Luke 4 / 1 Corinthians 13

Today we hear Paul’s love chapter. We usually hear it at weddings. When love is new, especially, couples believe the world revolves around them and romantic love is theirs in a way it never has been in all of human history. And those of us who have been around the block a time or two indulge them and maybe roll our eyes. Love is the greatest gift of all they hear as they stand before the altar. We may sigh, but they are on to something. Those closest to us are the ones we are most often dealing with after all, the ones we have more opportunity to be patient and kind with, to not insist on our own way.

We’ve been reading through 1 Corinthians in a sort of hit or miss fashion in the past few weeks. It’s important when we hear the love chapter to remember that it’s the 13th chapter in a long letter. Today Paul brings out his most powerful weapon. Love. Why does he write the letter? Because the people in Corinth are fighting. What are they fighting over? Well, it’s possible to look at much of the New Testament as a long, heated disagreement between those who wanted to keep Judaism just the way it was and those who want to include non-Jews. And if you include non-Jews, what exactly they have to do to belong.

Today the gospel also tells us something about that argument. From the first time Jesus preaches and begins to convert people to his vision of the Kingdom of God, he riles some of them up, because he talks favorably about gentiles. Today he’s reminding them that even when Israel was being punished, Gentiles were fed and healed by God. And those were fighting words. Jesus says Israel has a bad habit of not listening to their prophets. The people get so angry that they are set to throw him off a cliff.

So the question in Paul’s time was, who is right? Those who include the non Jews or the ones who want to preserve Leviticus’ law, the way they’d always done things, like eating the proper foods, washing hands, circumcising males and staying away from non-Jewish people - all things that set Jews apart. The problem is if your religion is all about this being set apart, and you no longer obey the laws that set you apart, how can you be a believer? So Jesus is not saying some small thing here. He is challenging the way they have always understood their faith. He tells them that God’s love isn’t limited to Jews. Love your Gentile neighbor, even,“ he says later, “your enemy.” This inclusion of Gentiles was a big change. Then, surprise, surprise, people line up and take sides, and it gets personal and human pride and all the rest gets rolled into it. And pretty soon, people think they are actually defending the faith, or the gospel or even God. Being right takes precedence over everything else. And then before you know it, they are no longer loving the neighbor, to say nothing about even being basically civil.

So it was in Corinth, where some thought they were quite a lot better than others. Some wanted things to be the way they had always been, all the men to be circumcised and to practice ritual purity. Others interpreted what Paul said about freedom from those old laws to mean that they could do whatever they pleased. Everyone thought they were right. Paul welcomes Gentiles and argues against the old Jewish law, which is a good thing for us because Leviticus says a lot of things we don’t practice. We wouldn’t be able to touch pigskin, so that would mean no Superbowl, and there would be a lot of public executions for various things, including our kids for backchatting. But that doesn’t mean that Paul thinks people should just do whatever they like. Instead Paul makes it much harder. He tells them to love one another. In fact, you could be a great preacher, he says but just be a windbag without love. You could understand everything, and have faith to move a mountain and it would be nothing without love. Any gift is meaningless without love. Love is a force.

Love is mentioned in the Bible nearly 700 times. Jesus commands it. It’s good for our community and us. So one would think love would be easy and happy. But you all know it can be hard and risky. As soon as we love someone we are aware that we can be rejected. We no sooner depend on someone than we realize they might leave us. I looked down in the crib at my first child and loved him in a way I’d never loved anyone and I was simultaneously terrified that he would come to some harm. Love makes us vulnerable in all kinds of ways. The other person could simply take advantage of us. We could lose our pride, our status, our principles, our sense of righteousness.

It’s much harder to love someone than to follow rules. It’s one thing for that young couple I was talking about in the beginning not to commit adultery, but it’s much, much harder for them to love one another when they begin to bug each other. Harder and much better than just not committing adultery. It’s much harder for you to love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you than it is just to avoid stealing from them or killing them. Much harder. And much better. It’s much harder to love others in your congregation, especially the one you’ve been fighting with, than to simply avoid saying terrible things about them or being envious of them. Much harder. And much better. Love is a force.

