​Young at Heart Message
 
I would like to start today’s message by reading a story I found recently in a book by Cynthia Bourgeault called The Wisdom Way of Knowing.
 
The story she shares she calls “Acornology.”
 
It goes like this:
 
“Once upon a time, in a not-so-faraway land, there was a kingdom of acorns, nestled at the foot of a grand old oak tree.

​“Since the citizens of this kingdom were modern, fully Westernized acorns, they went about their business with purposeful energy… and they engaged in a lot of self-help courses.
 
“There were seminars called “Getting All You Can out of Your Shell.” There were woundedness and recovery groups for acorns who had been bruised in their original fall from the tree.
 
“There were spas for oiling and polishing those shells and various acornopathic therapies to enhance longevity and well-being.

​“One day, in the midst of this kingdom, there suddenly appeared a knotty little stranger, apparently dropped “out of the blue” by a passing bird.
 
“He was capless and dirty, making an immediate negative impression on his fellow acorns.
 
“And crouched beneath the oak tree, he stammered out a wild tale.

​“Delusional thinking, obviously, the other acorns concluded, but one of them continued to engage him in conversation: ‘So tell us, how would we become that tree?’
 
“ ‘Well,’ said he, pointing downward, ‘it has something to do with going into the ground… and cracking open the shell.’
 
“ ‘Insane,’ they responded. ‘Totally morbid! Why, then we wouldn’t be acorns anymore!’ ”

​The point of this story, of course, is that an acorn is only a seed.
 
Its true destiny – its True Self – is to become an oak tree.
 
But, when you are an acorn looking around at other acorns, it would be impossible to believe that any one of you could grow into a mighty oak tree.
 
The size difference alone makes it impossible to believe!
 
The Message
 
How do we apply this parable, if you will, to ourselves?
 
We assume that the person that moves around the world making choices and doing our thing is who we are.
 
But, really, that person is the acorn. Inside the acorn is a vastly more majestic destiny and a True Self who lives within it.
 
But this oak tree of ourselves can only come into being if it lets go of its acorn.
 
But, this journey toward full selfhood is more than just an awakening. It involves a letting go that is also a dying.
 
This sounds an awful lot like Paul’s words in the 1 Corinthians passage we heard today: “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”
 
In other words, the seeds you plant cannot not come to life unless they die.
 
The seed – the acorn – in its natural form, must “die” in order to grow into its full and True Self.
 
Paul says our bodies are planted as our natural bodies, but raised as our spiritual bodies.
 
He goes on to say that if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that, the spiritual.
 
Finally, he says “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”
 
Our “natural selves” – the acorn part – the seeds of our True Self cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. Only our spiritual selves – our True Selves – are able to do that.
 
From the same book, Cynthia says, “The ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ is not a place we go after we die, but is a way of being present here and now that makes us transparent to the light.”
 
But what does this mean?
 
The Sufi mystic Rumi explains it this way:
 
The Mystery of “Die before you Die” is this:
That the gifts come after your dying and not before.
Except for dying, you artful schemer,
No other skill impresses God. One divine gift
Is better than a hundred kinds of exertion.
Your efforts are assailed from a hundred sides,
And the favor depends on your dying.
The trustworthy have already put this to the test.
 
The acorn must “die” in order to become its true, destined, manifested self. And, we must “die,” too, to become our True Selves.
 
Essentially, what Paul is referring to, is surrender.
 
This idea of surrender is the transformation from the “acorn self” to the “oak tree self,” brought about by an act of letting go.
 
Contrary to popular opinion, surrender is not cowardice.
 
Surrender is an act of spiritual power because it opens the heart directly to wisdom and energy.
 
We must let our attachments to things, to patterns of behavior, and to old ways of thinking die. We must surrender ourselves to the possibility of new ideas and new ways of being in the world.
 
And of course, like most of the things that Jesus and other prophets and teachers in the Bible and throughout history suggest, surrender is not easy.
 
Surrendering to this type of dying requires presence and awareness that we are often blind to.
 
Let me offer an every day example of this type of surrender.
 
One day when I was still living back in Wisconsin, I’d had a stressful day and had a lot on my mind.
 
I was waiting for a friend, and they were running late, so I decided to go for a walk through a nearby marsh.
 
