I Corinthians 13

The Power of Love

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Rev. Susan Cartmell

The Congregational Church of Needham

This month our worship theme is love. We started the month celebrating the tenth anniversary of the church's decision to become Open and Affirming .  Our vote to accept all people of every sexual orientation has caused us to be more open to all people but it has also transformed our own congregation. We have been more open to each other. When we took a stand on the side of love we discovered that we made it easier to talk about our own families, and we grew as a church. Then last week on Valentine's Day, Morgan Campbell preached about how to love when it is not easy to love. He told about a personal encounter he had with a woman who took a risk to defend people who were oppressed and he spoke about the way that love inspires our best.

Today we will talk about our experiences of love in our families. When it comes to love, we are all experts. We have all had an experience of being loved and of loving someone. We have all experienced romance, and I daresay most of us have known unrequited love. Many of us know what it feels like to love a child who is adorable. And many of us have experience loving someone who tested our patience.  Many of you have had the experience of loving someone secretly -someone who did not know you loved them. Maybe you have known the helpless feeling of loving  someone you hoped would change because of your affection, but they disappointed you and they would not or could not change in the ways that you hoped or imagined. Maybe you have known a love that broke your heart.

Shakespeare had us laughing at love in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", crying about love in "Romeo and Juliet", and marveling at love in "Antony and Cleopatra". It is a topic of universal interest.

Everyone thrives when they know someone loves them. Children who doubt that they are loved will fail to thrive - emotionally or even physically. Love is the primary ingredient in a good and happy home. It is the foundation of a functional family.

It was the quality and integrity of his love distinguished Jesus among the prophets of his day.  It was love that distinguished the first Christians from everyone else. The people in those early churches tried to live in light of Christ's example of love. Those churches included a diverse mix of humanity - Greeks and Romans, slaves and free, Jews and Gentiles all eating together and serving the poor in their community - distinguished themselves for their love. They were not perfect. But they did try hard to be loving.  Nowhere is that standard of love better articulated than here in Paul's letter to the Corinthians. This statement of Paul's stands out among the great pieces of literature in human history. With wisdom and poetry it is up there with the Gettysburg Address, or Hamlet's soliloquy. - articulating the meaning of love.   It reminds us all - even today- about the depth and power of love.  What can we learn from Paul for our lives today?

In the first place, love is patient and kind. When we love someone we are vulnerable. Love often humbles us, and causes us to face our own limits, and even re-think our assumptions. If we are resilient, love opens the door to a new sense of grace.

There was an interesting op ed piece in the Thursday Boston Globe. Joan Wickersham described a moment in the grocery store when her son was two. "Something had wrong from his point of view. I had said no he could not have that cereal or he had managed to kick off his boot and I had insisted he put it back on. Or he was just tired and cranky or maybe it was all of the above. He was crying  and I was trying to persuade him to stop when an old lady walked up to me and smiled at us, ‘Cherish this time; it goes by so fast.' I smiled but I was thinking ‘Lady are you nuts; she has forgotten what it was like, these long tedious afternoons yoked to a toddler. ...Raising children is thrilling and boring, fun, intensely moving, and sometimes heartbreaking. Things that you wait for never happen, and other things happen that you could not have anticipated."  {‘Cherish this time. It goes so fast' by Joan Wickersham, Boston Globe Thursday February 18, 2010 A 19} It took her twenty years to fully appreciate the wisdom of that woman's remark in the grocery store.

The key to love is to find a way to be patient when you feel tested. It is to find perspective when you are tired. It is to be kind when you have not much left to give. Sometimes the key to real love involves taking care of yourself so that you can actually care for others. All those years ago Paul understood our urge to use love as an excuse to mold people or perfect them. Love does not insist on its own way.

It takes discipline to hold your tongue. It takes a sense of humor to appreciate the silly side of someone else. It takes flexibility to see your own foibles. It takes grace to listen to someone - really listen and try to understand what they are saying.  It is not always easy to be patient and kind with the people you live with every day.

A long time ago I heard an interview with couple who were celebrating 60 years of marriage. This reporter asked the man how he and his wife lived together for so many decades. The man smiled and said that he would start each day in the bathroom. And he would look into the mirror as he washed his face. And many days he would look wistfully into the mirror raise his eyebrows, chuckle a little and say to himself, "You are no prize either." Love is patient and kind.

Secondly, love requires honesty. Paul is honest about love here in Corinthians.  He does not idolize love, but he describes it realistically. If I speak with the tongues of angels but fail to have love, my words ring hollow. If I have faith to move mountains but fail to show love, my faith is empty. It I am so wise that I understand all the mysteries but I fail to deal with people kindly my knowledge is empty. It means nothing. If I can lead others but not show mercy, my skills are not helpful. He says, if I do everything right but don't live with love, I have gained nothing for I am a hypocrite.

It is easy to romanticize love, but strong love  - the kind that sustains a relationship over time - requires some evaluation. It pushed us to acknowledge our own limits. It pushes us to do some soul searching. Often it requires that we admit that our partner will never be perfect. It requires us to adjust to the reality that no one will live up to our ideals. Love pushes us to see that we are no prize either.

A month ago Erich Segal died. He was a Yale professor who wrote a screen play about a romance between a Radcliffe girl from and Italian family and a Harvard boy from WASP blueblood parents. The movie "Love Story" became a sensation in 1970. One of the memorable lines from that movie was "Love means you never have to say that you are sorry."  While the romance was a huge hit, its advice was pretty simplistic, and even misleading.  The notion that love means you never have to say you are sorry flies in the face of mature experiences of love. Over time most of us learn that love requires that one thing we learn is how to apologize.  Love gives you the safety net to find the courage to face your own weakness, and admit your mistakes. Whatever you think about Tiger Woods statement on Friday, it seems that there is something strong in his marriage. It is something that has given him the strength to look at himself more honestly than most people cushioned by fame and fortune feel the necessity to do. But I imagine that the love he knows also strengthens him for this hard public work.  Love means you can rely on a relationship where you don't have to be perfect. Love requires honesty.  

                Finally, love can change you. Love is a great mystery in many ways. Love takes most of us by surprise and then it startles you with its power. We cannot predict what journeys love will take us on in life any more than we can see the future.  Love can propel you to act in someone's defense like an enraged mother bear. Love  can overwhelm you and distract you. It can make you jealous. Love scorned can drive people to violence; many of the homicides occur between people who find themselves in the throes of an intimate dispute. Love can confuse you for years, and it can bring you great comfort. Love can redeem great loss and change your understanding of yourself. Love has the potential to change us.   

                 Many of us think we can change other people with our love. We assume that our love will make someone different. He will stop drinking for me. She will get fit for me. She will be calm and less anxious because I love her. He will have higher self-esteem because I care for him. Often those illusions die hard. It is not about us or our love. But love has its limits. You cannot expect to change someone with your love, but you can change yourself by loving well. When you love someone with openness and integrity then you are a better person. You are transformed by your love.   

                I heard a story this week about a man who had been married for 30 years. He and his wife had a long-standing pattern of arguing from time to time but they always worked it out. But this time it seemed to be too hard to try. So they decided to get a divorce, and when he left on a business trip they were both angry. His travel took him to Salt Lake City and he was staying in a hotel there when he wandered into the wrong ballroom one afternoon. He sank down into a seat in the back and listened to a motivational speaker who happened to be talking about relationships. When the talk was over he went up to speak to the presenter and thank him. He admitted that after thirty years he was about to give up on his marriage. He had spent his time on the plane planning to separate but now he wanted to go back home and try again. He felt that walking into the wrong room at the right time was like getting a "dummy slap from God". He went home and found his wife in tears at the door relieved to see him, and frightened at the way he left.

                I know that not all relationships can be repaired, but often the quality of our love can transform us. Love can push us and prod us. It can bring us great joy. Love is one of the few things- the very few things that can change us, really change us for the better.  Faith, hope love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.