Sunday, February 3, 2019 ~ Epiphany IV
Sermon: “Called to Prophesy and to Love”
Scripture: Jeremiah 1:4-10, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 4:21-30
© 2019, Dr. Tamilio
Today’s Lectionary readings read like a Bible’s greatest hits list. The passage from Jeremiah is the prophet’s call narrative. In it he balks at God’s call even though he was chosen for this task before he was in the womb. He feels that his youth makes him unworthy. But God touches Jeremiah’s mouth, placing his words into the young prophet. Charles Feinberg writes that “God never makes a mistake in choosing his servants.”[1] How true! Jeremiah would go on to become one of Israel’s’ greatest prophets.
And then we have 1 Corinthians 13, Paul’s famous love poem. Often read at weddings, it defines what love is and what love is not, concluding that it is the greatest gift of all, surpassing even hope and faith. J. Paul Sampley, who taught New Testament at Boston University for several years, refers to 1 Corinthians 13 “an encomium on love.” I love learning new words and had to look up “encomium” this week. It means “a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly.” Paul is indeed praising love.[2]
Lastly, we have the story of Jesus teaching in his hometown synagogue. He causes a stir when he proclaims that he is the Messiah promised in Isaiah. Prophets are not welcome in their hometown, especially when they claim to be the savior of the world. It is as if they are saying, “Whoa, wait a minute. We knew this kid since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. Who does he think he is?” Fred Craddock claims that this passage foreshadows Israel’s rejection of Jesus as the Savior.[3]
So, what are we to make of all this. There’s a clear connection between the passages from Jeremiah and Luke. Both are about prophets — those called to proclaim God’s Word. In one case, the messenger feels unqualified. In the other, the messenger is rejected. Still, they face the same task, one that we learn about in the passage from 1 Corinthians.
There are certain passages from Scripture that we read so often that we fail to truly hear what they have to say, passages like the 23rd Psalm. When we read such passages, we go on autopilot. First Corinthians chapter 13 ranks right up there: “Love is patient. Love is kind.” Paul is instructing us.
The Indian spiritual guru Acharya Rajneesh, known later as Osho, wrote, “Only those who are courageous enough, only those who are gamblers, who can risk their very life and be possessed by some unknown energy, are able to know what love is.”[4] Osho qualifies this. claiming that “Love is the first step toward God.” I could spend days pondering this.
It does take courage to love, because it is so easy not to love. Love takes work. The late Dr. Leo Buscaglia, affectionately known as Dr. Love by his followers, once wrote, “To live in love is life’s greatest challenge. It requires more subtlety, flexibility, sensitivity, understanding, acceptance, tolerance, knowledge and strength than any other human endeavor or emotion.”[5] He’s right. Love requires us to take risks, to be open and to be vulnerable. Living in isolation, shutting ourselves off from the world — you don’t get hurt when you do that, but you also aren’t living. We need one another to be complete. “No man is an island,” John Donne once wrote. We are relational beings.
Reflecting on this, C.S. Lewis, in his book The Four Loves, says the following:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers…of love is Hell.[6]
Maybe that’s because God is love, as the First Letter of John declares. If Osho is right in saying that “Love is the first step toward God,” and I think he is, that’s because God is love. If God is love, then we are truly in the presence of God when we love others.
So back to the text for a second, or better yet the texts (plural). These passages go together today for a reason. Jeremiah was called to be a prophet (not a bullfrog), and Jesus, though more than a prophet, also spoke God’s Word, which is what a prophet does. We are called to do the same — to preach God’s Word always — and the heart of that message is found in 1 Corinthians 13. It’s all about love. God is love and God so loved the world that he sent us Jesus. We are to model our lives after his, to love as he loved, especially those whom we feel are loveless: those who wrong us and anger us, those who betray us or seem out to get us.
It’s hard. It might be the hardest thing we are called to do the same, but we are called just the same. But we are not alone in this task. We have the Holy Spirit as our sustainer, who will love through us if we just let him. (Better yet her — the Hebrew and Greek words for the Holy Spirit are feminine, after all.) Trust God, and God’s love will prevail. I leave the final thought to Christian author Jerry Bridges, who wrote, “God is completely sovereign. God is infinite in wisdom. God is perfect in love. God in His love always wills what is best for us. In His wisdom He always knows what is best, and in His sovereignty He has the power to bring it about.”[7] That “best,” my friends, isn’t just our well-being. It is to embody a love like none other. Amen.
[1] Charles L. Feinberg, “Jeremiah” from The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 6 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 383.
[2] J. Paul Sampley, “The First Letter to the Corinthians” from The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 10 (Abingdon Press, 2002), 950.
[3] Fred Craddock, Luke (Louisville: John Know Press, 1990), 63-64.
[4] Oslo, “Love Is the Greatest Gift,” taken from theunboundedspirit.com.
[5] Leo Buscaglia, Love (New York: Fawcett Books, 1972), 139.
[6] C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York Harper-Collins, 1960), 155-156.
[7] Taken from christianquotes.info