Love in God’s House

A Sermon About Love That Leads Us Somewhere

By now having officiated at about a hundred weddings, I can no longer hear someone read 1 Corinthians 13 without also hearing the rustle of white satin, and the throat clearing of nervous grooms.

St. Paul’s famous paean to love is far and away the most popular scripture read at weddings—repeatedly selected by brides and grooms, I am sure, in sincere belief that Paul is talking about the romantic love that is saturating the moment.

Truth is, romantic love had not been invented 2000 years ago when Paul wrote. That would have to wait some thousand years more, until the high Middle Ages when damsels started bestowing tokens of affection on knights in white armor. But even their legendary affections paled in comparison to those of florid Victorians, whose hearts and flowers and baby angels turned marriages into pure celebrations of sentiment.

The fruits of Victorian imaginings were evident everywhere at the Seattle Wedding Show last weekend. Despite the fact that 50% of all marriages now end in divorce—or maybe sort of “whistling in the dark” because of it—the wedding industry pulled all the stops to display before couples every imaginable enhancement for their “big day.” Twenty-six different sorts of specialists lined up in booths, offering everything from traditional gowns and wedding cakes to exotic live entertainment and remote destinations for the ceremony. Tiers of iced layers in every shade, pastel parasols dyed to match bridesmaids’ gowns, fresh nosegays to festoon the guest chairs, it was all there on view for a mere $16 ticket.

Engaged couples were urged to get their hands stamped when leaving on Saturday so they could get back in on Sunday for free. Surely with a night to think about it they’d realize they were in over their heads in what the web site described as the “very intimidating and time consuming” process of planning a wedding. And so they should return and head for the booths of wedding consultants, who could be hired by the hour for advice, or retained to take over and manage the whole thing—just try being the officiant at one of those weddings!

The web site helpfully listed fifty different tasks couples needed to accomplish during the six to twelve months before the ceremony. Only one—“if you’re getting married in a church, meet with the officiant to discuss ceremony and pre-marital counseling—only one was anything Paul would even recognize.

That’s because the kind of love Paul is contemplating has nothing to do with romance in a marriage, but rather with relationships in a church.

In the chapter just before this, which we read last week, he writes of different gifts that members contribute to building up the community that praises and serves God. Paul says, “To each is given something that shows forth the Spirit for the common good,” and so no one member can say to another, “I have no need of you.”

In the chapter that follows, Paul gives an example of someone ready to participate in the church but only on their own terms, offering something that might be pleasing to themselves, but is of no real benefit to the others. No, Paul urges, the point is offering what builds up the church so it grows strong and vigorous and able to serve as God intends.

In between we find Corinthians 13, counsel offered by Paul to help everyone recognize the kind of self-giving love to which God calls us. Paul clarifies that he’s not asking for spiritual heroics here. He runs down the list of admired attributes in his own day—fervent religious practices we Anglicans would hardly recognize—but then he points out that no matter how praiseworthy a contribution appears on its own, to the donor or to others—everyone needs to stop and ask themselves “Does what I’m about to do, or not do, demonstrate Christ’s love for fellow believers?” Am I allowing the common good to make a significant claim on me, and taking to heart important needs beyond my own? Bottom line, am I building up God’s church?

Flashing back to the attitude so obvious in the 50-task list from the wedding show, is church possibly just a place I check in for the give and take I need at the moment, on my way to 49 other places? If so, says Paul, that’s a recipe for gaining little, and remaining little, as a Christian. In fact, he dares to say—and Paul does dare to offend when his point is important enough--it’s basically a childish way of relating to God’s church, keeping it at arm’s length, a mere shadow of what it could become to me, and in turn a mere shadow of what it could become to God’s world that’s waiting all around me.

If Paul could drop by St. Michael’s today, he’d find his advice about self-giving love is already being heeded. He’d discover that just by noticing the visionary leadership that’s been shown by our vestry during the past year. Debbie Bauer: piloting fresh options for Outreach, and then seamlessly adding Finance to her portfolio, simply because the need is there.

Joe Donahou: tirelessly sketching and re-sketching, meeting and explaining, burning through $800 worth of color toner and quality paper to lay our ever-evolving vision out before us, so we can see it for ourselves and say yes!

Brad Jarocki: with five kids of his own at home—not to mention a full time job—taking on the Youth Formation Commission so that other people’s kids, from nursery through Teen Stream, can have great opportunities to grow in faith.

Brian Olsavsky: energetically pioneering the Visioning work, then taking a four month sabbatical from that so he can step up and lead an awesome Capital Campaign

Christine Peterson: artfully crafting ways to draw all kinds of parishioners into sharing spiritual insights, piloting the all-new Advent Breather, preparing the prayer guide and vigil for the Capital Campaign, all the while preaching her heart out again and again.

Ben Prince: rustling an unruly welter of incomes and expenses into clear and concise reports, overseeing sound investment of Nora Cole’s bequest, and laying the foundations for future electronic giving.

Teri Quaranta: bringing her gentle warmth to preparing fellowship events throughout the year, even as she keeps up her commitments to Sunday School and worship planning.

Trish Rafa and Lori Birrell, together serving as the absolute dream team of wardens, tireless in the attention they devote to every issue as it emerges, and constantly encouraging and affirming everyone around them, including me.

And lest anyone fear that this great streak of self-giving might have peaked now that Joe and Christine and Ben are stepping off the vestry, know this: when nominees Anita Donahou, David Norris and Dave Korpi were asked if they could make time for one agenda item at the January meeting, they not only all instantly said yes, but all showed up early and stayed to the end.

One and all had 49 other things to do—they all have day jobs, families and friends. But it didn’t stop them, they carried on week by week and month by month just as Paul had hoped: in patient give and take with one another, never calling attention to themselves, never complaining, but always bearing and believing and hoping to build up the life of St. Michael’s parish, to the Glory of God.

And so today I am following St. Paul, and celebrating love in the church flowering right in front of my eyes. I gladly give today’s altar flowers in thanksgiving for the all the leaders of St. Michael’s—you know who you are. And I give them with all my heart. Amen.

Listen to the Sermon: