Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:4-5; Isaiah 66:13; Deuteronomy 32:11; Micah 6:8; 1 Samuel 16:1-13; Luke 15:3-7; John 3:1-8 Series: 2021
An Easter-season sermon in the ‘Works of Love’ series on 1 Corinthians 13’s ‘love does not seek its own.’ Using Anna Jarvis’s founding of Mother’s Day and a Seinfeld episode, Wilson argues that true love delights in the other’s distinctiveness rather than seeking a mirror of oneself. Domineering and small-minded people seek themselves; loving people encourage others to become fully themselves. Drawing on God-as-mother imagery (Isaiah, Deuteronomy), the choosing of David, the lost sheep, and Nicodemus’s new birth, he reframes salvation not as a momentary justification but as ongoing sanctification—what Wesley calls Christian perfection or completion. To be complete is to let go of all the unloving things and become a true self who can give love without limit, because God’s love is without cap.
Illustrations: anna-jarvis-mothers-day, seinfeld-jerry-dates-himself, samuel-chooses-david, shepherd-leaves-ninety-nine, nicodemus-new-birth, mountaintop-forgiveness-not-finished
Love Does Not Seek Its Own
May 9
“Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it does not seek its own, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints,” 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 CEB
In 1905, Anna Jarvis’s mother died. And she was sad. She had seen a lot of mothers die, but more than that, Anna Jarvis had seen a lot of children die. She had seen a lot of mothers care for wounded children and go unnoticed by society and she wanted do something about it. In 1905, there was not a hallmark holiday card for mother’s day. There were no cards or chocolates or roses. There were no phone calls. Anna Jarvis, from Grafton West Virginia, was a member of St. Andrews Methodist Church, and she wanted to do something about it. She had organized mothers clubs after the civil war. So many boys had been lost in that war. She had helped mothers who were grieving their lost children or taking care of their wounds as their children slowly died, sons who were not able to have the lives that they had expected. Sons who couldn’t take over the farm because they had lost a leg in the war. So Anna Jarvis started writing letters and petitioning. In 1908, Congress rejected a bill to make Mother’s Day a national holiday, but she continued. Anna then visited every state in the union and spoke about Mother’s Day until it was signed into a law four years later. The point of the first mother’s days was not to divide women between mothers and those who are not mothers, or to separate mothers from those who can’t have children or those who didn’t, or to separate women from men, but to acknowledge that we all have mothers, whether they are with us still or not. If you are a mother, that is wonderful, but mother’s day is not about mothers acknowledging themselves or feeling awesome. Anna Jarvis had lost her mom and that’s what spurned her to start Mother’s Day. It was not to honor herself as a mom, but to remember those other mothers that each of us have.
Series Intro
My friends, we are continuing our series on works of love, on responding to the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the season of Easter with practical actions. We have been looking most often at 1 Corinthians 13, at different passages from that famous poem. Love is patient love is kind love, does not boast love does not seek its own. That is what we’re looking at today. Over and over again in the Scriptures, God shows us love and examples of love. That when there is love in someone, they love another for their distinctiveness, not for their similarity. You don’t love someone because they are just like you. In the TV show. Seinfeld, at one point, a woman saves Jerry’s life and they have the same order for dinner (Cheerios, not much milk) same initials, and same sense of humor. He thinks he is in love because he finally found what he was looking for all those years: himself. They think it is wonderful at first. It goes through the show, but then the end of the day, they realize they can’t date each other because it would be like dating themselves. And they don’t really like themselves. But to love someone is not to make them just like yourself. That’s what the domineering person does, or the controlling person. They see others as objects to be changed because they don’t seek the good of the other. They seek their own. Similar is the small-minded person. The small minded person does not love another out of their heart and does not seek the good of the other, but constantly finds ways that others have fallen short of their expectations. And so the small minded person again is just seeking themselves. Whereas the loving one encourages the other to be themselves, this points to what motherhood can be, not what it always is. Some people have hard experiences with their mothers and with their parents. The ideal is not the reality often, but it is a possibility formed in this intimate relationship between a mother and their child.
In the scriptures, especially in the old Testament, God is often described as a mother. in Isaiah 66:13: “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; in Jerusalem you will be comforted.” Also earlier in Deuteronomy 32:11, “Like an eagle protecting its nest, hovering over its young, God spread out his wings, took hold of Israel, carried him on his back.”
So the point here is not that we all need mothers to be safe. In fact, it points against the idea of salvation as this momentary thing that then we move on from. Last week, I spoke about a misunderstanding in the last few hundred years of salvation as simply justification, as just this momentary thing. As opposed to salvation as sanctification or transformation. Salvation as holiness. We can understand what that looks like more when we think about the relationship of a mother and a child, we think about what a mother wants for their child. What does a loving mother want from the child? They want them to be themselves.
