Sermons

"The Tongue of Love"

Delivered from the Pulpit of First Congregational Church

of Anchorage by The Reverend Mark E. Long

on January 10, 2010

Lections:  Deut. 10.12-16

                  I Cor. 14.1-5, 22-25

                  Jn. 14.8-12

If there is one command that comes through loud and clear through the Scriptures; without any mincing of words, it is that we are called to love, and then love some more.  For the second week in a row, I will say it in the way I heard it from former Bishop John Spong because, well, I cant think of a better way to say it  love wastefully.

I often share my sermons with my girlfriend before giving them.  The other day after hearing todays sermon she asked; what does it mean to love wastefully?  I gave her a pretty much inadequate definition of its meaning.  As we continued to talk, she told me about a client of hers that day (she is a yoga therapist) who she spent three hours with rather than the customary hour an a half at no additional fee because the womans need was so great.  Honey, I said, that is what it means to love wastefully.  

The shema, greatest commandment of Judaism, and at least eight other places in Deuteronomy alone tell us to love wastefully.  Or as our Old Testament lesson this morning puts it, What is required of you?  Only . . . to love [God].  All right, it says more but what it all comes down to is commitment to love God.

Why else would one non-coercively serve with full heart and soul?  Oh thats right, stay out of hell; spend eternity inside the pearly gates  good reasons  if you believe in such there are other reasons than coercion to do as God says.  But then isnt that an extremely poor image of ourselves and the God we worship?  Do what I say or I will cast you into hell or at least you wont get a reward for good behavior?  Can this really be what it is all about?

I, for one, dont think so.  The nudge for this sermon came from sermon chat last week.  One of the participants asked How do I love God in words of comparison to his loved one.  In effect, I know how to love someone I can reach out and touch, how do I love God?  It is a good, very thoughtful question.

This is a question I have given lots of thought to myself, and with the aid of others who have thought about the matter a lot and before me, I have something to share with you about it.

We may have  I say may have  difficulty with the question because of how we conceive of God.  As I said a couple of weeks ago in talking about something else, God is God; will be what God will be.  As Robert Corrington of Drew University has said very helpfully, God will be whatever is in whatever way. 

But what God is for each one of us beyond everything that is or could be, this is a personal matter.  We each have a black-box placeholder for God which we fill.  How we fill it determines God for us, whether from our intuitions or what we borrow from others.

Historically, God (quite sensibly) has been understood as a super-person.  This anthropomorphic conception of God, making God a super-human, is the received tradition from the Jews; a view the pagans shared as well, although their gods were a good deal more petty and human-like in more than just appearance.  As I say, this is the received tradition; God as person is what comes down to us from the days that God was said to walk about in the Garden of Eden.  God is person-like, a super-person.

But it certainly creates problems putting God in time and space in a material form.  It may be the only way our spiritual ancestors could conceive a relationship but others since have come along no longer so restricted.

God is not a person, argued Charles Fillmore,[1] or a noun, for that matter, but a verb.  God is activity, creative activity at minimum.  As I understand it, God is the creative process and what arises from it; remembering Corrington, God will be whatever is in whatever way.

Maybe I should stop here and give you a week for that to soak in.  It is a jarring rearrangement of knowledge about God.  Is it intuitively true for you, probably for some of you yes, and others of you no.  But the point is to consider that when we say that God is love we may be closer to the truth than we know.

God really is love.  God is the process that creates what comprises it, which includes you and me, your dog, and even the fleas that inflict discomfort on all of the above.  Love creates; love promotes life, enables movement forward; love is God in action.

This brings me to Pauls discussion of spiritual gifts in I Cor. 14.  Paul has just finished a chapter long tutorial on what love is.  We all know these words . . . but we probably dont know that he isnt finished.  He begins the next chapter, Chapter 14, with the words, pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts, especially prophesy.  Now this is puzzling because he just said the chapter before that if I have prophetic powers . . . but do not have love, I am nothing.

It seems to me that Paul links the striving for spiritual gifts, especially prophesy, to love.  Without it, dont bother.  It means nothing  youre a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  Spiritual gifts are useful only when pursued in love.

Spiritual gifts pursued in a fashion other than love have limited value, if any.  Paul gives the example of speaking in tongues not understandable to others.  There is no benefit to the community and really not even to the speaker; he doesnt even know what he is saying.  It is conversation initiated by God, either as a person or process through the speaker, to God.  God speaks to God; somewhat pointless wouldnt you say?  What is gained by the speaker is the notice of others that he speaks in tongues?[2]  Paul gives one exception to the uselessness of speaking in tongues, there may be a benefit to the community if someone is around to interpret what is said.  Otherwise, save your breath.

Paul finds much more value in prophesy than speaking in tongues because those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. They build up the church whereas those speaking in tongues attempt to build up themselves for their own profit.

Now to return to the question that provoked all of this.  How do we love God?  If  I say if  God is not a person then it stands to reason that we cant relate to God in the way that we do to our wife, child, or dog.  We cannot relate to God as another being rather as the way in which we relate to other beings, or at least, in the way that we have been commanded to relate to other beings  in love.  If God is verb, specifically to love, then we should invest our energies to live God rather than try to relate to God as if a person.

To live into God, to invest God in our lives is to put ourselves into the channel of Gods activity.  Simply put, we love God by loving others.  God is an action word and so to live in God we must be living in the acts and ways that promote a bigger, better life for others.  As we invest, our vision of our nature grows.

The Christian life is a life that follows the way of Jesus the Christ who said - How can you say Show us the Father?  Can you not see the Father in me; can you not see that I am in the Father?  The Father that is in me does these works.  (How true that may be.)  If you cant believe it, then believe because of the works themselves.  The works are the true litmus test for devotion.  It is not what we believe but what we do.

The Father of Jesus, the god that fills the black box placeholder for Jesus and the god that Jesus knows, is the activity within him that does the work of loving others.  God is a verb; the mystical Father is the creative force of love.

We are called to speak the tongue of love not to ourselves or to others so that we will be favored among others but out into a world that knows little of loves power to save us from ourselves.  I encourage you to put aside tongues that serve expected ends to avoid hell or attain heaven and pursue love, for loves sake, not for what you may gain, though you will gain much, but to speak God into the communities to which you belong.

Next week, if God is not a person  whats the point of worship? 

This is how I see that we answer the question, How do I love God?  Amen.