I was annoyed and having a hard time letting go of the negative feelings I had toward the day.
 
I was caught up in my own “stuff,” not really paying attention to anything at all.
 
Then, suddenly, I walked near the marsh and stopped dead in my tracks.
 
All I could hear around me was a cacophony of sound – the marsh was consumed by the sounds of water, bugs, frogs, birds, wind, etc. I had never heard so much noise happening at once.
 
I was mesmerized. In an instant, every worry and concern I had disappeared as I listened to the noises in the marsh.
 
I stood there listening for at least 10 minutes, until my cell phone ringing brought me out of my trance.
 
I hadn’t even realized that much time had passed, and now I was late to meet my friend!
 
I had surrendered in that moment to the delight of the life-giving sounds of the marsh.
 
And, I was able to relax enough to notice the life quite literally buzzing all around me.
 
This is a small and simple act of surrender – a dying of sorts to the negative energy I was holding which allowed space for a truer, more delightful and positive energy.
 
It is a small example of what Paul is trying to convey to the Corinthians.
 
Remember, the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place we go after we die. It’s a way of being present here and now that makes us transparent to the light.
 
Sometimes, being present to our own realities can be quite difficult.
 
I was stressed and grumbly and, quite frankly, I was not particularly happy to be “present” in that moment fully. I would rather have been somewhere else.
 
In fact, I probably had wished several times that I could be somewhere else.
 
But, that marsh drew me back to my present.
 
Perhaps I had a glimpse of this notion that the Kingdom of Heaven is a way of being present here and now.
 
I wonder how much the 1 Corinthians passage and this new thought about the Kingdom of Heaven ties into the Luke passage we heard today about loving our enemies?
 
In the world today, it seems that loving our enemies has become harder and harder to do.
 
Jesus tells us to “do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
 
This can, at times, feel difficult or even impossible.
 
And yet, we are reminded to be fully present in the moment. Fully present with our negative feelings toward our enemies, while at the same time blessing them and praying for them.
 
Whew! That’s tough!
 
But I’m reminded of a body prayer I learned recently that can help when we’re feeling some heavy feelings of negativity toward our enemies, or toward life in general.
 
Some of you may remember the prayer that I offered back in October when I was sick with COVID and we met online.
 
I’ll share it with you now as the conclusion to this sermon. We’ll do it together 3 times, so feel free to join in from your seats if you wish.
 
The prayer is a reminder to be present in the moment, just as we are, just as the world is. Even if we come with bad feelings toward someone or something. Even if we are feeling down or defeated like I was that day at the marsh.
 
This reminds us to be fully present and to be open to surrender so that we can see the world for what it is, even as we are feeling bogged down with our own worries and cares.
 
The prayer goes like this:
 
1.   Here I am… as I am
2.   In the world… as it is
3.   Supported by the earth
4.   Floating in the cosmos
5.   Awake
6.   To the heart of love
 
*Repeat 3 times*
 
May you be fully present and alive as you leave this place and you go about your business this week.
 
May you see yourself as the acorn, ready to be planted and fulfill your destiny as the mighty oak.
 
May you love your enemies and find yourself in the Kingdom of Heaven – not a place to go after you die but instead, a way of being present here and now that makes you transparent to the light.
 
Amen!

​The Message
 
Today’s sermon was hard to come by. The scriptures we heard today should have been easy to think of something to preach about.
 
And yet, as any pastor will tell you, sometimes it is difficult to determine where to go on any given Sunday morning.
 
As I pondered the scriptures and tried to figure out what God might want said, I remembered a poem by Marianne Williamson that I want to share.
 
I am actually going to read it twice, pausing in between to allow her words to sink in.
 
It goes like this:
 
Our deepest fear
     is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear
     is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light,
     not our darkness,
              that most frightens us.
 
We ask ourselves,
     who am I to be brilliant,
              gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
 
Actually, who are you not to be?
 
You are a child of God.
 
Your playing small
     doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
     so that other people
              won’t feel insecure around you.
 
We were born to make manifest
     the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us;
     it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
     we unconsciously give other people
              permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
     our presence automatically liberates others.
 
Silence
 
I’ll read it one more time:
 
Our deepest fear
     is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear
     is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light,
     not our darkness,
              that most frightens us.
 
