The Fourth Sunday in Lent - March 6

Unconditional Forgiveness

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Last week I mentioned how well the words of the Ash Wednesday liturgy capture the meaning of Lent.  But there are some words in that liturgy that often give me pause.  We all say the sweeping and profound Litany of Penitence, naming the many ways we sinfully fall short of God’s hope for us.  The litany is followed by the absolution where we affirm that God “pardons and absolves all those who truly repent, and with sincere hearts believe his holy Gospel.”

Those who “truly” repent and those whose faith is “sincere.”  Those words make God’s pardon sound conditional.  Not only must we repent, we must “truly” repent and we must have sincere faith, as well.  We have to meet those conditions before God forgives or absolves.  And how true must our repentance be?  How do we measure the sincerity of our faith?  How do we know if we’ve met God’s conditions?  The idea that God’s forgiveness is conditional on some standard we must meet troubles me.

Today’s epistle and Gospel readings suggest God’s forgiveness is unconditional.

Unconditional forgiveness.  What do you think about unconditional forgiveness?

The Ash Wednesday absolution always makes anxious, worrying about what criteria are necessary to qualify for God’s forgiveness.  But I am also uncomfortable in the world of unconditional forgiveness.  Unconditional.  Forgiveness given by God without any requirements, conditions, or expectations for that forgiveness.

Looking first at the epistle.  Paul’s relationship with the church in Corinth is troubled.  It’s become personal.  They have challenged his ministry and his authority; he has written back expressing hurt and defending his ministry.  Everybody feels hurt and wronged.  Some of the really puffed up disciples in Corinth commend Paul’s chastisement (of others) but rebuke his gentleness at the same time.  He can’t win.

In the midst of this very messy situation, Paul writes this meditation on forgiveness and grace that we heard this morning.  It’s a meditation on God’s grace and forgiveness.  Remember this line in particular, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.”  Not counting their trespass against them.

What follows is my second-hand interpretation of a summary of a theologian’s reflection on God’s forgiveness (David E. Frederickson summarizing John D. Caputo HERE).  Paul talks about no longer looking at the world from a human point of view.  There are two ways to think about forgiveness:  the human way and the divine way that Paul is describing in this passage.

The human view of forgiveness depends on reasons, excuses, or confession;  it is conditional.  These conditions in a sense “buy” back the debt incurred through the injury.  The wrong doer confesses, explains, compensates and then forgiveness is granted.  It’s a transaction that depends upon the sinner meeting the required conditions.  God’s forgiveness, however, seeks to exist apart from any economic consideration. It seeks to be pure and absolute. Its logic, against the logic of common sense, demands that only the unforgivable can be forgiven, only that which is not forgotten, blotted out, cleansed, or purified, can be given back to the wrong doer as a gift with no strings attached. If one is moved to forgive based on the repentance of the offender or some proclivity of the sinner which excuses the wrong then it ceases to be forgiveness. Likewise, forgiveness offered because it heals the one who forgives (which may indeed happen) is no longer forgiveness in the strict sense. Forgiveness requires there be no reason for it. It must be a pure gift.

The human way of looking at forgiveness is as a transaction, conditional.  For God, it is pure gift.  Forgiveness is given by God purely out of God’s love and mercy.  There are no conditions.  You don’t have to earn it or qualify for it.  You don’t even have to want it.  God gives forgiveness unconditionally.  Which is to say God forgives murderers, even if they don’t seek forgiveness.  It can be an uncomfortable idea, this unconditional forgiveness.

But we live in this new creation, Paul says.  Christ brought a new creation where God’s grace and forgiveness are truly given unconditionally.  And furthermore, Paul says, we are not just recipients of this grace and forgiveness, but participants in this new creation, participants in offering God’s unconditional grace and forgiveness to others.

So what do you think about unconditional forgiveness?  What do you think of God squandering forgiveness on people who don’t deserve it, who may not even want it?  What do you think of God wasting forgiveness, apparently without a thought?  What do you think of a God who gives forgiveness away like a prodigal?

To waste or squander without thought of value.  That’s what prodigal means.  God forgives prodigally.