Nothing is new under the sun, right? The Spirit blows and changes come along, as they always do, and what will we do about them? I remember when we got the “new” green hymnal with new liturgies and hymns. My Aunt Ardith, who was Delafield church’s organist, made us buy them and learn them. 15 years later in my first call out in rural ND, one of the congregations still had the old red hymnal and were still mad about that new green hymnal. They were mad at the whole ELCA. 15 years later. It was a huge fight in many congregations. Changes are hard. Now the organist in my congregation is the guy at Augsburg Fortress who answers questions and complaints about the new hymnal, which is back to red. It was in its third printing just two months after the first ones went out to congregations. They’re selling so fast Augsburg can’t keep up. I asked him why it was so easy this time. He said, “Everyone is fighting about sex instead.”

This is RIC Sunday, Reconciling in Christ Sunday, in many congregations, including in my Minneapolis congregation. We have a guest preacher there so I am free to be with you today. Reconciling in Christ congregations make a public statement and vote on it, saying that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are welcome. Our congregation wants to be certain that everyone, including those we are fighting about, feel welcome. Love is a force, the greatest gift we can give anyone.

My son Dan was a student at UND. The University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. Rev. Fred Phelps was going up there because of a club being formed at the University for gay students. For many years Fred looked for places to picket against gay people. He and his church members from Westboro Baptist carry disgusting and hateful signs, that say things like, “God hates fags”, and they drive all over the country picketing churches, public buildings, funerals and so on. Well, when he’s coming, he always lets the people know he’s on his way and exactly where he’ll be. He wants media coverage. When Dan heard Fred was coming he was furious and tried to get some friends to go with him to oppose Fred. They all had things to do and he imagined he would be there alone, or nearly alone, waving his sign, but he went anyway. When he got there, there were five or six hundred people, mostly from the most conservative evangelical church in Grand Forks, gathered across the street from Fred and his awful signs. Dan heard them being interviewed by the local religion reporter. They were telling him some weren’t sure about gay people, and that part was God’s to say. But they knew for sure God is against hate and so they too were against hate. They didn’t threaten or return hate. They sang and chanted and countered the hate signs with their own messages of love. “God loves everyone” they proclaimed on their signs and in their songs. They were so loud in their love that Fred and his picketers gave up and went home. Love is a force. It’s the greatest gift of all.

There probably aren’t all that many gay people here, but someone in this community is watching you, feeling less than, feeling that you don’t care, waiting for you to give them that same gift, to hold up a big sign, literally or figuratively, saying, God loves everyone. God loves you.

Garrison Keillor tells that great story about the two old bachelor farmers, brothers, who haven’t spoken in 25 years. They can’t remember what the fight was about anymore, but it must have been important otherwise they wouldn’t still be mad. Don’t be like that. Your life is worth a lot more than that. Love is a force. The greatest gift.

There are a lot of things we don’t know on this side. We only know partially. We see in a mirror dimly. Paul urges the people in Corinth to give up their childishness. Be adult, he begs. So then, what do we do when we don’t know what to do? We err on the side of love always. We commune together with the saints. We try to listen even when we disagree. We speak the truth as best we are able. And then we listen some more. We remember those days, when we, like those young ones had a new love. We remember how it was when we first joined the church, a new beginning, a new love. We remember it and hold it close and try again with our loved ones, in our families and in our community. And if that loved one has died, we remember that he or she is held in the heart of God forever. Waiting for us. Love never ends. Love is a force. The greatest gift.

Paul says, Love never ends. Other things end. Love never ends. I think he says that because God is eternal, and God is love. It was Jesus’ great love that got him killed and it was his great love that led to his glory. In loving as he loved he showed us what God is made of. God is love. So love is the most powerful thing and lasting thing. Love is the greatest gift of all. So listen to Paul one more time. These words are for us all. Faith, hope and love abide, these three. And the greatest of these is love.