A Commitment to Love: Our Bottom Line
Ruth 1:8-18; 1 Corinthians 12:12-20, 13:1-3
“If I ... have not love, I am nothing.” (1 Cor. 13:2)
A Sermon Delivered by Thomas J. Boone, Ph.D.
Central Presbyterian Church, Mobile AL, April 20, 2008

I’ve struggled with today’s message, but it’s not on account of the topic. The scriptures are inspiring and you’d be hard pressed to find a more uplifting message. On one hand we have a beautiful portrait of love as Ruth serves her mother-in-law, Naomi, during a time of need where her life hung in the balance. On the other hand we have the ideal description of love in 1 Corinthians 13. The struggle was that between these two scriptures has been a week marked by emotions, big news, disappointments, hopes, a lack of sound sleep; and the paint fumes not only at my house but in the office didn’t help much either. It has been a week where love hasn’t given me much as my daughter struggles for independence in that precarious place where she’s not quite yet in college. Many of you know what I’m talking about.

In scripture, love comes across like butter over bread. Jesus said it all in one verse in John: love one another as I have loved you. In the other gospels he said it almost as simply. The summary of the law is that we love God before all others, and that we should love others as we wish to be loved. From beginning to end 1 John defines love as action rather than just good thoughts. When it comes to Christian marriage so many couples turn to the description of an ideal marriage in Ephesians 5, where husbands and wives express love by serving each other rather than destroying each other. Love matters to God because God is love, and as James says if we want to be more like Christ then we will stop talking about love, and put it into practice.

But, whereas most of us know all this very well, putting it into practice is another story altogether. One reason is that our culture fills us with a bunch of nonsense when it comes to love. In the 90’s there was a song that I heard someone describe as the codependent song of the modern era. It’s titled “How Can I Live?” and here are some of the lyrics:

“How do I get through the night without you? If I had to live without you, what kind of life would that be? You’re my world, my heart, my soul. If you ever leave baby you would take away everything good in my life. Without you, there’d be no sun in my sky, there would be no love in my life, there’d be no world left for me.” (“How Do I Live” lyrics by Dianne Warren, 1997).

This song was number one in the music charts for twelve weeks. When it wasn’t number one it remained in the top 100 songs for 69 weeks and these days that the stuff legends are made of. Now the only reason it made it so high for so long is that it struck a chord in American culture: through love you can have it all.

Janet Jackson asked, “What have you done for me lately?” Barry Manilow sang, “I can’t live without you, I can’t laugh, and I can’t sing, I’m finding it hard to do anything without you.” Each of these songs were popular in their day because they gave voice to the modern notion about love. Love cures our loneliness, fulfills our needs, and is the key to our happiness according to our culture.

And embedded within this message is the lie that opposes all that scripture affirms. True love, says our culture, isn’t about what you give, but about what you get. Is it any wonder why people struggle with commitment today? Soon enough we discover that love translates into work; it means sacrificing ourselves for the sake of another. Soon enough we face the decision to love despite how we feel. Eventually the person we’ve loved even for a long time will need us more than they are able to reciprocate. Perhaps their body is failing. Perhaps their mind has abandoned the body before its time. Perhaps their struggles in life will overshadow the heart you once saw vividly. Many of you know how painful love can be in these moments, but that’s what authentic love does: it gives, and gives again if need be without counting the cost.

If only the biblical message about love were the one I listened to most! I confess this in humility because I’ve lost count of the number of times this week I’ve completely blown the ideal. I blew it in the grocery store line as I waited five minutes for someone to count out her money penny by penny to the cashier. I blew it when I had to wake my daughter up for school four times this week. I blew scripture’s ideal about love when I was tired and someone interrupted my nap on Friday. I blew God’s ideal of love when I got home from Session late and my parents wanted me to get some work done for them right away. If life is love’s testing ground, life sure has a way of making God’s love difficult to maintain.