We ask ourselves,
     who am I to be brilliant,
              gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
 
Actually, who are you not to be?
 
You are a child of God.
 
Your playing small
     doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
     so that other people
              won’t feel insecure around you.
 
We were born to make manifest
     the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us;
     it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
     we unconsciously give other people
              permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
     our presence automatically liberates others.
 
Jeremiah says that “blessed is one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
 
Blessed are we who trust in God.
 
Like the tree planted by the water, we do not fear our own light.

​We are children of God, and as such, diminishing ourselves – shrinking our own being such that we take up as little space in the world as possible – hides the glory of God that is within each of us.
 
The tree that Jeremiah describes isn’t afraid to take up its space along the stream.
 
The tree knows that spreading its roots allows it to be nourished, to grow leaves, and to fulfill its purpose as part of God’s creation.

​And, like that tree, we must allow ourselves to rest in the nourishment of God’s grace and love.
 
Jesus says “blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are you who hunger, blessed are you who weep, blessed are you when people hate you.”
 
In other words, blessed are those of us who are frightened by our own light within.
 
Blessed are those of us who do not let our own light shine for fear that others will put our light out.
 
The tree planted by the stream is not anxious about what it is or where its water will come from.
 
There is a sense of peace and contentment, of trust and delight.
 
The tree trusts fully in that stream – in God’s grace that allows it to bloom each season.
 
And so it should be for us.
 
But, both Jeremiah and Jesus caution us today, as well.
 
The tree does not fear or worry, but the tree also does not believe that it became the mighty tree it is of its own accord.
 
The tree would not be sturdy, lush, and green without the stream.
 
Jeremiah warns us of this. He tells us that “cursed is the one who trusts in man… and whose heart turns away from the Lord. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands.”
 
And Jesus also gives a warning: “woe to you who are rich, woe to you who are well fed, woe to you who laugh, woe to you when everyone speaks well of you.”
 
In other words, be careful not to become so arrogant that you might believe that you have come into riches, or fulfillment, or contentment of you own accord.
 
We should not cover our own light – the parts of us where God shines through.
 
But neither should we assume that light within us is ours and ours alone.
 
Likewise, the tree should not assume that it is lush and content on its own. Without the stream, the tree would be no more than a bush in the wastelands.
We are children of God. Diminishing the light of God within us does not serve the world.
 
We are nourished by God, like the tree is nourished by the stream.
 
For example, not too long ago – perhaps a couple weeks – I had been going through a streak of not sleeping well.
 
I lifted that to God one night and just asked that God might help me to sleep well so I could be the best version of myself when I woke up.
 
I woke the next morning having slept better than I’d slept in a long while.
 
I sprung from bed, excited to start my day.
 
I ate breakfast and showered, going through everything I hoped to accomplish that day.
 
I made tea and sat down to read and journal a bit, and as I did, I suddenly remembered my prayer from the night before.
 
While I was subconsciously grateful for the great sleep, I also woke assuming I had slept well because of something I had done.
 
I relaxed before bed, I journaled, I prayed, I stretched, I drank a cup of herbal tea – I allowed myself the proper wind down.
 
It was all me! I slept well on my own!
 
And then I remembered my prayer and realized that I could in no way assume that everything I’d done had been the reason for my good sleep.
 
Those were the same things I did every night before bed.
 
The difference was that I had taken “nourishment” from God. I had planted myself by God’s stream, and asked God to nourish me.
 
And then I woke up and didn’t thank God. I didn’t even acknowledge the stream of nourishment that I’d so desperately planted myself next to the night before.
 
Woe to you who are rich. Cursed is the one who trusts in man.
 
I realized just how it easy it is to assume I’m on my own, and that God is nowhere to be found, when all along, I have planted myself such that I can readily drink from that stream of nourishment that God provides.
Blessed are those of us who are poor in spirit – who hunger for the presence of God and don’t necessarily notice when God is flowing right beneath us.
 
And blessed are those of us who are afraid to spread our roots, worried that by doing so, we might inconvenience others.
 
May you receive nourishment from God’s stream, allowing your roots to stretch along the stream’s bank and nourishing your spirit so that you are able to truly bloom.
 
May you make manifest the glory of God within you.
 
