1 Corinthians 13
We have reached the end of our months-long project to name qualities that describe how we believe God envisions the world at its best. We have considered many words which represent beautiful concepts, and Victoria has made them more beautiful by writing them with her artistic ability on our windows. The light shines through those windows and reminds us how to be light in the world. When we first started gathering words, Kim said to me that the last word should be Love because it would summarize all the other words. Of course, she was right. Today we come to LOVE and realize that it does indeed summarize all the other words. Whichever words are your favorites, Love is at the heart of those qualities. Love is patient and kind, self-effacing, gentle. Love acts with integrity and accountability. Love seeks the best for others at all times. Love is hopeful that what is good is possible.
Jesus told his followers that God is love. We often hear that as the assertion that God is loving, and we believe that God loves us and everyone unconditionally, thoroughly, constantly. That is a solid truth on which we can rely. Over time I’ve come to believe not only that God loves us, but that God IS love. The essence of all that is holy and eternal in the universe is love. Science tells us that all life has energy. Our cells vibrate with the motion of the particles of which they are made. They are in constant motion and relationship with one another. Even when we are very still, the invisible particles that make up our being are vibrating with energy. That is true for every person, every being, and even the parts of creation we call inanimate.
I want to suggest to you that this energy is the pervasive presence of God in all that is, and that this energy is love. The essence of God and the very core of your being is love. So we are most truly ourselves when we act with love. That love expresses itself in all the good ways that we’ve been describing. When we follow those values in our daily living, we bring the love of God into the heart of our community. We become the visible presence of God “right here in River City.” We partner with God in creating life as it’s meant to be.
I was thinking the other day about our prayers for the world, when we name what we hope will be true. We pray that God will bring health and peace and comfort and happiness to everyone. That naming is powerful. Remember that God created the world by speaking the words of creation aloud, and when we name what is good for the world, we help create its reality. But it’s not enough to simply ask God to make these good things true and then watch to see what happens. God has already created the possibility for all good things simply by being – by being love which is everything good - and by placing God’s own love at the heart of everything that is, including all of us. It’s not enough to ask God to make life better around us. WE make life better by living this good vision into reality. By living the love at the heart of our lives into action every day.
Love in Action is the chosen name of a group that’s helping people in our community every day. It can be our unofficial name, too. We put love into action when we live out the qualities we want to be true in the world. We make them true. Maybe we don’t wave a magic wand and change the character of all societies overnight, but we do change the character of our lives, and the lives of those we touch day by day.
First century Christians talked about Jesus’ vision for how people lived together and treated each other. They said it was life-changing – New Life! They didn’t have the power to transform the Empire, but they transformed themselves and their small communities and over time the way they lived mattered. We continue their faith and their work when we live by Jesus’ teaching, love one another, and transform ourselves and our communities, little by little. Being the church isn’t just about believing what God might someday do for us. It’s about being the presence of God doing what we can to be love today.
How do we deal with those things in the world that are not loving? They seem to be strong and gaining power. The targeting of immigrants as “other.” The disrespect of other races or genders or sexualities or belief systems as “other.” First we say loudly: THERE IS NO OTHER! We are all one because we are all made of God’s love.
Second, we love those who seem most unlovable, whoever that is for us. It may be leaders who represent what we see as negative values. People who have power and use it to harm others. It may be neighbors we don’t understand. People who make different life choices from us. People who disobey laws or norms we value. People who struggle with illness or poverty or disability. It may be crabby relatives or demanding co-workers or any number of folk. We love them. We don’t have to agree with them. We may choose not to vote for them or go to coffee with them. We can even condemn their actions when we find them to be destructive of community. But we love them. And we recognize that at their core, they too are love.
The foundation of all good things is love. Even when we don’t love what people do, we love who they are. Even if they themselves don’t understand that they are called to love, we love them. We love because God is love and has made love the essence of all that is. On that we build our common life, trusting that every beginning we make will grow.
INSPIRATION
On a Night When My Daughter Is Struggling
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
I won’t tell her it is up to her
to repair the broken world.
Perhaps that comes later
with pen or needle, pointe shoe or song.
But for now, the thing to do
is to sit together in the broken world
and feel how it is to be broken.
To let shame sit with us.
Let grief sit with us.
To feel the sharp nails of fear.
It is not wrong to feel small,
to feel frightened, to be lost.
Nor must we feel these things alone.
So for now, I sit with her
in the brokenness
with no tools, no salve,
no metaphor of redemption.
It is not enough, perhaps
to meet brokenness
with nothing but love
and breath and a willingness
to be nowhere but here,
but in this broken moment,
it is everything.