{"id":6849,"date":"2022-01-27T18:09:55","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T17:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theologie.whp.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=6849"},"modified":"2022-02-13T15:50:48","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T14:50:48","slug":"1-corinthians-131-13-luke-421-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/1-corinthians-131-13-luke-421-30\/","title":{"rendered":"1 Corinthians 13:1-13 \/ Luke 4:21-30"},"content":{"rendered":"

4th Sunday after Epiphany | January 30, 2022 | 1 C<\/b>or<\/span>\u00a013:1-13 and Lk 4:21-30 | by The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills |<\/b><\/p>\n

1 Corinthians 13:1-13<\/strong><\/p>\n

1<\/sup>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. 2<\/sup>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. 3<\/sup>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.
\n4<\/sup>Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5<\/sup>or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6<\/sup>it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7<\/sup>It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
\n8<\/sup>Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9<\/sup>For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10<\/sup>but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11<\/sup>When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12<\/sup>For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13<\/sup>And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love (NRSV).<\/p>\n

Luke 4:21-30<\/strong><\/p>\n

21<\/sup>Then [Jesus] began to say to [all in the synagogue in Nazareth,] \u201cToday this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.\u201d 22<\/sup>All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, \u201cIs not this Joseph\u2019s son?\u201d 23<\/sup>He said to them, \u201cDoubtless you will quote to me this proverb, \u2018Doctor, cure yourself!\u2019 And you will say, \u2018Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.\u2019\u2006\u201d 24<\/sup>And he said, \u201cTruly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet\u2019s hometown. 25<\/sup>But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26<\/sup>yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27<\/sup>There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.\u201d 28<\/sup>When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29<\/sup>They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30<\/sup>But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way (NRSV).<\/p>\n

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

This morning, two weeks before Valentine\u2019s Day, and on the day of our annual congregational meeting, we hear: \u201cNow faith, hope, and love abide, and the greatest of these is love,\u201d paired with those immortal words about love that we all know from a hundred weddings, \u201cIf I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or clanging cymbal,\u201d the words of St. Paul in First Corinthians 13, the so-called \u201cLove Chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll you need is love,\u201d the song goes, and \u201clove is all you need,\u201d and when Jesus returned today to his hometown to preach for the first time in front of his friends and neighbors, the people he\u2019d known and loved all his life, at first it seemed like the beginning of a love-fest, the congregation couldn\u2019t get enough of their local boy made good: \u201cIsn\u2019t this Joseph\u2019s son?\u201d they asked proudly, all spoke well of him, all were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.\u00a0 Give that boy a scholarship to the seminary, let\u2019s have a special coffee hour in his honor, sign him up preach again whenever Rabbi is on vacation, all of Nazareth loves him!\u00a0 All went well, he had it made, until Jesus turned the focus of his sermon to love.<\/p>\n

Jesus says, \u201cI know you wish I would do a miracle here, just like I\u2019ve done in other places, I know you want a special sign of God\u2019s love unveiled right here just for you, right in front of my mom and my family, right here before my childhood rabbi, right here with my old school friends.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cBut,\u201d he says, \u201clook at how God\u2019s love works: don\u2019t you remember, there were lots of hungry widows here at home during the time of prophet Elijah, and yet God sent him far away, to feed a foreigner, an outsider.\u00a0 And there were lots of local folks suffering from leprosy during the time of the prophet Elijah, and yet God sent him to heal a foreigner, an enemy, a pagan, Namaan, from Syria.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t you see,\u201d Jesus says, \u201cGod is bigger than just you, bigger than this little place, God\u2019s love is wider than your narrow grasp, don\u2019t you remember the song? He\u2019s got the whole world in his hands!\u201d\u00a0 Our God was born in a humble manger, and worshipped by dirty shepherds and weirdo wise men, our God dies on a shameful Cross between two convicted criminals, can\u2019t you see his love reaches out for each and for all, as far as it can go, farther than any of us want, to all who are not worthy, even as far as you and me, as far as two arms open wide, nailed upon a Cross?<\/p>\n

Preachers call this moment \u2018crashing and burning\u2019, Jesus has preached a little too close to home for his hometown crowd, the love fest is now off: cancel the coffee hour, revoke the scholarship, there is no love lost now between Jesus and his hometown listeners.\u00a0 In fact, his listeners were filled with rage, we\u2019re told, they got up from their pews, and led Jesus up to the brow of the hill on which Nazareth is built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff and kill him.\u00a0 And you thought your annual meetings used to be bad!<\/p>\n