And, may you let your light shine, giving others permission to do the same.
 
Let us conclude with Marianne Williamson’s poem one more time before we pray:
 
Our deepest fear
     is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear
     is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light,
     not our darkness,
              that most frightens us.
 
We ask ourselves,
     who am I to be brilliant,
              gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
 
Actually, who are you not to be?
 
You are a child of God.
 
Your playing small
     doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
     so that other people
              won’t feel insecure around you.
 
We were born to make manifest
     the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us;
     it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
     we unconsciously give other people
              permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
     our presence automatically liberates others.
 
Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
Nourishing God, thank you for allowing us to plant ourselves next to your stream of living water. Help us overcome our fear and let our light shine, giving to others even a small portion of the nourishment you give to us. Remind us that we are your children, and as such, we were born to let our light shine in the world to serve others. Thank you for your regular reminders of your love for us. In your holy name we pray. Amen.

Young at Heart Message
 
I wonder how many of you can relate to this:
 
I used to work as an Executive Assistant at a large company.
 
Of course, that company had a computer network and an entire IT department.
 
Whenever something would go wrong with my computer, I had to call someone in IT to have them help me fix it.
 
Unlike my own computer at home, I was very limited in terms of what I could do to fix my work computer.
 
The one thing I could do, though, was turn the computer off and turn it back on and see if that fixed the problem.
 
Inevitably, every time I had a computer issue, I would turn the computer off and back on, and the issue wouldn’t be fixed. So, I would call IT.
 
And, what do you suppose IT tells you to do?
 
Turn off the computer and turn it back on.
 
And, of course, I would say, “I already tried that.”
 
And what would they say?
 
“Try it again.”
 
What do you suppose happened next?
 
Voila! 99% of the time, when IT told me to turn it off and turn it back on, it would magically work, despite the fact that I already tried that.
 
Here’s another, more recent story that perhaps you can relate to:
 
Some of you may know that a couple weeks ago, my car wouldn’t start.
 
Someone from church very kindly came to jumpstart my battery to help see if that was the issue.
 
We got the car started, and I drove it around a bit – perhaps 15-20 minutes total.
 
I turned the car off, thinking all was well, only to come back out 30 minutes later to a car that wouldn’t start again.
 
Another very kind church member came to jumpstart my battery again, and then followed me to the shop so I could have them take a look and replace the battery if needed.
 
What do you suppose happened?
 
I arrived at the shop, and they did their battery tests, and lo and behold – the battery was working fine. They said it had 85% life left.
 
Of course when you get the vehicle to the shop, they’ll tell you nothing is wrong with it!
 
Just like the IT department assumes you’re either lying or you’re nuts when you tell them you turned your computer off and back on already and it didn’t help, the car works just fine when you get it to the shop.
 
These things might actually be some kind of universal law.
 
We try something – sometimes trying multiple times, or at least giving it quite the valiant effort with no luck – and then the professional comes along and tells you to do the same thing again.
 
You humour them and try again, skeptically, only to look a fool when you said it wouldn’t work, and suddenly, the thing you’ve already tried works like you never tried in the first place!
 
The Message
 
I cannot be the only one who has had experiences like this.
 
Because most of us have experienced this before, we can relate to how Simon Peter feels when they’d been out fishing all night, dropping their nets over and over again and not catching any fish.
 
Then Jesus comes along and tells them to go do the same exact thing they’ve been doing all night to no avail.
 
They go and drop their nets, and voila! Like magic, they catch so many fish that their boat almost capsizes!
 
And now, Peter looks a fool because he told Jesus they’d already tried that.
 
This is basically the 1st century version of the IT person or the auto mechanic appearing to be a magician.
 
Peter has not met Jesus before now. I can only imagine he thinks this is some kind of sorcery.
 
And yet, it is a perfect example of our very human resistance to follow God’s call.
 
We saw it last week when we read from the Book of Jeremiah. When God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet, Jeremiah says, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”
 
God chuckles at this and says “sure you do!” God touches Jeremiah’s lips, and lo and behold – Jeremiah can speak as a prophet.
 
From our vantage point, we might wonder, “who wouldn’t want to be a prophet and follow God’s call?”
 
As it turns out, a lot of the prophets didn’t initially want to be prophets or follow God’s call.
 