The Gospel reading today is the familiar parable of the prodigal son.  But note the context.  Jesus is eating with sinners and tax collectors.  And the religious authorities are grumbling. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”   And the Scriptures don’t say that the sinners needed to confess first, or be purified, or meet any other conditions.  Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors.

The parable is told as a response to the discomfort of the religious authorities to Jesus’ unconditionally sharing a meal with people who were not worthy.

And, technically, it’s not clear that the prodigal son ever actually repented.  His return could be just another scheme to get money and food out of his father.  I’ll tell him this, the son says…  maybe that will work.  Or maybe his was truly penitent.  We can’t know.  But in the parable the father runs out to greet him, embraces him and welcomes him before the son has said a word.  Unconditional forgiveness.

So what do you think about unconditional forgiveness?

It’s very comforting and reassuring to think that it’s offered to me.  God loves and forgives me unconditionally.  There isn’t some standard I have to achieve before God will forgive or bestow grace.

It’s harder, of course, to think of God offering unconditional forgiveness to everyone, to think of God prodigally squandering forgiveness on anyone and everyone.  No matter whether they deserve it or even want it.

So for me, the bottom line is that whenever we want to come him, the door is open.  Whenever you or I want to come home, the door is open wide.  There’s no password, no conditions, nothing we have to prove.  Nothing.  The table is set.  The fatted calf is prepared.  We are welcome.

And, for me, trying to hang on to the belief that the same unconditional grace and forgiveness are offered to others brings me closer to God.  Remembering God’s unconditional mercy for others brings me closer to God and enables me to at least begin to live, as Paul encourages us, as an active participant in God’s new creation.

The Third Sunday in Lent - February 28

Repent

Luke 13:1-9

What would it take to really bring home to you the need for repentance?  What would it take to get your attention?  That’s what Jesus is doing in today’s Gospel passage.  He’s trying to shake up the disciples into an awareness of their own need for repentance.

In Luke’s Gospel, this story is part of a series of events where Jesus is teaching his disciples and the broader group gathered around him.  This particular event is unique to Luke’s Gospel.

It touches upon the persistent question.  Why does suffering happen?  Why does calamity strike some people and not others? Answering these questions is not Jesus primary point, although he does address them.  Jesus point is to rattle the disciples’ into a recognition of their need for repentance.

Jesus refers to two historical events that we know nothing else about.  Evidently Pilate murdered some Galileans while they were in the midst of offering sacrifices to God.  In another instance a tower, perhaps in the walls of Jerusalem, fell, killing eighteen people.

The implied question is:  Did these people die because of their own fault?  Were their deaths punishment for their sin?

Jesus is VERY clear.  These people did not suffer because of their fault.  Suffering is not God’s way of punishing sin.  The occurrence of suffering does not prove some particular state of sinfulness.

Never think that about yourself or about someone else.  Jesus is very clear.

Perhaps more importantly for the disciples and for us, implicit in Jesus’ words:  Don’t assume that just because a tower has not fallen on you that means you are right with God.  The absence of calamity does not prove that everything is right between you and God.

There’s one more very important thing Jesus is saying.  Sin does produce suffering.  God does not produce suffering as a punishment for sin.  Sin itself produces suffering.  Not all suffering is the result of sin.  Calamities just happen.  But sin does produce suffering.  Our sin produces suffering.  Within ourselves, in our relationships with people we care about, and in the world.  As St. Paul says in Romans, the wages of sin is death.  Our sin kills our souls.  Kills our relationships.  And can kill others.

In today’s collect we pray to be saved from our own evil thoughts that assault our souls.  Our sin of pride or covetousness kills our relationships.  And while the people from Jerusalem who were crushed by the falling tower did not die as a result of their sin (Jesus is very clear on that), it is possible that they died as the result of a greedy builder who cut corners on quality or safety to save a few pennies.

So repent.  Sin causes suffering.  Your own sin kills.

Jesus is saying to the disciples and those gathered around:  You think being killed by Pilate is bad?  You think having a tower fall on you is bad?  The consequences of your own sin are worse…

God is concerned about our sin.  But if we think of our sin as a problem that God seeks to fix, there are two possible ways God might respond to the “problem of sin.”  One would be to impose justice through punishment.  The other is to seek reconciliation through forgiveness.

