A sermon for 3 February 2013 - Epiphany 4

Readings: Jeremiah 1:4-10; 1 Corinthians 13

 

Our exploration of our ongoing faith story left us last week in a place some of you might have found a little discomforting.  You may remember, we were exploring that wonderful and challenging sermon which, according to Luke, Jesus presented at his village synagogue – a sermon which led people to anger and a desire to cause harm to their hometown boy, closing their hearts and minds to his message – letting him, as Thom Shuman put it “slip through their souls”, finding themselves unable to follow as he continued on the “winding road of grace^[1].

 That experience of so long ago is still ours – the challenge to follow this man Jesus’ dreams and vision for humanity is often too large for our commitment.  Part of the reason we come to church each Sunday is to restore that vision, to rekindle the fire, so that the commitment to follow can become a reality in our lives.  Today, through the words of the (sometimes less than helpful) apostle Paul, we encounter a key to unlock the prison, which keeps us from that miracle of full, abundant and meaningful life, for which we yearn and to which Jesus points the way.

 Alongside Psalm 23, 1 Corinthians 13 has to be one of the most well known passages of scripture – perhaps too well known.  The familiar words can ripple over our conscious minds with little effect – oh yes, we say, I know that one - it’s that hymn about love – they read it at weddings.  But sometimes, just sometimes, the words wriggle into our subconscious, taking root and enabling us to discover their transforming power. 

I remember one wedding, where the couple asked for this reading and, as I struggled to try to make it meaningful for them, I invited them to hear the word Love - first as just that “Love”,

“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.”

Then, I invited them to listen again, but this time the word Love was replaced with the word God:

“God is patient; God is kind; God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, does not insist on God’s own way; God is not irritable or resentful; does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

I think they got the point.  But then, I invited them to hear their own name in place of Love as I addressed them

“You are patient; you are kind; you are not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. You do not insist on your own way; you are not irritable or resentful; you do not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoice in the truth.  You bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things.”

And I could sense in the congregation, and see on the face of the young couple a “you must be kidding me” look.  Even on wedding days, genuine love seems an impossible ideal. 

 But, the one we follow, the one who is the ‘fleshed-out Word of Love’ teaches that this Love can become flesh in each of our lives.  “[While] the ego is blind – all it can see is itself...Love is not blind.  Love is pure vision! God seeing through us!  The more we allow God to see through us, the more we will notice a great healing taking place in our world.” [2]

 In his book “Spiritual Evolution”, George Vaillant claims that human beings are hard wired for the positive emotions of Faith, Hope and Love, which he argues “arise from our inborn mammalian capacity for unselfish parental love.  [These positive emotions] emanate from our feeling, limbic mammalian brain and thus are grounded in our evolutionary heritage.  All human beings [he says] are hardwired for positive emotions, and these positive emotions are a common denominator of all major faiths and of all human beings.”[3]

 But, tapping into this hardwiring requires a connector. 

This week, as our street has had its turn in being dug up to install the high speed broadband cable throughout the city, I learned that the cable stops in little boxes on the telegraph poles.  There will be no high speed broadband in our house unless we make the connection to that little box on the telegraph pole.  In a similar way, there will be no Love, if the connection is not made between our ‘positive emotion’ hard wiring and the healing, transformative pulse of Love found at the heart of the cosmos.  That why the development of spiritual disciplines is so very important – it’s why I’ve encouraged you to explore the breadth of spiritual disciplines – for it is through these that connection is made.

If there was to be one connector more important than any other, I would argue – as I believe Jesus did – it is that of forgiveness.    As one writer puts it “To not forgive is to choose to suffer”[4]   The Buddha expressed the same sentiments, when he said: “Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” It is through forgiveness that love fully blossoms; and through love that forgiveness is possible.

“Here’s a true story told by Jack Kornfield, a clinical psychologist.  Travelling by train from Washington to Philadelphia, Dr. Kornfield found himself seated next to the director of a rehabilitation programme for juvenile offenders, particularly gang members who had committed homicide.

One fourteen-year-old boy in the program had shot and killed an innocent teenager to prove himself to his gang.  At the trial, the victim’s mother sat impassively silent until the end, when the youth was convicted of the killing.  After the verdict was announced, she stood up slowly and stared directly at him and stated, “I’m going to kill you.” Then the youth was taken away to serve several years in the juvenile facility.

After the first half year the mother of the slain child went to visit his killer.  He had been living on the streets before the killing, and she was the only visitor [in jail] he’d had.  For a time they talked, and when she left she gave him some money for cigarettes.  Then she started step by step to visit him more regularly, bringing food and small gifts. 

Near the end of his three-year sentence, she asked him what he would be doing when he got out.  He was confused and very uncertain, so she offered to help set him up with a job at a friend’s company.  Then she inquired about where he would live, and since he had no family to return to, she offered him temporary use of the spare room in her home. 

For eight months he lived there, ate her food, and worked at the job.  Then one evening she called him into the living room to talk.  She sat down opposite him and waited.  Then she started, “Do you remember in the courtroom when I said I was going to kill you?” “I sure do,” he replied.  “I’ll never forget that moment.”  “Well, I did,” she went on.  “I did not want the boy who could kill my son for no reason to remain alive on this earth.  I wanted him to die.  That’s why I started to visit you and bring you things.  That’s why I got you the job and let you live here in my house.  That’s how I set about changing you.  And that old boy, he’s gone. 

So now I want to ask you, since my son is gone, and that killer is gone, if you’ll stay here.  I’ve got room, and I’d like to adopt you if you let me.” 

And she became the mother he never had.

....What had happened? [The connections between human hardwiring and the heart of the Universe had been made.] Unselfish love had conquered both [what has been described as] Darwinian ‘selfish’ genes and Kantian pure reason.  The transformative [and healing] power of [forgiveness and love] had interceded.”[5]

 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.

 Mystic, Sufi poet Hafiz from Persia tells how “Once a young woman asked him:  Teacher, what is the sign of someone who knows God?  The teacher became very quiet, and looked deep into her eyes, then replied, “My dear, they have dropped the knife.  A person who knows God, has dropped the cruel knife that most, so often use upon their tender self and others.”[6]

 When the knife is dropped, when forgiveness becomes the way, those listening to Jesus’ teaching do not let him pass through their angry midst, instead they discover a way of walking with him on the ‘winding road of grace’ where faith hope and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is Love.

---

[1] Thom M. Shuman, 2007

[2] Macrina Wiederkehr Seasons of your heart, 1991, p.91

[3] George Vaillant “Spiritual Evolution: How we are wired for Faith, Hope, and Love 2008, p.2

[4] Course on Miracles

[5] George Vaillant “Spiritual Evolution: How we are wired for Faith, Hope, and Love 2008, p.2

[6] A year with Hafiz, Daily Contemplations January 31