A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

LOVE

Matthew 1:18-24, Preached at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, December 16, 2007

A college senior took his new girlfriend to a football game. The young couple found seats in the crowded stadium and were watching the action. A substitute was put into the game, and as he was running onto the field to take his position, the boy said to his girlfriend, "Take a good look at that fellow. I expect him to be our best man next year."  His girlfriend snuggled closer to him and said, "That's the strangest way I ever heard of for a guy to propose to a girl. Regardless of how you said it, I accept!"

Our text this morning is about love that is righteous, or should I say, a righteousness that leads to love. Love is a many-splendored thing, as we have heard. The three other Advent virtues, as they might be called, are much easier to understand and process. Hope is hope, believing something better is coming; peace is the absence of conflict and the presence of justice; and joy is basically happiness—nothing too difficult. But with love, things are different. None of these others have a whole chapter in scripture dedicated to them; and it’s not just because love is so important. It’s also because love is so complex or demanding, as 1Corinthians 13 expresses: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” There is certainly a lot wrapped up in love. But of course there are times when love or lack of it is very clear, like when the guy told his friend that life was now empty because the woman he loved had refused to marry him. “Don't let that get you down,” said the friend. “A woman’s ‘no’ can sometimes change to mean ‘yes’.”  “She didn't say no," came the dejected reply. “She said ‘phooey.’” Now that certainly cleared things up. If love is decidedly difficult, God has nonetheless decided for it. Scripture is very clear that love is the bottom line: “Faith, hope, love remain, these three. But the greatest is love.” Jesus tells us there are only two that we have to love, God and everyone else, including enemies, even before or as ourselves. And just to clarify matters even more, the apostle John tells us “God is love.” From top to bottom, beginning to end, what is and what matters are the same: love. So get on the bandwagon. Stop holding on to philosophies and ideologies that excuse unrighteous thoughts toward others. Forget about theories that permit us to turn a blind eye to others. Turn to tough love if you have to, but keep love as your guiding principle.

What we want to see this morning is that the highest goal in life is to become someone who loves truly.

By this I mean to become a righteous man or woman and thereby be able to love as we are supposed to. The good person who loves as God loves looks at things differently, sometimes very differently, than others who only love what is easy to love. A story illustrates the difference:

A man has a dream, he dies and goes to hell. While in hell the man notices there are many tables, and starving people are sitting all around the great tables. There is food to accommodate all tastes on the table. But people are still starving. He sees that each person has a six-foot-long fork in his left hand and a six-foot-long spoon in the other hand. The people in hell cannot get to the food because the forks reach beyond their mouths and so they’re starving. The next night, the man dreams of going to heaven. When he gets to heaven he sees tables as far as the eyes can see. Now the man is very troubled, for he sees that each one again has a six-foot-long fork in his left hand and a six-foot-long spoon in the other hand. Yet, all the people here are full and satisfied. Then, he sees why. In heaven, each person feeds the person on the other side of the table. To love someone else is the only way to love oneself.

The only love we receive is the love we offer. Let your love grow. Open your heart to God’s Spirit and find the power for compassion. As scripture says, “Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever doesn’t love doesn’t know God.” 1 John 4:7,8

In our scripture, we see that even before Joseph can grow to love his wife Mary emotionally, he loves her righteously. He loves her as a righteous, as a really good, person loves another. One of the Hebrew words for a righteous person suggests “one whose aim is true.” So even if the whole world is a mess, and even if your bride to be does something completely wrong, the good man keeps his aim true. This is what scripture tells us Joseph was going to do. In verse 19, Matthew says that as a “righteous” person, Joseph was “unwilling to expose [Mary] to public disgrace.” By calling Joseph righteous, Matthew invites us to learn from Joseph's character about fidelity, discipline and preferring God's honor above our own.

Like most first-century Jewish people, Joseph was faithful to his future spouse in advance, awaiting marriage, and he expected the same in return. So clearly does Matthew want his audience to understand that this was part of Joseph's character that he points out that even once he and Mary were married, they refrained from marital relations until Jesus' birth. Ancient Mediterranean fathers generally arranged their daughters' marriages through a custom called betrothal. Betrothal was much more serious than our modern practice of "engagement." It left the survivor of the man's death a widow, and if both partners lived it could be ended only by divorce. Unlike today, Joseph had no option of giving Mary a second chance, even if he wanted to. Jewish and Roman law both demanded that a man divorce his wife if she were guilty of adultery. Roman law actually treated a husband who failed to divorce an unfaithful wife as a panderer exploiting his wife as a prostitute. Further, Joseph had another reason to divorce her. Because others would assume that Joseph himself must have gotten her pregnant unless he divorced her, his reputation was at stake. Joseph probably also did not know Mary as well as we would expect of engaged couples today and had little reason to trust her innocence. Under these circumstances, Joseph would be correct in divorcing Mary. But here’s the thing: Joseph was righteous not because he was divorcing Mary; rather, Joseph was righteous for divorcing Mary quietly or privately, that is, for not bringing unnecessary shame on her. He knew suffering already awaited her; her premarital pregnancy had likely already ruined any chance of her ever marrying, a horrible fate in an economically and honor-driven male-centered society. Yet Joseph could have profited by divorcing Mary publicly. By taking her to court, Joseph could have impounded her dowry—the total assets she brought into the marriage—and perhaps recouped the bride price if he had paid one at betrothal. By simply providing her a certificate of divorce in front of two or three witnesses, he would forfeit this economic reimbursement. Joseph's "justness" or "righteousness" reminds us that justice is not merely a matter of punishment and shame but also a matter of mercy. Joseph was going to divorce Mary, but wounded though he felt, he would do everything in his power to minimize her shame.

