The Love Chapter Dot Com?

4 Epiphany  C   January 31, 2016

Jer. 1:4-10     Ps.71:1-17

1 Cor. 14:12b-20  Luke 4:21-32

 

Arinze:  In the Name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.   You may be seated.  Welcome to youth Sunday today.  Today, we get to preach on The Love Chapter.  Does anyone know what the Love Chapter is?

Caroline: Do you mean Love Chapter dot com, the very popular online dating service?  Have you tried it?  What a coincidence.  I have been trying to fill out my profile for Love Chapter Dot Com.

Chike: Yes, and perhaps I can finish my profile for Love Chapter Dot com too.

Arinze: Really, I was not referring to Love Chapter Dot com dating service.  I was asking about something else.

Caroline: Work with us Arinze because I have to get my profile finished.

Chike:  What have you written so far in your profile?

Caroline:  Young, intelligent, attractive female seeks friendship with the following kind of guy:  Should be very patience.  Extremely Kind.  Should never be envious boastful or rude.  Should never want his own way.  Must never be resentful or irritable.  Should not be happy when others are doing wrong things.  Should always be truthful and rejoice in the truth.  Should be strong enough to support me always and endure all things.  Must be a strong believer and a very hopeful person.  If you are such a person perhaps we will be a match.

Arinze: Caroline, it sounds as though you want to be with the perfect person.  It looks like the only one who can qualify to date you is God.

Chike:  Well, that will make your Dad happy because then you will wait for a very long time to find the right person.  By the way, Caroline where did you find the list of the qualities of the perfect person?

Caroline:  Oh, I just thought them up.

Arinze: Are you sure Caroline, or did you borrow them from the real Love Chapter?

Caroline:  What do you mean, “The Real Love Chapter?”  Love Chapter Dot com is real.

Arinze:  I mean the real Love Chapter in the Bible.  The one that was written by St. Paul in First Corinthians, Chapter 13.

Chike:  I think it is a chapter which is read at almost every wedding.

Caroline:  Well, what does the Love Chapter say?

Arinze: It says, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or 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 the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  Does that sound familiar?  Sounds a lot like the profile that you want for the perfect person.  Do you think you borrowed your profile from the Real Love Chapter?

Caroline:  Perhaps, I did.  It is such a good thing to borrow.

Chike:  I don’t think we can ever find the perfect person because I don’t think we can ever be that perfect ourselves.

Caroline:  Why do you think that St. Paul wrote about the perfection of love?

Arinze:  Paul wrote a letter to the Corinthian church.  The people in the church were very gifted and talented.  But because they were so gifted many of them were too proud.  Some people thought that their own gifts and jobs in the church were more important than the gifts of some other members.  And they treated other people as less important because they did not have the same gifts.

Chike:  Paul said that you can be very talented and gifted but if you don’t have love, then you actually ruin your gifts.

Caroline:  So love is the gift that everyone needs to have.  It is a gift that must accompany everything that we do in our lives or we will not appreciate how much all people are needed for the success of the church.

Arinze:  If everyone in the church was a preacher then who would make the coffee or sing in the choir or read the lessons.

Chike:  St. Paul said that we need love to regulate everything in our lives because love means that we are always learning how to live with each other in the best possible way.

Caroline:  Love is not envious; that means we are happy for the success of other people.  We don’t have to be jealous of others when they are successful.

Arinze:  When Jesus went back to his hometown, he found that people in his hometown were jealous of him.  Jesus had become a successful preacher and he was doing many wonderful things but when he went home, the people of his hometown did not receive his words or his wonderful deeds.  It made Jesus sad that they could not accept him.

Caroline:  Well, I think the Love Chapter is probably the greatest writing in the Bible.

Chike:  Why do you say that?

Caroline:  Because love has to be present in everything in our lives.

Arinze:  But love is so hard.  Love requires that we be so perfect.

Chike: Yes, Love requires that we be like God, because God is love.

Caroline: It is probably a good thing that love is so perfect and so difficult.

Arinze: Why is this good?

Caroline:  Because it means the standard of perfection is so high, we always have growing room to get better.

Chike:  The love that we have today, is not enough for tomorrow, because tomorrow we will have more opportunities to love again.

Arinze:  I guess that is why St. Paul said that love is never finished.

Caroline:  Okay, let’s take a vote.  Is love the greatest thing in the world?

Chike:  Love gets my vote.

Arinze: It gets my vote too.

Caroline:  People of St. John’s, raise your hand if you think love is the greatest thing in the world………Great!  I think we have a winner.

Arinze:  Let us follow Jesus who told us to love God with all of our hearts and to love your neighbors as yourselves.  Amen.