Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:8-13; John 15:4-5; Luke 24:28-29; Revelation 3:15-16 Series: 2021
Preached on Ascension Sunday to close the Easter ‘Works of Love’ series, this sermon takes Paul’s ‘love never fails’ (1 Cor 13) as ‘love abides’—love lives and remains. Tracing ‘abide’ through John 15 (the vine) and the Emmaus road (Luke 24), Pruitt argues love is relationship, not one-way giving; God desires to be with us, especially when life is wrecked. He warns against the inward-focused, apathetic Laodicean church that fills seats and coffers, calling Bee Creek instead to radical welcome: every member, not just greeters, must welcome others into God’s presence. Confessing his own shyness, he frames evangelism as an act of faith and the minister as a vessel, not a dam, that lets God’s love flow.
Illustrations: big-lebowski-the-dude-abides, god-not-santa-claus-puppet-master, parents-who-only-give-stuff, abide-with-me-hymn, church-of-resurrection-visitor-privileges-revoked, pastors-shyness-mountain-reading-vacation, vessel-versus-dam-ministry
May 16
Love Abides
Love never fails. As for prophecies, they will be brought to an end. As for tongues, they will stop. As for knowledge, it will be brought to an end. We know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, what is partial will be brought to an end. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, reason like a child, think like a child. But now that I have become a man, I’ve put an end to childish things. Now we see a reflection in a mirror; then we will see face-to-face. Now I know partially, but then I will know completely in the same way that I have been completely known. Now faith, hope, and love remain—these three things—and the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:8-13
Abide is a word we don’t hear much anymore. You don’t really have phone calls or text exchanges with folks where they ask you what you’re doing. And you say like, “Oh, I’m just abiding.” Or, “Sorry, I can’t make it to brunch: I need to abide today.” It’s not a common thing. It’s probably most famously used in a movie from the late nineties called The Big Lebowski where Jeff Bridges plays this character named the dude. And he says multiple times: the dude abides. It means to live someplace. To abide is to remain, is to live. In the Bible, we see the word abide used as living fully. More than that, to abide is to never fail. When Paul says here that Love never fails, he is saying that love abides. My brothers and sisters, we have been going through the works of love these past few weeks in the season of Easter, looking at how we can respond to the resurrection of Jesus Christ in practical ways. We end on this Ascension Sunday with a strange phrase, love abides, which we need to understand to mean: love lives. Love is no longer dead and buried as it was on Good Friday. Love lives. Love abides.
Let’s hold on to this word: abide. It is used a few times in the life of Jesus. One time is in John chapter 15, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches.” In John, Jesus is talking about vines and grafting on to the vine. For a vine to live it must be grafted on to a root system. It needs to live in the roots to live at all.
Another use of Abide comes from after the resurrection in Luke 24, the Emmaus texts. And so there’s two people walking along telling about what happened in Jerusalem, sharing about it. They’re surprised, they’re amazed. They don’t know how to handle it. And they come across another man. It was like, “Hey, what’s going on?” And they’re like, “Have you not heard the news of Jerusalem that Jesus of Nazareth was killed and is now alive?” They tell the story. And eventually they end up at their destination. And this other man is about to leave, but they say, “No. Evening has come. Stay with us. Abide with us.”
We have God asking us to live in him, we have disciples asking Jesus to stay with them, and then Paul reminding us that the Love that is God lives here and does not leave. There’s a give and take. There is a relationship. There is love. Were all things with God a one way street, there would not be love. If it was just God giving us things over and over again, that’s not love. If all your parents do for you is give you stuff, they do not show you love. They do not teach you how to be yourself. If all God did was give us blessings, we would not understand the depth of God’s love. God doesn’t just give us things. God is not this heavenly Santa Claus. Nor is God a puppet master controlling the world for our benefit. God desires to be with you. You are interesting and compelling to God. Even when things don’t seem to be going well. Especially when things don’t seem to be going well, God wishes to abide with you. But if we do not welcome God in our life, we cannot receive the peace that passes understanding. Yet even when we fail, God does not. We must speak like the disciples on the Emmaus road: Stay with us. Abide with us.” Jesus did not impose himself on them. We don’t have to get the house ready to welcome Jesus. In fact, it is when our house and our life are the most wrecked that God is most likely to be present with us. Love abides. God abides. God is not a fair weather friend. There is an old hymn I love that covers this beautifully.
