Vision of Hope Weblog

INTRODUCTION
We all have certain Valentine’s Days we remember, and probably some we wish we could forget.
My most memorable Valentine’s Day did not occur in the company of my wife. It happened in the 3rd grade. I had this unrequited crush on cute little Tammy. And there was a loud-mouthed, scrawny girl with blaze orange hair named Anita who had a crush on me. We’re talking about serious love triangle here…
Well, near the end of the school day, right when I was getting ready to make my move on Tammy, giving her a box of those sugary conversation hearts, our teacher, Mrs. Whitten, announced to the class that she wanted to read the sweetest Valentine she had ever seen. It was a Valentine she had intercepted from Anita to me.
And so, with the entire class listening in wide-eyed captivation, she proceeded with the poem Anita had composed:
My dearest David, my sweetheart, when we get married and live in a truck, we’ll order our baby from Sears and Roebuck. All my love, Anita
Now can you imagine having to live that down in front of all your buddies, not to mention Tammy?!
Ah, Valentine’s Day–that day of wallowing in the syrupy, sanguine emotion of love!
Yet, with all due respect to the band Boston, I would submit to you that love is more than a feeling….much, much more. On this Valentine’s Day of 2010, with the help of the Apostle Paul, you are going to learn everything you ever wanted to know about love, and then some….

I. LOVE IS THE ULTIMATE VIRTUE vss. 1-3
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. 2And 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. 3If 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.
The occasion for Paul’s letter to the Corinthians involves a huge schism in the church over spiritual gifts. Judgmentalism is rampant, with members treating each other with contempt over who has the most ecstatic and sensational of gifts. Kinda like the Pentecostal preacher I once knew who bragged over drinking poison and living to tell about it. Big whoop…
Well, Paul is never one to mince words. He looks upon all this childish silliness and tells the Corinthians that love is the greatest of all spiritual gifts…yes, love…and it is a gift made available to everyone by God. There’s no pecking order. All Christians are endowed with the capacity to love.
Now, the Greek language from which our New Testament is translated contains four words for love:
• There is eros - a shallow love based on sensuality, from which we derive the word erotic.
• There is philia - which is kin to bonds of friendship.
• There is storge - the strong caring that exists between a parent and child.
• Then, there is agape - love that selflessly sacrifices on behalf of another…that seeks not to be a sensation but a servant. It is love not based on hormones of the heart but rather on sacrifice of the will.
Such love asks not What’s in it for me but rather What’s best for you?
It is the deepest form of love we can have for others in relationships–be it marriage, family, church, work, school or community.
Agape love–there’s nothing touchy-feely, warm and fuzzy about it. It’s tough love. I witnessed it the other day in my rounds as a volunteer chaplain at Rockingham Memorial Hospital…
I walked into the room of an elderly patient. She was throwing up violently from the anesthesia she had received earlier for her surgery. She had no family. But she did have a neighbor who was standing at her bedside, holding the pan for her to puke in. The odor was horrendous. The front of the neighbor’s sweater was soiled. But this neighbor did not turn away. She remained at her elderly friend’s side, holding the pan, and gently wiping the lady’s forehead with a cool washcloth.
Love. Agape love. Love of the will. Love that is more than a feeling. Love that is the ultimate virtue.
Let’s talk about it more….
II. LOVE IS THE ULTIMATE VERB vss. 4-8a
It is not a passive noun; it’s a very, very active verb. It is always in motion, always doing, always reaching, always lifting, always serving others.
“I before e except after c.”
Remember chanting that little ditty back in elementary school? It was one of those odd rules of English grammar we were taught. It worked to help us spell ie words such as friend, thief and yield and ei words such as ceiling, receive and deceit.
But you may also remember that you soon had to learn several exceptions to that rule- for example, neither and weird. And there were lots of exceptions.
Thankfully we have spellcheck on our computers today to correct us.
In spelling love, Paul gives us a clear, hard and fast rule with no exceptions: U always comes before I. Plain and simple.
But just in case we are dense, Paul breaks it down into 16 easy-to-grasp illustrations that help us in our daily actions and attitudes:
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way.
Love is not irritable or resentful.
Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
Now, accepting Christ brings instant forgiveness of sin and immediate righteousness before God. But it also signs us up for a lifelong course in character-formation. We must learn to love others as Christ has loved us, and the rule for spelling this sacrificial love is simply U before I. If I put you and your needs before mine in all situations, I will never go wrong. I will live as a true Christian. (I told you love is hard–it’s definitely more than a feeling!)
And there’s one more point to make….