One commentator writes:  "[Why do you say that] sin requires punishment? Is God not able to forgive sin? Indeed, aren’t punishment and forgiveness rather antithetical, when you think of it? That is, each is a way of dealing with a problem, but not that compatible. If someone has “paid for sin” then there is no need to forgive. And if one has truly forgiven, then there is no payment required."

God doesn’t punish.  God seeks reconciliation and new life.  God’s hope is that out of sin, new fruit will be born.

The Gospel reading we heard today has two parts.  The first part where Jesus calls for the disciples’ repentance and the second part about the fig tree…  the fig tree that has failed in the past, but God saves it, nurtures it and so deeply yearns for it to become fruitful.

This passage not meant to be about the meaning of suffering.  Jesus is clear that the tragedies he cites had no meaning.  It’s about the seriousness of sin and a call to repentance.  And the promise of reconciliation and renewed fruitfulness.

It’s actually all there in our Ash Wednesday service.

In that service the Church invites us all to the observance of a holy Lent:  Remembering Jesus’ passion and resurrection, the season of Lent became a time in which “the whole congregation was put in mind of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.”  All Christians.  All of the time.  Need to renew our repentance and faith.

What does it take to bring that message home to you?

But the fig tree is in the Ash Wednesday service, too.  After we say the sweeping and profound litany of penitence, there is an equally sweeping and profound absolution.  The absolution begins with these words:  “Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who desires not the death of sinners, but rather that they may turn from their wickedness and live…

God pardons and absolves.  Restores, reconciles, renews…  That is God’s hope for us; God’s response to our sin.

The Second Sunday in Lent - February 21

Lifestyle Choices
Luke 13:31-35

Two different ways of life are outlined in today’s Gospel. Two different ways of living.

One might be called the Jesus movement. I had a harder time coming up with a name for the Jerusalem one. The Jerusalem heap/rat race/lifestyle…

The Jesus movement. And the Jerusalem lifestyle.

In the Gospel passage Jesus is warned to flee because evidently Herod is out to kill him. I love Jesus’ reply. He says: Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow. I can’t flee; I’m busy. Today and tomorrow.

His calendar is full. He’s busy bringing hope and healing. He won’t be deterred from God’s work, even at the threat of death. The Jesus movement.

Then there is Jerusalem, or the people of Jerusalem. Who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to them. People who are so unwilling to be deterred from their personal agendas by anything related to God that they silence God’s voice in their midst. They would rather, in the extreme, kill God than have to hear God’s voice or do God’s work.

The phrase “Jesus movement” comes from our relatively new Presiding bishop, installed back in November. I’m sure others have used the phrase before him, but it is a hallmark of his preaching and leadership. We are the Jesus movement, he says. We are the Jesus movement!

I like the phrase because it connotes activity or action. To “be a Christian” is a very good thing, but it does have sort of a static sound to it. A movement, on the other hand, goes somewhere, does something. The Jesus movement is active.

And that activity, Bishop Curry says, works to fulfill God’s dream for the world. Participants in the Jesus movement go out of their way to make things right. To work for reconciliation, between human beings and between human beings and God.

Living the Jesus movement means being busy in the world, with a calendar full of God’s work of hope, healing and reconciliation.

That’s one way of life, being a participant in the Jesus movement.

Or there’s being an inhabitant of Jerusalem, a participant in the Jerusalem lifestyle. Being someone for whom anything and everything other than God’s work is more important. Everything else is more important than God’s work.

Remember: there are other ways to silence God’s prophets besides crucifying them. There are other ways to eliminate God’s presence other than crucifixion. Indifference to God’s word in our lives. Choosing (and it is always a choice!) to fill our calendars with godless activities. Ignoring God’s call to serve others in his name. Tolerating or turning away from injustice in our world.

In today’s Gospel Jesus also expresses tender yearning to care for those very people of Jerusalem, and he grieves or laments that they are unwilling even to be cared for. I pause to wonder sometimes at the depth of grief God must feel looking upon our world. It’s unimaginable.

