2/15/23

One of my favorite songwriters died last week: Burt Bacharach. He’s probably best known for “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” and Dionne Warwick’s “I Say a Little Prayer for You,” but my favorite was “What Do You Get When You Fall in Love.” It has one of my favorite lyrics, “What do you get when you kiss a guy, you get enough germs to catch pneumonia, after you do, he’ll never phone ya.” Pneumonia/phone ya . . . genius! 

I’m writing this on Valentine’s Day, so every radio station, except the talk stations, is bombarding us with love songs. So far today I’ve learned “Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love.” From the Captain and Tennille I learned that “love will keep us together,” while Pat Benatar told me that “love is a battlefield.” But then there’s the “Love Shack,” a “little old place where we can get together.” And then I got a text from a buddy who’s just gone through a brutal break-up. He texted me: “Happy Independence Day,” which leads us back to “I’ll never fall in love again.” 

But as Bob Goff points out, “Love isn’t something we fall into; love is someone we become.”

We open every service with a prayer called the “Collect for Purity” and it’s a prayer that goes back at least to the 11th century. Thomas Cranmer translated it into English in 1549, and it’s been printed in every Anglican prayer book since. Almost always used at the opening of a service, it’s a beautiful prayer that ushers us into the presence of God.  And it’s not just for Sunday – this would be a good prayer to use as part of your daily quiet time: 

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The first name we chose for Christ Church was “Christ Church of North Alabama: A Wesleyan Congregation.” We dropped the “Wesleyan” part because of its association with another group emerging from the UMC disaffiliation . . . but we kept the theology, which is encapsulated in that prayer. 

John Wesley loved this “Collect for Purity,” especially the phrase, “that we may perfectly love you.” Wesley asked himself, “Does God answer this prayer? Is it possible to ‘perfectly love God?’” And this question became the basis for Wesley’s doctrine of “entire sanctification,” which Wesley called “Christian perfection” or “perfect love.” For Wesley, “A life of perfect love meant living in a way that was centered on loving God and one's neighbor.” 

And here we are again: Loving God … Loving Others. 

But Christian perfection? The words sound terrifying and impossible. But it’s no more terrifying than the last words of Jesus in Sunday’s gospel reading: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” What on earth (literally!) is Jesus saying?

“Be perfect” is Jesus’ conclusion to a paragraph on love, where Jesus tells his disciples, “Love the way God loves.” How does God love? “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” In other words, God sends His blessings of sunshine and rain on people whether they deserve it or not. 

While romantic love comes and goes based on noradrenaline, dopamine and phenylethylamine in your brain (all of which sounds completely anti-romantic), this Matthew 5 type of love (the Greek word is Agape) seeks the best for the other person whether we feel warm and fuzzy feelings for them or not. And it seeks the best for the other person no matter how they respond to it.   Jesus goes on to say:

“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” 

If we only love those who love us back, we are simply imitating the world rather than imitating God. Even scoundrels like tax collectors can love like that. But if we’re really children of our Heavenly Father, then we will love like God loves – for Jesus, this is the heart of the law. This is the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees. This is the way we are salt and light in the world. This is the way of life Jesus calls “blessed.”

And it is this call to love that best explains Jesus’ conclusion: “Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Perfect here is not making an A+ on every test. Perfection is to respond to other people– even our enemies – with the same sort of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience and desire for the good that reflects the way God responds to the world. 

“Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” Love like God loves. And here we are again: Loving God . . .  Loving Others. 

Blessings,
Pastor Terry