Love Makes the World Go Round

February 3, 2019 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year C Children’s Sermon: Materials Needed: Football Heart-shaped candy box or piece of construction paper Card stock printed with scripture reference and verses Heart-shaped candy (optional) Telling The Story: What’s this? (Show the football and let the children answer.) It’s a football, and it’s used to play a game called football. What’s this? (Show the heart.) It’s a heart. The heart beating inside your body isn’t really shaped like this, but we call this a heart shape, and it’s often used to remind us of love. Every winter, usually late in January or very early in February there’s a very famous football game played on television. This year it was on (date). Does anyone know what it’s called? (Let the children answer.) It’s called the Super Bowl, and the Super Bowl is all about football. Coming up is a holiday that’s all about love. It’s on February 14. Can anyone tell me what that day is? (Let the children answer.) That’s right! It’s Valentine’s Day, and Valentine’s Day is all about love. The Super Bowl is about football, and Valentine’s Day is about love. Football ... and love. Can football teach us anything about how God wants us to love each other? What if we talk about how football and love are different? When you play football, there are two teams. If you look at the scoreboard, the team names might be listed, or maybe the scoreboard says, “Home” and “Visitor.” Either way, there are two teams and each team is divided into two squads: The offense and the defense. The offense tries to score points and the defense tries to stop the offense of the other team. In love, we work together. Whether we’re talking about the love you feel for a friend, the love you feel for someone in your family, or a boyfriend and girlfriend kind of love, there is only one team. When you love someone you work for each other, not against each other. God wants us to work together. When people play football, they’re always trying to knock other people down. Two players run into each other, and knock or pull each other to the ground. It’s called tackling, and it is part of the game. But when you love someone, you try to build that person up. How do you build other people up? You help them. You do nice things for them and encourage them. So football and love are opposites in that sense. In football, you knock people down. In love, you build them up. God wants us to build each other up. There’s something else different about football and love. In football, there are a lot of rules! There are rules about how long you can hold the ball, who you can throw it to, when you can move and when you can’t, who you can tackle and who you can’t, what you can do if you do have the ball, and what you can do if you don’t. It’s very complicated. The rulebook is thick, too! Love, on the other hand, doesn’t have big set of rules. God asks us to love him first and then to love the people around us the way we love ourselves. That’s a lot easier to remember, and we don’t need a referee to help us because we’ve got God. There are many complicated rules in football, but only two, simple things God want us to remember about love: Love God first and love our neighbors as ourselves. There’s something else. Football is played with a timer, and you know what? The referee is always stopping the timer. In fact, it seems like a football game is only played for five or ten seconds at a time, and then someone breaks one of those complicated rules we just talked about, and the referee stops the game and the timer. Love isn’t like that. There’s no time limit, and you don’t stop and start love again and again. When you love someone, you love that person all the time, the way God loves us. Even if the person makes a mistake, you love that person anyway, because God wants us to love all the time. The differences between love and football aren’t just sentiments made up by greeting card companies. They’re found in the Bible! Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, wrote about love in a very famous set of verses that you’ve probably heard read at a wedding. (Show the card stock with the printed scripture reference and verses.) In 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, Paul wrote: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Do you know what these verses mean? They’re talking about the biggest difference between football and love. In football, the object of the game is to get the most points. To win the game, your team needs the biggest score. But in love, no one is trying to win. According to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, love doesn’t keep score. God doesn’t want us to keep score with the people that we love, and most importantly, God doesn’t keep score with us. If you love God and you are trying to do what he wants you to do, he’ll forgive and forget your sins and love you with all his heart. That’s what God wants us to do with the people we love, too. Prayer: Dear Lord, Thank you for this beautiful day, and thank you for loving us so much and for giving us the Bible to help us learn what you want us to do. Please help us to be patient and kind with the people around us, and help us to remember not to “keep score.” In Jesus’ name. Amen. Optional: Give children heart-shaped pieces of candy. 31 Use your ambition to try to get the greater gifts. And I’m going to show you an even better way. Love: the universal spiritual gift 13 If I speak in tongues of human beings and of angels but I don’t have love, I’m a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all the mysteries and everything else, and if I have such complete faith that I can move mountains but I don’t have love, I’m nothing. 3 If I give away everything that I have and hand over my own body to feel good about what I’ve done but I don’t have love, I receive no benefit whatsoever. 4 Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, 5 it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, 6 it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. 