HEARTS AND FLOWERS
I Corinthians 13

A sermon given by the Reverend Beverley F. Edwards
February 12, 2006 / 6th Sunday after the Epiphany

Publically-professed love is fashionable these days. The TV program, Hollywood Extra advertises that it reveals the love-life of the stars, and shows their glamorous weddings. Magazines at the market check-out counter promise to reveal how Brad pines for Jennifer...or not.

If bumper stickers are to be believed we drive on our highways surrounded by lovers of golden retrievers, kittens, square-dancing, even "my job". We, the passing public, are invited to respond with a "honk if we love Jesus."

Nor is it any coincidence Valentine’s Day falls in February, for lacy cards and a perfect rose are far better heart-warmers than woolen mufflers and electric blankets. Everyone needs a little romance this time of year and tenderness at any season from any source is welcome. I do think, however, we need to be careful to distinguish all of the above from true love.

The little red heart on the bumper sticker is perfect for the simple affection we feel for a pet. That heart beats neon-red for the glamorous high society gushing gossips. In valentines – just two days away don’t forget—the heart’s mood is playful, funny and sentimental. That shiny heart may even be appropriate for the romantic crush on Jesus of those who have just discovered him to replace the most recent rock star in their lives.

But I have never seen a bumper sticker that said, "I love my spouse" or "I love my children" or even, "I love Jesus" because those relationships in which we truly love are too complex, too deeply meaningful to be trivialized in such a way.

Anyone who has ever loved knows that inevitably, in the long, complex process of loving, that shiny, symmetrical, ruby-red heart gets bent out of shape, wounded, pale, pierced and scarred.

New romance is exciting because the other person is largely unknown. We are attracted by their good looks, or their easy manner or by the fact that they seem to find us interesting. Not only do we fill in the gaps in our knowledge of them with our own imagination, in the beginning relationship we have the perfect opportunity to present ourselves as the wonderful person we imagine ourselves to be.

Even in a lifetime of intimacy there remain exciting connections and romantic mysteries still to be revealed. For a relationship to flourish, however, for love to bloom, it is necessary to move beyond romance to reality, from surface to depth.

In Greek mythology, it is the heart pierced by Cupid’s arrow that is opened to love and, in our own lives we first feel love’s stirrings when we allow another person inside our defenses, when we become vulnerable by allowing our heart to be touched. Love is a real risk we take because the heart that is open to love is also exposed to pain. We human beings, fallible and fragile as we are, cannot experience the one without the other.

Nor is it easy to love one another. Even in the most tender relationships, as we grow closer together our rough edges rub against each other and our individual strengths and weaknesses don’t exactly mesh. The processes of loving intimacy demand a commitment of our deepest self and, to that extent, a genuine loss of freedom. For love is a mutual process of self-revelation. It involves acceptance of the reality of one another "for better, for worse." Love demands an ongoing accommodation of two lives each of which is in process of change and growth.

None of us would dare to take the risk if we had not first been loved, for we would not know the name of what was missing from our lives. Love is always a gift we must receive before we can give. Although the name of the person from whom we first received it may have been Mother, Father, friend, teacher, lover, child, the name behind all those names, the giver of love to them, back, way back to the edge of consciousness, is "God". John, the evangelist wrote that "God is love." However dimly we know love, to that extent we also know God.

But, if loving another human being is not easy, loving God is even more difficult because we see the risk as so great. Knowing that God is all loving, all good and all wise, we feel unworthy and scared that if God knew who we really were, and what we were really like, God would reject us like a discarded valentine. Then out heart would be mortally wounded.

So in "self-defense", we hide from God either by revealing to God only our romantic, perfected side or like Jonah, by running so far and so fast God cannot find us.

How foolish we are. God is neither romantic nor sentimental. God created us. Before we were even born God formed us out of love. The brave, perfect front we put on doesn't keep God from loving us...it just keeps us and our loving heart imprisoned behind defenses. The hiding places we find, the running we do, doesn't prevent God from searching us out and knowing us fully. It just keeps us from taking the risk of loving back and experiencing the joy of being in close relationship with God.

God even recognized and sympathized with the natural human fear. In fact God so loved the world, God took a risk to become as vulnerable as any other mortal. In the person of Jesus Christ God revealed the realities of perfect love.

No one knows what Jesus looked like, for God’s love is not romantic. It penetrates deep below the facade, to the soul. The Bible says Jesus had only to meet a person for him to know their innermost thoughts and pains. Then, with a word and a tender touch he healed them.

Loving the world was not easy. Jesus experienced sorrow, grief, lonliness and betrayal . Ultimately, the sacred heart of Jesus was broken by death. In that moment all his divine love poured out through his wounds in God’s ultimate gift to those Jesus loved.

It is the love of God in Christ Jesus we celebrate in our communion. We receive it in the broken bread which nourishes us and makes us whole and in the cup of blessing which we share as we ourselves become the body of Christ in the world.

If we so choose, our relationship with God in Christ is a life-long, growing, learning, intimate, difficult process. For just as in our relationships with one another, so even more so with God. The commitment becomes more and more profound, and the demands become more difficult as the reality deepens.

Jesus called to Peter three times, "Do you love me?" Every time when Peter answered, "Yes, Lord", his commitment grew and the dimensions widened until at last, for the love of the Lord, Peter understood he was to love all the sheep, all the people whom Jesus loves, which is all the people in the world, past, present and future.

When we love Jesus, the same question comes to us over and over again. "Do you love me? Then feed my sheep." Jesus calls us to the love and pain of hearts that break to see hunger and thirst, pain and fear. Jesus calls us to the pain of stretching our hearts until they encompass the most unlovable of people, and even, or especially, those enemies who seek to do us harm.

It is not easy to love God, but as we do we feel God loving us back until our joy overflows and we are filled with our hearts’ desire–perfectly known and accepted and loved by God. Then we know for ourselves there is no more risk, nothing to lose, and peace at the last.

As God’s love overflows in us, our hearts acquire a greater and greater capacity for loving others. John Wesley wrote that "His heart was strangely warmed" by the presence of God. I pray the same for all of us this chilly February, this valentine season.

By all means send hearts and flowers, cards and candy. Hug your sweetie and allow yourself to be sentimental. But, know that your love runs deeper and wider than any symbols can contain. For as St. Paul concludes: "faith, hope and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.

SHALOM