Texts: Jeremiah 1:4-10, 1 Corinthians 12:27-13:13

A recent insurance ad has as its slogan “So easy a caveman could do it…” though we used to say “so easy a child could do it.” That was before the information age when people my age and older started seeking out children to help us program our VCR, operate our DVD player, and use instant messaging on the computer. Soon, the saying will be “so easy an adult could do it…” although maybe that’s the intent of the caveman line.

In any event, in our culture, easiness is seen as a good thing. So easy a caveman could do it…. We see anything difficult as to be avoided, and yet, the late M. Scott Peck opened his most famous book, The Road Less Traveled, with the words: “Life is difficult.” Yes it is, and most things worth doing in life are difficult. Yet, how often is someone recruited to a volunteer position of one sort or another by being told “It’s not that hard – just one meeting a month.” I’ve heard that in some churches, elders were recruited that way, “no big deal, just one meeting a month” as if that somehow makes it worth doing. If I’m going to be asked to give my time to something, I’d like to know that it matters, and if it matters, odds are it’s going to demand something of me – my time, my effort, an investment of self, money, effort, etc. Life is difficult.

And I noticed that when God is recruiting Jeremiah in this morning’s text, he doesn’t tell him how easy it is – I will be with you, he says; you are ready for this, he says; it’s no big deal is not something he ever says. So spare me please from those tasks which are so easy – I’m guessing they aren’t worth my time.

Paul doesn’t suggest that any of the things to which we are called are easy – prophesy, healing, miracles – no one can accuse him of underselling the tasks of life in the church, This letter to the Corinthians is a call to authentic Christian community, and is written to a church that was being torn apart by conflict. But that’s not the only kind of failure that can occur in community. Sometimes it’s not that people are too conflicted, it can be that they are too little invested – they don’t have conflict, but they don’t have authenticity either. People don’t fight in all churches, but they also don’t share in some churches – church isn’t always a place that people can take their pain, their challenges, their illness or authentic not-so-perfect selves. It’s hard to be that real. But when we choose not to, that’s just a different kind of failure. Paul is calling people to a community where they bring their real selves, and find acceptance, safety, challenge, and love. Often in church, that kind of authentic, intimate sharing takes place in a smaller group – in choir, in PW, among a few people working together on a project. Maybe it first takes place in an adult forum when you begin to openly discuss with a few others the things that you find baffling in life.

Some of you have probably heard me tell the story of being at a church camp and overhearing the camp director say to a group of children, “So all we have to do is love one another! That’s not so hard, is it?” Yeah, right. It’s as hard as it gets. Let’s not kid ourselves, and let’s especially not lie to the kids about it. Loving is hard.

In the movie, A League of Their Own about women’s professional baseball in the 1940’s, one of the players, player by Geena Davis says to coach played by Tom Hanks – “It’s really hard.” He responds, “Of course it is, if it weren’t, everyone would do it.” He was talking about major-league baseball. A game with many more fans than players. That’s true about following the way of Jesus also – being a “player” means, loving others – reaching out to outsiders, caring more about reaching out to others than reaching in to ourselves, being willing to speak the truth in love, and having the courage to speak truth to power. It’s hard, of course it is, if it weren’t everyone would be doing it – unfortunately, Christianity also has more fans than major league players, because in our world to be a major leaguer in Christianity means you are a disciple, you choose the road less traveled and it can cost you everything. Ask Jesus, ask Martin Luther King – ask Gandhi who said at one point, “I like your Jesus. I don’t like your Christians. They are so unlike your Jesus.” Jesus had said, “Love one another as I have loved you; by this, they will know you are my disciples.” Be like me. I often wonder if Jesus isn’t horrified by much of what is said and done, and not said and left undone, in his name.

Yes, life is difficult. Loving is hard. If it weren’t, everybody would be doing it.

There was a story about the baby who was baptized, and on the way home his older brother was crying, and the parents asked why, and he sobbed, “The minister said that Peter would be living in a Christian home and I wanted him to stay with us….” Most of us understand that there is some distance between the way we’re called to live, and the way we actually live, and this passage from Paul makes it painfully clear to us.

The Greeks had three words for love. Eros is the romantic sexual love that is lived out in partner or spousal relationships. Philios is fraternal or friendship love – from which we get the name of one of the cities I will visit this week: Philadelphia – the city of brotherly love. And the highest form of love is called agape[uh-ga-pay], and this is the love that God has for humans, a love that costs – a love that, like much that is worthwhile in life, difficult. Eugene Peterson translates this famous passage into contemporary language by saying, “Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head, doesn't force itself on others, Isn't always "me first," Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, Doesn't revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. Love never dies.”

