Don’t bother looking for the bride. I know we usually hear today’s reading from 1 Corinthians in that context, but just for today, I’m going to ask you to tune out the sentimentality and forget the cake and mints. But don’t get all theological about “the love chapter,” either. Some of you may know that love here is a verb, not an emotion but “a way of acting.” Some of you might even be able to pull up the different Greek words for love. I would ask you not to do that. This text is far too important to go on a head trip. What is at stake is pretty much the definition of God. Given that, today’s reading becomes a life-and-death invitation to see yourself as God’s own beloved.

After telling you that, I can’t resist explaining why we’re reading “the love chapter” in February instead of June—and it has nothing to do with Valentine’s Day. This time of year, the lectionary is about what it means to be called by God. Today we hear about the consequence of God’s call to us, that we are known and loved, and the texts look each of us straight in the eye and inform us that this is not some generalized theory about God loving all of creation. Rather, we are loved by God in particular. This is a wonderful, dreadful, joyous, terrifying thing, to be loved by God—by name and in particular.

One of my colleagues told about something an AIDS patient said, which put in perspective how life-and-death this love thing is. When I started volunteering at church, it was because I was poor. I was so grateful that the church reminded me of God’s grace that I wanted to give something back. I didn’t have money, but I did have time, so I volunteered. It changed my life. The AIDS patient added this perspective: “We don’t have much time, but we do have love.” After the last couple of weeks we’ve had at Springwater, seeing the fragility of human life, we need to remember what the AIDS patient said. We don’t have much time, but we do have love. As people of faith, we get to love as if our lives depend on it.

Like many of you, I listen to books on tape as I drive. Last week I listened to a novel about a priest being chased all over Mexico during one of the revolutions at the beginning of the 20th century. The successful revolutionaries persecuted the Catholic Church and priests were executed. This priest has survived on the lam for 10 years, saying mass when and where he can, just one step ahead of the police. He’s surviving, but at a great price. He becomes what is called a whiskey priest, fathering a child. abandoning the mother, losing touch with his own faith. But as the chase closes in on him and the danger increases, he finds what had always been missing in his parish ministry. He falls in love with the people. Not just abstractly or as their leader, he falls in love with each person he comes in contact with, even his betrayers and persecutors. He falls in love with their peculiarities and their particularities, and as he does, he becomes more human, less a church functionary. As loving reveals his own brokenness, he becomes less an authority and more a messenger of God’s undying love. People risk their lives to protect him, because as priest, he carries God with him, and as they risk on his behalf, he receives God in himself. He discovers that giving and receiving are the same gestures. To give is the same gesture as to receive.

Last week Rick got an email from someone who said, “I know the Bible says, ‘It’s more blessed to give than to receive,’ but could you ask your wife for some verses that say we should be gracious receivers?” When my life fell apart and I found that I had to let folks help me, it was really hard. My dad told me that, if it’s more blessed to give than to receive, it was my job to let the other folks be blessed. Rick’s correspondent was writing because her elderly mother had been receiving rides from another lady, and the mother and daughter wanted to say thank you. They found the perfect gift, a pre-paid gasoline card and wrote a nice note thanking her for her faithful gift of rides. When a note arrived from the lady who drove, the mother and daughter anticipated a thank you. Instead, it was the gas card returned with a terse note about “not needing anybody’s help.” They were so hurt by this refusal to accept a thank you gesture. Do I know any Bible verses for that? Not likely. Except to say this is about love, and the same gesture used for giving is the one used for receiving.

So it was that I approached 1 Corinthians this week. Scholars say Paul is writing about divine love, not the getting-ready-to-be-married love. They tell us this chapter is about how God loves us hand-over-fist, how God models love to us, how we Christians are called to love each other. “God so loved . . .” is what this means. And since God so loved each one of us, since God names and claims us, knows us by name and in particular and loves us—not “despite” knowing us, but “because”—because God loves each of us, we get to try to love each other in the same way.

This week I was trying to think, “So what?” to this incredible love, and all I got was overwhelmed. It is one thing to think of God loving humans universally, but when I read Paul’s list of love characteristics, and know they are directed at me, I am overwhelmed. I feel like something I saw when I was working out at the gym. The television was on so people could watch cable while they sweat. Martha Stewart was de-boning a chicken to be stuffed and roasted. She took out all the chicken’s bones except for a little bit of the wing and the leg, and what she ended up with was a completely flat chicken thing spread on the counter. God’s love just takes the bones right out of me. I can only receive, and say thanks. The “so what” is that this is what hollows us out enough to prepare us to be filled by God. Stuffed, if you will.

It’s a silly word-picture, I know. And maybe it’s too vivid. They warned us about this kind of thing in seminary. It’s vivid, but it conveys some theology. God’s design is for us to be emptied of everything—hollowed out almost as if we are boneless—emptied except for love. No distractions about not being good enough or needing to earn God’s love or even trying to balance our commitments or managing time constraints or trying to succeed. These may be good and necessary things, but they are secondary to experiencing the love of God.

Which is why we have Jeremiah today. Jeremiah’s call story gives us the radical message that God has known us—in particular—since before we were born. In that knowing, God was already calling us, already loving us. But Jeremiah’s story has some questionable bits. How much choice did Jeremiah have in his call? It sounds like Jeremiah was at the mercy of God, that God was not going to take “no” for an answer. Sometimes it feels this way! Doesn’t this violate our understanding of “free will”? Have you ever been so in love that all you want to do is make the other person happy? When you were a kid, weren’t there times when you loved your parents—or your grandparents or your teacher or your best friend—so much that you just wanted to be with them? And the closer the better. That’s what Jeremiah is up against. Jeremiah is so in love, and knows himself to be so loved, that all he can do is say “yes.” When everything is working the way it was designed, that “yes” is the sum of our life-long conversation with God. We say “yes” to God’s will, God’s plans, God’s desires for us. God, on the other hand, is all along saying “yes” to us. Yes, you are precious. Yes, you are lovable. Yes, you bring gifts that no one else in the world can bring. Yes, you are essential to me. Yes, I love you.

Your life depends on listening for God’s “yes” to you. Your life depends on hearing how head-over-heels God is for you. We practice hearing God’s “yes” by loving each other. We practice listening for God by remembering that the gesture for giving is the same as the gesture for receiving. Receive the love of your community. Receive the love of your God.

Prayer after sermon (freely adapted from Miryam of Nazareth, by Ann Johnson, p 120):

You give us so much, but we ask one thing more: help us to love each other.
To witness to the ones faithfully searching,
to warm people with your presence,
to make space in our circle for others,
to embrace the lonely,
to incorporate the peaceful Way in all our lives,
to accept the journey in the desert times,
to know you and your company of called people.
Let us lay hands upon each other, that we may know the resurrecting way and cry out in joy, Abba! Daddy!