Sermons

The First Lesson There Is

So. Did everybody catch President Obama's State of the Union speech on Wednesday? That was pretty thorough, touched and more than touched on all the big issues as far as I could tell.

And it wasn't the only thing that made we wonder if I should be giving a State of the Parish speech today. You'll notice the gospel lesson is a continuation of the story of Jesus' inaugural speech based on Isaiah's prophetic words.

Jesus complains that a prophet is not without honor except in his own familiar home town, and he is not what you would call complimentary in this morning's address to the home town folks. Then again, I am not Ed Zelley, and I really have nothing but praises to sing.

I feel greatly supported by the leadership of others; our fine Wardens. How I will miss you Amy. Our really great Commission Leaders: both Gudorps, each in their own sphere of service. George Poppe and Tom Rahn, managing the money, Katherine Young and her Teams making fellowship among us, Nancy Torok and Suzanne Kozub leading our efforts in Christian Formation, Allison Inserro on the Communications and Lisa Olsen on the Outreach Effort. Jim Jarvis lead our Stewardhip teams this year. Great work. And our staff: Barbara and Bob, fellow Clergy, Donniiee in the office, thank you Karl for your wonderful work. And every body who worked with everybody who led. Its an admirable outfit for sure.

However, I was taken in today's lessons, not so much by the big speech theme, as by the other great one. Yes, its the second lesson today, but its really just about the first lesson there is for Christians. You know pieces of it by heart because of course that's what it is about. The heart:

These three then abide, faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.

Now now, you might think, is that avoiding the institutional issues of our life? You know, the tough ones. Well, I'm not so sure. The Natural Church Development research which is the basis of the program we will almost certainly entering into in the coming year, holds up eight quality characteristics of healthy and growing churches, each of them necessary to a church which can be so described. One of these is the characteristic of LOVING RELATIONSHIPS. "Unfeigned, practical love has a divinely generated magnetic power .... writes Christian Scwartz, Director of the Institute. And of course, he's right.

Although we do sometimes ask ourselves what we mean by the word - there's romantic love and friendship, and outreaching love and compassion. Schwartz research has characteristics like 'lots of laughter in church' and he asks things like: "how often do people share meals, go out for coffee". Loving relationships.

Paul makes it clear what we mean by love when he describes it. "Love is patient. Love is kind. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends."

Carl Klapper once witnessed to me that that was what church was all about. St. Luke's Episcopal Church.

Some people aren't so sure. Isn't love really another word for weakness they ask? In the old book, Song of the King Solomon, we are told that love is as strong as death. I believe that's the true truth. We must all bow down to Lord Death one way or another, but look, love is as strong, stronger even, if Jesus' resurrection means what I think it does.

Another objection is that its hard to measure. This is true. Its hard to put numbers on it, but that's because the wealth it generates is too big to measure as far as I can tell. Someone won 144 million dollars in the mega millions this weekend. My mind can't get around that and it has a number. Love is big, bigger than we can count.

So, if I'm really going to talk about the health and wealth and what's going on in St. Luke's Episcopal Church to any important degree, I suspect I most need to point to the things that speak of love, God's love for us and the way we share it. Or maybe you can point to it also. And what my job and your job is to do is to share it and rejoice.

Yes. I really think that's it. Its the first lesson.

Amen.

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