Moses, when encountering the burning bush, says to God, “who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11)
 
Elijah, afraid of Jezebel, runs into the wilderness and asks God to take his life. “I have had enough, Lord,” he pleas. (1 Kings 19: 2-5)
 
Jonah literally ran away from his calling. (Jonah 1:3)
 
Similarly, Ezekiel isn’t too pleased to be carried away by the Spirit either: The Spirit then lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the Lord on me. (Ezekiel 3:14)
 
And, of course, in the New Testament we see this constant push-back from Jesus’ disciples, starting with Simon Peter by the Lake of Gennesaret.
 
I actually like all of these stories because they all demonstrate just how normal it is to feel uncertainty about our call.
 
And, more importantly, they demonstrate each person’s journey toward what I will call “becoming.” Each of these prophets or disciples becomes exactly who God created them to be.
 
But, part of that journey for each of them was acknowledging their own resistance.
 
I don’t know if you remember, but nearly a year ago during Lent, we spent weeks following Simon Peter’s journey as he wrestled with his call and repeatedly questioned Jesus.
 
I don’t know how many times Simon Peter tells Jesus that what Jesus is asking is impossible, only to be proven wrong time and time again.
 
But it is in Simon Peter’s journey that we watch his story of “becoming” unfold.
 
Are there times in your life in which you have experienced a similar resistance, thinking “ugh, God, I’ve already tried this! Why do you keep pushing me to try again? It never works.”
 
And then, all the sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, you try again and voila! Like magic, the thing you resisted for so long works.
 
I’ll try to give you an example from my own life.
 
For a very long time – most of my life, in fact – I resisted my call to ministry.
 
Well, perhaps more accurately, I wasn’t aware that God was calling me to ministry at all. I did not hear God ask, ”Whom shall I send?”
 
And yet, somehow, despite my resistance to organized religion and Church, I kept skirting around religion.
 
It just kept showing up!
 
I chose to leave the Catholic Church and explored the Lutheran Church in high school.
 
I went to University and studied and explored Buddhism and Hinduism academically, and I explored the Baha’i faith on a personal level.
 
I graduated with a degree in Religious Studies and eventually got a job working for a company at which I got to work with people on their own faith journeys of exploration.
 
I landed a part-time gig as a church office manager.
 
Then my ex-partner invited me to his church, and I very reluctantly went along, which sparked my curiosity about Christianity and prompted me to decide to go to Seminary.
 
BUT, it’s important to note that I had no intention, even at that point, of becoming a pastor. God, by the way, had to have been laughing at this point.
 
Then I found the Moravian Church.
 
Throughout my journey, I imagine God repeatedly felt like Jesus felt with Simon Peter.
 
Jamie! Get it together! I know you’re going to end up a pastor – you can’t get around it. Just get on with it already!
 
But, like Simon Peter, I had to ask a million questions. I had to go in circles a bit.
 
I had to make sure God knew that I’d already tried to get back into religion and the church and it didn’t seem to be working for me.
 
And then, like Jesus tells Simon Peter to try once more, God told me to try again. God kept asking, “Whom shall I send?”
 
And finally, I sighed and said “Here I am. Send me!”
 
Suddenly, I was on a journey of becoming – a path I continue to walk. I continue to wrestle with God, ask hard questions, and, sometimes, resist God’s call.
 
And I bet you do, too. Because we are human. We are no different than Simon Peter.
 
We are each on our own journey of “becoming.”
 
It is beautiful. It can be painful. It can be difficult. It can take us outside of our comfort zone. But it always surprises us and delights us when, like magic, we know we are no longer resisting what God wants for us.
 
Suddenly, unexpectedly, the nets we’ve cast over and over again without success are filled to the brim with metaphorical fish.
 
And Jesus looks at us with a knowing smile and says, “see, I told you. All you had to do was trust me, leave your resistance behind, and follow me.”
 
And in doing so, we humbly begin our journey toward our true self, called by God, setting aside our resistance, and delighting in the joy of becoming.
 
God asks “Whom shall I send?” And we finally respond “I will go. Send me!” Amen.
 