So when I read about Ruth’s love for Naomi the Spirit challenged me. It might have been one thing for her to stand by Naomi’s side through trying circumstances had they been related by birth, but Naomi was Ruth’s mother-in-law. And when my family confronted me with challenges this week I had to come back to this story. If Ruth could love Naomi without regard to herself, then certainly I should do the same for them. Each of us could say the same thing if not about our children, then certainly about our spouses, best friends, and family. Christian love demands a choice: either follow God’s way or abandon ourselves to the feel-good love of self-fulfillment that the evil one tricks us into believing through culture.

Someone taught me how to check myself against the love God wants me to exhibit by saying the passage from 1 Corinthians 13 in the following way: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

“But what is love? I know love when Tom is patient and kind; when Tom isn’t envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude. Love is when Tom doesn’t insist on his own way; when he’s not irritable or resentful; love happens when Tom doesn’t rejoice in wrongdoing, but when he rejoices in the truth. When Tom bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things then love is my guide.”

This is the love Ruth showed to Naomi. It’s the love I see between couples when one spouse’s body has given up and needs the constant sacrifice of the other. It’s the love I saw in a couple who decided to take care of their parents in their house for years until they went home to be with the Lord. This is the love that I see in this church when it opens its doors to members of L’Arche, Family Promise, and willingly assists another church like New Hope Korean. This is the love I see among you when you commit your budget not just to programs that benefit you, but to supporting a ministry of compassion on the front lines of mid-town.

And this is the love many of you have shown me in my time here. Sure, I’ll be honest and say you don’t have it down perfectly, but I’ve been in many churches whose talk is big, whose budgets are several times yours, yet whose witness pales by comparison. You do very well, what other churches don’t even dare dream.

When I first come many of you were saying, “We were afraid that no one would want to come to us.” Now I don’t hear any of that kind of talk. What I hear now from others is, “Wow, that’s a church I’d like to serve.” Why? Because you not only talk the talk about love, you walk the walk. Albeit imperfectly, you’re making strong and courageous decisions to love this community, the youth, and each other. Just this week Session decided not only to continue the position of Director of Neighborhood Ministry, but to expand it into a full time Director of Outreach and Youth. Members of Session from both services and across generations stated unequivocally this week that growing this church by showing God’s love in this community and among the youth is a core value that must not diminish. Congratulations. It’s decisions like that, which will mean that God will provide and sustain you. That’s faith defined by strength and courage that sent Joshua boldly into Canaan. God provided for Joshua, God honored him, and God will do so for you, especially when your Canaan is mid-town, and your battle is to show love to those who are hurting and have wandered from God.

I began this sermon by admitting my struggle between knowing God’s ideal for love and the disappointment of letting the stress of daily life overshadow that love. I began by confessing that I have measured love by culture’s self-centered notions of love more than by scripture’s call to self-sacrificial love. The good news for me, as it is for you, is that because the Spirit lives within us we will always be able to return to love’s ideal. Unlike those who don’t know the Lord, we are not bound to the trap of self-fulfilling love that our culture proclaims. We have each other for support when its tough to love, and we have God’s Word that encourages us with stories like Ruth and Naomi.

I know some of you are dismayed and hurt that I’m leaving at the end of July, but that’s what happens with all Interim Pastors: we leave so that a permanent Pastor can come. My goal has been to help you rebuild bridges within the church so that a Pastor can lead you more boldly into a new era of mission, compassion, and outreach through programs, service, and worship. But as you know I’m leaving, don’t lose sight of what you’ve achieved! You’ve worked hard to rebuild the foundation of love and God has plans to use that foundation in this community. Sacrificial love has been your tradition, and it will direct your future, as you move boldly from the wilderness to your Canaan. This is God’s promise for you in Ezekiel 37. “I will open your graves, and you will know that I am the Lord.” Praise God for the end of the wilderness! Hallelujah. Amen.