Why did Jesus tick them off so much?\u00a0 Why did they try to kill him, pointing the way for the death he was to die for us all?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t there something in each of us as human beings that sees ourselves as a little more deserving than everybody else?\u00a0 All are equal, of course, but some are more equal than others, especially yours truly!\u00a0 Like children competing for the love of a parent, we worry that more for you means less for me.\u00a0 If someone else gets a big piece of the pie, that means my piece is going to be smaller.\u00a0 If God loves far away widows, and enemy generals, then he must love me less.\u00a0 This is what enraged Jesus\u2019 listeners, and this is what can make us upset.\u00a0 How about a miracle for us faithful folks here at Trinity in New Haven, Lord?\u00a0 How about you take care of us first, and then worry about the rest later?<\/p>\n

When my cousins and I were little we would gather at my grandparents\u2019 house every summer, and I have hazy memories of us cuddling up with our grandpa to each ask him in turn, \u201cGrandpa, who\u2019s your favorite grandchild?\u201d\u00a0 And he\u2019d always answer straightforward and honestly, looking right at you, \u201cYou are. You\u2019re my favorite\u201d And then to everybody else down the line, they would say, \u201cand you are and you are and you are.\u00a0 You are each my favorite.\u201d\u00a0 If there is no limit to a grandparent\u2019s love, if there\u2019s enough for many individual favorites, how much more room is there for God to keep you as the apple of his eye, as well as your far-off neighbor in equal need of his grace, how much more room is there to keep this congregation called Trinity in his special tender care, along with all the other ones too?!\u00a0 This abundance, this infinite reservoir of divine love is why St. Paul writes his love chapter today, to show us a more excellent way, a way where something good for you doesn\u2019t mean something bad for me, but a way of life where when you rejoice, I can rejoice too, a way of life where God\u2019s love for each and for all is wider and deeper and broader than we could ever imagine.<\/p>\n

No matter what my gift or ability, Paul says–if I can speak beautifully, if I can understand everything, if I have faith so as to move mountains, if I give away everything, if I do everything, but have not love, then I am nothing, then I gain nothing, then it\u2019s all worth nothing.<\/p>\n

So the love of God, for each of us, for all of us, when that love is at work within our congregation, when we live in the abundance of that love that is there for you and there for me, that love marks us a community, as a church family that is patient, and kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.\u00a0 That love makes us not insist on our own way, it\u2019s not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing against each other, but rejoices in the truth.\u00a0 That love at work among us bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.<\/p>\n

For love never ends.\u00a0 God is love, and God never ends, so his love never ends. Everything else in this world ends, all too soon, but his love never ends, and what we do in love for him and in fervent love for one another, that never ends, but finds its place in God\u2019s Kingdom forever.<\/p>\n

Paul says today, \u201cwhen I was a child I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child but when I became an adult I put away childish ways.\u201d\u00a0 The childish ways of thinking that there is not enough love to go around, that his love is not as real for you as it is for me.<\/p>\n

No, Paul says, \u201cNow we see in a mirror, dimly, now we see by the darkness of faith, but then, someday, around his throne, we will see in glory, we will see face to face.\u00a0 Now we know just in part, but then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.\u201d\u00a0 Fully known by the God who was born in a manger for me, and died on the Cross for me, fully known by a God who gave his own Son for me; who gave himself to death so that you and I might be given eternal life.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now faith, and hope, and love abide\u2014but the greatest of these is love.\u201d\u00a0 As we gather today, as we begin our 156th<\/sup> annual gathering as his people, may that infinite divine love be at work in us, may that love for each and for all be our hallmark here at Trinity, the love we know in our creation and sustainment this day, the love we have known on the Cross, the love that comes to us in the bread and wine, his body and blood broken and shed for you, the love we have for each other in this congregation called Trinity, and the love we have for our all neighbors, far and near, for there is more than enough to go around, for me, for you, and for all.\u00a0 \u201cFor now faith, hope, and love abide, and the greatest of these, is love.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the Peace of God which passes understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills<\/p>\n

New Haven, Connecticut<\/p>\n

Pastor@TrinityLutheranNH.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4th Sunday after Epiphany | January 30, 2022 | 1 Cor\u00a013:1-13 and Lk 4:21-30 | by The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills | 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 1If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5372,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,157,108,110,852,3,109,212],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-6849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1-korinther","category-beitragende","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-13-chapter-13-1-korinther","category-nt","category-predigten","category-ryan-mills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6849"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7018,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6849\/revisions\/7018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6849"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=6849"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=6849"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=6849"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=6849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}