Sermon - An experiment in Love & an written EVALUATION (Corinthians 13)

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

An Experiment in Love

When was the first time you heard of ‘the power of love’? There were a couple of hit songs about it - one was Celine Dion's "The Power of Love”. I first heard the term on MTV. It was intriguing, the idea of love having a specific power, but I believe this notion is a cultural construct, because on the one hand it assures us that the power of love does exist, but on the other hand it persuades us to believe that it exists between individuals - basically young, attractive men and women. I see that it prizes youth, equates love with libido, fixes heterosexuality as the social norm, and, last but not least, it individualizes and secularizes what love really means.

I wonder if love is in trouble in our contemporary society, as it is often thought to exist only in small networks of individual lives. Not just lovers, of course; we appreciate the loving power of mothers and fathers, but look away from their struggles, preferring to see the charming family from a distance rather than deal with brokenness and struggling relationships. We fail in loving every day when we shout at somebody in anger, when we push our families and friends away from us, when we insist that things should be done our way. We love the theory but struggle with the practice of loving. We know our own needs, our own wounds, but we have a hard time seeing the needs and wounds of others. Not only we are hurt, we cause hurt. Not only our hearts have been broken - we have broken the hearts of others. We are here, because we believe that the practice of our Christian faith leads us to the path of forgiveness, healing and restoration. We seek love as we know that love seeks to restore brokenness - broken humanity, broken community, broken world. In 1 Corinthians the apostle Paul says “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” I believe that this is because our great yearning for being loved and loving truly moves us to “bear all things” “believe all things” “hope all things” and “endure all things.”

Let me tell you about an incident of love I saw in this congregation. One day in August, last year, our church’s pastoral care team threw a baby shower for one congregant who had been in the Chemainus Health Care center for a long time. In late winter of last year, she was told she became a grandma. Her grandson Owen, 6 month old at that time, is in ___. During the celebration, all of us who were there saw the tears well up and roll down the face of this woman, who couldn’t raise her voice loud enough to say ‘thank you’ because of her disability. I read a blessing prayer and opened the gifts on her behalf. But I was not quite sure how to serve her, when we began to eat. My hands didn’t know how to care for her and serve her. But one of us sat by her and fed her, spoonful by spoonful, beginning with a small piece of watermelon, then finishing with ice cream. It’s hard to serve others. It’s hard to expand love beyond what we are expected to do. But the love which crosses our individual boundaries creates community. It preserves community. It restores and reclaims the community. It reclaims us in terms of who we are and who we are to be. Love is an economic claim: we are called to serve the poor. Love is a political claim; we are called to break down the societal walls which exclude minorities and diminishes the common value of life for all. Love is a universal and spiritual claim as we believe that God made us and all creation in the power of love. 1 John says, “everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” “Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

I wonder how many in our culture really believe that love is what creates and preserves community, or that love can hold communities together, particularly when many people believe that faith should be absent from any discussion about community or society.

Martin Luther King speaks of love, in his essay An Experiment in Love, “Love seeks to preserve and create community.” Love demonstrates its power through its “insistence on community even when one seeks to break it.” Love is “a willingness to go to any length to restore community.”

Michael Jinkins says, “there are forces of violence and hatred in our culture that seem to operate almost full-time. They seek to undermine community at every turn, to polarize and divide people along every potential social, cultural, economic, political, ethnic, racial and religious fissure.” Martin Luther King reminds us that there is an antidote to these forces: a remembrance that we are bound together by the divine love. And it is the same powerful force that brought the whole universe into existence.

Today is a good day to remember that our community is created, preserved and sustained, restored and reclaimed by God’s experiment in love. Our AGM is our time of reading and listening to how the experiments in love have fared in the past year and anticipate the blessings of the new year. I am so confident about our congregation; we are a radiant example, which witnesses to the whole community around us. We are a community forged in divine love. We are more than who we are -  love binds us, love creates challenges, love gives us purpose, love moves us to care for each other, our town, and the world. The power of  love is not limited to two people, or even one church. It is within us all, from God.

An evaluation from a church member

I was pleased to have a moment with you after service today, especially after hearing comments from several members who attended worship today. Your homily, An Experiment in Love, based on Corinthians was very moving, particularly when you shared your experience with the baby shower. You spoke to that gathering in prayer, opened presents, but when it came to helping that young woman eat,  allowed that "...my hands did not know how to help." At that moment you drew everyone listening to your message, into living love in the community.
Very gracious in spirit and truth. Ruth allowed that she "...wanted to stand up ... step out into the community and go to work."

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I see you as a congregational minister who is learning on the job. Caring for this community in your role as a servant -leader is a crucible of learning for you. Some of it will be easy and natural, some difficult and some challenging. All will add to your deep language structure and help build your Canadian consciousness. I hope it will help prepare you for a future ministry.