III. LOVE IS THE ULTIMATE VANTAGE POINT vss. 8b-13
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.9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When 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. 12For 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. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Bill and Hilda’s kitchen window looked out upon their neighbor’s back yard. Their neighbors were a young couple, Mark and Maggie, with three small kids. The young couple was very environmentally-conscious. One day they put up a clothesline in their back yard, and began hanging their wash out instead of using the energy-consuming electric dryer.
Well, this amused and perturbed Hilda to no end. The first day she saw the clothes of her young neighbors hanging on the line, she smugly told Bill, “Look at those shirts–they’re dingier than dirt!”
The next day Maggie hung out some sheets. “Will you look at that!” Hilda told Bill, “I’ve never seen shirts as grimy as that– I need to go over and teach that poor girl how to use bleach!”
A couple of days later, Maggie hung out some more linens on the line. As Hilda peered out busy-bodily out her kitchen window, she was quite surprised. “Bill, I wonder what happened? Maggie’s wash is clean and bright as snow!”
“I’ll tell you what happened, dear,” Bill replied, “I went outside before you got up this morning and took the Windex to our kitchen window!”
Are you the type of person who is always noticing the dirty clothes on someone else’s clothesline? Do you always make it a point to see the worst, the negative, the bad in everyone and everything?
Perhaps your window on life needs cleaning. Perhaps you need to pray with the psalmist David, “Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me.”
Perhaps you need to ask Christ to enable you to see the world around you from the vantage point of love.

The late renowned pastor of Riverside Church in New York, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, once stated, “There are people and things in this world, and people are to be loved and things are to be used. And it is increasingly important that we love people and use things, for there is so much in our gadget-minded, consumer-oriented society that is encouraging us to love things and use people.” —William Sloane Coffin, Credo (Westminster, 2005), 35.
These words were spoken over a decade ago, yet they are even more contemporary today. Our “things”, our gadgets, our devices, have served to make us oblivious to one another. How can we love people when we do not even notice their presence around us?
We’ve got our earbuds in and cranked, our Blackberries texting and we just don’t relate to folks face-to-face anymore except to complain when they’ve failed to pour enough steamed milk in our latte.
Perhaps we need to reboot ourselves and begin looking at the world through the vantage point of love–love that perceives and gets to know and gets involved in the lives of others.
Do you take the Bible literally? Ray Waddle writes, “There are many folks who declare the entire Bible to be literally true, and they mean it. For others, literally is one of those litmus test words–a gotcha term in religious debate when one side tries to outdo the other for first place and top ranking in the Bible-believer playoffs.
“Usually literalism focuses on the 6-day creation story in Genesis or Jonah in the belly of the fish or on the miracles of Jesus. Such debates never get around to this famous passage in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. But what if everyone indeed took this passage literally; that is, took it to heart, as if the words had the unflinching, divine quality of authority, which they do?”
“What would the world look like then?”
The Upper Room Disciplines, 2010, p. 41.
Indeed, what would change in your life if you made it a point to put these words of Paul into practice this week? What would happen in your relationships with family members, friends, co-workers, fellow students, strangers if you began to engage them with sacrificial, selfless love? What would happen if you took this portion of the Bible literally and did your utmost to live it?
At the end of the day, such love is the true gauge of maturity. A person who is truly grown-up is one who has learned to quit navel-gazing and begin focusing upon others with compassion and caring. We truly are able to catch a glimpse of Jesus, however dimly, in the faces of persons we respond to out of love…and one day we will see Him face-to-face, and hear His words of affirmation, “Well done, my good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Master!”
There’s an old Quaker saying that summarizes it well:
What shall I do? I expect to pass through this world but once. Therefore any good work, kindness or service I can render to any person or animal, let me do it now. Let me not neglect or delay to do it, for I will not pass this way again.

