“For Better, For Worse . . .”
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Jesus, stand among
us
In Thy risen power;
Let this time of
worship
Be
a hallowed hour.
Into every heart;
Bid the fears and
sorrows
From
each soul depart. Amen.
O
Lord, you are the Word that informs our words, that gives them life and
lift. When you speak, the whole world
shimmers with creative energy and sparkling expectation! When you listen, the overburdened find
relief, the lost find their way, the confused discover clarity, and the lonely
find a friend. Come among us now and
teach us to hear the silence of your presence, to recognize your voice, and to
believe the good news of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
We’ve
been learning, hopefully, that there’s no person who is fully human without
love, that no one makes it through life alone.
Ever since that day in the Garden of Eden when Eve asked Adam, “Do you
love me?” and he replied, “Who else?” we’ve learned that we need each other! We need relationships of mutual sharing, of
giving and receiving. We establish our
identity in part by promises made and kept for us by others, and we realize our deeper nature when we make and keep
promises for others.
Our
sense of significance and worth is affirmed when someone loves it forth. To have someone honor, cherish and care about
us convinces us that we are honorable
and to be cherished. To be concerned for
others, to respect and sacrifice for them is to discover the joy of living, the
ecstasy of what poets and seers, philosophers and prophets
call “love.”
I
realize that most definitions of love end up being fuzzy and confusing, and it
may seem presumptuous to make an attempt to define it. After all, how can we improve on those
beautiful words that the apostle Paul set down two thousand years ago, words
heard again in our Scripture lesson this morning? We cannot improve on that definition, of
course, but let’s consider it more carefully and make some applications. Because love is dynamic and our
understandings about it are forever changing, we need to hold our perceptions
against those of Paul and the Scripture so we can see its harmony.
This
is no casual matter because love is our greatest need. The world’s most serious problem today is the
distance, the sense of alienation and the barriers between persons. We should be together in love as a
congregation, but we’re not. Marriages
should grow in intimacy, but they often become stale habits of routine. Families should enjoy one another, but
they’re often set against each other in tension and misunderstanding. This same circle of alienation widens into
our neighborhoods, communities and nations.
Instead of happiness, there is loneliness and emptiness. Instead of caring, there is indifference and
isolation. Instead of peace, there is
violence and bloodshed.
We
need what Paul called “the greatest of these,” without which, he said, our
wisdom and faith, our communication and understanding, our sharing and our
living are nothing. To learn to love, to
grow in love, to receive love and to give love is to enter into that life that
Christ called “the abundant life” and to experience the holy presence of
God. Scripture (1 John 4:7) encourages
us, “Let us love one another for love is of God and those who love are born of
God and know God.” This morning let’s
consider what love is.
First,
see that love is rejoicing and gratitude. It’s the mood of believing in miracles. Love is thankfulness over the very existence
of those we love; it’s wonder over the gift of all that happens in us and between
us. To love someone is to have the
desire that she be rather than not be.
It’s longing for his presence when he’s absent. It’s the deep satisfaction in everything that
makes those we love great. Love is the
overwhelming desire to create for them the conditions under which they can
become the persons God meant them to be.
It’s to expect the most of them while directing every effort to make it
possible for them to fulfill their unique gifts. It’s the excitement of helping dreams come
true for them, the thrill of peak moments when the pieces fit together and life
sings. It’s at the same time realizing
that the relationship between us is itself a gift, that we do not deserve it
for one hour, let alone for the few years or the lifetime that this gift may be
ours.
Such
awareness gripped the painter Henri Matisse and prompted him to say:
Love wants to
rise, not be held down by anything base . . . Nothing is more gentle than love,
nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing larger, nothing more complete,
nothing better in heaven or on earth—because love is born of God and cannot
rest other than in God above all. He who loves flies, runs and rejoices. She who loves is free for a world that
shines—yes, shines!
The
story is told about a young couple who entered a crowded elevator. The woman, with a look on her face a “smile
wide,” held out her left hand to the passengers, displaying a diamond
ring. “We just got engaged!” she announced
excitedly.
Her
fiancé modestly added, “Oh, it’s not much.
I wish it could have been larger, but it’s all I could afford.” The woman, with wonder in her eyes, drew him
close and whispered: “It will always be
as large as we make it.”
Yes,
love is rejoicing and awe. Love is
doxology and delight.
Love
is also reverence and respect. Love keeps its distance even as it draws
near. Love seeks not to master, nor
manipulate, nor to exploit. Love accepts
and affirms the uniqueness of the one we love and does not seek to refashion
him or her into a replica of the self.
Oh, how often we make that mistake.
Love never takes advantage of persons for the sake of gaining power nor
makes comparisons for the sake of gaining superiority. In love there is an element of holiness that
becomes a deep respect and the unwillingness to invade the privacy or to
violate the integrity of the one we love.
In
the words of the apostle Paul, “Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or
boastful, arrogant or rude; it does not insist on its own way, it is not
irritable or resentful.” Love never
attacks or injures. Love is empathy,
kindness and compassion that cherishes and wants to understand. Love always honors the mystery that exists in
any relationship worthy of its name and reaches across the mystery with
reverence and respect.
Jesus’
love for persons manifested such respect and reverence. Consider his response to the woman taken in
adultery and brought to him for condemnation.