So what does this mean for us? What about you or me? Are we participants in the Jesus movement or in the Jerusalem lifestyle? There isn’t really any middle ground. Anytime you are not doing God’s work, you’re living the Jerusalem lifestyle. Anytime something other than God’s work is more important to you, you’re in Jerusalem. There is no middle ground. So all of us move back and forth from one to the other. Only Jesus, I think, can live the Jesus movement 100% of the time. And none of us is Jesus. We spend some percentage of our time in the Jesus movement and some percentage in the Jerusalem lifestyle.

What percentage of your time are you living the Jesus movement?

Something to think about during Lent.

The First Sunday in Lent - February 14

God Acted
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Luke 4:1-13

The Old Testament reading appointed for today is from a portion of Deuteronomy that provides instructions for worship. They are written as a speech by Moses to the people, but they are very specific guidelines for worship. In a sense, they are an excerpt from an ancient Hebrew Book of Common Prayer.

The people are instructed to take the first fruits of the harvest; place them in a basket; gather together at the place of worship; then say: “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.”

Next, the priest takes the baskets of produce and sets them before the altar.

Then the people are instructed to say: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…” We had to memorize that passage in seminary, the passage that begins “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…” Then it was translated “A wandering Aramean was my father.” The Hebrew word probably is “father.” It refers to Jacob, father of the twelve tribes of Israel.

This is a VERY important passage in the Hebrew Scriptures. Remember, it is recited by the people within worship. It has been described as the creed of the ancient Israelites.

We recite creeds, of course, in worship. In just a bit we’ll say together the Nicene Creed.

At their most fundamental level, think about what creeds are. They are statements of who we are, what identifies or defines us as a group. They describe how we understand our relationship with God. As we say them in worship, they have the power to form us as God’s people.

This creed sounds quite different from ours. Our Christian creeds are statements of belief. Sentences in our creeds start out “I believe” or “we believe”.

Listen to how sentences start in this creed:
[Jacob] went down to Egypt and there he became a great nation. (The Egyptians treated us harshly.)
We cried to the Lord.
The Lord heard our voice.
The Lord saw our affliction.
The Lord brought us out of Egypt.
The Lord brought us into this place, a land flowing with milk and honey.
So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.

These are action statements. And God is the subject of most of them. God’s action is the focus, rather than the peoples’ belief. This Hebrew creed, of course, has implications for the peoples’ beliefs about God, just as our creeds refer to ways that God has acted in our lives. But the primary focus is very different.

Could you imagine writing your faith story using active God statements?  Some of you know or have been taught the value of using “I” statements in some settings, particularly relationships. And they are valuable. But I wonder if we don’t use too many “I” statements in our relationship with God. Think about using sentences where God acts to describe your life. Or start with something smaller like the journey of this Lent. Or that just a day, today or tomorrow, and describe God’s action in your life. And not just in general terms like God is with me, or God loves me today, but in specific events of your life. God acted…

The exercise is a little tricky, at least for me. Because I don’t believe that God micromanages or predetermines every detail of our individual lives. But I do fervently believe that God is active in our individual lives in specific situations… and we often don’t notice.

Examples of action God statements we might be able to make:
God turned my heart from anger… this morning when so-and-so made me angry.
God heard my prayer for guidance…
God showed me the right way in the specific choice that lay before me…
God opened my eyes to see some need or wonder that I would not have seen on my own…
God saved me from temptation…

Lent, particularly today, draws our attention toward temptation. At the end of the journey of Lent will you be able to say anything about God’s actions in your life? We need God’s help to resist temptation. Only Jesus resists temptation on his own. On this first Sunday of Lent we always have one of the accounts of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness and Jesus’ power to resist temptation. Also on this first Sunday of Lent, always coupled with one of those readings, we have the collect where we acknowledge our weakness and cry out for God to help us, to save us, to strengthen us just where we need it. So, as we journey through Lent we might describe that journey with God statements.

Today I failed in my Lenten discipline, but in humility and penitence I turned to God and God forgave me.

Or, today God helped me to withstand temptation. It takes God’s help. It takes God’s action.

So try it. Try describing your faith, or your day, or your Lenten journey with sentences that describe God’s action in your life.

