Relentless Love

Sermon 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13 February 3, 2019 Ordinary Time

Relentless Love

Faith, hope and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is love. Today is a wonderful day to hear these words. Today we are gathered as God’s people for the purpose of celebrating and rejoicing in our common unity as the body of Christ.

We gather each week for the purpose of following God’s command to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. We gather each week to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Each Sunday we gather is our mini Easter-we remember and we rejoice in the reality of the resurrection that brings us to new life. Not new life in the future but new life now and in the days to come. That’s what God commands, that we receive what we have been given-love come down from heaven for us-and we live it and pour out the love of God through Christ just as it was poured out for us.

Perhaps Sunday mornings have turned more into routine for us than it has a burning desire to be with our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Perhaps, Sunday mornings are days we need Sabbath at home, we say, because we work so hard during the week, or we have commitments that take us away from Sunday. Sundays gathering in the Lord’s house can be a challenge. In today’s world it is a greater challenge than at any other time in the Christian church. There has never been more competing elements with the church on Sunday and it is harder and harder for families and others to get away to get to church.

The apostle Paul knew how important the church was to God. He understood how Christ as the head of the church had intended that it would be the binding together of all God’s people to live as he lived and to draw the world back to God. Yes, the church is Christ’s body. It has a serious purpose in the world. It’s not around just to hang out drinking punch and eating cookies in fellowship. It is a place where love is received and love is given and love is taken out into the world.

We’ve heard more than ever that we can be a Christian out on the boat watching the sunset and being drawn into the spiritual awe of creation. And boy, is that true!

We also know the church wasn’t created for us to be entertained, but for us to worship, to be fed, to be renewed, to be encouraged, strengthened, so we can get out there and tell God’s story and live God’s love.

That’s why this chapter of love is so important.

It’s not a chapter for brides and bridegrooms-although, it really does a good job of describing what we need in a marriage.

This chapter was written to the church.

The church people were already doing what drives us crazy about church people now. There were the bossy ones, the ones who knew everything and tried to tell everyone how much they knew and how smart they were. There were manipulative ones, who smothered you with kindness and praise to get you to see things their way and get you to team up with them. There were the judging ones who decided exactly how to behave in church and what to wear and who could even be allowed in.

Paul was beside himself when he saw and heard what was going on in this brand new church that was to be a witness to the love of Jesus!

He freaked

and wrote this letter to help the church people get a grip about what was most important.

One of our great gifts is to read these letters and discover that perfection in the church from the get go was a challenge and was just down right non-existent.

Yes, Jesus trusted us to be his body in the world-but we needed a lot of help then and now.

These wonderful words of love are for us.

Because, our most powerful assurance about Christ and his church is that it is still standing today.

Maybe, its not as big and powerful or its not as entertaining or interesting as we think it should be.

But it’s Christ’s church and it goes on forever,

it is relentless.

Just as relentless as his love for us and the world.

One of the greatest opportunities of the church is to walk with one another through all the circumstances that come into our lives.

Relentless love is looking around during the hard times, the sad times, the troubled times, the brokenness, diseases, loss, and feeling of falling apart, and realizing that love is what provides the power and the strength, the resolve, and the will, the binding together to hang tough and to go the road together.

Love may not look like what we expect it to look like,

but it is that deep within urge,

tummy turning,

watery eye making stuff that

becomes the glue that holds us all together.

This love that God gave us through Jesus is nipping at our heels,

it is chasing us,

pursuing us,

it is running after us seeking to tackle us and cover us up until we can rest and be at peace and receive it.

This love of Jesus is like the grip of grace, a giant hand of God ripping through heaven and grabbing hold of us and refusing to let go.

It thrusts through heaven onto our soul, claims us and calls us by name and binds us forever with him.

We are here together because God wants us here.

We are here together because God’s love is making it possible

for us to come again and again

to hold each other up in good times and hard times.

We are here together because Jesus fills us with the joy to want to see each other and be reminded that there is love here…

Faith, hope and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is love. Amen.