June 10, 2007

Lesson: 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:8a

Sermon Title: The Timelessness of Love

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. Why stop with the first part of verse 8?

    1. The rest of the verse reads:

8Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end, (1 Corinthians 13:8, NRSVA).

    1. There is too much to cover in one sermon.

  1. We contemplate beginning and ending, endings and beginnings.

A story is told of a little girl who was asked to write an essay on "birth" She went home and asked her mother how she had been born. Her mother, who was busy at the time, said, "The stork brought you darling, and left you on the doorstep."

Continuing her research she asked her dad how he'd been born. Being in the middle of something, her father similarly deflected the question by saying, "I was found at the bottom of the garden. The fairies brought me."

Then the girl went and asked her grandmother how she had arrived. "I was picked from a gooseberry bush," said Grandma.

Armed with this information the girl wrote her essay. When the teacher asked her later to read it in front of the class, she stood up and began, "There has not been a natural birth in our family for three generations ..."

    1. Strange beginning.

    2. Stranger genealogy.

    3. Strange ending.

  1. Beginnings and endings are a seemingly never-ending part of our lives.

    1. Packing and moving and unpacking.

      1. Changing jobs

      2. Changing physical environment.

      3. Many things, always changing.

    2. How would you like to be able to live through it all successfully?

    3. Success as it is measured by the words in a song.

It's Not the First Mile, Millie Lou Pace

It's not the first mile, that's so important,
 It's the last mile when day is done,
 Then you see Jesus in all his splendor,
 And he will have for you the crown you've won.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. Generally speaking, we do not relate very constructively to time

    1. We really enjoy beginnings.

      1. Think of a project started.

      2. Think of some study begun.

    2. We do not do as well with the middle of things.

      1. Projects get sidetracked.

      2. Study is interrupted.

      3. We become bored or disenchanted with what we are doing.

    3. We do not do not handle the end of things well at all.

      1. We do not like to think in terms of endings.

        1. Sitting watching a movie.

        2. The final scene: THE END

      2. Its OK, we know that there is going to be another movie.

    4. We sometimes get to the end of things and it is not OK, for we know there will never be another one.

      1. Life is not a movie.

      2. It is not recorded on a piece of film.

      3. Life is recorded in the mind, and in the lives of people.

        1. The people we live with.

        2. The people we work and play with.

        3. The people we help

        4. The people we harm.

    5. It is important for us to look at time and our place in it to see how we relate to beginnings and endings.

    6. What do we know of human development or accomplishment or relationship that do not end?

      1. Things that appear to be immortal, but are deteriorating.

        1. Pyramids.

        2. Taj Mahal

        3. Acropolis

        4. Ancient beauty:

      2. What we call love ends.

        1. The bride and groom promise to love forever.

        2. Sometimes love does not last very long at all.

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    1. Life ends.

      1. We have a difficult time recognizing ends.

        1. I once knew a man who was a part of adult Bible study.

        2. We were studying issues of life and death.

        3. He left the study and did not return until it was over.

      2. We are ambivalent about ends.

Isak Dinesen (Karen Bliken), Out of Africa.

If I know a song of Africa--I thought--of the giraffe, and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields, and the sweaty faces of the coffee-pickers, does Africa know a song of me?

Would the air over the plain quiver with a color that I had had on, or the children invent a game in which my name was, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or would the eagles of Ngong look out for me?

Will there be something of me that will remain after I am gone.

Will who I am be appreciated?

Will what I have done be remembered?

    1. Endings contain the elements of satisfaction and sadness.

      1. We sometimes think we could have done better.

      2. We could have provided more.

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  1. The only thing that does not end is love.

    1. Love never ends

    2. Many of the conditions with which we live are going to end.

      1. Prejudice lives on but love will outlive prejudice.

      2. Hate lives on but love will outlive hate.

      3. Conflict continues to exist, but love will survive conflict.

      4. Disabilities afflict us, but love will weather disability.

      5. Disorder abounds, but love will outlast disorder.

      6. Poverty exists, but love will conquer poverty.

      7. Disaster occurs, but love will even manage disaster.

      8. The individual action ends, the collective actions remains.

        1. Even the collective will end.

        2. It will end with a whimper or a bang.

  2. Love never ends.

    1. Love never ends, because God does not end.

    2. Love lives on in the lives of people who have been loved.

Robert Fulghum, All I Really Needed I Learned In Kindergarten, writes Mr. Washington.

Living on a steep hillside.

Letting the yard go natural.

Up the hill lived Mr. Washington.

Sleek, ranch-style, brick and shingle house with a yard kept like a combination golf course and arboretum.

They spent some time together in the civil rights movement.

Sometimes they played poker, and they enjoyed the same music.

Fulghum writes:

"Mr. Washington looked down from his porch onto my ratty residence with an amused contempt. He said he put up with me because I could cook better chili that he could and I had the best collection of power tools in the neighborhood.

"Always there was his laughter--no matter how grim or serious the world might get, he saw the comic strip we were all in.

He's dead now. I really miss him.

I still have his laughter in my mind, and I hear it at hard times.

And best of all, I have the recipe for his barbecue sauce.

  1. There is a way in which all that we have truly loved, especially what we have done for the people we love, lives on in them.

    1. Good character is it's own inspire

    2. Good deeds will influence good deeds.

    3. Love lives on in the good deeds that love has accomplished.

  2. Jesus loved and, even though blunted by time and human selfishness, his love lives on.

    1. The individual, who truly learns to love as Jesus loved and loves, though not to the same degree, will live forever.

    2. Our true love for God and one another never ends

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CONCLUSION:

  1. Love never ends, because God never ends.

    1. God is eternal.

    2. God's love is eternal.

    3. Without beginning and without end.

      1. What Comfort!

      2. What Hope!

      3. What Joy!

Amen!

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