May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all
our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Today I was given a number of
good possibilities to talk about. Our
Old Testament talks about the power of God to speak through his chosen
messengers. How God chose prophets to
deliver his message and carry out his plans.
Our Gospel reading continues this
theme through the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. It talks of the works that he had done in
Capernaum and about his reception in his home town. It addresses an all too common issue. It is extremely hard to believe that the neighbour
we have known all our lives could possibly have the answers that we have been
looking for. It is much easier to
believe that the stranger coming through town might be able to help us in our
times of trouble. Especially when it
comes to carrying out God’s will.
These readings carry a very
important message. Thankfully it is a
message that I don’t think you need to hear.
You have been doing very well with the messengers that God has provided
for you here in your midst. You have
shown faith in the leaders among you who have given voice to God’s call here in
this place.
Our psalm passage today is a
prayer about faith and trust. It is a
good prayer, but not much to base a sermon on.
So that leaves our reading
from the first letter to the Corinthians.
“If I speak with tongues of
mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging
cymbal.”
Have any of you ever had a
doctor who was very good at medicine but really bad with people? I have. Is that the kind of doctor you would want to go
to again? Mine wasn’t my doctor for
long. I would rather go to a doctor who
treats me as an individual whom she is interested in than one who is up to date
on all of the latest treatments and medicines.
How about you? Why is it that the
people skills of our doctors are so important?
After all, we don’t usually go to them for social visits. We go to them because we are sick and need
their professional advice and medical care.
“If I have prophetic powers,
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as
to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”
There is an easy answer to
why we want our doctors to have good people skills.
God created us with souls!
There is no way for us to
separate our physical beings, our bodies, from our spiritual beings, our
souls. When we go to someone to get
their care, whether we think about it or not, we want them to care for our
whole beings. We want them to care for
our bodies and our souls. We need them
to care for both our bodies and our souls.
The body part is easy. We can see
each other’s bodies. We are used to
responding to what they tell us. It is
much harder to care for our souls. We
can’t see them directly. We can only see
them through our bodies, and that view is like looking into a fogged up
mirror. But this is what we are looking
for when we want our doctor to be more than a medical robot.
But this reading doesn’t just
apply to doctors. It is for us too. It teaches us how to care for each other and
for everyone we meet. It teaches us
about what it really means to be a Christian.
We could study the Bible from front to back. Read all the best commentaries. Follow all the rules laid out in its
pages. Give away everything we have and
devote our entire lives to do God’s work.
But if we do all of that because the Bible says we should, that doesn’t
make us special. That doesn’t make us
Christian. That doesn’t even make us
good people even if we are responsible for lots of good work.
“If I give away all my
possessions, and if I had over my body so that I may boast, but do not have
love, I gain nothing.”
What the Bible tries to show
us over and over again, what Jesus tries to tell us over and over again, is put
very well in the Summary of the Law. Do
you remember that? We don’t say it as
often since we started using the Book of Alternative Services.
“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
The biggest message in the Bible is love. First and foremost, God loves me! Once I believe that, it is not a big step to
loving myself. Next, God loves you. If God loves you, I should love you too. Finally, if I love myself and I love you, and
all of us are created in the image of God, that I love God. Now I am in the right place. We are in the right place. We are in the place of love. All the rest, the prophecy, the good works,
the healing, they all come from that love.
And because they come from that love, they have meaning. Because they come from that love, they make
an impression on those we meet and they endure.
Because they come from that love, they come from God and they help us
and those we meet get closer to God.
“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and
the greatest of these is love.”
Why is love the greatest? Because when we have love, when we know that
God loves us, we can’t help but have faith.
And with faith there is hope.
Thanks be to God!
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