 For a model, we have the creed of our ancestors:
We cried to the Lord.
The Lord heard our voice.
The Lord saw our affliction.
The Lord brought us out of Egypt.
The Lord brought us into this place, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Ash Wednesday - February 10

A Clean Slate
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

A smudge of ash on the forehead. This day is about a dirty smudge on the forehead.

On Ash Wednesday we are reminded that we are ashes, dust. Without form or substance. Left over. No use. Lifeless. This is what you are. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. It is the power (and, I think, paradoxically also the appeal) of this service to get us to that place of ashes and dust.

Once a year we starkly face our mortality. Our nothingness. You are dust!

It’s a powerful experience, but thank God it’s just for this one day.

Except. You’ve heard me talk about the church calendar. I love the calendar, it’s cycle of seasons and holy days, and the richness it brings to our worship life. And, as I’ve said before, all of the seasons of the calendar are actually true all of the time. The seasonal cycle helps us focus in turn and experience particular aspects of our identities and mission as Christians. But, in fact, all of the seasons are part of who we are all of the time. Just as surely as we are Easter people every day, all of us saints every day… Just as we are people of Advent anticipation and Christmas joy every day… so we are also Ash Wednesday people every day!

We are not ashes just on Ash Wednesday. Remember that you are dust. Every day.

But remember also that being Ash Wednesday people is about more than just being ashes. We forget that. We think that this day, Ash Wednesday, and thank God it is just this one day, is all about that smudge and nothing more.

But Ash Wednesday definitely is not just about ashes. It does remind us, as we surely need to be reminded (every day), that without God we are no more than dust. Without God’s forgiveness and renewal, we are just spent ashes. Without God’s grace we are lifeless. Everyday. Not just today.

Which is why it’s so important to remember that this service and this day are not just about us being dust and ashes.

Ultimately, Ash Wednesday is about a fresh start, a clean slate. Being Ash Wednesday people is about being given a clean slate. Not a smudge of ashes, a clean slate.

The imposition of ashes is just one of the features of today’s liturgy that is unique to Ash Wednesday. Shortly after the imposition of ashes we will recite the Litany of Penitence. Another thing that is unique to the Ash Wednesday service. It serves as a Confession of Sin. But it is not just a confession. It’s a Litany of penitence, a confession litany. Litanies are lists. Often long lists. Meant to be thorough, comprehensive. Maybe we should say it more often. We confess a lot in this service. It is meant to be a full confession for everything…

In the Litany we confess all the ways we have failed in our faith, the shallowness of our faith, the ways we ignore and turn away from God, our sins that estrange us from God, our negligence in worship, our indifference to sharing the Good News of God’s love with others.

We confess all of the ways we mar our relationships with one another. The pride, envy and selfishness that distort our relationships with those who are close to us and those in our broader communities.

We confess our waste and abuse of God’s creation, the blessings and beauty that God pours into our lives.

We confess everything!

And then there is absolution. We are absolved. Of everything. By God’s mercy given a fresh start, a clean slate.

Ash Wednesday shows us what is true every day. (1) Our profound need for God’s forgiveness. And (2) God’s even more profound love and mercy towards us. Don’t forget the second part. We do a good job, today, with the first—and we surely need that dose of humble mortality. I don’t think we always do as good a job focusing on the second part. And it’s really even more important. On this day, Ash Wednesday, God picks us up, dusts us off, renews a right spirit within us and gives us a new start.

Take that fresh start, that clean slate and use the disciplines of Lent to renew and restore your relationship with God.

Speaking of that smudge of ash, you may know there is some puzzlement among Christians about whether they should leave it on or wipe it off after the service. The Gospel reading appointed for Ash Wednesday highlights the issue. Jesus is very critical of people who publicly display their piety in order to be seen by others! When people ask me whether or not they should leave the ashes on I typically reply: Do whichever is harder for you. Are you boasting to others just a bit that you’ve been to church today? Then take them off. If you feel uncomfortable or self-conscious wearing your ashes, maybe you should leave them on.

But within the context of today’s sermon I have what I think is a much better idea for all of us. I wish that our liturgy for this day had within it a rite where all of us would wipe clean our ashes at the time of absolution. At that moment when the cross of absolution is made over the congregation, the cross of ashes on our foreheads would be wiped clean.

