AT THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL week 4

Epiphany 2010—Week 4
  
"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." 
 I Corinthians 13: 1-2

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 
 
In his first letter to the Christians of Corinth, the Apostle Paul sweeps in on a cresting wave of grace, to speak of love’s elemental power with poetry and wonder,   "Love is patient, love is kind, and envies no one.  Love is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in what is right.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends."  [I Corinthians 13: 4-8a]
 
This kind of love is not some poofy little Valentine’s Day confection, rather it’s the love of the season of Epiphany, when the Holy and Eternal arrives cloaked in the ordinary garb of flesh and tissue; elbowing its way into our overcrowded and unbearably detailed agendas.   This is Love, the heavy-duty industrial strength variety.  The love that assembles the beloved community and keeps it humming.
 
The musical note "A" vibrates 440 times per second. Some people have the gift of perfect pitch.  They can hit any note you call out to them.  They can tell when an "A" is trying to slide by on a mere 437 vibrations per second. 
 
A young violist with perfect pitch was once asked how valuable perfect pitch was to her.  She replied, "It’s not worth much.  Sure, I can amuse my friends with it if I want to, but mostly it’s an irritation to be hyper-aware when a tone is off.  It’s much more important to have a perfect sense of intervals, the distance between tones.  Music, after all, depends on the relationships between successive tones and those that are all stacked up within a chord."
 
So we all, as individuals, and as congregations, are called to love.  Not to follow a detailed instruction manual, not to interact solely according to an organizational chart.  But to love.  To throw ourselves wholeheartedly  into the jumble of  humanity. To be attentive to our relationships to one another, as we improvise the divine harmony in our segment of the Creator’s symphony of life.
 
Now, I admit it.  When we began our "big dig" toward the heart of the Gospel, even though I stated that I would "send you my weekly reflections on this quest, expressed through the language of the Epiphany scriptures," I hadn’t checked ahead to see what exact scripture passages were assigned for the Sundays after Epiphany. But here it is. The big love letter.  For a people who will overwhelmingly and unhesitatingly—although not necessarily unanimously—attest that love is the heart of the Gospel, these words on L-O-V-E may be the bright star of epiphany. 
 
Back to Shimon Perez’ words, for our reality check:  There’s the light.  Where’s the tunnel? 
 
We see it—we see the light—but  how do we make our way there?  To love that is deeper and richer, more complex and more compelling than any romantic vision.  That stands with the other and brings out the best in the beloved.  How do we make it to the point where, when we say, that God is love, we mean it?  We mean that at the source of all creation, embedded in our spiritual DNA, there is Something that desires reconciliation and peace, joy and well-being for all people; that the horizon of the universe arcs toward justice, and that we are most fulfilled, most completely who we are when we are in tune with that Reality.
 
Taking to heart and to soul Paul’s affirmation of diversity and espousal of the mutual need, mutual enrichment, and mutual benefit of life in community, life in love, we get ourselves about the business of tunnel construction.  We excavate.  Dig in.  Dig deep.  Root out.  Keep focused.  Endure some claustrophobic moments.  Slog on where no one has ever gone before.  Depend on our companions in this undertaking.  Even though we "now see in a mirror, dimly" eventually "we will see face to face."

 
 
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What is the heart of the Gospel?
How do you find it?
How have you found it?
Who are your guides?
What are your tools?
 
You are most cordially invited
to enter into reflection and conversation
on these questions
that are so vital to us
as a faith community.
 
Send word of your explorations
whether individual or from a group
in the comment section.
 
And the greatest of these is love,