I.N.I.

a sermon to be preached on the 4th Sunday after the Epiphany (29 January 1995) at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Garfield, NJ, and based on the Epistle for the day, 1st Corinthians 12:27-13:13

Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus our Lord!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our text this morning is a well-known chapter from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. It is perhaps the best known passage from his writings. Tucked into the middle of this chapter on love are four verses that describe 15 different attributes of Christian love. At a mere 5 minutes per attribute … Well, maybe not this morning.

What we can do in this sermon is talk briefly about Christian love as Paul describes it, then refer to an example of how this love is displayed in real life, and wrap up with some words on what happens when we don’t measure up to this very high standard.

The 15 attributes of Christian love are in verses 4-7 of 1st Corinthians 13. I had the chance to talk about some of these with some of our students at Concordia College this past Wednesday night. They had no trouble coming up with examples of ways in which people at Concordia can and do live differently because we are built on the foundation of Christian love. I asked them to think of things we would do and things we would not do because we are Christians who are being described by this passage.

The first phrase of that passage is “Love is patient.” They could easily see that this means being patient with people, not things. While a student may patiently labor over finding just the right words for an essay, or patiently work out a series of formulas in chemistry class, Paul is writing about a much more personal kind of patience here. At college, and I’m sure in your own lives, too, there are many times when patience with people is a supreme gift of love to them. Someone at work doesn’t understand your instructions the first time, or a member of your family seems to be slower than usual getting ready to go out to an important engagement, or the person in front of you in the grocery line appears to be taking much too long to get her food out of the cart for the cashier.

Our natural reaction is to get exasperated, to raise our voice, to lose patience. Christian love, however, calls us to be patient with the other person–whether it is someone we know or a stranger. We might not be aware, for example, that the co-worker has a slight learning disability, that the family member is very nervous about the important engagement, and that the woman in the grocery store has a serious case of arthritis. Losing patience won’t help in any of these situations. Loving patience will.

We could step through each of the rest of these attributes of love that Paul writes about in the same way. Love is kind. Love is not envious. Love is not boastful. Love is not arrogant. Love is not rude. Love does not insist on its own way. Love is not irritable. Love is not resentful. Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing. Love rejoices in truth. Love bears all things. Love hopes all things. Love believes all things. Love endures all things. These are the do’s and don’ts of Christian love.

Let’s look instead at how these characteristics of love describe us as members of the body of Christ. We could follow one of the members of this congregation through his or her day, and highlight the things done (or not done) out of Christian love. But let’s look instead at part of a day in the life of our Savior Jesus Christ. That way, we won’t have to see any missed opportunities or twisted applications of love.

We have the chance to view part of a day in Jesus’ life in today’s Holy Gospel from St. Luke’s Gospel. (Luke 4:21-32) In this passage, Jesus starts out in the synagogue in Nazareth. We could call it his hometown church, and not really be far off. This was the synagogue in which he was raised, where his parents worshiped, where he knew everyone and everyone knew him. He had just read the scripture lesson from the book of Isaiah and then announced that the people were seeing the prophecy fulfilled as they had heard it read.

At first the people spoke well of him and marveled at Jesus’s words. Then–as the depth of what he was saying sunk in–they lost patience with Jesus. They became somewhat rude asking whether this wasn’t Joseph’s son, saying in effect, ‘This is just the carpenter’s son isn’t he? Who does he think he is?’

Jesus answered with more patience and kindness than most of us could muster if our family name and reputation was being attacked. While the people of his hometown were becoming increasingly rude to him, he never sounded a rude word back to them. Quietly and humbly, in a manner not at all boastful or arrogant, Jesus suggested that they would want to quote to him the proverb (old already at that time) “Physician, heal thyself!” He knew that the people did not understand his message and ministry, but were more than ready to attack his character, suggesting that he needed to hear his own words more than they did.

Jesus knew that they would try to insist that he work miracles there in Nazareth as he had in Cana and Capernaum. He knew that they would be resentful that he wouldn’t entertain them this way. The people wanted to insist on having Jesus present his message in their own way, not in his way. So he acknowledged before them that prophets are not accepted in their own hometowns.

When Jesus reminded them of how people outside the kingdom and people of Israel had received God’s help in the Old Testament, the people of Nazareth did not rejoice in the truth. We can see that they should have humbly repented of their arrogance and pride. Instead, they were filled with rage at this peaceful man, the true Son of God in their very midst. They forced him out of the synagogue, out of town and out to the nearby cliff with the intention of teaching him a real lesson by throwing him over the side.

So what did Jesus do then? Did he rejoice in their sin as an opportunity to call down lightning and earthquakes on them? No, he loved them and did not rejoice in wrong-doing.

Did he resent them and their rejection of his message? Did he get irritated with them? Did he insist on having his own way? No. No. And no. He loved them all, each and every one. Instead of calling down punishment on them for their arrogance and rejection of the Word of God, Jesus simply passed through their midst and went on his way.

Jesus left them to think about their actions and his reaction. He left them to consider the opportunity and relationship they had rejected. He went on to Capernaum to teach there in the synagogue in that city.

Now, all too often I know that we act so much more like the citizens of Nazareth than the most famous son of that city, the Lord Jesus. I know from my own experience, as you know from yours, that we too often and too quickly become irritable and arrogant. We become resentful and rude. We want to insist on our own way and don’t bear all the things thrown at us by other people. All too often and all too easily we let our sinful natures run the show in the arena of our lives.

Granted that we don’t love the way that Paul describes Christian love, what can we do? And how can we possibly begin more and more to start loving that way?

There is a way. God provides his children with a way to love each other as he loves us. He gives the gift of love to his little ones, to us who follow him the same way that sheep follow their shepherd.

We can love this deeply and strongly after all, because Jesus is not only a wonderful teacher, but because he is also our Savior from sin. He died to pull us out of the habits of irritableness and impatience, the habits of unkindness and rudeness. Jesus died to save us from always insisting on our own way and from rejoicing when evil happens to someone else.

When Jesus died outside the city of Jerusalem, with his hands and feet nailed to a wooden cross, he died in order that you and I can be forgiven for the times we refuse to love. He died so that you and I can receive the Holy Spirit, and therefore the gift of being able to love in the overwhelming, all encompassing way he intended us to be able to love.

We have been washed clean of our sins. We have had the penalty revoked, the sentence thrown out. We have been given the sacraments and the written Word of God to strengthen us in the conclusion that we are now being empowered to live the way God wants us to live.

When we fall short–as we always will–our Savior’s arms are open to welcome us back in forgiveness. When we forget to love–and when we intentionally don’t love–our Savior loves us still all the more. When it’s hard for us to see how to love, our Savior’s example shines through even to today as our example of how to love those around us.

God’s love that works both in and through us is permanent, complete, and supreme. It is a gift to us in order to help us be the people God wants us to be in our various callings.

It is such a gift that when we let the Holy Spirit work through us, developing this gift of love through us, we can begin to say more each day that we love the way Paul describes in our text. We can become so loving that we could even interpret this paragraph substituting our own name for the word “love.” We can do this because God loved the whole world so much that he gave his only Son, Jesus, to be our Savior. AMEN

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. AMEN

S.D.G.