by Rev. Chris Jorgensen
May 22, 2022
Video of Entire Service: https://www.facebook.com/hanscomparkchurch/videos/407743561023756
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13
In this book we have been exploring, Tuesdays with Morrie, there are two main characters. There is Morrie. Morrie is a professor. He is the teacher. He is dying of ALS, and he has reconnected with his student, Mitch. Mitch functions in this book primarily as a collector of Morrie’s stories, a vector (if you will) for Morrie’s wisdom. Mitch visits Morrie in his home every Tuesday. He’s there with his tape recorder to capture Morrie’s wisdom that he will then share with us.
But Mitch has his own story, too. It’s a story of someone who has been successful in his career as a sports journalist. The Mitch we are talking about is named Mitch Albom. I don’t know if that name means anything to you. But in the 1990s, you might have seen him on ESPN as a sports commentator. I mean if that’s not a sign you have “made it” in sports journalism, I’m not sure what is. He’s got the skills. He’s got the looks. He has an amazing head of hair. That’s mostly what I remember about him. Very impressive hair.
So when Morrie talks one Tuesday, at great length, about the emptiness of conventional success and material things, Mitch feels seen…and not in a good way.
Morrie says to Mitch, “Remember what I said about finding a meaningful life? … Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
Here’s what Mitch writes about his response to Morrie’s words of wisdom, “I jotted some of the things Morrie was saying on a yellow pad. I did this mostly because I didn’t want him to see my eyes, to know what I was thinking, that I had been, for much of my life since graduation pursuing these very things he had been railing against – bigger toys, nicer house. Because I had worked among rich and famous athletes, I had convinced myself that my needs were realistic, my greed inconsequential compared to theirs…”
Mitch begins to realize that he has failed to live up to Morrie’s most critical piece of advice. Morrie (our wise sage) gives Mitch (his student) and ALL OF US this advice. He quotes poet W.H. Auden as he does it.
“Love each other or perish.”
Here’s how I would say it to you graduates today: Spend your lives in pursuit of love.
Now, Morrie is Jewish, but we Christians should also really resonate with this advice. Love looms large in our Christian tradition. Jesus, who we Christians believe to be God-with-us, God-with-flesh-on…at one point in his ministry, he is confronted by the religious authorities with this question. In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 22 (36-40) one of these authorities asks him this:
36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 [Jesus] said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Simple, right? Love God and love your neighbor. That’s it in a nutshell. There you go. Or maybe not so simple? I would say that at the very least, it requires us to understand what love is.
Which leads us to today’s scripture! Lots of love in there, right? Have any of you heard today’s scripture before? Where have you heard it?
Right! At a wedding! That is the answer I was looking for.
In my experience, this is the most popular wedding scripture. Don’t take my word for it though. Sources from Christianity.com to Shutterfly to Foreverbride.com (whatever that is): they all agree this is the #1 scripture about love and therefore the best scripture for a wedding.
Can I tell you something that might be kind of offensive? I mean, I’m leaving pretty soon, so I don’t have that much to lose. But here’s the God’s honest truth.
Until quite recently, I wasn’t a big fan of this scripture…
I too had heard it over and over again at weddings, and I had equated the kind of love that Paul is describing here with white wedding dresses and champagne fountains and the almost-effortless love of being in a new romantic relationship. I mean, it’s lovely, and it’s fun. Weddings are super fun. (Pastor Peter – I am totally looking forward to being a part of your wedding!) But the love that is on display at weddings can kind of be sanitized. Rarely, do we think about love being difficult at weddings. It always looks so clean and so easy.
So let’s examine what Paul really has to say here. He’s writing to a community at Corinth that’s got some issues. They have had some conflict concerning gifts of the spirit. Paul is making the point here that gifts of the spirit are great. (And Paul really means this because he has many of these gifts, and he really does think he’s great. He’s not a man who lacks self-confidence.) He thinks it great if you can speak tongues. It’s great if you can prophesy. It’s great if you have special wisdom and understanding of the mysteries of God.