Many folks use this passage in weddings to describe the love they hope to have in their marriage, but the intent of the passage was describing life in the church. And the kind of energized, accepting, transforming character of the church community is described by Paul as love.

We have to learn how to really engage with other real people if we want to really experience the kind of transformative, energizing love that Jesus describes and models in the gospels. That kind of character is only developed by making the tough choices to be patient, to be kind, to give up envy, boasting, arrogance and rudeness, to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things, to never fail – the capacity for that kind of love only develops in the doing of it.. And one can only get there by doing it with others, and that means really interacting with the real, frail, broken, difficult and annoying people in the world. And it means bringing our own real selves – yes, the selves that we often feel if people really knew they wouldn’t like very much – those real selves into the community. And that means an investment of both action AND feeling.

So many of us have one thing or another, or several that we would rather people didn’t know about us – and part of being in community is a certain willingness to be transparent. And yet, community isn’t just about self-revelation, it’s very much about being a safe and caring presence for someone else. And sometimes, it takes baby steps for us to begin loving each other well enough to be that real with one another, OR for some of us to be caring enough to put aside our own need to share in order to create safe space for someone else. Baby steps. It’s funny to think that it’s so hard to create a dynamically loving community. But until we recognize that it’s hard, we probably won’t be able to do it. Baby steps.

Elizabeth Noelle Hillier will be baptized in a few moments. And already, she has been on a mission from God. She has been calling forth that dynamic, authentic kind of love from Penny and Jim. They have had to get up in the middle of the night with her, several times a night for months. They had to anticipate and meet her every need. They had already fallen deeply in love with her when they learned she would need heart surgery, and so they found that loving her meant seeking out the best possible care for her, and then handing her over to those excellent doctors. They learned that loving her meant caring enough that their hearts could be broken. And her call at this time in her life is to receive that love…and as she receives it, she learns to return it. And, she’s been teaching them how to love in a way they hadn’t experienced before. And in years to come, she will challenge them, confound them, and likely draw from them some of their best and worst. Any of us who allow ourselves to deeply love anyone else soon find ourselves challenged in ways that are energizing and frustrating. And that is not only true in families – that is true in any relationship where we allow ourselves to deeply, authentically love – friend, family, neighbor, enemy.

And while I have been discussing this agape love in a way that makes it seem pretty hard, and that might make some of us feel like we don’t measure up – the key is remembering that this is the way God loves us, and God loves us first. Before we respond to God’s love, before we are expected to love others, before anything at all, God loves us. Just like Penny and Jim were delighted in Elizabeth, cherishing Elizabeth before they had ever seen her, and before she was in any way able to respond to their love, so too does God’s love for us come before any response from us. And so as we open our hearts more fully to God’s love, we can also ask God to love through us. And as we are sometimes challenged in trying to love others, we can remember that God is loving them, too. We can rest in God’s love, and ask God to let us join in God’s love for others. The kind of love God calls us to is God’s love – and just as God was with Jeremiah and giving that young boy what he needed to do what was asked of him, so too is God with us, loving us, loving through us, and ready to give us what we need to love in the way that Jesus asks of us…if we are willing. Because our call is to receive that love of God and in receiving it, we learn how to return it, and to give it to others. And the irony is that the hardest part is learning to shift into that receptive pattern, because we are so convinced that we have to make everything in this world happen. It is a revolution in our thinking, much like the revolution which Copernicus ushered in, when people needed to learn that the Sun, not the earth was at the center of the universe. And our Copernican shift is in recognizing that God not us, creates the energy in the world. And once we step out of the center of the universe and let God be God, we find ourselves falling into that rhythm which guides all that is. Think of clapping along with a song – trying hard to set our own rhythm is very hard, relaxing into the beat is actually much easier. In Matthew 11:25-28, Jesus said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.  Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." We often read the last half of these words, but don’t always bring out that the way of Jesus is easy BECAUSE we accept living in the rhythm of that love that also flows between God and Jesus.

So it turns out that it really is easy enough that a child can do it – soak up love like Elizabeth does, and allow that love to reshape our hearts. We learn what Eugene Peterson called “the unforced rhythms of grace,” of letting ourselves receive God’s love, and that which is received being passed on, instead of burning ourselves out by insisting on our own rhythm of self-generated actions. This is what it means to live by grace instead of by law – it means to realize that we don’t make it all happen, we open our hearts to God’s always-present love, and let it flow through us. Being real is still hard, loving is still hard, letting love instead of fear guide our actions is still hard, but as we reshape our efforts around passing along the energy of God’s love, instead of generating our own, it gets easier and easier. Let us join in that love which is the life-energy and song of all creation. Amen.