A Plea From The Heart
Sermon
Sermons on the Second Readings
Series III, Cycle B
Object:
After Paul's lofty rhetoric on reconciliation that closes out chapter 5, he now returns to his struggles with the Corinthians. From inspiring and lyrical sentences in chapter 5 such as, "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new," Paul shifts back to the earthbound and ordinary struggles with the Corinthians. He once again asks them to come around, to recognize him and his authority, and most of all, to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ. As he puts it in chapter 6, verse 11: "Our heart is open wide to you." And, he wants them to respond in kind, as he says in verse 13: "In return -- I speak as to children -- open wide your hearts also."
"Don't you love me?" I remember the power of that question to me from my mother in May 1959, when I was in the seventh grade. I was raised by women -- my mother and my great-great aunt, Mrs. Higgins, whom I called "Gran." My father left my family before I was a year old, and my mother and I moved to Gran's house in Arkansas, where she watched me while my mother went to work as a beautician. Gran was born in 1881, and she was the sister of my great-grandmother. These two sisters were the matriarchs of the family. Gran used to share stories of the Civil War with me that she had heard as a child from her mother, including a tale of buried treasure, hidden from the Yankees but still never found. Gran was a vital, hard-working, strict woman, but she seemed to have soft spots for me and my cousin, Brown Higgins, who was her grandson and who was my age. Gran was a gift to me in so many ways, sharing oral history from her mother from at least the 1850s and providing me with the grandmother that I never had, since my mother's mother died in 1937. I remember especially listening to the St. Louis Cardinals play baseball on the radio with Gran and my mother. I recently read A Painted House by John Grisham, and a strong theme in his book was about a boy growing up in rural Arkansas, who also listened to the Cardinals. It resonated in my ears and heart.1
We weren't as poor as the Chandler family in Grisham's book, but it was close. Gran was a widow and got a small pension, and though her two sons who lived in town helped her out financially, my mother's income as a beautician was the main income in our family. Gran owned the house, and Mother paid a small amount of rent for us to stay there.
In the spring of 1959, Gran had a heart attack at age 78, and as a result, she was mostly confined to the bed, which she hated. She had taken care of a husband, raised two sons and extended families, washed clothes by hand, wrung chickens' necks in the backyard, cooked for 35 people at holidays, cleaned house every week, and now she was idle and miserable. On a cool May morning two months later, before Mother went to work and before I left for school, Gran came to the breakfast table, began to eat, and then slumped over, with her head on the table. Mother touched her and then shouted to me: "Nibs, run get Dr. Paine!" Dr. Paine -- quite a name for a doctor -- lived across the street and was our family friend and doctor. His son, Johnny, and I played many hours together. On that May morning, however, I wasn't playing -- I was running for my life. I ran across the street in my pajamas to get Dr. Paine. He came in a hurry and confirmed what we were already dreading -- Gran was dead of another heart attack.
As an adult now, I can think of some of the many things that must have been running through my mother's mind that day. Mother's mother -- my grandmother whom I never knew -- had died of cancer over twenty years before, and Gran was a surrogate mother for my mother, so the emotional loss was great. There were also difficult, practical, and emotional questions. How would she (and I) make it without Gran? Could we stay in the house? What would the future hold for us?
In 1959, though, I was only twelve years old, and I had other issues on my mind. The funeral for Gran was to be in our home church in Arkansas, and the burial was to be in the family cemetery in Byhalia, Mississippi, about two hours away. That burial part posed a fundamental problem for me. I had been working hard all year on a perfect attendance prize for school, and no matter what, I had not missed a day of school. In order to go to Gran's burial in Mississippi, I would have to miss a day of school, and though it would be an excused absence, I would miss the perfect attendance prize. I wrestled with what I should do. I wanted to go to Gran's burial, and I knew that I needed to do so, but I had worked hard for that prize, and there were just a few days of school left, so I decided not to go to the burial in Mississippi.
Mother was cleaning out some of Gran's clothes as I approached her and told her that I didn't think that I could go to the cemetery in Mississippi. I could go to the funeral and then go to school and get credit for attending. It was at that point that my mother started crying and asked me that searing question, "Nibs, don't you love me?" I started crying, too, and told her that I loved her and would go to the burial in Mississippi, and I did. It hurt to lose my perfect attendance prize, but I learned that there was a deeper and wider world than winning that prize.
I remembered that 1959 encounter as we buried my mother in that same family plot in Mississippi in October 2004. My mother had found a way to keep us in that house, to send me to college, and to eventually buy the house, with help from her brother. She lived there 45 more years, and she died there.