However, these don’t count for jack if you don’t have love.
Love is everything, and he says, “without love, I am nothing.”
Then he explains to them the qualities of the love he is talking about. In Greek, the word used here is “agape.” Agape or Love is patient. Love is kind. Friends, he would not be telling the Corinthians this if they weren’t finding it hard to be patient or kind…
Paul says it is not envious or boastful or rude. (Again, this had been a struggle for them.) It is not irritable or resentful. “It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
This scripture is not written to people who are woozy with romantic love. It’s written to people who are struggling to live together.
In a marriage, the very beginning of a romantic relationship, there has usually not been much to bear, much to endure. I mean, if there has been, you maybe should have broken up. I probably shouldn’t be so direct. This is my sidebar relationship advice to young people (and really anyone) – if in the beginning, you are really having to work at staying together, just break up. And also, just to be perfectly clear: do not ever put up with any abuse – physical or verbal or emotional. That’s not what enduring things in love is about.
What I’m saying is, at the beginning, things should be pretty easy, pretty effortless.
But for those of us who have been married for awhile or really in any kind of relationship for awhile – as a parent or child or close friend of someone…there will be things to bear, things to endure. That’s just what happens in life as you age, as you encounter difficulties. Which isn’t great news, I know! … But it’s also when you get to see and embody the fullness of the love of God that works in us and through us.
I want to tell you a story. It happened earlier this spring.
On March 13th, I met with a couple (Mandy and Jeremy) to plan a wedding. They were delightful. It was a second marriage for both of them. They both had teenage children. It was an honor to be asked to preside. They picked, of course, the scripture we heard today for me to read at their wedding. I noted it. To be honest, I didn’t think about it much at all.
On March 16th, Randy Youngland died. You might know Randy. He and Joy joined the church in the last year. I had been blessed, so very blessed and honored to journey with Randy and Joy in Randy’s last days. He had lived with Lewy Body Dementia for several years before he died. It made things tough – on Randy and on Joy. But this difficulty also created a chance for me (and I’m sure so many others) to witness God’s love in Joy’s steadfast love for Randy (and his faithful love for her)…and in so many people around Randy who embodied that love – his companions and friends, and the staff at Miles Memory Care.
Because today’s scripture had been read at Randy and Joy’s wedding (nearly thirty years ago), we included it in his Celebration of Life service here at the church. We included this mediation on God’s love.
I said this at the funeral, and I will say it now:
I’m not sure there is a better witness to God’s love than this – the love that bears all things with patience and kindness that seems to come from a power so much greater than ourselves. [You NEED it, and There it is (all of a sudden)]: the love of God made visible…what a gift that Randy gave to us that he drew God’s steadfast love out of so many people and made it plain to see.
About a month after the funeral, a few days before Jeremy and Amanda’s wedding, I pulled out my notes to prepare. I put together my script as usual. I read through the parts just to make sure I wouldn’t stumble over anything. And as I approached the scripture they had chosen, the one I had never really liked or appreciated, I began…
“Love is patient…” I couldn’t even get through that line. More tears flowed as I read, “It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
I practiced it enough so I could get through it for the wedding. That day, as I read it, I prayed for Jeremy and Mandy to be filled with the gritty and unfailing love of God so that they could love one another like Randy and Joy did.
See, God’s love is not all dressed up in a pretty white dress. It’s Love that hasn’t take a shower in a couple of days because it refused to leave the bedside. It’s love with baby spit-up matted in its hair and sore, leaky breasts. It’s love that drops everything and drives all night to be there. It’s love that gets messy and shows up…not just once but day after day after day…and it is so beautiful
Graduates, human beings, all of us – this is my only advice:
Spend your lives in pursuit of love. Not some easy and sanitized love. But agape love: the gritty and unfailing love of God.
It will shape your life and fill your life in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.