Consider his treatment of Zacchaeus, Mary
Magdalene, the lepers, blind Bartimaeus, the thieves
who died with him, and James and John in their arrogant request for seats of
honor in the Kingdom.
A
surgeon shares a moment from his journal that also reveals what I’m trying to
say this morning. He writes:
I stand by the
bed where a young woman lies, her face post-operative, her mouth twisted in
palsy, almost clownish. A tiny twig of
the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. I, the surgeon, followed with religious
fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her
cheek, I had to cut the little nerve.
Her young
husband is in the room. He stands on the
opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening
lamplight, isolated from me, private.
“Who are they?” I ask myself, he and his wife with this wry-mouth I have
made, who gaze at and touch each other with generous love. The young woman speaks, “Will my mouth always
be like this?”
“Yes,” I say,
“it will. It is because the nerve is
cut.”
She nods, and
is silent. But the young husband smiles,
“I like it,” he says. “It’s kind of
cute.”
All at once I
know who he is and how much he loves her, and I lower my gaze. Unmindful of me, he bends to kiss her crooked
mouth, and I am so close that I can see how he twists his own lips to
accommodate her twisted ones, to show her that their kiss still works.
Indeed,
love is reverence and respect.
Finally,
love is also loyalty and trust. It is the willingness to take great risks, to
jeopardize oneself rather than that the loved one
cease to be. Love is constancy that
believes the best and desires the best for the loved one and does not cease in
making it so. According to Paul, “Love
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures
all things.” In fact, Paul declares,
“Love outlasts everything else.” Love is
promises made and kept, it is problems faced and settled,
it is darkness waited through until the light comes again. Love is hope in action; it is faith in things
that are lasting; it is sentiment that becomes substance, romance that becomes
responsibility. It is loyalty to the
causes of those we love, the commitment to be for them all we can be, to do for
them all we can do, with God’s help. Love is fidelity over the long haul. It is picking up the pieces and starting over
again. It is forgiving yesterday’s
disappointments and embracing today with acceptance and a new
anticipation. It is going the first and second mile—and often the third and
fourth. Someone put it this way: “Love is what you’ve been through together.”
We
see this revealed in Christ’s love, who believing in his disciples believed in
them to the very end, who loved with such trust and loyalty that he set his
face steadfastly toward
Some
of you may have noticed that the title for this morning’s message, “For Better,
For Worse …” has been taken from the traditional marriage ceremony. Did you know that that same ceremony makes it
permissible for us to have sixteen wives or husbands? Yes, “… for better, for worse, for richer,
for poorer.” Alright. It was almost a year ago when Martha and I
celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary. During this time together we have seen our
share of “… for better, for worse, probably more for poorer than for
richer.” At our celebration, I shared
with family and friends some words from the late Erma Bombeck
about marriage, words that I think are a telling reminder and a concluding
“Amen.”
I read the
other day that the average marriage that ends in divorce is over at six and
one-half years. Why? Why is six and one-half years the end of the
line for I-said-I-do-but-I-didn’t and I-said-I-will-but-I-won’t?
There isn’t
anything mystical about it. Born in all
of us is a level of tolerance. The
marital warranty is set to expire at 78 months.
At the end of this time, the bride will have cooked 5,408 meals. It will be as good or as bad as it’s going to
get. The decision is yours.
At the end of
78 months, you will have met all of his/her relatives … away from the church
... the father-in-law who may eat like a Cro-Magnon at the table, a brother who
sponges and a mother-in-law who will call your husband “Baby” when his belt is
hidden by his stomach and his hairline looks like the state of Florida.
At the end of
six and one-half years the pretenses go.
Company manners are set aside.
Courtesies are no longer a consideration. She leaves her toothpaste on the bathroom
sink. He cleans his fingernails at the
table.
At six and
one-half years the trousseau is faded and raggedy. The negligee is worn with wool socks. The wedding proofs have faded on command of
the photographer who didn’t want you to get anything for nothing.
There may be
a child who has taken over your whole life with demands and must be watered,
fed, educated, clothed, maintained, and disciplined.
Anniversaries
become just another day or worse. When
you ask, “Do you know what day this is?” you hear, “I told you I put out the
garbage last night before I went to bed!”
Affection at
78 months becomes a notation on your calendar of “Things To
Do Today” and the good-bye kiss in the morning has all the fervor of giving
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a parakeet.
At the end of
six and one-half years you are both yourselves.
And if that’s what you thought you married, then
you’re probably good for another 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 years.
Beyond
the fantasies, the romantic illusions and the images that we’ve created, there
is love that abides—love that is rejoicing and gratitude, love that is
reverence and respect, love that is trust and loyalty.
Each
of us waits for such love. We hope for
its coming. Responsiveness to God opens
the way to it. And some day we may look
back on a lifetime and understand just how and when it came, deepened, grew and
revealed to us the very presence of God in Jesus Christ. Let us pray:
O
Lord, you have taught us to sing a new song, a song of love and joy, but the
world seems to have wandered off key.
Our voices have become flat and listless in our song of justice and too
sharp and shrill with self-concern. We
would rather sing solos than harmonize with your choir. How patiently you tutor us! How persistently you rehearse our song until
it blends with your divine anthem. Your
grace is so generous, your love so gentle that our hearts burst with
“Alleluias” and our voices sing out your timeless prayer. Amen.