We receive ashes today, but ultimately being Ash Wednesday people is not about being left with a smudge of ash, but being given a clean slate, a renewed spirit.  Every day.

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany - February 7

Transfiguration Happens
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-43a

In the church calendar today is the Last Sunday after the Epiphany. Easter is early this year. Not absolutely as early as it can be, but pretty early. And that pushes Lent and Ash Wednesday early. The Epiphany season always begins on The Epiphany, January 6, and ends before Ash Wednesday. So its length accordians, depending on the date of Ash Wednesday. But no matter how many Sundays fall between The Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, we always celebrate the Last Sunday after the Epiphany on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. And on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, the Gospel lesson is always one of the accounts of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain top.

It is certainly an Epiphany story. Epiphany is all about the revelation of God’s glory in the person of Jesus. It’s about people seeing and recognizing God in Jesus. The revealing to others of God’s glory present in the man Jesus. The transfiguration is the ultimate Epiphany story.

And it’s a story, an event, that has a lot to teach us. But I wonder if we don’t often miss the most basic and most important lesson of this event.

 Transfiguration happens.

Transfiguration happens. It happens in the physical, temporal world in which we live.

Transfiguration happens.

You probably have a general sense of what the word “transfiguration” means… It’s in the Gospel story. But here’s the literal meaning of the word: To change into something more beautiful, more glorious.

Transfiguration is change. Change from one thing into something more beautiful or more glorious. And this story tells us that it happens in this world. Real change. God infused change. Not just long ago in a galaxy far away. Not just then, in a remote time or place. But real, God infused change into greater beauty and glory, right here in this world, this time.

 Transfiguration is how God works in the world in which we live.

There is some debate amongst scholars about which mountain in the Holy Land actually was the location for Jesus’ transfiguration. I like that uncertainty. Because it suggests that it could be any mountain, any time.

In the Gospel stories it is Jesus, the Son of God, who is transfigured. But Peter, James and John witness the transfiguration. Normal, flawed human beings are there. They witness the transfiguration.

Today’s epistle from Paul’s Second Letter to the Christians in Corinth states Paul’s conviction that regular human beings not only witness the transfiguration, but are transfigured themselves. We experience transfiguration. We are transfigured.

This passage is Paul’s reflection on the readings we heard today about Moses and about Jesus’ transfiguration: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”

All of us “are being transformed from one degree of glory to another.” Some translations say “from glory to glory.” The Christians in Corinth and all of us are being transformed, transfigured, into greater glory.

We pray for that in today’s collect, where we pray that we will “be changed into his [Christ’s] likeness from glory to glory.”

You’ll remember that today’s Gospel included two stories. The story of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain top and the story of the healing of the young boy not on the mountain top. They seem unconnected stories, and some commentators have puzzled over the inclusion of both of them But they are both transfiguration stories. They are both stories about God acting in this world to transfigure, to transform.

Transfiguration is real change into something more glorious. Do you believe that can happen? In our world? That people, things, can be changed into greater beauty and glory?

Transfiguration happens.

The story of Jesus’ transfiguration is a wonderful culmination to the Epiphany season. But it is also good that we have this story right before we begin Lent. For the last few days I’ve been Googling images of the transfiguration. It has been a popular subject for artists. The Transfiguration has long been more important in the eastern, Orthodox churches. There are some wonderful icons of the transfiguration. Before Ash Wednesday I’m going to pick my favorite and print it out. To use in my Lenten prayers. Because transfiguration is the promise of Lent.

Find an image that is meaningful for you and hang onto it this Lent. Remember, remind yourself, that transfiguration is the promise of Lent.

Lent isn’t just about self-discipline or denial, it’s about seeking our own mountain top. It’s about finding a place or making space for God to transform us. Lent isn’t just a somber or grim season; it’s a time to open ourselves to God’s transforming power.

So think about finding an image that works for you to remind you of Jesus’ transfiguration. Transfiguration is the promise of Lent. Lent is about remembering that transfiguration is promised to us.

Transfiguration happens. And it’s promised to us. In this world. In this time.

The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany - January 31

Living in Christian Community
1 Corinthians 13:1-13

The love chapter in First Corinthians.

