Last Wednesday was the 59th Wedding Anniversary
of Jim and Pat Tubach and this week I got to hear a little more about their
romance. While students at K-State, Pat
lived in Clovia House. I asked Jim how
many times he visited that place. He
said, “Just once.” She looked at Jim and
rolled her eyes and smiled, as if to say: “It was a lot longer than that. She told about their first date. She had phone duty at Clovia so he had to
wait around until her shift was over and then they could go on a coffee
date. They were married at Danforth
Chapel and proceeded to the Wesley Foundation Building for their
reception. Campus ministry was very much
a part of their covenants.
Some years back a small Christian college made an
announcement in compulsory chapel. “On
this campus, there is to be absolutely no physical contact between male and
female students. There is only one
exception to this rule. If a student
happens to see a member of the opposite sex about to fall, it is permissible to
touch them to break the fall.” The
announcement continued, “The college staff will not tolerate any deliberate
falling or the practice thereof.”
It’s almost Valentine’s Day, And the store are filled with
cards, candy, and balloons. The diamond commercials and florist commercials
have doubled or tripled on television.
Though not about romantic love, Paul’s ideas can apply to
all kinds of love. He has in mind a very
cantankerous church in Corinth. If they
did not have something to fight about, they invented it.
If there is anything that should mark our church, our lives,
our families…it is love. Tuesday morning
Bible study remembered that the very name of God in Hebrew is a phrase with a
verb: “I am.” And God’s name includes “I
was, and will be forever.” The existence
and love of God is permanent and absolute.
With the name for God more than a noun, we remember that love is to be
more of a verb than a noun.
I am convinced that the capacity of our church to flourish
and grow is closely tied to how we can live in the love of God as revealed in
Jesus Christ. When we are envious,
boastful, arrogant, rude, irritable, resentful, our church diminishes. To be a member of this church is to be an
agent of God’s love in the world.
LEIGH’S BAKE SALE
I wish you could have been part of a conversation I had last
Wednesday evening. Leigh Adams, who is
in Marlatt School, 2nd or 3rd grade, had sent me an
email. Her school held an International
Week where each student learned a great deal about different countries. She was really fascinated with Haiti and as
she learned she listened with a heart of love and compassion. She decided the children of Haiti needed some help. I think
we would all agree. 380,000 people are
still living in tents and unemployment is at 90%. Dawn and Phil Anderson from our church worked
in Haiti a couple of years ago. Leigh and her friends had decided to hold a
bake sale here on February 17 after church and before our church night
meetings. As she prepared to tell me her
shyness took over so she whispered to her mother and her mother forwarded the
message. I am excited about this
too. I told her if she needed more,
Penny and I would provide some goodies to sell.
She told me “no!”. She had it
already planned. But of course I could
buy things. Leigh, I plan to, and thank
you for doing something.
WEDDINGS AND THIS TEXT
Love is an action thing…not just a heart thing. I would imagine that 99% of church-related
weddings have this text as part of the worship. I enjoy hearing about how couples first
met. I get stories about how one was not
too interested at first. Many couples meet through mutual friends or family and
then the rest of their married lives they can blame things on this person.
I Corinthians 13 is not the best scripture for weddings but
it works because it about the primacy of love, the nature of love, the strength
of love. Paul is writing to a conflicted
church full of behavior that is very human but less than Christian.
The call to get married, the call to be a Christian, the
call to be a church, the call to build on to a church begins with God. Couples have a physical and social
attraction. They learn they share
guiding values. They begin to form a
covenant with agreements, promises, and commitments that form the bond of
love. This covenant is something that
has God as a partner. And couples learn
that they share a common purpose: to help each become all God intended. This mission might to be to give birth and
guide children. This mission truly
includes serving others in the world.
DO UNTO OTHERS
When Jesus outlined the best way to act, he used simple
words with a proactive twist. He urged
us all to “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” That is: you do the kind thing first, before
they have a chance to do good things for you.
IMAGE OF PAYING IT FORWARD WAS PRESENTED IN A MOVIE SOME OF
US REMEMBER
A teacher gave a seventh grade social studies class an
assignment of how they might change the world.
As we think about call/covenant/mission we can see all three in this one
clip. The call was the teacher’s
challenge. The covenant was the
commitment made by several in this movie to “Pay It Forward” based on
love. You will notice that some of the
students like it and some do not. The teacher questions him at the end asking
if it is “too utopian?”. I love the
boy’s answer….”SO?”
CALL/COVENANT/MISSION
I so hope you had a chance to read the other lectionary
texts for today. Jeremiah receives a
call from God and his first thought is that he is too young, too inexperienced,
inadequate. Jeremiah has not traveled
very much, he is perhaps short and not good at communication. He comes up with all the excuses. But he finally realized that God will guide
him. Not all things that change the
world are giant things…they can be simple things of love.
For example: Patience.
So many movies and television shows show how someone get’s revenge. I think there was a whole TV series called
just that. But not to take revenge in
this kind of love can be a way to victory.
I was reading a little more about Lincoln after I saw the movie. No one treated Lincoln with more contempt
than did Edwin Stanton. He called
Lincoln terrible names. Lincoln had
opportunities to give it back to him but did not take them. He made Stanton his war ministers because he
know of his incredible gifts of organization.
Lincoln treated him with courtesy even when Stanton went around the
President’s back. But as they worked
together Stanton changed and when Lincoln was killed Stanton he was there and
said with tears in his eyes, “There lies the greatest ruler the world has ever
seen.” The patience of love had
conquered in the end.
Peter Cameron, is the priest at St. Rose of Lima Catholic
Church in Newtown, Connecticut. He
addressed worshippers after a gunman killed 26 at Sandy Hook Elementary. “All the world’s eyes are fixated on us, and
they must see the faith keeps us alive.
The certainty of joy is that evil does not have the last word…that love
wins. The most reasonable thing we can
do is live that love in faith.”
THE NATURE OF LOVE
Everything comes to an end.
All the monuments we construct crumble sometime. Even every human life comes to an end.
No matter what else matters in life…the most important is
love.
Love is the one thing that is closest to heavenly things.
SO?
So listen to the call of God, for what can be done for God.
Celebrate all the gifts we have.
Remember now is the time we have to love.
Strengthen the covenants that empower us to love.
Without love everything we have is zero. You can take the biggest number you know…and
multiply it by an even bigger number and multiply it all by zero. You get zero.
It does not matter what is on the left side of your equation…it becomes
zero. Paul is saying that life without
love is zero. We can pile all of the
good deeds, all the education, all the spiritual gifts. Without love, we do win, no matter how many
touchdowns we can make.
God so loved the world…and that includes you and me.
We love because God first loved us.
And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love and the
greatest of these is love! SO?
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