Sermon: “Love. Love. Love.”
Did you notice how many times the word LOVE was in the gospel today?
Did you listen to the grand love story from Genesis about Joseph forgiving and loving his brothers? It was and is all about love.
Love is all we need, Beatles sang.
Love is all you need, Jesus said. Again, and again. Love is at the center of everything Jesus said, did, preached, touched, healed, yes even died for.
Love is the foundation for our faith: as it is the foundation of our life: “Now faith, hope and love abide, these three. But the greatest of these is love.”
Love comes in so many shapes and forms. We just celebrated the romantic rosy kind of love on Valentine’s Day with roses, kisses and dinners. But why dont we set the commercial side of Valentines aside, to focus on what love truly is and can be. So much more than romance and flowers.
Last Monday on Valentine’s Day I celebrated love in all its grandeur and strength, and we can do so today too:
· Love to our spouses, partners, wives, husbands, lovers, girlfriends and boyfriends. Love to our children and grandchildren. Love to our siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins and even in-laws.
· Love for our friends and faithful supporters. Love for our pets. For our church, country and community.
· Love for the ones we are missing as time has separated us by choices, coincidences, fate or even death.
Let us celebrate love, as love is truly all we need.
· We dont need to bring flowers on Valentine’s Day to show our love.
· We do not need to remember flowers and cards on Mother’s Day to show our love.
· We dont need to buy fancy or fun gifts on Father’s Day to show our love.
· We do not need to buy an abundance of present for Christmas to show our love.
We need to show love in action, in words, in hugs, in comfort, in laughter, in tears, in forgiveness, in presence. All we need is love, to lift us, encourage us, strengthen us, comfort us, and make us whole.
That is one of the reasons why I cherish being your pastor. Because being a pastor is being in the line of love – called by Jesus who called us to love.
All the many different and varied parts of my job as a pastor is to walk with people through life with love as the ever-present companion.
When a small child is brought to church and carried to the baptismal font, it is carried in the arms of love. By loving parents to a loving God. All the worries and all the joy are united in that love that transcends like a beautiful dove and blesses the little child to a life of love. “You are my child, the beloved,” God says – and we believe it. Because we believe in love.
When a couple finds love to be so strong and so right that they long to promise forever and ever and to love until death separates them, - it is a profound priviledge to celebrate that love here in church. “It is not good for man to be alone,” God said. And we know and we do yearn for love and companionship. And the language of love can only be for ever and ever, as we cannot put a time on love. And we ask God to bless that love. Because we believe in love.
When a young person on his or her way through the difficult years of being a teenager, come to church, to confirmation classes, - maybe urged by their parents, maybe urged by tradition, maybe by the promise of gifts and celebration, maybe out of curiosity or conformity or faith - it is all a time of conversation and ceremony to confirm that these young people regardless of differences or doubts are confirmed in the blessing of baptism as a beloved child. As a young person on his or her way through choices, struggles, self-esteem or loneliness it is a loving embrace by a loving God. You are indeed beloved, blessed and beautiful. Because we believe in love.
When families, couples or individuals struggle with life, forgiveness, bitterness, sadness, anger, loneliness or loss, it is my finest priviledge as a pastor to walk through this time of sorrow, despair or worry with them…. And spend loving time of listening, silence, comfort to hopefully find a way forward to life and love again. Because we believe in love.
And when you come to me as your pastor in times of loss and grief, it is my job to walk with you through that time and state of sorrow that death puts us in. It is a time of very private intimate conversations of love and sickness, trauma and death, loneliness and grief, yes even anger. It is a time to comfort, to remember, to reconcile, to hope, and it is a time to share the loss and grief, and the love and the gratitude. Because we believe in love.
All we need is love. And God is love.
It is a blessed privilege and a holy time to be able to share all these times and ceremonies, conversations and silences, tears and laughs through life and through love. Faith, hope and love. These 3. And the greatest of these is love. Love can hurt and leave us heartbroken. But love is also the only power that can call us back to life again, open our hearts again and start believing again.
Love to the other. Love to God.
Every day and every hour of the ministry of Jesus was founded on love: Jesus met the world, the crowds, the widows, the children, the poor, the hungry, the marginalized, the strangers, the sick, the dying, yes even the dead with an unstoppable love.
Jesus Christ and his life was a testament to the power of love. Christianity is this powerful and timeless story about sin and death wanting to have the last word, as Jesus was among us and when he ended his life on the cross. Jesus too felt the despair and the fear of death, and he died…. But rose again. Truly conquering sin and death, and we believe that there is no power stronger than the power of love. And God is love. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. Not to condemn. But to save. Love restores life. Love remembers. Love reconciles. Love mends. Love never ends. Love builds bridges between now and then.
The fantastic story about Joseph and his deceiving brothers is a mesmerizing story about forgiveness and reconciliation…. And love. “ …. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them, and after that his brothers talked with him.” There is a wonderful story of reconciliation to be found in these words. A heartfelt kiss and a relived cry can be the beginning of something new…. that is indeed love building life again.
The gospel today is about love. And about the width and breadth and dept of love. That love is not just meant for those we know, those we can easily love, - but love is meant for those we have a heard time loving. “Love your enemies.” Jesus said.
Do more. Bless those who curse you. Turn the other cheek. Do to others as our would have them to do to you. Do not judge, do not condemn, forgive and give. …..
That is the language of love. Unconditionally love.
Love is what inspired Ghani to lead a nonviolent revolution that won India independence, + by turning the other cheek as Jesus taught. Love is what led Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu to work and pray for an end to apartheid. Love is what led Mother Theresa to pick up countless ill and impoverished people in the streets of Calcutta. Love is what give mothers and fathers strength to fight for the children health and life.
To speak of love and to preach love as Jesus did, is not just to speak of a warm fuzzy feeling. To speak of love is to speak with fire and passion.
We are not all Mandela’s, Tutus or Grandis. We have so many other names, but we are still called to love and believe in love. And we do so if we put love first in our actions and words, just like Jesus called us to:
Do to others as you would have them do to you, do not judge, forgive and give, love your families and friends, yes even try to love those you have a tough time loving. That is the way of Christ. That is the way of love.
What will last tomorrow, is not who won Superbowl, or got nominated for an Oscar – but what will last tomorrow and in the great scheme of things is how welived and loved and believed in love.
And love is truly all we need. So, love and believe in love. Amen