This chapter contains some of probably the most often quoted words in Scripture. It’s very important to remember, though, that this chapter does not stand alone. We often hear it isolated from its context. But it does not stand in isolation from the rest of Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth.

In the 13th chapter of First Corinthians, Paul is not preaching a wedding sermon. He is still writing to the fractious Corinthians. This chapter follows immediately after the readings we’ve had for the last few weeks. Paul is still addressing the congregation of Christians in Corinth who are divided by competitiveness and envy.

Interpretation of this chapter is also complicated by the fact, as many of you may know, that there are several different words in Greek that are all often translated into English as “love.” The Greek word that Paul uses in this chapter does not mean romantic love. Sometimes it is translated into English as “charity,” although that also has connotations in English that don’t quite fit.

Maybe charitableness is a bit better. Or a Godly generosity of spirit. A way of relating to one another that is self-giving and shows a Godly generosity of spirit.

At the end of last week’s reading, Paul summarizes important spiritual gifts but then adds a phrase that is really an introduction to today’s reading: “And I will show you a still more excellent way.” Spiritual gifts are important for the common good, but now I will show you an even more excellent way. A way of living in community that is beyond measure. “Love is the shape of life that has been set free from the competition that is disrupting the Corinthian church” (Brian Peterson; HERE). 

This passage is not a description of love. Not a poetic ode to love. It is instruction on how to live in community. It is a description of the relationships that characterize Christian community.

In verses 4-8a, “love” is the subject of 16 verbs in a row; it happens in every phrase. That may not come through clearly in English translations, where love is described by some rather static adjectives (“love is patient, love is kind”). Instead, Paul’s claims are that love “shows patience” and “acts with kindness.” Here, love is a busy, active thing that never ceases to work. It is always finding ways to express itself for the good of others. The point is not a flowery description of what love “is” in some abstract and theoretical sense, but of what love does, and especially what love does to one’s brother or sister in the church (Peterson). 

It costs something to practice this sort of love. A person acting with Godly generosity of spirit does not seek to win or excel at the expense of others. There shall be no envy, boasting, arrogance or rudeness, Paul says. Those are all aspects of relationships that include competition or belittling of others. Give that up, Paul says. Give all that up.

Writing about this passage, John Wesley says: "The love of God, and of our neighbour for God's sake, is patient toward, all men. It, suffers all the weakness, ignorance, errors, and infirmities of the children of God; all the malice and wickedness of the children of the world: and all this, not only for a time, but to the end.”

The presence of this sort of love, is measured not by “how it feels.” In the context of 1 Corinthians, it would be better to say that the measure of love is its capacity for tension and disagreement without division (Peterson, quoting Krister Stendahl).

Thinking about this sort of love, this Godly generosity of spirit, as the quality of relationships within the Christian community, got me to thinking…

Could we think of the opportunity to practice this sort of love as a motivation to participate in Christian community? Is the opportunity to be active in this sort of relationship a reason to be a part of a church? The Christian community provides a place to practice Godly generosity of spirit. To show kindness and act with patience. To put aside envy and boasting. Even when it’s not easy.

Might we choose to come to church just so we can practice being kind and patient and charitable? God knows we all do need the practice.

It’s sort of like going to the gym or eating your vegetables or whatever example works for you. You do it. Maybe not always eagerly. Maybe not as frequently as you should. But you do it because it gets you to a place you want to be. It is the path towards a worthwhile goal.

And God knows the world needs a lot more Godly generosity of spirit. The larger communities in which we live and interact need more people acting with more Godly generosity of spirit towards one another. The church can be both a model and a place to practice. To work on our skill at maintaining relationships characterized by Godly generosity of spirit.

 The opportunity to practice Christian relationships is not the only reason to come to church, of course. We come to worship, to join our voices in praise of God. We come to be supported and sustained by the kindness and care of others. And we come to be renewed by the immeasurably generous love that God has for each of us.

Remember, as we seek to embody this Godly generosity of spirit, we are able to do so, however imperfectly, because we have been given the immeasurably generous love and care of God. Despite our frailties, despite our sin, despite our lack of faith, God’s infinitely generous love for each of us never fails.