September 9, 2012
The Look of Love
- Proverbs 22:1-2
- Dr. Teri Thomas
A few years back I took a creative writing class. The teacher responded to our efforts by saying over and over- show me, don’t tell me. Our assignment one day was to take a personal quality and turn it into a person by describing how it looks and acts.
Mine went something like this…
As Impatience sits in the waiting room, her foot kicks the air and her fingers tap a silent rhythm on the chair. The people around her feel nervous and the receptionist feels rushed. Impatience filled out all the forms for her husband’s visit to this doctor because she can write so much faster and she doesn’t need to look up any of the insurance numbers. She also finishes his sentences and shortens his explanations.
Impatience has an auto-stop feature on her coffeepot so she can pour while it is still brewing. She burns her tongue on under-baked pizza.
She cooks with a microwave,
speeds on the highway,
cusses at red lights,
avoids lines like the plague,
walks ten paces ahead,
gets twice as much done in half as much time,
and never understands why the world can’t keep up.
Her former secretary stuttered. Twice.
Can you see her?
In this morning’s passages James is still talking about faith. He wants us to see what it looks like, how it behaves. To show us- he talks of partiality and of love. In James, discipleship gets practical. Very practical and very specific.
James has instructions for the HOSTS. How to greet people and how to seat them. There are instructions for the Mission Team regarding our treatment of those outside our congregation. There are instructions for pastors and members about how to treat one another, how to live our faith. And it comes down to avoiding partiality and showing love.
Now let’s admit it- we are all prone to partiality
we vote for one candidate over another
we choose one school for our children out of many
I am partial to my hairdresser, my personal trainer, and my husband.
Aren’t we here rather than across the street this morning because we are partial to the reformed faith? Aren’t many of us partial to America?
Our partiality becomes a problem when what we prefer
becomes for us more important- more worthy - more essential – more valuable – more acceptable than the others we do not prefer.
I may like dark chocolate more than milk chocolate that doesn’t make it inherently better- or closer to God. And really this isn’t about chocolate, it is about people.
And God’s image is in every single human being on the face of this earth and God shows no partiality. So we are to love.
We are to love the humble person with deep faith
and the arrogant person with shallow faith.
We are to love the poor and the rich;
the insiders and the outcasts.
And James says- like my writing teacher- SHOW me, don’t tell me. This is agape love. There are other words for feelings and emotions of love. Agape is an action. This is the verb love.
Last week Ruth talked about faith as a verb, well, this is LOVE as a verb. It is the love you can see moving in the world. It is love acting out and doing things. If you are in my writing class and you have to describe what this love looks like, how it behaves- how do you do it?
Fred Craddock tells the story of a missionary sent to preach the gospel in India near the end of World War II. After many months the time came for a furlough back home.
His church wired him the money to book passage on a steamer but when he got to the port city he discovered a boat load of Jews had just been allowed to land temporarily. These were the days when European Jews were sailing all over the world literally looking for a place to live, and these particular Jews were now staying in attics and warehouses and basements all over that port city.
It happened to be Christmas, and on Christmas morning, this missionary went to one of the attics where scores of Jews were staying. He walked in and said, "Merry Christmas."
The people looked at him as if he were crazy and responded, "We're Jews.”
"I know that," said the missionary, " What would you like for Christmas?"
In utter amazement the Jews responded, "Why, we'd like pastries, good pastries like the ones we used to have in Germany." So the missionary went out and used the money for his ticket home to buy pastries for all the Jews he could find staying in the port.
Of course, then he had to wire home asking for more money to book his passage back to the States. As you might expect, his superiors wired back asking what happened to the money they had already sent. He wired that he had used it to buy Christmas pastries for some Jews.
His superiors wired back, "Why did you do that? They don't even believe in Jesus."
He wired back: "Yes, but I do."
What does love look like today, in our time? What is it doing? How is it acting?
What does love look like here in Indianapolis? Where does it live? How does it live?
What does love look like here at Northminster?
If you walk into our Gathering Place during coffee hour or out onto the patio for the picnic at noon today you might see folks helping little kids reach the donuts or hotdogs. There are people chatting with visitors and HOSTS welcoming strangers.
That is what love looks like.
If you wander into the preschool church school class at 10:00 there is no teacher. What does love look like in our church school each week?
Last Wednesday we had a bunch of new kids come for dinner and choir. There were not enough seats for everyone and food was running low. But very quickly the visitors were seated at the table and fed. I saw some of our members sitting on the floor. That looked like love.
We sent a bunch of folks to work on a habitat house this summer. Our deacons check on the homebound and take them communion. Our Stephen Ministers help people in crisis whether or not they are members. We have volunteers helping with the homeless who stay in our building with IHN. The Mission Team reaches out to Joy House and Wheeler Mission and all kinds of places where the people are not our members, they are not like us, we don’t know them, but we love.
Think about it…draw the picture yourself…write the story…
As love leaves the 9:00/11:00 service at Northminster, he goes to…and…
As love turns off the computer having worshipped on-line she decides it is time to…
As love finishes reading the passage in James
“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead…You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love knows what needs to be done and does it.
Show me.
Amen.