Formed to Love: Sermon 1 Corinthians 13

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

In the last few weeks we have talked about our lives as Christians post-baptism. We have discussed our gifts that have been given by the Holy Spirit. We have talked about how each of us are given gifts according to the Spirit and how we must all work together as a united Body of Christ using each of those gifts together. Last week, I gave you a little cliffhanger; I left you with a question. I told you that all of God’s creation is unified under a single purpose and a single reason. Today I hope to answer the age old question why are we here?

Why are we here? Not to mean why are we gathered here in this building on this hour on this day, but instead I am speaking in the abstract, the universal question. Why are we here? Why were we created to inhabit this place, this earth? This is a question that humankind has wrestled with for thousands of years. All of the major philosophers have debated and thought about this question. Some have even said that there is no answer to this question. That everything about the human race is by chance. Some would say that who we are as a species has evolved over millions of years and there is not rhyme or reason to it. It all happened by chance and through the survival of the fittest. That however doesn’t offer much. Science can provide the “how” and the “what” but they cannot figure out the “why”. So some scientists have dismissed the why as irrelevant. Who cares why we are here? We are here and this is all there is and so live life to the fullest. I do suppose that it is somewhat arrogant to make the claim that I have the answer to the greatest question of human existence, but the funny thing is that you have heard this answer before.

Before I give you the answer let’s take a look back at creation and not the one with Adam and Eve and the rest of the gang. I am talking instead about our own individual creation. There is a lot of discussion about when life starts. Does it start at conception or does it start at birth? Is in the first, second, or third trimester? I am not going to get on rant about pro-choice or pro-life, but instead let me offer an illustration from Scripture. Let’s look back on Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Just like Jeremiah, God knew each of us before we were born, even before we were formed in the womb that is an awesome thought. God had a plan and a purpose for our lives even before we took our first breath of life. There is a purpose for your life; you might have felt for your whole life that you haven’t lived with a purpose or a reason. I tell you today that your life as purpose and there is a reason that each of us was put on this planet.

We are formed to love. Paul talks about this purpose in 1 Corinthians 13. He says that everything that we do should be based on love. We must remember the Corinthians; there were a church that Paul was trying to unite. They were made up of many different kinds of people and they had a difficult time coming and uniting together. Paul tells them they each have specific gifts and that they must work together using the different gifts and they have to work together as a unified body and that there is no small or big jobs instead all have to work together. Paul then gives them the secret to life, that love is the key that brings everything else together. Love is our purpose and love is our reason for being here. They asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment, the greatest of God’s laws and his reply was simply to love.

Paul tells the church then and tells the Church today as well that we can speak in tongues of men and angels, we can have the greatest rhetorical skills and be able to talk anyone into anything, but if we do not have love it is meaningless noise. We can have all knowledge and all reasoning and understanding, but if we do not have love then it is worthless. We can sacrifice our time, money, even our very selves and if we don’t have love then it we have nothing. Do any of the things I have just listed, speaking in tongues, having knowledge and understanding, helping and healing others seem familiar to you? It is because these are the same things that Paul mentions as spiritual gifts in Chapter 12. So we can have all these gifts given to us by the Spirit, but they are worthless without love. What does Paul mean by this? We can use these gifts for many things, good and bad. We can work for ourselves or we can work for others. The point that Paul is trying to make is, where is our motivation? When we do works for the church or for our fellow humankind, are we motivated by love of others or our own selfishness? Are we doing it for the love of God and neighbor or just to get into heaven? If we are to follow use the gifts of the Spirit in the way that God has made for us then it must be done in love.

Now I know what you might be thinking. Here he goes again, talking about love. But love is the central theme to my theology and therefore it is central to my preaching. God’s love for us and the love that we should have for God and for one another is the good news of the gospel and it is the greatest commandment. So Paul tells the Corinthians that love is the key that unites all the works of the church together and I say to you that love is the purpose of humanity, God created each one of us so that we could return God’s love and so that we could love one another. But what kind of love does God call for? There are many types of love. There is romantic love, brotherly-friendship love, there is familial love, but the love that Paul is talking about is agape love, love that is divine in character.

Paul goes on to describe this kind of love. He says that this love is patient. Agape love turns the other cheek and prays for the one’s that do it harm. This kind of love is kind. He offers help to those who need it, but not from a distance. Agape love gets down and dirty to those who are downtrodden, this love doesn’t pass by the leper, but touches his face. The Message Bible says “Love cares more for others than for self” Paul says that this love is not boastful, arrogant, or rude. Agape love does not focus on the self, but has complete attention and care for others. It is not selfish, but self-less. It does not care for praise or reward, but works tirelessly for the common good.

Paul says this love does not insist on its own way, in other words, it is open to new ideas, new concepts, and it is adaptable to change. We are so afraid of change, we grow older and we get set in our ways, our lives become routine and we do not want to do anything to break that routine. We fear anything new because it could be dangerous, we could get hurt. But agape love is bold in the face of the unknown and takes new challenges head on. This love is more powerful that all the dangers the world can throw at it and so it is daring in the midst of darkness.

Paul says that this love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth. This love stands up for truth, stands up for justice, stands up for the oppressed. This love does not simply look with pity on those who struggle, but it struggles alongside them. This love hopes in all things. Even in Darfur, Sudan were hundreds of thousands have been murdered in genocide, this love remains. Even in Central and South America were people have been taken from there homes never to be seen again, this love remains, not only remains, but it grows. It cannot be destroyed and cannot be overwhelmed. This love is eternal. Paul says that all things will pass away. Prophesies will cease, human knowledge will diminish all human endeavors will be gone, the only thing that will remain is love because this love comes from God. God does not love, God is love. God’s very nature, God’s very being is love. Just as God is eternal, so this love will be eternal.

Do you love like this? If you do please come and take over for me, because even as your pastor I have failed to love like this fully. I think we all have failed at some point, but that’s ok. God understands. We work toward that love; we work to what in the United Methodist tradition is known as Christian perfection. John Wesley called Christian perfection, perfect love of God and neighbor. This is our goal in the Church and we work together using our gifts toward that perfect love?

Before we were formed in the womb, God had plans for us, a purpose, a meaning for our lives. It is to love. That is the meaning of life, to love God and to love one another. Oh, if we could do that and see what joy it could bring. If we could treat one another with this kind of love what a glorious thing that would be. We work toward that goal and one day when all weapons of war, when all words of hate and bigotry have ceased, we will all love agape love and we can join together in that great heavenly choir and sing praises of love for eternity. Until then I will close and let us cling this morning with the same words that Paul closes chapter 13 with “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.