. Paul wrote some things I wish he hadn't, or I wish no one had bothered to preserve. He didn't set out to write the bible, remember. He had a bible already, it was the same bible that Jews read and study today in synagogues all over the world. Had he known that people would be reading out bits of his letters in worship 2000 years later, would he have written things differently? I like to think so. Who knows?

For all his faults, he gave us some pretty good material. "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol." That's good. "Now we see as in a mirror, dimly, then we will see face to face." That's brilliant. That's much more poetic than "love your neighbor as yourself," and "judge not, lest you be judged." Same thing, really, just said a different way.

So, does that answer your question?