CONCLUSION
Yes, on this Valentine’s Day of 2010, we proclaim that love is more than a feeling.
Virginia Monts was a dear saint of our church, a woman lifted by Christ’s love and always seeking to share that love with others. She passed away December 17, 2009 at the age of 88. Many of us, including myself, never got to know Virginia well–the twilight years of her life were eclipsed by the debilitating onslaught of Alzheimer’s.
During WWII, Virginia served in the Army Air Corps as a nurse. She spent those dangerous years in field hospitals, tending to wounded and dying soldiers with tender compassion. Following the war, she returned home, continuing her calling as a nurse for many years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC.
Wherever she lived, she was involved in the lives others in her community. She received numerous awards for her efforts to better the lives of children from civic and government organizations. She was full of life, always on the go, noticing the least and lost among us, and giving of herself in ministry to them.
Virginia came very late in life to Mt. Sinai UMC, the forerunner congregation of VOH. It was here that she taught Sunday School to teens–sharing her life experiences and molding many of you as people of God.
As the Alzheimer’s took hold, Virginia’s world shrank to the confines of a nursing home. And yet, she still had a beautiful smile and glowing countenance about her.
Last November, Virginia fell and severely fractured her hip. She was taken to the ER at Rockingham Memorial Hospital.
Her daughter Mary shared with me that, as Virginia lay on that ER gurney, her mind completely confused and clouded over with Alzheimer’s, her body wracked in horrific pain, Virginia began singing these timeless words of this old gospel song with clarity, with conviction:
Love lifted me,
Love lifted me,
When nothing else could help,
Love lifted me…
A few short days later this dear woman, who had spent her life sacrificially lifting others in love, was herself lifted home to God by his enduring, eternal and healing love.
Yes, faith, hope, love abide–these three–and the greatest of these is love!

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Oct. 11, 2009–Let Go 2 Let God

October 17th, 2009

LET GO 2 LET GOD!
Mark 10:17-31
October 11, 2009…17th Sunday after Pentecost

CLICK HERE

INTRODUCTION
There is a most memorable scene from that lighthearted movie City Slickers when the crusty, grizzled trail boss Curly (played by the late Jack Palance) is having a deep conversation with Billy Crystal. They are on a cattle drive. Billy Crystal is going through a mid-life crisis of sorts, and he has joined the cattle drive to “find himself.”
Curly holds up his index finger and tells Billy Crystal that the key to life is to find the “one thing.” And he leaves Billy Crystal to search himself to find what that “one thing” is.
Jesus puts a similar spin on things when he has a fascinating encounter one afternoon:

I. WHEN JESUS SEARCHES YOUR HEART
17As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18″Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
20″Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
21Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Yes, this affluent young man is on a mission.
The disciples of Jesus are quite startled when he comes running up to Jesus on that hot, dusty road to Jerusalem.
He looks like he just stepped out of the pages of Palestinian Gentleman’s Quarterly. His sharply-tailored Armani robe is from the Jerusalem Saks Fifth Avenue. He’s wearing Gucci sandals of the finest Corinthian leather.
They say his home is lavishly appointed, his cellar filled with the finest of Mediterranean wines. He drives a luxurious 2-humped Bactrian Motor Works camel. His stock holdings in the new high-tech olive press industry have propelled him to #5 on the Money magazine’s top 5 up-and-coming tycoons in Israel, just below Dan Snyderstein.
Yes, this young man is on a quest to find the “one thing.” Yet, Jesus searches him, and sees quite readily that he has a gaping hole in his soul.
His bank account is overflowing but his heart is empty. He is looking for another investment to add to his portfolio. “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life,” he implores.
Jesus doesn’t immediately respond, but rather quizzes him on his faithfulness to the commandments. “I’ve kept them all, Teacher, since I was a kid.” Jesus sees such great potential in this young man, much leadership credentials, and he’s very fond of him.
And yet, Jesus also senses this young man has spent his entire life attempting to apply the principles of Wall Street to Faith Journey Road.
The young man is searching for one thing to make his life complete. Jesus sees the tremendous roadblock in his life and says to him, “You lack one thing.” “You are going to have to let go of one thing to let God give you eternity.”
This young man is living under the false illusion that everything can be bought for a price, including eternal life. Jesus gives him a basic lesson in economics. Price and cost are not the same. Price is written in dollars, but cost is spelled out in values.
No price tag can be put upon eternal life, but it does have what economists call opportunity cost. Every time we buy something, we are asking, “What opportunity am I willing to sacrifice in order to make this purchase?” For the poor man, a pair of shoes may be the opportunity cost for buying a loaf of bread. For the rich man, investment in a new enterprise may be the opportunity cost for the expansion of an old business.
When Jesus applies the principle of opportunity cost to the value of eternal life, he pierces the heart of the young man. Everything is to be sacrificed, every last penny of his portfolio. He learns that eternal life is a value that has no price tag–it costs us our all.