Let us pray:
​
God of compassion, help us to trust you and to welcome your call into your hearts. When we hear you whispering, wondering “Whom shall I send?,” give us the courage to boldly respond “I will go. Send me!” Help us to set aside fear of the unknown and step bravely toward you, setting aside any resistance we may feel. Guide us into your loving embrace and hold us there, delighting in your mystery, your love, your acceptance, and your grace. In your holy name, we pray. Amen.

Young at Heart Message
 
Did you all know that we have in our midst the best guitar player in all of Calgary today, and he owns the very best guitar in the city?
 
Do you want to hear him play a song?
 
John, come on up and play a song for us and show off that amazing guitar you have.
 
John plays us a song.
 
What did you all think? Pretty awesome, right?
 
Wait, it wasn’t awesome?
 
Why do you think it didn’t sound that great? He’s the best guitar player in the city, and he’s playing the best guitar!
 
The problem with his guitar is that, for the strings to work, they have to be held tightly by two points. In other words, the strings need to be holding tension.
 
These guitar strings aren’t holding any tension. As you can see, the strings are very loose.
 
So, when John tried to strum the strings, they didn’t sound right because they weren’t holding any tension.
 
So, even if John was the best guitar player in the whole world, not just in Calgary, and he was playing the very best guitar in the world, without any tension on the strings, he cannot make a beautiful sound.
 
The Message
 
Thank you John for helping us demonstrate Paul’s point in our scripture passage today.
 
We heard one of the most common scriptures read from the Bible about love. 1 Corinthians 13 is often read at weddings as a reminder to the couple of what it means to love one another, even as things get difficult in their marriage.
 
Paul reminds us that love is not always easy.
 
The kind of love he talks about goes far beyond the emotional love that we think of, particularly when we think about the kind of love that couples experience.
 
Paul is talking about something far deeper. He’s talking about the love we experience between ourselves and God, between one another, and the love we hold for ourselves.
 
But, he throws us a word of caution, too.
 
He starts out by telling us that no matter how amazing we think we are, no matter how much better we think we are than others, no matter how “right” we are, without love, we have nothing.
 
Paul says, “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I have nothing.”
 
This is an incredibly humbling statement he’s making.
 
Often, we believe that if we are just good people – if we give what we can, if we volunteer our time, if we extend kindness to others – we are good to go.
 
But Paul says that even if we do all of that, but don’t hold space for love, we have nothing.
 
Now, our actions often say more about us than our words do, so doing these things might be a demonstration of love.
 
But if, instead, we do these things to make ourselves feel good rather than doing it for others, or if we do them for other selfish reasons rather than as a demonstration of love, we ultimately have nothing. 
 
I’ll try to offer an example from an experience I once had.
 
When I first returned to the church, I was attending a non-denominational church. After a few months of attending, I learned that the pastor was an interim, and they were beginning their search for a new pastor.
 
In that process, they invited three potential candidates to come preach to the congregation. The first two came to preach two weeks in a row, one after the other.
 
But the third candidate wasn’t able to accommodate their schedule for over a month.
 
When he finally came to preach, he swept into that church and gave a charismatic sermon in which he spent most of the time boasting about how amazing he was and the wonderful things he did (on behalf of God, of course).
 
He had a way of invoking people’s emotions – people were crying and carrying on in ways I had never seen happen in that church.
 
No one knew this man, and yet he was able to play on their emotions and, in my opinion, manipulate them quite easily to rouse an emotional response that had nothing to do with God.
 
I wanted to run from that place. But I forced myself to stay, and at the end of the sermon, this preacher said something I will never forget.
 
He said “my wife and I are quite prophetic, so if you have been wanting answers from God about something, I invite you to come forward after the service and we can lay our hands on you and God will speak to you through us.”
 
Now, maybe this man and his wife did have the gift of prophecy that Paul mentions in his letter to the Corinthians. Maybe they could “fathom all mysteries and all knowledge.” Maybe they did “have a faith that can move mountains.”
 
But there was no love there. There was no trust.
 
People put their faith in that man that day. God was nowhere to be found. It was entirely about him.
 
That’s why Paul starts this passage with a word of caution.
 
He goes on to say what we most often remember from this passage: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not self-seeking, or easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs.
 
Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
 
Paul is talking, just like in last week’s scripture, about wholeness and completeness. You can be the most amazing person on earth, but without humility, without this love that is patient, kind, not envious or boastful or rude, you have nothing.
 