But an angel appears to Joseph and confirms the fact that Mary’s conception occurred through the work of the Holy Spirit. Upon waking, Joseph displays complete trust in everything the angel had told him. He takes Mary as his wife, and thus fulfills the prophecy that the Messiah will come from the house of David.

Of course, for the great majority of couples, there is no angel to help iron out problems and surprises that are stumbled upon. Maybe you heard about the guy who fell in love with an opera singer. He hardly knew her, since his only view of the singer was through binoculars — from the third balcony. But he was convinced he could live “happily ever after” married to a voice like that. He scarcely noticed she was considerably older than he. Nor did he care that she walked with a limp. Her mezzo-soprano voice would take them through whatever might come. After a whirlwind romance and a hurry-up ceremony, they were off for their honeymoon together. She began to prepare for their first night together. As he watched, his chin dropped to his chest. She plucked out her glass eye and plopped it into a container on the nightstand. She pulled off her wig, ripped off her false eyelashes, yanked out her dentures, unstrapped her artificial leg, and smiled at him as she slipped off her glasses that hid her hearing aid. Stunned and horrified, he gasped, “For goodness sake, woman, sing, sing, SING!” The truth is there is always at least one thing to love about someone else, which of course means there may be a lot more that is not so easy to look past.

Here are two thoughts about marriage that quite often come true: Marriage is the most expensive way for each partner to discover all of the other’s faults. Too many husbands and wives will act rationally only after all other possibilities have been exhausted. If we were to really take a close look at what goes on in a marriage, we would see that it isn't a spouse's fault or sin which crucifies or pains, though you might have thought so; rather, it's our loving willingness to forgive. If we didn’t care, we couldn’t care less what the other person said or did. If we didn’t believe in the other person, we wouldn’t believe what they said about us. If we didn’t hope for a better day, then we wouldn’t mind the day that is. If we didn’t plan to forgive, we could easily forget. Loving enough to forgive is the avenue by which such special pain enters in, a hopeful pain. We forgive in order to forget not the person, but the situation. We die a little that the marriage might rise alive. So be righteous, be right, as God is right. Love even those who don’t make it easy. And just as important, find a way for yourself to become easier to love.

Truthfully, “love” is not just for the young. It is primarily not an emotional state of longing and lust, but a spiritual condition of compassion and caring. Love is what we do for others. I came across this list of beatitudes for those who love well:

Blessed are those who care and who are not afraid to show it—they will let people know they are loved.
Blessed are those who are gentle and patient—they will help people to grow as the sun helps the buds to open and blossom.
Blessed are those who have the ability to listen—they will lighten many a burden.
Blessed are those who know how and when to let go—they will have the joy of seeing people find themselves.
Blessed are those who, when nothing can be done or said, do not walk away, but remain to provide a comforting and supportive presence—they will help the sufferer to bear the unbearable.
Blessed are those who recognize their own need to receive, and who receive with graciousness—they will be able to give all the better.
Blessed are those who give without hope of return—they will give people an experience of God. Love is a many-splendored thing.

You know, not everyone is righteous all the time, not even the righteous. But we have to keep our aim true. Nobody is perfect, but when we love we are perfected for a time. James N. McCutcheon tells a wonderful story of Fiorello LaGuardia. LaGuardia was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all of World War II. He was called by adoring New Yorkers the Little Flower because he was only five foot four and always wore a carnation in his lapel. He was a colorful character who used to ride the New York City fire trucks, raid speakeasies with the police department, take entire orphanages to baseball games, and whenever the New York newspapers were on strike ... he used to go on radio and read the Sunday 'funnies' to the kids. One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself. Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter's husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick and her grandchildren were starving. But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. 'It's a bad neighborhood, your Honor,' the man told the mayor. 'She's got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson.' LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said 'I've got to punish you ... The law makes no exceptions—$10 or ten days in jail.' But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero saying: “Here's the $10.00 fine which I now remit; and furthermore I'm going to fine everyone in this courtroom 50 cents for living in a city where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.” So the following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, 50 cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner, while some 70 petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York City policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.

Make the best of your time. Make the most of your love. Care for those who need it. Love, because it makes things right, and all right.

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