I remembered that story again as I encountered Paul's pleading to the Corinthians in chapter 6. Though he doesn't put it so bluntly -- "Don't you love me?" -- he asks them to open wide their hearts to him as he has opened his heart to them. He repeats it again at the beginning of the next chapter: "Make room in your hearts for us." There is a sense of Paul pleading to the Corinthians, longing for them to end their bickerings, to end their resistance to Paul and the message of gospel, and to work toward the reconciliation he mentioned so eloquently at the close of chapter 5.
When my mother asked me, "Don't you love me?" she did not go on to list all the things that she had done for me, nor all the tribulations she had endured for me as a single mother. Her question itself contained all of these, and her tears told me that I needed to say, "Yes." Paul doesn't have such a strong connection with the Corinthians, even though he calls them his children in verse 13. He must remind them of his history and of their history and to try to convince them to say, "Yes."
He begins in verses 4 and 5 to name a sea of troubles that he has endured, and he will repeat a much more detailed list in chapter 11. He begins with endurance, and it is the key. It refers to a way of facing troubles and bearing burdens, a way that doesn't turn Paul into a pitiful figure but rather a way that transforms him and the troubles. Rather than being embittered by the troubles, Paul is deepened. Clement of Rome wrote that Paul was imprisoned at least seven times. Among other troubles, Paul also mentions the riots (in Philippi and Ephesus) that were a response to the liberating gospel that he preached.
In verses 6 and 7, Paul turns away from the trials and tribulations to the virtues with which God has endowed him and that he has demonstrated in his ministry. In this list of virtues, he strikes a note that resonates as the lifeblood of all churches in all ages. No matter what our theological slant -- we may be primarily a social club or a theological discussion group or a social justice group -- without the qualities listed as these virtues, we won't be living as the body of Christ. As Paul puts it in his first letter to the Corinthians, without these virtues, we are simply noisy gongs or clanging cymbals (1 Corinthians 13:1).
He begins his list of virtues with purity, with the idea of someone who exhibits a connection with God in their approach to life and to themselves. They don't have to be "goody-goody" -- indeed, such folk are often suspect. Rather they show a genuine concern for the good of all. Patience is also mentioned in this list. Those of us who have been in the church for the long haul recognize this as a central virtue. The point of life together in the church is not so much a matter of being right as it is to set a tone and a style where we can all be transformed by the loving and disciplining Spirit of God working through all of us. When I first began my counseling ministry, I made many mistakes because I was filled with anxiety. A central source of my anxiety was my mistaken belief that I had to have answers for everybody's problems and questions. Over the years, I've come to learn that I don't have many answers. But, I can listen, and I can help others interpret their experience so that they can discern God's movement in their lives and find their answers. It is a process that requires patience.
Paul also mentions the twin virtues of kindness and love, the foundation blocks of any church. The church in America has somewhat justifiably received a reputation for being mean-spirited and self-righteous. There is a long story behind the development of this reputation, but for now, let us hear that we have some work to do to recover our legacy of kindness and love. Part of our reputation comes from our failure to appreciate God's kindness and love for us. If we truly perceive the depth of God's grace in our own lives, we will be well on the road to becoming gracious people and communities. Part of our reputation also comes from our equating kindness and love with permissiveness and softness. Nothing could be further from the biblical witness. Permissiveness has to do with individualism and disengagement, not with loving. Loving requires engagement and discipline and a genuine concern for the welfare of the other. Paul then shifts to a series of contrasts -- he has already used this effectively in chapter 4 and returns to it now. Paul concludes this list with a theme often seen in his writings: "as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything" (v. 10). It is an invitation to the Corinthians to consider their lives, to consider their orientation toward the world, to consider who they are, and who God is. Paul is asking them not only to be reconciled with him but to hear the powerful and life-giving message flowing through him: "See, now is the day of salvation!" (v. 2b).
In reissuing this invitation to the church at Corinth, Paul is not placing the emphasis so much on their eternal fate. Rather he is asking them to reconsider their lives on a daily basis. The message of the gospel is not just about life after death -- it is also about life before death. Yes, there are troubles and struggles -- that's why Paul uses so many metaphors relating to war and battle. But, there is also a more profound shift in the gospel -- a life deeper and richer than they ever imagined: "life abundant," as Jesus called it in John 10:10.
