Have you noticed how often God doesn't accept our excuses?
Poor Jeremiah thought he had the answer to God's request to go and speak for him to the people. But as usual, God refused to accept excuses, or as we often think- perfectly justified good reasons for remaining as we are.

Jeremiah had to do as God told him, just as Moses and numerous other people had, and still do today.

When we think about it, the O. T. prophets had very little knowledge to equip themselves for ministry, but they had a very strong faith, even with no personal experience of the vision that Jesus gave to the world. Imagine proclaiming to the Israelites of old that Yahweh was the one and only God, with all this meant in a culture that believed in several gods, the more the better, as there was more protection, no area of life that was overlooked. And even more demoralising, that there could be no statue to prove he existed! Jeremiah's complete belief in God helped him accept God's assurance that he would be supported and given the necessary wisdom to meet any situation, even to cope in major adversity. And most of all God's love would be enduring and faithful.

The part of the letter to Corinth that we read today is so well known that it is easy to slide over it, without really thinking about it.

When I realised that the Lectionary reading was this famous passage, I quailed at the thought of preaching on it. So many preachers far more learned and eloquent than I have preached on this passage, so what could I say that would have a fresh insight?

Because it is so well known we need to listen for something particular and specific.. We hear how love is lived out in action--in other words love is behavioural. We associate knowing we are loved with overt loving actions from some outside source. Eg, children grow up knowing they are loved by the caring gentle behaviour of their parents in providing for their needs; as well as the spoken assurance of love.
When the church limits our naming of God to 'God is love" we set people up to feel spurned when they do not see God's overt actions of love for them. They feel hurt when others are healed and they are not. They resent that someone else's problems are relieved when their's are not. They get upset when we preach miracles, feeling abandoned and unloved, for they do not see God's active, caring, loving hand moving out to them at such times in their lives. These feelings can result in aggressive attitudes toward those who advocate that God is Love, with nothing else to back it up.

We are very glib with the word LOVE - using it in the most unsuitable contexts. I remember my mother telling me that a teacher of hers at primary school used to become quite angry when the children used the word love in such ways as 'I love apples, or I really love playing with my dolls or whatever.' He maintained that the word LOVE was for people, not inanimate things. Perhaps we should take note!

It is probably appropriate that we deal with love a couple of weeks before St Valentine's day- the epitome of romantic love. Recent research has shown that in part at least, what we call FALLING IN LOVE can be attributed to a drug called PHENYLE-THYLAMINE- a form of natural amphetamine. The problem is that the body builds up a tolerance to this chemical in about 2-4 years!!! No wonder there has to be much more than physical attraction to give a lasting relationship.

Paul elaborates on the qualities of love in the Corinthian passage we read today. He is quite adamant that love is a gift from God, something that depends more on FIDELITY than feelings. Love is great but commitment is greater. If love is a gift , then the attributes of love are also gifts, and we own them. We often have difficulty in laying claim to being the possessor of gifts, or talents, believing it to be unchristian to acknowledge them., - we need to be modest about ourselves-- We are bombarded with advertisements that undermine our confidence in ourselves,--- we need special shampoos to make our hair beautiful. We must drive an upmarket car to be acceptable to our neighbours. We must eat certain foods to be healthy, or we must be guided by councillors to be able to lead fulfilled lives, -you can think of all sorts of instances which erode our feelings of self worth.

If we accept that love is a gift from God, we must acknowledge that gift, and more to the point, use it, otherwise it will wither and die.

Our life in the church can in some ways be equated to marriage, the living in relationship with others. We do not believe as the BEATLES' SONG SAYS 'ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE'. If that were all, there would be fewer divorces. Our love is changeable, fickle, short term. What we need is something to keep us together, even when things are tough. As a divorced person, I can speak with some authority! What we need in the church is a bond that holds us together in the times of diversity and differences, such as we are going through at the moment. The love that God has shared with us is not the PHENYLE-THYLAMINE drug sort of passing emotion but the committed, enduring, faithful love that withstands all the difficulties that life throws up at us, both as a church and as individuals. The sort of love that Jeremiah experienced was the STEADFAST ABIDING love which Paul knew and of which he wrote to the strife torn church in Corinth. Calvin noted that talk about love in the bitterly divided church at Corinth seems a bit strange. However, it makes the affirmation of love all the more significant when applied to a divided church. Among the Corinthian church there were many who had gone astray, the whole body was infected. There were many sins and some fearful misdeeds done. There was corruption of morals and of doctrine. What did Paul do about all this in Corinth? Did he seek to distance himself from the mess, or cast them out of the Kingdom, or pray that a thunderbolt from Heaven fall on them?
He does nothing of the sort. He actually pronounces them as the church of Christ and the communion of saints.