Abide with me, fast falls the eventide The darkness deepens Lord, with me abide When other helpers fail and comforts flee Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me
As the hymn says, when others have fled and comfort is not there. Even when you are uncomfortable and life seems hopeless. Even in the midst of grief and sickness and loss, you are still loved by God. Even if you have never really thought about your faith, you are loved by God. Even if you’ve been going through the motions all your life, even if you were raised in the church, but never connected on a deeper level, you are loved by God. Love abides. Love is here. God has already come down to you. But that is not the end of the story because the end of the story with love is not the moment of realization. Love comes. And love stays. Love abides. But life is often challenging. There can be moments in our life or in the life of others we know when they think, “Oh, that’s nice. God loves me. That doesn’t change a thing. That doesn’t change the price of tea, or lumber, that doesn’t help me pay my mortgage. That doesn’t help me pay for my kid’s college. What is this love of God? What does that actually do?” I think this is honest. It’s fair. What if I don’t feel loved? What if I don’t feel like I matter? Or, what if I don’t need help? What if I’ve got it under control? I think the church today is not struggling due to society oppressing Christians, but just from apathy. People don’t care or don’t see the point. It is the same apathy that’s been a challenge from the beginning of the church. It is the same apathy that the apostle John writes of in the beginning of the book of Revelation with the church of Laodicea, you are neither hot nor cold because of this, I will spit you out.
Four hundred years ago in this country or in Europe, the only churches that had members were dissenting churches. Otherwise, you were baptized after you were born and the closest church to where you lived was your church. In that way church membership as we understand it today is a relatively modern phenomenon. Membership in the church is not like membership in a HOA or a boat club. The church, though, has often fallen into this trap and tried to be more palatable to the broader culture or more palatable to the people already here. This is the inwardly focused church. It asks: What can the church do, to make us (me) more comfortable?
When we are an inward focused church, when we only care about the people who are already here, we quickly drift into the church of Laodicea. Membership is more about filling seats and filling coffers and less about encountering the living God in Jesus Christ. In order to stay vigilant against sliding into apathy as an organization, we need to stay in love with God. All of us. We need to remind each other that love abides here. We need to invest in what God is doing here with our gifts. We need to show love consistently, even when we don’t have to, when it’s not our job.
If we hold on to this insight from Paul that love abides, and this call from Jesus, “Abide with me,” we can see the church as the place where God is present and where we call others to be present with us and God. We are here to experience God. We are here because of a prior experience of God. We are here to prepare others for an experience of God. And to go together to serve our neighbor in the world where God is also. Joining a church is committing to being part of God’s presence here and committing to radically welcome others into God’s presence here. This doesn’t just mean ushers or greeters or staff. At the Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City, the largest methodist church in the country, when someone joins the church, the lead pastor says, “Alright, now your visitor privileges have been revoked. You need to start welcoming people.”
I am a fairly shy person. I don’t like phone calls. i usually don’t like talking to strangers. My idea of a dream vacation is either sitting and reading all day or climbing a mountain and then sitting and reading at the top of the mountain.
I can only give credit to God for bringing me to this place, for giving me the courage to speak to people about God. For helping me call folks and pray with them. Left to my own, I always feel like an imposition. Why would they want to talk to me? What if I make a mistake? What if I get a name wrong? What God has shown me is that every conversation with a stranger is an act of faith. It is not a test or an interview. Take a step to show God’s love. To speak to another because of Jesus is different than any other way of communication. We welcome people not because we are awesome or outgoing but because Jesus is alive and can transform lives and we want people to experience the overwhelming love of God in their life. We welcome people because love abides here and love never fails.
You are welcome in this place. Jesus is here. Love abides. But we want Bee Creek to be a place where people continually encounter their risen savior. To be that place, we need to continually welcome people into that space of encounter. That goes from me to the smallest child in the nursery.
Love abides. Let us not get in the way of love. That is the biggest thing in ministry and in preaching. God is the one who changes lives. God is the one who changes hearts. The best I can be is a vessel. The worst I can be is a dam. Our human nature is to dam everything up to keep ourselves comfortable. We mold our lives around avoiding what we don’t like. It takes faith to let God flow in this place. It takes faith to seek others out and welcome them. It takes faith to invite folks to church. A lot of people have history’s with church’s that aren’t pretty. Maybe there is someone in your life who isn’t ready to come into a building, but they could come to the harbor on Thursday or to a grow group or even just over for dinner.
Love never fails. As for prophecies, they will be brought to an end. As for tongues, they will stop. As for knowledge, it will be brought to an end. … Now faith, hope, and love remain—these three things—and the greatest of these is love.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.