Letters from Paul: Greatest Lesson—Ruth 1: 6-18; I Corinthians 13
As it is Mothers’ Day, it is expected that a pastor will talk about mothers. My own mother has warned me thoroughly that I should NOT tell family stories in the pulpit for this day. So, the following story is DEFINITELY not a story about me or my family at all. My “friend” was shopping with his mother while in high school. They were in a popular teen clothing store, and he was trying to decide what size to get as he had gained few pounds over the summer. After going back and forth with sales associate on sizes, he chose the extra-large over the large.
On the way out of the store, his mother turned and looked at a different sales associate, whom she mistook for the one that helped them, and said loudly (and I mean loudly), “We decided on the extra-large!” My friend was mortified. And from that came a constant family joke in his family that someone was going to announce the sizes of the clothing every time they left a store. Paul’s lesson for us this Mothers’ Day is that love is the most powerful thing on earth…even when we are utterly flabbergasted by the person we love.
On Mothers’ Day we celebrate those who are mothers, who physically gave birth to a child and in some form or fashion reared that child into adulthood. But focusing on physical birth misses the point of a mothering love. There’s a sense of nurture, care, grace, and support from the first contact to final breath that defines a mothering love. Paul certainly had that kind of love for the church at Corinth. He literally birthed or created that church, nurtured it, corrected and disciplined it, taught it, and prayed and hoped for the future of that church.
Paul talks about the eternal and enduring nature of love. The church at Corinth was caught up on spiritual gifts. They almost worshiped the gift more than God, and in particular they loved speaking in tongues. Paul reminds them of the foundation of who God is and what God does. If you could speak every language in heaven and on earth, if you could prophesy every spiritual secret, and if you could practice generosity unlike any the earth has ever know, it’s all for nothing, if love is not the foundation. Love never fails because love is the grounding, the foundation, the support, and the framework on which our relationship to God is built. And it is God’s love that teaches us how to love one another in this world.
Paul tells the Corinthians that the greatest thing in life is this love. He couches in terms of Faith, Hope, and Love. He finishes this whole chapter with the words, “And the greatest of these is love.” Why, though? Surely, faith is the greatest, because it’s what we’ve understood as the heavenly ticket for centuries, right? Well, faith, if we define it as our relationship to God, is only made possible by love…God’s love for us, and our love of God. So, love is the foundation of faith.
But surely hope is the greatest? It’s the hope of something greater after this life that keeps us trucking along in our faith, isn’t it? Well, hope is limited. When we get to the point that what we’ve hoped for, our deepest longing and desire in the heart, is achieved, hope ends. It becomes reality. Love, though, is eternal. God loves us in this life, and God will love us into and through the next. Love never fails.
The other important aspect of love is that it is never something we live out alone. The very nature of love compels us to care for the needs of others. And in this love secures us because we have practiced it, and love secures the other person because we have offered it. Love is never lived alone. Look to the story of Ruth and Naomi. Naomi could have demanded that Ruth and Orpah look after her and be beholden to her. But instead, Naomi knew that love couldn’t suffocate and strangle them all into poverty and suffering. Naomi released and let go her daughters-in-law because she knew they needed to go have families and be taken care of in a way she could never provide for them. This meant Naomi would be alone, and it would likely increase the potential of her suffering. But she let them go out of love and the hope things would be better for them.
Love, then, is the context and the very power in which the difficulties and trials of life are met. Love always connects us with another and links our own self to other people. People quote the scripture not to forsake the assembling of yourselves for a variety of reasons, but here, we see that it’s because you cannot live in love alone. It bonds us and ties us to those around us.
Ruth understood that. I will never fault Orphan in a sermon for returning home in order to get a better future for herself. Staying with Naomi was an absolute dead end in life in ai highly patriarchal society. Men controlled things, and a widow just had to hope and pray for some honor from the family. Orphan made the smart choice. But Ruth made the loving choice. Look at her promise and oath to Naomi, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” And Ruth kept her vow.
I know, from course of conversation, that Mothers’ Day is hard for many of you. Some had bad experiences with their mothers. Some have lost children. And some never had the opportunity. But what makes a mother is not defined by the physical act of birth. Having worked in the Juvenile Courts for a number of years, I can assure you that giving birth does not make one a parent any more than boiling water makes one a chef.
Parenting, mothering, is defined by that love and nurture that is within your spirit, not within your body. When God looks at a person, God looks to the soul and the spirit, and Mothers’ Day celebrates those whose soul and spirit is bent towards the love and care of others, just as God has loved and cared for us. Naomi was not Ruth’s mother. Sometimes, there is confusion over this because their relationship feels so much like a mother and daught. But remember that Naomi is the mother-in-law, who has a different culture, different ethnicity, different religion from Ruth. Ruth had to find a way to live in Naomi’s world, which was totally unfamiliar to Ruth. And Naomi had to find a way to care for, nurture, and provide for a daughter-in-law who was not going to abandon and leave her alone.
The Book of Ruth tells a powerful story of Naomi, who lost her children, lost her home, lost her identity in many ways. But in the end love holds fast for her and Ruth allowing them to find a new way together as a family. And in the end, despite the loss and suffering, God restores and redeems them both in a powerful way.
Love never fails. In the darkest hours of Ruth and Naomi’s lives, love still held fast, and love never failed. It was love that kept them going when hope was lost, and faith felt like a fairy tale. It was love that held them together and helped them remain a family. For Paul, there was nothing more powerful than God’s love, a love which nurtures, helps us grow, holds us fast, and encourages us when life is dark and difficult.
So, this Mothers’ Day, remember these two things: love connects us with one another, and love never fails. Sometimes you may be frustrated, flabbergasted, and at your wits end. Your mother might embarrass you. You might get sassy with your mom from time to time. You may be a mom to a furry critter and not human. Or you may find today a place of sadness. But in the end remember that today celebrates a love that nurtures, keeps safe, and holds us fast when we need it the most. Faith, hope, love…the greatest of these is love, and love never fails.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/339445435489366