"Echoes of Love"

Sunday, February 3, 2013

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only in a mirror dimly; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Sermon: “Echoes of Love”

We’re going to begin with a little quiz this morning: name that artist!  Shout out the musician when you know it...first song, are y’all ready? (I shall not be singing these):

L is for the way you look at me                            

O is for the only one I see

V is very, very extraordinary and

E is even more than anyone that you adore… (Nat King Cole)

Next up:

Oh, you can’t hurry love

You just have to wait

You know love don’t come easy

It’s a game of give and take…(Diana Ross & the Supremes)

Wise men say only fools rush in

But I can’t help falling in love with you…(Elvis)

(Something for everyone here, y’all!)

You say:
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law (U2)

And finally…(if you don’t get this one, I might just make you preach next week!)

All you need is love

All you need is love

Love is all you need. (The Beatles)

What do all of our songs have in common?  Love.  Paul’s letter to the Corinthians might have fit in well with all these lyrics.  Except of course, that he wasn’t talking about romantic love.  Though “Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud…” might be catchy enough for a Valentine’s card, he was speaking to a church, not a couple.  And not a happy, lovey-dovey church, either.  He was speaking to a church deeply divided.

The church in Corinth was in conflict because they interpreted the Bible in different ways, and so Paul wrote: “If I understand all mysteries and have all knowledge but have not love, I am nothing.” 

They were divided because some thought they were more “spiritual” than others or had greater gifts than others, and so Paul wrote: “If I speak in the tongues of people and angels but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”

They argued over who was most pious and giving, and so Paul wrote, “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

When we read this letter in our Bibles, it talks an awful lot about “having” love: if we don’t “have love”, whatever else we might possess doesn’t mean much. 

But in the language Paul originally wrote these powerful words in, he did not say “have.”  The Greek word is literally “echo.” 

If I speak in heaven’s vernacular but don’t echo love, I am the irritating blare of a morning alarm clock that no one will turn off. 

If I am smarter than Einstein and have a stronger faith than Billy Graham but don’t echo love, I may as well not exist. 

If I serve like Mother Teresa and constantly give my old clothes to Goodwill, but don’t echo love, it is all pointless.

Our lives always echo something.  Anxiety, fear, envy, pride, selfishness, anger.  Or…they echo love. 

As North Carolinian folk musician David Lamotte says, “It’s not naive to think you can change the world.  It’s naive to think you can possibly be in the world and not change it.  Everything you do changes the world whether you like it or not.”

We can only echo what we have first heard ourselves.  So much of the time, all we hear around us are stories of revenge and hatred, of despair and greed.  And, without even necessarily meaning to, we echo that destruction because it seems that it is just the way things will always be. 

One of my favorite movies, The Mission, is a powerful witness to the ways we echo that which surrounds us.  It is set in 18^th century South America, when Spanish and Portuguese mercenaries were enslaving local tribes, often with the collusion of the Church. 

A main character is Rodrigo Mendoza, played by Robert de Niro.  He is a horrible human being: he attacks the local tribes and steals their children for the slave trade.  He discovers that he and his brother love the same woman, and so he kills him.  This act destroys Mendoza.  He gives up on life, and finally a priest is sent to visit him.  The priest is named Father Gabriel (played by Jeremy Irons). 

Gabriel tells Mendoza that he is a coward, and urges him to have the courage to choose his penance, and with it, begin living again.  Finally, the man agrees, and embarks on a journey to visit the Guarani people, those he once enslaved.  He carries all of his old weapons tied on his back and climbs the perilous waterfall to this remote village. 

At the top, he is utterly spent, and the Guarani see him and are terrified.  A child runs up to him with a knife, and you are certain that vengeance will be done.  But that child chose not to echo hatred back to Mendoza.  Instead he chooses to echo love: he cuts the robe tied to all of Mendoza’s weapons, and throws them down the waterfall, and with them, Mendoza’s grief and guilt.  The man weeps with joy, and begins to serve the very people he had never even seen as human.

Let’s watch together the transformation that took place in his life because of the love he received.

Love is not some warm fuzzy feeling that resides on the inside of a 99-cent greeting card.  Love is not something that can be won on a reality t.v. show.  Love – according to The Mission and these words of Paul – is a movement, a state of being.  Love is the greatest force for transformation in the world.  When we love, and only then, we echo the One who came to repair all brokenness, to restore all life wasted, to return all unity discarded.  When we love, we echo the One who endures forever. 

Love of this sort demands much of us.  But it only demands so much because we have already received so much from God.  We do not need to invent love or create it, God has already done that.  We need only be an echo, in Jesus’ name.  Have we the courage to do that?  Amen.