And that is more than he can bear. He looks like he’s been hit between the eyes with a 2′x4′. He is utterly shocked. He is utterly devastated, for he has earned and hoarded so very much in his short lifespan. Jesus has challenged him to let go of the roadblock in order to let God work in his life, but it is simply more than he is willing to do.
He stands there a while, staring at the ground, unwilling to even look Jesus in the eye. Then, finally, he turns, with head still hung low, and walks slowly away.
Consider the opportunities this young man could have had, the untapped potential he possessed. He could have impacted the world. With his boundless talent he could have inscribed his name beside St. Peter and St. Paul. Perhaps he would have been the Albert Schweitzer, the Billy Graham, of his day. He could have embarked upon life’s greatest adventure, spreading circles of influence that would still be rippling across history today.
That gaping hole in his soul would have been filled–filled with a vibrant, meaningful, eternal relationship with God. But all he can see is what he has to lose, not what he has to gain.
He refuses to seize the moment, and in great grief and sincere sorrow, he walks away, never to be heard from again.
“What one thing do I lack?” - that is the question Jesus confronts us with today. What must I let go of to let God have his way with my life that I might truly be complete?
And that’s a hard question. Because we don’t like to let go of anything. We’re basically a nation of hoarders. In fact, some of us may be afflicted with Compulsive Hoarding Syndrome. You want to hear something strange….
Gordon Stewart, 74, was a retired cabinetmaker and ponytailed loner who was often seen pedaling his bike around the streets of Broughton, in the U.K., picking up cardboard boxes and bags full of rubbish.
One day, when neighbors hadn’t seen Stewart emerge from his home for several days, they called police. Officers broke in, only to find a house so full of trash that the only way to get around was through an elaborate series of tunnels running through the filth.
The stench was so bad that a police dive team using breathing apparatus was called in to search for Stewart, who was found deep inside the unholy labyrinth. Police believe Stewart became disoriented in the mountains of collected stuff and died of dehydration. “Human mole dies of thirst … lost in his own tunnels of trash,” read the headline in The Sun.
Stewart suffered from Compulsive Hoarding Syndrome, a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder that causes people to acquire and hold on to stuff that’s useless or of limited value — stuff most of us would call “junk.”
Compulsive hoarders stubbornly hold on to old newspapers, magazines, old clothing, bags, books, mail, notes and lists, as well as other accumulated junk and even garbage, because they believe they might somehow need those items in the future.
The homes of compulsive hoarders thus become a dumping ground, where piles and piles of stuff choke out living space to a dangerous point. It doesn’t take long for the clutter to start spreading onto the floors, countertops, hallways, stairwells, garage and cars. Beds become so cluttered there’s no room to sleep. Chairs become so buried there’s nowhere to sit. Kitchen counters become so cluttered that food can’t be prepared.
Eventually, like Stewart’s home, the living space can be accessed only by a series of narrow pathways or tunnels through the clutter. According to a survey by the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation (OCF), hoarding constituted a physical health threat in 81 percent of identified cases, including threat of fire hazard, falling, unsanitary conditions and inability to prepare food. Stewart’s case shows what can happen when hoarding reaches a critical stage. Very bizarre, is it not?
As comedian Stephen Wright once quipped, “You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?” Eventually, we learn that having it all becomes more of a life-choking burden than a blessing. When we come to believe that our worth is bound up in all we achieve and accumulate, we become trapped in a maze of our own making.
Yes, so many of us are hoarders of stuff, of money, of whatever–that keep us from walking with Christ and from knowing the eternal life God has in store for us.