Paul closes this passage with his plea from the heart: Our hearts are open to you. Open your hearts, also. It is a plea from a loving parent to struggling children, just as my mother's plea to me. It is a plea for us to see a world that is full of life, full of struggles but also full of loving possibilities. It is a plea from God to the Corinthians and to the generations to follow, including us. Come and find the meaning of our lives. Come and find love and hope. Open wide your hearts. Amen.
____________
1. John Grisham, A Painted House (New York: Random House, 2001).
"Don't you love me?" I remember the power of that question to me from my mother in May 1959, when I was in the seventh grade. I was raised by women -- my mother and my great-great aunt, Mrs. Higgins, whom I called "Gran." My father left my family before I was a year old, and my mother and I moved to Gran's house in Arkansas, where she watched me while my mother went to work as a beautician. Gran was born in 1881, and she was the sister of my great-grandmother. These two sisters were the matriarchs of the family. Gran used to share stories of the Civil War with me that she had heard as a child from her mother, including a tale of buried treasure, hidden from the Yankees but still never found. Gran was a vital, hard-working, strict woman, but she seemed to have soft spots for me and my cousin, Brown Higgins, who was her grandson and who was my age. Gran was a gift to me in so many ways, sharing oral history from her mother from at least the 1850s and providing me with the grandmother that I never had, since my mother's mother died in 1937. I remember especially listening to the St. Louis Cardinals play baseball on the radio with Gran and my mother. I recently read A Painted House by John Grisham, and a strong theme in his book was about a boy growing up in rural Arkansas, who also listened to the Cardinals. It resonated in my ears and heart.1
We weren't as poor as the Chandler family in Grisham's book, but it was close. Gran was a widow and got a small pension, and though her two sons who lived in town helped her out financially, my mother's income as a beautician was the main income in our family. Gran owned the house, and Mother paid a small amount of rent for us to stay there.
In the spring of 1959, Gran had a heart attack at age 78, and as a result, she was mostly confined to the bed, which she hated. She had taken care of a husband, raised two sons and extended families, washed clothes by hand, wrung chickens' necks in the backyard, cooked for 35 people at holidays, cleaned house every week, and now she was idle and miserable. On a cool May morning two months later, before Mother went to work and before I left for school, Gran came to the breakfast table, began to eat, and then slumped over, with her head on the table. Mother touched her and then shouted to me: "Nibs, run get Dr. Paine!" Dr. Paine -- quite a name for a doctor -- lived across the street and was our family friend and doctor. His son, Johnny, and I played many hours together. On that May morning, however, I wasn't playing -- I was running for my life. I ran across the street in my pajamas to get Dr. Paine. He came in a hurry and confirmed what we were already dreading -- Gran was dead of another heart attack.
As an adult now, I can think of some of the many things that must have been running through my mother's mind that day. Mother's mother -- my grandmother whom I never knew -- had died of cancer over twenty years before, and Gran was a surrogate mother for my mother, so the emotional loss was great. There were also difficult, practical, and emotional questions. How would she (and I) make it without Gran? Could we stay in the house? What would the future hold for us?
In 1959, though, I was only twelve years old, and I had other issues on my mind. The funeral for Gran was to be in our home church in Arkansas, and the burial was to be in the family cemetery in Byhalia, Mississippi, about two hours away. That burial part posed a fundamental problem for me. I had been working hard all year on a perfect attendance prize for school, and no matter what, I had not missed a day of school. In order to go to Gran's burial in Mississippi, I would have to miss a day of school, and though it would be an excused absence, I would miss the perfect attendance prize. I wrestled with what I should do. I wanted to go to Gran's burial, and I knew that I needed to do so, but I had worked hard for that prize, and there were just a few days of school left, so I decided not to go to the burial in Mississippi.
Mother was cleaning out some of Gran's clothes as I approached her and told her that I didn't think that I could go to the cemetery in Mississippi. I could go to the funeral and then go to school and get credit for attending. It was at that point that my mother started crying and asked me that searing question, "Nibs, don't you love me?" I started crying, too, and told her that I loved her and would go to the burial in Mississippi, and I did. It hurt to lose my perfect attendance prize, but I learned that there was a deeper and wider world than winning that prize.
I remembered that 1959 encounter as we buried my mother in that same family plot in Mississippi in October 2004. My mother had found a way to keep us in that house, to send me to college, and to eventually buy the house, with help from her brother. She lived there 45 more years, and she died there.
I remembered that story again as I encountered Paul's pleading to the Corinthians in chapter 6. Though he doesn't put it so bluntly -- "Don't you love me?" -- he asks them to open wide their hearts to him as he has opened his heart to them. He repeats it again at the beginning of the next chapter: "Make room in your hearts for us." There is a sense of Paul pleading to the Corinthians, longing for them to end their bickerings, to end their resistance to Paul and the message of gospel, and to work toward the reconciliation he mentioned so eloquently at the close of chapter 5.