7 Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. As for prophecies, they will be brought to an end. As for tongues, they will stop. As for knowledge, it will be brought to an end. 9 We know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, what is partial will be brought to an end. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, reason like a child, think like a child. But now that I have become a man, I’ve put an end to childish things. 12 Now we see a reflection in a mirror; then we will see face-to-face. Now I know partially, but then I will know completely in the same way that I have been completely known. 13 Now faith, hope, and love remain—these three things—and the greatest of these is love. Footnotes: a. 1 Corinthians 12:10 Or ecstatic speech or languages could be used for tongues or tonguethroughout chaps 12–14. Common English Bible (CEB) Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible I am still unpacking. This week I have been unpacking the what nots of my grandmother, my mother and my own. I was excited to find this one that I got in Greece. They are a popular figurine of the three sisters – Faith, Hope and Love. These are such important virtues, that always come together. So in Greek culture they call them the three sisters. There are actually two versions of the three sisters. This is the common picture – but the sisters don’t have any clothes on. So there is also a Christian version of the sisters, where they are all wearing dresses. Paul speaks of these three sisters in his verses in 1 Corinthians 13. Paul has been speaking to the Corinthians about what it means to be a Christian congregation. He has been talking about the importance of unity and mission. He has been explaining that in order to fulfill the mission of Christ, that each congregation is given a series of spiritual gifts. Gifts are given to the group, not to individuals. He ends his discussion by saying that using our gifts are important, but that there are three gifts that we can’t live without – faith, hope and love. And the greatest of the spiritual gifts is love. As we enter into the month of February, this is a perfect lesson for us. February is the month of looking at our hearts and thinking about the true meaning of love. 1 Corinthians 13 is actually one of the most popular bible lessons in the world. Whenever, I do wedding counseling and the couple is choosing a bible verse, I tell them not to choose this one. Because this is the most popular lesson of weddings. As we approach Valentine’s Day – I thought it was an important verse to preach about. To keep in minds however, that Paul is not talking about the love between two people in this verse. Paul is talking about a deeper love – the love that creates all other types of love that we know – God’s love. God’s love is the most powerful force in the world. As a matter of fact, Paul is not talking about the way that we treat people that we like. Paul is reminding us of what keeps us together with people that we may not even know. If you look around the room, all of us have our place in the sanctuary. More than likely, we have chose our place to sit based on how we feel about the people around us. Who is the person next to you? And why are you sitting next to that person? Even if you are not related to that person, you still have a relationship with them. You sit with them because by now you have some affinity with them. But what about the person across the room? Or 2 rows ahead of you? – Paul reminds us that we are all the body of Christ. Paul reminds us that we may not all like one another, we may not even know everyone. But that the love of Christ extends to us all. – love is patient, kind, forgiving, understanding, beyond how we feel about one another. When we don’t want to be understanding, we still love one another. Not because we like one another, but because God loves us all. Human love fails, but God’s love prevails. If it wasn’t for God’s love, we could not exist as a congregation of people. Faith, hope and love is what holds us together – the greatest of those virtues is love. Faith is our loyalty to the mission of God. Hope is our trust in the word of God and love is our ability to stick together. There are times when we disagree, when we head in a different direction. But it is love that brings it all together, and keeps us going in spite of our differences. I have had a lot of chances to preach on this verse. It is a wonderful poem of having a faith, hope and love that stands the test of time. But this year, I realized another important message on the more excellent way of love. Paul says that today – things are not clear and nothing makes sense. I did not know that Corinth was famous for its mirrors. But they were not the mirrors that we have today. A mirror did not show a clear image until the 13th century. In those days a mirror was well polished metal. You couldn’t see anything clearly. It was a very dim image. A lot like life is – confusing and unclear. There are a lot of times when we don’t know how things will turn out – or what will happen. When we have faith, hope and love – faith hope and love lead to God. And whatever happens, God wins. That is the greatest gift of all – the love of God that sustains us through all things and all relationships. One pastor noted that he was with a lot of people in their last moments in life. In the end, as they reflected on their life, their conversations were not about what they had accomplished, or how much money they had, or what they owned. The last conversation was always about how much they were loved and how much love they had received from others. Faith, hope and the greatest gift of all is love. A more excellent way of living. I want to end with a version of 1 Corinthians 13 – just for what it means to be the people of Love.. 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) Let that be our prayer for the day - Amen.