Measured in Love
Portland Pride may be a few weeks away, but our worship leaders got the memo last Sunday!
“525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes- how do you measure, measure a year?” – Seasons of Love, Rent
“If I speak in tongues of human beings and of angels but I don’t have love, I’m a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all the mysteries and everything else, and if I have such complete faith that I can move mountains but I don’t have love, I’m nothing. If I give away everything that I have and hand over my own body to feel good about what I’ve done but I don’t have love, I receive no benefit whatsoever.” – 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (CEB)
To date, we have shared 2,102,400 minutes (give or take), and many moments so dear! That’s four years of life together in faith, of wrestling with scriptures, of taking seriously God’s call on our lives. 4 years of strategic planning, of wild dreaming, of sharing hard truths, and receiving heartfelt blessing. 4 years of looking up at the ceiling and wondering if that watermark is from a new leak or an old one, of examining the cracks in the beams or parking lot to see if they’ve spread or if they’re the same cracks from 20 years prior. 4 years of trust, hope, perseverance, and love.
Each year, clergy in the United Methodist Church are newly appointed or reappointed to serve congregations across the connection. On Thursday, June 18, at the regular session of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference, Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth fixed these appointments for the next year of ministry.
This year, the Bishop has appointed me to continue serving First Church as your Senior Pastor, and has appointed Pastor Rachel to continue serving as your Associate Pastor.
As I look back to the last 4 years and look ahead to year 5, and especially as we mark the 250th birthday of the nation, I am measuring all things in love.
To be clear, I am not talking about a cheap $2.50 Hallmark love (or are the cards closer to $4.00 now?), but the deep, difficult love that the Apostle Paul describes in his letter to the Corinthians.
No matter how good we think we are, no matter how righteous our cause may sound, if it is not done with the core root of love - real love for our neighbor, deep love of God - then it is nothing but noise. A clashing gong; a clanging cymbal. If we act out of hatred, prejudice, self-righteousness, vindication, or the never-ending pull to do what the group is doing, our actions are nothing.
In that way, we are sometimes not so different than the “them” that we sometimes separate ourselves from.
This is the litmus test by which we act upon our love of one another, and by which we act upon our love of our country.
This Sunday, we’ll talk about how a Christian people can also faithfully participate in love of country without devolving into Christian Nationalism or confusing worship of God with worship of any other powers or principalities. There will be no fireworks or flag waving, but we will light candles in supplication to God for what we hope we can become as a gathered people:
A land where all are free to join hands toward good from whichever spiritual tradition they hold dear
A country where the least and the lost are placed at the center of our concern and resources
A people who listen earnestly, share truthfully, and respect dignity
We pray to God for these things not because God has divinely ordained or uniquely blessed this country or any country, but because we know that just as we hope for better for us all, so too does God.
You, First Church, are already on the way there. When we co-labor with God and one another in love, the work of your hearts, your hands, your voices, and your feet are the first answers to the prayers that we lift.
I don’t know what year 5 together will bring, or what year 251 of our country will hold. Whatever may come, with God’s help, we can measure it in love.
Love,
Pastor Karyn