When my mother asked me, "Don't you love me?" she did not go on to list all the things that she had done for me, nor all the tribulations she had endured for me as a single mother. Her question itself contained all of these, and her tears told me that I needed to say, "Yes." Paul doesn't have such a strong connection with the Corinthians, even though he calls them his children in verse 13. He must remind them of his history and of their history and to try to convince them to say, "Yes."
He begins in verses 4 and 5 to name a sea of troubles that he has endured, and he will repeat a much more detailed list in chapter 11. He begins with endurance, and it is the key. It refers to a way of facing troubles and bearing burdens, a way that doesn't turn Paul into a pitiful figure but rather a way that transforms him and the troubles. Rather than being embittered by the troubles, Paul is deepened. Clement of Rome wrote that Paul was imprisoned at least seven times. Among other troubles, Paul also mentions the riots (in Philippi and Ephesus) that were a response to the liberating gospel that he preached.
In verses 6 and 7, Paul turns away from the trials and tribulations to the virtues with which God has endowed him and that he has demonstrated in his ministry. In this list of virtues, he strikes a note that resonates as the lifeblood of all churches in all ages. No matter what our theological slant -- we may be primarily a social club or a theological discussion group or a social justice group -- without the qualities listed as these virtues, we won't be living as the body of Christ. As Paul puts it in his first letter to the Corinthians, without these virtues, we are simply noisy gongs or clanging cymbals (1 Corinthians 13:1).
He begins his list of virtues with purity, with the idea of someone who exhibits a connection with God in their approach to life and to themselves. They don't have to be "goody-goody" -- indeed, such folk are often suspect. Rather they show a genuine concern for the good of all. Patience is also mentioned in this list. Those of us who have been in the church for the long haul recognize this as a central virtue. The point of life together in the church is not so much a matter of being right as it is to set a tone and a style where we can all be transformed by the loving and disciplining Spirit of God working through all of us. When I first began my counseling ministry, I made many mistakes because I was filled with anxiety. A central source of my anxiety was my mistaken belief that I had to have answers for everybody's problems and questions. Over the years, I've come to learn that I don't have many answers. But, I can listen, and I can help others interpret their experience so that they can discern God's movement in their lives and find their answers. It is a process that requires patience.
Paul also mentions the twin virtues of kindness and love, the foundation blocks of any church. The church in America has somewhat justifiably received a reputation for being mean-spirited and self-righteous. There is a long story behind the development of this reputation, but for now, let us hear that we have some work to do to recover our legacy of kindness and love. Part of our reputation comes from our failure to appreciate God's kindness and love for us. If we truly perceive the depth of God's grace in our own lives, we will be well on the road to becoming gracious people and communities. Part of our reputation also comes from our equating kindness and love with permissiveness and softness. Nothing could be further from the biblical witness. Permissiveness has to do with individualism and disengagement, not with loving. Loving requires engagement and discipline and a genuine concern for the welfare of the other. Paul then shifts to a series of contrasts -- he has already used this effectively in chapter 4 and returns to it now. Paul concludes this list with a theme often seen in his writings: "as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything" (v. 10). It is an invitation to the Corinthians to consider their lives, to consider their orientation toward the world, to consider who they are, and who God is. Paul is asking them not only to be reconciled with him but to hear the powerful and life-giving message flowing through him: "See, now is the day of salvation!" (v. 2b).
In reissuing this invitation to the church at Corinth, Paul is not placing the emphasis so much on their eternal fate. Rather he is asking them to reconsider their lives on a daily basis. The message of the gospel is not just about life after death -- it is also about life before death. Yes, there are troubles and struggles -- that's why Paul uses so many metaphors relating to war and battle. But, there is also a more profound shift in the gospel -- a life deeper and richer than they ever imagined: "life abundant," as Jesus called it in John 10:10.
Paul closes this passage with his plea from the heart: Our hearts are open to you. Open your hearts, also. It is a plea from a loving parent to struggling children, just as my mother's plea to me. It is a plea for us to see a world that is full of life, full of struggles but also full of loving possibilities. It is a plea from God to the Corinthians and to the generations to follow, including us. Come and find the meaning of our lives. Come and find love and hope. Open wide your hearts. Amen.
____________
1. John Grisham, A Painted House (New York: Random House, 2001).
