Past our comfort zone. February 3, 2019 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

1 Corinthians 12:31b-13:13, Luke 4:21-30

Love is patient, love is kind...beautiful words written by the apostle Paul to the church in Corinth.  And because these words about love are, indeed, so lovely in this 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, it’s probably the most popular scripture read at Christian weddings.  Given that context, it’s easy to think that what Paul is doing here is praising the value of romantic love, but actually that’s far from the truth.  Rather than romanticizing love with abstract language, Paul speaks about love in concrete terms of what love does and does not do.  Love shows patience.  Love acts with kindness.  Love doesn’t let the ego get caught up in envy or boasting.  Love does not act out of selfishness.  Bottom line: love pursues the good of others. 

And if we have any questions about what this actually looks like, well, Jesus is always a good person to turn to.  Our gospel reading today picks up mid-story where last week’s reading left off.  Jesus is back home in Nazareth attending a service in the synagogue where he reads from the prophet Isaiah.  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  The love that we hear about in 1 Corinthians is the message that Jesus proclaims in both word and deed - good news, release, sight, freedom, and God’s favor for all. 

And initially Jesus’ neighbors, the folks from Nazareth, like what they hear.  The gospel of Luke tells us that, “All spoke well of [Jesus] and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”   The hometown crowd was happy and everyone was feeling the love.  But Jesus, it seems, just can’t leave well enough alone.  He pushes his listeners by highlighting for them that God’s love and good news doesn’t just apply to their group, their people, the ones they deem as deserving, but to everyone - which specifically includes outsiders, foreigners, the unclean, and even out right enemies of Israel.  And when the people let these words sink in and really hear them their awe turns into rage.  How dare he!  Incensed, the crowd gets up, drives Jesus out of town, pushes him toward a cliff with the intent of throwing him over.  Their efforts fail though as Jesus is able to pass through the angry mob and continue on his way. 

Now it may be hard for us to really get why this crowd got so riled up.  I mean, the message of God’s love for all doesn’t sound so offensive to us - that is until, God’s love goes too far.  Too far by bestowing the good news of release, sight, freedom, and favor on those who we don’t think deserve it or have in no way have earned it.  For first century Palestinian Jews, that group included a starving foreign widow and a leprous Syrian commander.  For twenty-first century white American Christians, what people do you think might Jesus challenge us with?  Who might push the boundaries of God’s love?  Muslims?  Immigrants?  African Americans?   Sadly, these the beloved people who make up these groups have been transformed into issues - hot button political issues that are used to divide us one from another.  And in order to keep the peace, in at least one sphere of our lives, the temptation is to ignore such topics when we come to church.  But as much as I’d like to just keep the message of God’s love as generic and inoffensive as possible, doing so would not be a faithful hearing or preaching of the text today.  For Jesus is just not willing to leave well enough alone.  He intentionally confronts and challenges his listeners to hear that God’s good news is radical good news.  If we want to follow him that means we are to love in ways that genuinely and actively seek the good of all.   And those ways of love will push us past our comfort zones.  So if you, like I, are feeling a bit uneasy right now that probably means that we are beginning to get a better sense of what Jesus is trying to tell us.

  

Now don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think anyone here would argue that God’s love is for everyone.  Nonetheless, I am quite sure that there are honest, sincere, and faithful differences of opinions about how we, as individuals, and we, as a Christian community, are called to live out our mission of sharing Christ’s love with the world. 

So what do we do when we don’t all agree?  Well, depending on your point of view this may be heartening or horrifying to know that almost since the very beginning followers of Jesus have struggled with how to live together as one.  It’s actually what prompted Paul to write about love in the first place because the Corinthian church was fraught with disagreements.  If they weren’t arguing over what type of food to eat then they were bickering over who had the superior spiritual gift.  With this in mind Paul calls them to love.  To love in such a way that enables individuals to come together where unity and difference coexist.  And not just coexist politely because differences are ignored, but where unity and difference are acknowledged, respected, and even celebrated. 

Living out this kind of love is no easy task.  In fact, it’s so remarkable that in the gospel of John Jesus says that one of the primary ways others will know God’s truth is by seeing the love we have for one another even when we differ.  Thank God, though, that we are not left to our own devices and capacity for love.  We are only able to love this way because, as Paul tells us, we are already fully known and loved by God.  And that love has no limits.  It never, ever ends.  It is this eternal, divine love that we here at Church of Our Saviour are drawn into.  It is this love that fills us and forms us, sometimes pushing us and challenging us, so that we all might become better lovers - lovers for God’s sake, for the sake of one another, and ultimately for the sake of the world.