Sunday 21 May 2017

Longsuffering Love (1 Peter 3:13-22)



(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on May 21, 2017, Easter VI)

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Love “Suffereth Long”

“Love is patient, love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or rude….” (1 Cor 13:4-5). And so on and so on. This passage has become routine. We recite it everywhere. Often at weddings. Occasionally at funerals. Frequently at church.

The words roll off our tongues so quickly and easily that we risk forgetting what they actually mean. Just as a meal can become so routine that we no longer pause to savor the flavors and enjoy the company, so too these words can become so familiar that we no longer appreciate their full meaning. 

One way to guard against this overfamiliarity, is to read the words in a different translation. When we encounter something strange and different, we must take more time to look at it, to understand it. In the King James, love is not simply “patient.” Love “suffereth long” (1 Cor 13:4). This is actually closer to the Greek, which says that love is “long of mind or soul.” Patience here does not mean simply waiting for a pot to boil or someone to return your call. Patience means that the spirit is longer than any suffering or misfortune that comes its way. It will stay true to what matters, no matter how long it takes.

A Love Longer than Suffering or Shame

This reminds me of an ancient story. A man wandering in the wilderness stumbles upon a kind family. He falls in love with one of the daughters. Now in that time and place, the man was expected pay a dowry in order to marry. But the wanderer has no money to pay. So he sits down with the father of the family, and the two of them agree: he will give the father seven years of labor in order to marry his daughter.

Patience. Longsuffering. A spirit that is longer than any suffering that comes its way. A spirit that stays true to what matters, no matter how long it takes.

Well, seven years pass, and finally there is a wedding. Loads of folks, loads of food, loads of fun. Until the morning, that is. In the morning, the man wakes up. And there beside him…is the wrong daughter!

He confronts the father and demands an explanation. The father explains that in his culture the older daughter must get married first. But the father has a proposal: if the man agrees to work for another seven years, he can marry the younger daughter whom he loves.

Now on the one hand, it could be argued that the poor man has been unfairly treated. It would not be right for him to work another seven years.

But patience, or longsuffering, means a spirit that is longer than any suffering that comes its way, a spirit that stays true to what matters, no matter how long it takes. In the story of Jacob—this is the story of Jacob, after all—Jacob’s love for Rachel is longer than fourteen years of labor, longer even than the shame and injustice of trickery. If Jacob’s love were shorter, if he were ultimately more concerned with his own dignity than with Rachel, he would have fought back against Rachel’s father. But to fight for his honor would be to risk his love. In the end, Jacob stays true to his love no matter how many years of labor or how much shame he must suffer.

The Longsuffering God

Fast-forward a couple thousand years from the story of Jacob, and we get to the letter of 1 Peter. Our scripture today has a lot to say about suffering and patience. Five times the word “suffer” appears, and Christ in particular is held up as a model: as Christ suffered, our writer says, so you should be prepared to suffer (cf. 3:15-18). A little bit later, the writer talks about God demonstrating “patience” or “longsuffering” back in the day of Noah. Here 1 Peter is alluding to a Jewish tradition in the Mishnah that says, “There were ten generations from Adam to Noah to show how great was [God’s] longsuffering, for all the generations provoked him continually until God brought upon them the waters of the flood” (m. Avot 5:2). But I would argue that God’s longsuffering spans far beyond the first ten generations of creation. Is not the whole of human history a story of God’s longsuffering? If God were anything like us, creation would surely have been either jury-rigged or destroyed by now. 

We see God’s longsuffering most clearly in Christ. At the beginning of his ministry when he resists the quick-fix temptations in the wilderness and at the end of his ministry when he takes up the cross, Jesus would rather endure pain, suffering, and even death than to deviate from the way of love. He would rather turn his cheek and forgive his wrongdoers and pray for his persecutors, than compromise the way of love. Like Jacob, his love for the world is more important than power. Like Jacob, he stays true to this long love no matter how much suffering he must endure.

Love Is the Means

But what does this mean for us today, us who share very few of the sufferings that Jesus and the early Christ-followers endured? 

I think it means everything, because it means that love is not only the end but also the means. Whether we suffer or not, love is the way. Look, for instance, to what our scripture says about how we should respond to the world around us. “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet”—and here’s what interests me the most—“do it with gentleness and reverence” (3:15-16). In other words, how we respond to the world matters just as much as what we respond with. Love is not an argument we win, but how we talk with others. Love is not a triumph that we gain, but how we live amid difficult circumstances, even suffering. Love is not only what the kingdom looks like when it gets here. It is how the kingdom gets here. It is the means as well as the end. 

The Slow, Long Love of God

Earlier in 1 Peter, the writer warns us against the ways of the world that we have inherited (cf. 1:18). One of the ways that western Christianity has inherited, I think, is impatience. The church has too readily adopted the ways that predominate in the political and business worlds, where efficiency matters most, where practicality and convenience rule the day, where the ends really do justify the means. 

Although today’s scripture focuses a lot on something we experience relatively little—suffering—I believe its underlying message of patience speaks to us as much as ever. We are called to live out the love of Christ, a love that is long, a love that has all the time in the world for lengthy conversations and long-standing conflict and even loss. We are called to live in the kingdom of God, where love is not what a conversation achieves, but how a conversation happens; where love is not the resolution to a conflict, but how a conflict is gracefully outlasted; where love is not the absence of loss, but how loss is accepted—and transformed.

In the world of “quick and easy” that seeks first its own convenience, it is tempting to turn love into something that we achieve through a means, something that we buy with our money or accomplish with bigger buildings or better programs. But trying to fund God’s love through our pocket or to plot its triumph through programs is to renounce the way of love, the means of love.

The good news of 1 Peter is that God’s love is not a result that must be bought or a problem that must be solved. It is much simpler—and much more costly—than that. God’s love is itself the way. It is a long way, a slow way, and a sometimes-messy way. I catch glimpses of it here at Gayton Road, not in the big things but in the little things that are lived out lovingly. Like when Paul and Carol and others set aside an extra half-hour to give folks rides. Like when Emily dedicates her time and resources to our kids. Like when E.J. devotes the time to take our and the A.A.’s trash to the dump, when Cinda gives the time to change the paraments, when Judy consecrates her time to caring for a family of refugees. The list goes on and on…and would surely test your patience! 

To be sure, it’s a slow kingdom coming. But it’s coming. In all the little things that are lived out in the way of love—slowly, messily, longsufferingly—it’s coming.

Prayer

Longsuffering Christ,
Who does not deviate 
From the way of love
Even in the face of death:
As you embodied 
The long, slow love of God, 
So might we embody you
In our world.
Amen.


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