Doesn't this all sound familiar to we in the UCA today? Don't some members think that the Uniting Church has lost her way? What attitudes can we take in the light of today's lesson? Can we remember that love is a gift of God, not a human achievement? We can ask that we be given the grace to love all our members as God has loved us. Probably because I failed in my first marriage vows, I have a special reason to be grateful to God for his grace in his steadfast love that did not let me go, he showed me that all sinners have a place within his love that we humans cannot comprehend, -- unless we have his help. We need to ask him for the grace to love others as he has loved us - completely, committedly, forever. Love is not all we need. We need God, loving us, forgiving us, judging and correcting us, enabling us to make new starts, and giving us humility to see how difficult we are to love and so making it easier to love someone else and their faults.
It takes three to love. It takes someone to offer love, someone to receive love. It also takes God.
(References from Media Comm.)
I want to tell you (with) a story, which was in 'Chicken Soup for the Soul':

America- The Sunday after Christmas, large congregation, cold outside, warm inside. People feeling the warm after glow of Christmas., feeling complacent in the knowledge that they had celebrated Christmas properly. Minister leads service, preaches on love and suddenly they are jolted when he speaks about beggars, about homeless people, about drug addicts, about homosexuals, about foreigners .--all those who are not a part of our neat and tidy lives. People began getting restless, obviously many had reservations about being reminded about such folk when they were in the safe haven of church.
After all, kids usually had parents they should be living with, the unemployed were lazy and ought to be working. The homeless had hostels they should go to. Drug addicts chose to go down that path, no one made them take drugs. When it really boiled down, there wasn't anything the congregation could do about these people. Many of the members thought of incidents when they had been close to some of these no hopers, and it really wasn't what one expected have to face when going about one's daily living. Minister concluded by asking the congregation to love and care for others as Jesus Christ would. This upset some, spoilt the warm post Christmas glow.

Snores disturbed worship. A man covered with old blanket fast asleep in a pew at the back. Not even the organ woke him. In the silence of the prayer, girl asked mother if she thought the man had had a nice Christmas because God loves him as well as us. Mother nodded. This comment made the congregation fidget even more, feeling uncomfortable because this was what the sermon was all about.

When service almost finished, child said in a quite loud voice, 'can we share Christmas with him and give him some money, I won't wake him up?' Quietly walked over and placed the notes on the blanket. So moved were many people that on their way out lots of money was quietly placed on the sleeping man.

When everyone had gone, minister woke the sleeping person, and discovered a young man, dirty, with torn clothes, looking very tired. The man saw money, asked what it was doing on him. Minister told him. man said he didn't need it, he was a volunteer rescue worker and had spent 24hrs looking for a lost child, and was going home, but had been so tired and cold that he'd slipped into church to rest and warm as he was still a distance from home and had fallen asleep.
They decided to share the money between the rescue service and the soup kitchen which the minister ran.

Can you see the parallel between the story and Paul's definition of love, being an active, behavioural, living thing, rather than simply an emotion?

How are we going to act in response to the challenge of living love as Jesus lived it and as Paul exhorted the Corinthians to live?

We have four options: We can try to ignore the call from God, usually unsuccessful. We can say our faith is a private affair, and keep quiet about it. We can talk a lot about the love of God, and take a righteous stance when we meet people who live differently from us, whether in the community or in church, or we can actively live the committed, enduring love that Jesus came to show humanity.

Read the passage again when you get home, and see how Paul speaks to you of the love of God, again proving how enduring, faithful, active and relevant is God to the world and the church today. Amen.

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