Faith, Hope, Love

Fourth Sunday of Epiphany
Jeremiah 1:4-10
1 Corinthians 13:1-11
Year C
January 31, 2010
Faith, Hope and Love

The Gift

When he first gave it to me
I wrapped it up
and put it under my mattress,
preferring to pretend I didn’t have it.
I couldn’t give it back –
his gifts are always irrevocable,
non-transferable.

For years it stayed hidden,
disturbing my rest
as I assured myself it wasn’t there.
It brought me dreams,
such that I woke in anger
crying “Why?”
“Why?”
“Why?”

Then one day I took it out
and unwrapped it.
“Why not?” I asked lovingly,
“Why not?”
Perhaps I’ll never use it –
perhaps he gave it to me for others’ sake.

So now I hold it high,
polished and bright –
displayed for all who will to see.

It still disturbs my rest.
“Why?” I ask.
“Why not?”
“Why me?”
“Why not?”
and I am filled with awe.

That is how Ruth Dudley explains her call to become a ministry. The time in her life, when she asks God why me – and God’s response to her was why not you? This was her point of no return – the point when she realized that uninvited – God had stepped into her life and called her into God’s service. Anyone who has ever encountered the holy spirit will come to that moment. Romans 12:6 says that the grace of God comes to all of us – and gives us all a gift. We just have to decide how to use it.
Some of us spend a lifetime running away from what God has called us to do – knowing it, but trying to explain it away. Others know what their passion is from birth, even before that, and just live into it. It is not the call that we struggle with, but the response and the assurance that God has already equipped us to do what needs to be done.
Jeremiah realized his call to speak for God. But not just to his nation – but to the whole world. To tell them about God and what God had in store for us.
Each of us has been given a call, a gift, a story. But it is not what we do as invidduals that matter but who we are as a community.
We have been listening to Pauls words to the Corinthians. That we all have a part of the puzzle – but it is when we put those pieces together that the world starts to truly understand who Jesus is, and what Jesus did for us. We come to understand the power of love.

It is sort of like this hair dryer, and this cd player – wonderful inventions. Useful to us all and make a difference in our lives. But without electricity don’t do much good. We have gifts, we are important tools of God – but unless we are connected to Jesus – we don’t do much good. Our connection is always Love.

Love is patient, kind, rejoicing in truth, bears all things, hopes all things, never ends.

Love is not envious or boastful, arrogant, insisting on own way, rejoicing in wrongdoing. Means that we love our enemies, stop counting what we deserve, it matures us, not self seeking, and we think of others. Gifts are for such a time as this, our love last forever.

During the Christmas season, a couple worried about money to buy gifts for one another. The wife wanted to get a chain for her husband’s watch – a watch that had been passed down in his family. But she was still $5 short. She gave up her most prized possession to get the gift. Her hair was down to her knees – she was very proud of her hair – but she sold it in order to get the gift. Which is why her husband was so surprised, he handed her the package – which turned out to be the hair combs that she has wanted for her hair. He laughed even harder when he opened his gift. A chain for the watch that he had sold to buy the hair combs.
Neither received a gift that they could use that Christmas – but what they did get was love. They realized that they had a love that was willing to sacrifice in order to make the other person happy. A love that expected nothing in return for its sacrifice. A love that would get past that moment.
Because that is what love is – love is always an action and not a feeling. Love is always about the person and not the circumstance. We are to always be patient with one another, but we don’t have to patient about the circumstance – jesus reminds us that the time for change is always now we don’t have to stay stuck in our circumstance. Just as love is about people, so is jealousy and envy. Some people are jealous of the things that we have – the gifts that we have been given. Others are jealous of the fact that we have gifts. One can be overcome – the other is a very dangerous feeling that never goes away. One is directed at the person, and the other is at the circumstance.
Jesus message to us all – love the person, change the circumstance. Be patient with the person in all things. Fix the circumstance.
It is not only how we treat one another that shows love, it how we choose to live together that shows true love to the world. How we forgive, how we copperate, how we work together.
This paraphrase of Pauls word – demonstrates who we are to be as the church.


Paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13

What if I could stand up here and say the most wonderful things, and sound impressive and answer everyone's questions, but I didn't love anyone - what would be the point?

What if we were the most incredible church where every pew was filled the preaching was always inspirational - we had a choir that always sang perfectly and served the best coffee in town, but no one felt love - what would be the point?

And if as a community we teach our children lots of information and knowledge and they can recite the books of the Bible and know all the right answers but they don't know how to love, we've failed them.

If we focus on some and say 'he/she was a saint' and welcome newcomers, and collect money for the Mission and Service Fund, and we pray every week for the poor of the world and yet we don't feed the hungry and reach out to the poor of our communities around us, and don't care for the sick and the lost in our community, where is the honesty in that?

If we don't love what's the point?

Love is kindness in action, offered simply and humbly. Love is not meant to make me look good, score brownie points with God, or draw attention to ourselves.

Love is co-operative; there are all kinds of ways of doing good and God is happy to use every way there is. Love only cares that what's needed is done. Love has the best interests of the other in mind.

Sometimes we grow weary and give up - we can't think of what else can be done. But God never gives up - God's love continues, and new possibilities are always appearing. What we know now is never the whole picture. What we do now is never the whole story.

In some ways we're like children: we do what we can and what we know to this point. But there's still more for us to learn, to grow into, to accept.

Some day we'll look back on where we are now, and wonder how we could ever have wondered and doubted and refused to accept what was happening.

In some ways, it's like looking in an imperfect mirror. There's a reflection there, but it's not quite right, not totally true. We are the body of Christ, the image of God - but not perfectly, not completely, not totally truly ... not yet. The day will come when we will see. The day will come when we will know. Until then, we live in faith, trusting God's love. Until then, we live in hope, hoping for God's love. Until then, we live in love, showing God's love as best we can. because love is the point of it all.

(adapted from a Loaves and Fishes resource sheet, Wood Lake Books, 1998 by Rev. Brian Donst, United Church, Winona, ONT)


The gifts that we have are great – but there is a more excellent way – and that way is the love of God. We each have a gift – n some way we each have an encounter with the holy – that is wonderful.
But what is better is who we grow as a community, growing is not getting smarter, but becoming more loving, more understanding, more tolerant of one another. As we grow to love one another we also grow to love God.
Faith is the loyalty we have with to God and to God’s cause on earth. Hope is the trust that we have that God’s word for us is true, but love is the glue that hold the faithful and all of their gifts together in order to show love to the world. Faith, hope, love – the greatest of these is?
Let us pray…