What does God want from you? What does the Lord require of you from Micah 6:8: “to love justice, to seek mercy, to walk humbly with your God.” That is us being ourselves. That is you being yourself. God wants you to be the most you that you can be. God wants you to be the most you filled with love that you can be. Even when we don’t know who we are or we think we are someone we are not.
God doesn’t want you to be someone other than yourself. Sometimes, though, we may not feel good enough. We may not feel that to be ourselves is good enough or worthwhile. We may think that our mistakes define us more than our virtues.
Think about God sending the prophet Samuel to the home of Jessie, looking for the next King of Israel. The older brother who is strong and handsome is a good warrior and could plow a field by himself. But that is not the one God chooses. And then Samuel looks at the other brother and the other. And those are not the ones God chooses. Instead, Samuel asks Jessie if there’s another brother and Jessie calls the youngest brother, David, from the field. David is small but God does not look at the outside. God sees in the heart. Sometimes, though, we may not feel good or our heart is worthy We may feel that we have burned bridges with people and relationships and it is not worth it for even our mother’s to love us.
I think we should understand Jesus’s parable of the 99 sheep in this way. If the shepherd was seeking its own good, it would’ve left that sheep to die.
But instead, he leaves the 99 to go find that one. The one who was caught in the brambles. When a sheep is caught in the brambles, it is because they did something wrong. That’s the gist of it. It’s not like, “Oh, I’m just stuck,” kind of thing. They were going too far. They were reaching too far. They went over the edge, but that wasn’t the point. The shepherd didn’t go and seek the sheep in order to reprimand them, but to bring them home. Love does not seek its own. To seek ones own is simply self-love, selfishness, self-seeking, or whatever other names the unloving disposition has. Love is a giving of oneself.
Love does not seek its own. We understand love, we know love by those experiences of being loved, but we most fully know love by the life of Jesus Christ. Who did not need to love us. Who did not have a genetic predisposition to love us. There was no evolutionary reason for Jesus to love us. To die for us. We see how Jesus treats his disciples. When we see how Jesus treats strangers or the people who come to hear him speak, we see love lived out. The love that does not seek its own. As well, we need to understand this love, not as this momentary thing that is fleeting; but in a way, the love of God is a new birth.. Jesus speaks about this in the gospel of John. Nicodemus comes in the night to talk to him. And then Nicodemus asks, “does that mean I need you to go back inside my mother’s belly?” Jesus says, “no, you must be born of water and the spirit.” The thing about childbirth, I don’t know a ton of it. I’ve never given birth to a child, but it changes you. Giving birth changes. You know what else changes you: being born, being born changes you. It is an event. It is an event, but when someone gives birth to a child or adopts a child, are they done being a mother? No If God took you to the mountaintop and gave you this powerful experience, that you felt your sins forgiven; you had new life in store for you. And then God just says, “okay, go along.” Are you finished? Are you complete? No, God wants to complete us like a mother wants their child to grow and to be themselves. Love does not seek its own. If love was just about notching wins on the belt: how many kids you can have, how many people you can save, and did not care what happened after the fact, it would not be love, but love does not seek its own. So then for us this day, my brothers and sisters, for those of you who are mothers, for those who are not, what is there left for us? We must remember that love does not seek its own, but the good of the other and the good of the other is for them to be fully themselves. For them to let go of all the not loved things in their life. This is what John Wesley calls Christian perfection. Another way to say it would be Christian completion: to be complete in God. Being complete as ourselves is to have all the not-love things, all the sins no longer here, because we don’t need them. We don’t need sin to be ourselves. We don’t need sin to find our way in the world. We don’t have to hurt others to be ourselves. We don’t have to hurt ourselves to be ourselves. We don’t have to have self despair or self-deprecation to be ourselves. We don’t need to tear ourselves down to be ourselves. We don’t need to tear others down to be ourselves. We don’t need to compare ourselves to others unfavorably to be ourselves. We don’t need to compare our children to others to be our selves. You are a child of God. You are forgiven. You are loved and you can love in a way that does not seek its own. You can love others. Not because they’re fun or interesting, or because you’re related to them. But because you want them to be themselves. You can give of yourselves to others. You can give of yourself, not in a limited capacity, but unlimited. There is no cap on the love you can share in this world because there is no cap on the love that God has given you. You can never repay a mother’s love. You can never repay God’s love for you. But what you can do is in turn love others. Not because they are awesome or they are great, not because you awesome or you are great, but because God loves you. Right now. In this place. And you can love in a way that builds up, that covers a multitude of sins. You can love in a way that believes all things and hopes all things and sees the other people in your life as children of God.
In the name of the father, the son, and the Holy spirit. Amen.