Essentially, you cannot think you are the most amazing person in the world and also be the most amazing person in the world.
 
Truly amazing people love others in the way Paul describes, and they love themselves in the way that Paul describes, but most of all, they love God in the way Paul describes.
 
Loving God ultimately means demonstrating that love toward others, but not for selfish gain.
 
And, while Paul doesn’t say this, I would add that love is risky. We put our hearts on the line when we extend our love to others. We also put our hearts on the line when we commit to loving God.
 
Why?
 
Well, anyone in this room who has ever prayed for something incredibly important to them and has not had that prayer answered likely has questioned God. Perhaps your heart broke a little bit, or a lot, when that prayer wasn’t answered.
 
Perhaps your trust in God waned. Perhaps anger and hurt bubbled over and out and engulfed you like flames, pulling you further from God.
 
Loving God is risky. Opening your heart to other people is risky. There is always a chance you’ll be hurt.
 
And yet, it is often, or perhaps always, worth the risk.
 
As I was writing this sermon, I originally made that statement – that loving people is often, or perhaps always worth the risk – and I moved on to my next point.
 
But as I thought more about this, I realized that I need to say something about why loving is worth the risk.
 
I will admit that opening my heart in this way – to this deep, abiding love – has led to hurt in my past.
 
I think that’s true for many people. We love deeply, and then we lose someone. Or we love deeply and then that person leaves us. Or perhaps even worse, that person hurts us in small ways over months or years.
 
Sometimes, people hurt us so deeply that it can take a very long time to recover. So, what do we do?
 
We put up walls around our hearts which keep us from allowing us to love others deeply.
 
These walls keep us safe, but they also might keep us from taking the risk of loving others as deeply again in the future.
 
But opening ourselves to that risk is worth it because this kind of love goes far beyond the superficial love we see in romance movies or novels.
 
The kind of love Paul is talking about is a love that changes us and the world around us.
 
This kind of love creates a deepness and a richness to life that helps us create purpose and meaning.
 
It allows us to be fully present with people – to hear them, to see them, and to appreciate even the things about them that might not jive with our own personalities or preferences.
 
Even if we end up loving this deeply only to be hurt down the road, it is the kind of love that we would do over and over again, accepting the potential for hurt as part of the value of loving in such a rich and meaningful way.
 
We cannot become wholly ourselves until we have learned to love in this deep, abiding way that Paul speaks of.
 
Much like the best guitar in the world cannot play the most beautiful music without tension in the strings, we cannot be our full, complete selves without this kind of love.
 
We must accept the risk of hurt in order to move fully into our True Self. 
 
We must build trust with ourselves, with others, and with God.
 
That man that came to preach at the church I went to long ago was missing the most important part of his message, which is what wasn’t said. He had not built trust with the congregation. He had not demonstrated kindness or patience.
 
Instead, he was boastful and proud and self-seeking. He felt good about himself by placing himself above the rest of us, and above God.
 
May we learn from my experience, and may we open our hearts to the possibility of this deep, abiding love that Paul speaks of.
 
May we accept the risk of allowing ourselves to be patient and kind, to trust, protect, hope, and persevere.
 
May we rest in God’s loving embrace, extending that same love to those we meet, softening our hearts and breaking down walls we’ve created so that we can become whole.
 
May we remember that love is patient and kind.
 
May we know fully, even as we are fully known, and may we remember that no matter what, these three things remain: faith, hope, and love.
 
But the greatest of these is love. Amen.
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Our prayer today is more of a reflection on love than a prayer, but I thought it worth sharing. This is a slightly modified version of a reflection called “Love Is,” by Roddy Hamilton.

Love is… hugs
Love is… a kind word or gesture
Love is… when two become one
Love is… friendship
Love is… sharing laughter, joy, and pain
Love is… hard to explain
Love is… unbelievable
Love is… unpredictable
Love is… endless
Love is… protection
Love is… a rollercoaster we’d ride over and over
Love is… a smile
Love is… a heartbeat
Love is… patient
Love is… kind
Love is… a never ending story
Love is… eternal
Love is… a circle of friends
Love is… steadfast
Love is… wholeness and completeness
Love is God, and God is love. Amen.