If It’s Not About Love
A Sermon for Annual Meeting on January 30, 2022
by the Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan
Text: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, is known for the saying, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” Now if his detractors on the interwebs are right, this is a terrible “dumbing down” of our hallowed Episcopal tradition. We Episcopalians are the smart and sophisticated ones, the rigorous ones, the ones who don’t have to leave our brains at the door, and so on. Our religious faith is too complex and nuanced to be summed up in a single, simple phrase!
I wonder if Paul got the same kind of pushback from the people of Corinth when he exhorted them with an equally simple dictum: “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
It’s probably human nature to resist the simplicity at the heart of our faith. But let’s be clear that just because something is simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. “Love one another as I have loved you:” what could be simpler? And yet, how many of us can truly say that we live up to the example of Jesus when it comes to loving our fellow human beings unconditionally and without limit? I know I’m not there yet, much as I’d like to be.
Perhaps it will help to remember that when Paul is talking about love he is talking to a community, not an individual. It is the church of Corinth, not the mayor of Corinth, or the Senior Warden of Corinth, or even the average citizen of Corinth to whom he addresses this letter. It is the church, the gathered community of believers, who are being urged to love extravagantly and without ceasing.
We need to hear Paul’s words this morning about faith, hope, and love as a message to us, the church of St. Martin in Davis, California. Yes, each one of us individually has a role to play and our own unique gifts that we bring to that role. But it is only as a gathered community, as the body of Christ together, that we have any chance of living up to the example of Jesus, of walking the way of love as faithfully and wholeheartedly as he walked it. This isn’t a bug—it’s a feature. We’re truly not designed to do any of this faith, hope, and love business on our own.
Furthermore, and this is what I really want to focus on today, when Jesus or Paul, or even Bishop Curry, talks about love, they are not talking about a feeling. They are talking about actions, behaviors, about the way we treat one another and the sacrifices we make for the sake of the world. Christian love is more like a verb than a noun, and a strong, active verb at that. Listen to the way Eugene Peterson paraphrases one of the more famous portions of First Corinthians 13:
“Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t keep score of the sins of others.
Love never looks back; it keeps going to the end.”
Now imagine Paul’s words were offered directly to us as guidance and inspiration for the year of our Lord 2022: “Trust steadfastly in God, people of St. Martin’s. Hope unswervingly. Love extravagantly. Focus on love above all else and you can’t go wrong. You’ve got this.”
Faith, hope, and love. These were the three words we chose to guide our fall stewardship campaign and I have to say we chose well! I don’t think it’s overly aspirational to say that we are a church that is rooted in faith, growing in hope, and reaching out in love. Now let’s look at that a little more closely as we close out 2021 and look ahead into the future that God desires for us.
First, rooted in faith. Being rooted in faith means that we choose to trust in God first and last. Faith is where we start, it is the basis of what we do, and it is what nourishes and sustains us. It’s funny that the word faith doesn’t have an exact verb form, the way hope and love do. “Trust,” especially when used as a verb, is a much better synonym for faith than “belief,” for instance. Bishop Steven Charleston has said that “Trust is the fulcrum of faith.” Trusting in God and in one another means that we have to let go of some of our control needs, of our confidence in and reliance on our own efforts. The more we are rooted in faith, the more we can step back and find healthy patterns of rest and renewal, because we trust that God is in control, not us. Bishop Charleston thinks of trust as a process, and writes, “We create faith each time we step out on the ice of God’s word.”
That image helps us to see that this trust stuff is not easy. It doesn’t always come naturally. And yet, happily, we have the disciplines of worship, prayer, and formation available to us. These are the best practices for building up faith, practices that have been proven over centuries of use. A healthy, faithful church is a community where we all pray and engage with Scripture regularly and deeply, and not just when we worship together on Sundays. This is my deep heart’s desire for St. Martin’s in 2022: more prayer, more study, and more joyful worship, as well as more times of play and rest, whether we are in the building, in our homes, or in the church without walls that can be anywhere we find ourselves in creation’s loving embrace.
Second, we are growing in hope. Growing in hope means that we choose to believe in the good, and to believe that through us God can make a difference. Hope gives us the courage to keep going, even when the way forward is not obvious or easy. When we have our roots deeply embedded in faith, then hope will come alongside and help us find that next right step to take. Hope is planting that seed into the deep, dark earth, trusting that God will provide for it. Yesterday at the Forbes Ranch in Esparto we planted a Valley Oak seedling no more than six inches tall. We chose the location carefully and prayed over it before we planted it. What we did not do was worry about how long it will take to grow to maturity, or who will sit under its shade it does. We will do our part, we will continue to care for it, but we will not fret over things outside of our control.
When we engage in hope, we are not indulging in fantasy or wishful thinking. We are aligning ourselves with the prophets, and with joyful warriors like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai. Every time we try to make the world a better place, whether it’s through giving out Matthew 25 grants or receiving an Episcopal Community Services grant, whether it’s planting a tree at the Ranch or giving a prayer shawl to a person in need, we are adding to the amount of hope in the world. To behave as if we have hope, regardless of how we are feeling, is to resist the forces of oppression, injustice, and despair. In 2022, let’s act on our hope, making it stronger by taking risks and looking forward to the future God has in store for us, not back to the way things used to be.
And finally, there is love. Reaching out in love means we are always moving beyond ourselves. Love is not love if we keep focused inward; the more we give it away, the more it will enrich and enliven us. Love is revolutionary; it turns the world order on its head.
Love is patient: we wear our masks, get vaccinated, and keep testing and engaging in best practices around COVID no matter how long it takes, and no matter how tired we are of the whole darn thing, because we love one another.
Love is kind; we are reimagining our Caring Ministries programs because we know that we need to find fresh and creative ways to connect and reconnect to one another in this time—that is what love does.
Love is not envious; we know that there is room for the new and for the old, for established ministries and novel endeavors—there is no need for rationing or excluding when it comes to love.
Love rejoices in the truth; we commit to talking about hard things, to being accountable to one another and the larger whole, because love is strong and enduring enough to handle this.
When our faith flags or grows weary, we return to love. When our hope is brittle and battered, we return to love. When we are not sure how to love, then we return to one another, to creation, and to the example of Jesus. Whatever this coming year holds for us, we won’t go wrong if we return to love over and over again. Because, my friends, if it’s not about love, it’s not about God.