II. WHO, THEN, CAN BE SAVED?
23Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” 24The disciples were amazed at his words.
But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
26The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
27Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”28Peter said to him, “We have left everything to follow you!”
29″I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Yes, you can see the disciples’ faces turn pale and their jaws drop in collective astonishment when Jesus challenges this young man and he turns away. In their minds and in the mind of the culture of their day, prosperity equals salvation.
They have been brought up to believe that the wealthy are favored above all people by God. And so this has become a quite shocking, highly teachable moment for them. “Can it truly be harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God?”
We, of course, love to see Jesus “stickin’ it to the Man!” Yeah, Jesus, give those rich folk their come-uppance! After all, it’s popular right now in our culture to demonize the wealthy–that is, until we realize the wealthy are us!
The truth of the matter is that if you live in the United States and have even a very modest home and income, you’re still wealthier than the 2.7 billion people in the world who make less than two dollars a day.
By that standard, almost all of us are rich and, very likely, want to get richer. And if that is our sole aim in life, then we’ve got a deep, spiritual problem, and a roadblock standing in our way to the Kingdom of God.
Jesus reveals the Great Reversal…that somewhere along the way many who have thought they are first will be last in God’s eyes.
And the disciples inquire along with us all, “Who then can be saved?” And Jesus replies, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
Yes, we serve a God who makes possible impossibilities–a God who reaches down and helps us to make choices to rid ourselves of life-sucking greed and avarice–a God who gives us the opportunity to become involved in ministries greater than ourselves which bring hope to the world.
Yes, we can be transformed through his amazing grace. And God can pry our clenched fists into open hands that give and serve and reach out to others.
CONCLUSION
One of the most remarkable men I’ve ever had the opportunity to meet was Millard Fuller. You may be familiar with his life story:
Upon graduation from college and law school, Fuller became a very successful businessman and attorney in Birmingham, Alabama. He was a millionaire by the age of 29.
But Fuller’s life was a mess. He and his wife Linda were nearly in divorce. He felt completely empty and hopeless inside. He had it all, yet he had nothing.
After many months of struggle and prayer, he and Linda became convinced that God was calling them to give up completely their lavish lifestyle. They took Jesus’ message to divest themselves of their wealth to heart. They moved to Koinonia Farm, a Christian community in southwestern Georgia, and became missionaries to Zaire.
It was during this time that God gave Millard Fuller a unique revelation. Once back in the US, with God’s leading, Fuller developed a vision for a venture that would come to be called Habitat for Humanity.
The premise was that all God’s children deserve a decent place to live. And so, Fuller began organizing volunteer groups to build affordable homes in which the future occupants also contributed “sweat equity.” The mortgage would be at 0% interest, with the low monthly payments being plowed back into funds to build more houses. And the vision took off.
Beginning in San Antonio, Texas in 1976–continuing to this very day–thousands upon thousands of homes have been built by volunteers…homes that have made a profound and uplifting difference in the lives of so many marginal people.
Millard Fuller used to laugh as he would comment, “There’s not much we Christians can agree on–but thank God we can agree on a nail–we can all pick up a hammer and drive a nail!”
In September 1996, President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and said, “Millard Fuller has done as much to make the dream of homeownership a reality in our country and throughout the world as any living person.”Fuller died this past February at the age of 74, but his vision continues. It is truly amazing what God can do when we let go to let God have all of our heart. His amazing grace saves us and empowers us to accomplish some pretty remarkable things. What is the one thing holding you back this day?

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Vision of Hope Weblog

May 16, 2010–”God’s Shepherd in the Home”

May 2, 2010–”When Life Rocks Your Boat”

April 25, 2010–”Are you a Hoop Trooper?”

April 18, 2010–”Jesus Tasers the Terminator”

April 11, 2010–”Doubt Quest”

April 4, 2010–EASTER–”Famous First Words”

March 28, 2010–”CrossWords–Trust”

March 21, 2010–”CrossWords–Preserverance”

Feb. 14, 2010–”More than a Feeling”

Oct. 11, 2009–Let Go 2 Let God

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