Friday, August 25, 2006

"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

IDEA: Love acts to benefit others, but often in loving others, we benefit ourselves.

PURPOSE: To help listeners see that while we cannot love people simply for our own benefit, in loving people we can be benefitted ourselves.

We've been thinking a lot about love lately in our conversations. We've said that the major evidence that we are indwelt by God as Christians is that we love other people. We've also said that the opposite of biblical love isn't hate; it's indifference. It's simply not caring. Putting it another way, we see that the opposite of love is selfishness. We can't love other people as a way of benefitting ourselves. That would be a form of manipulation. Having said that, however, we have to say that it's also true that in loving others, we are ourselves benefitted.

We -- you and I as Christians -- are to be known for our love. Love, when it's love, focuses on individuals. We don't love in general. We love people in particular. If I understand the New Testament correctly, because God is love (and that is His name and nature), then whenever the Spirit of God enables us to love other people, we are godlike. We're never more like God than when we love others.

Christians don't have a corner on love, but wherever we see it displayed, I believe that it is a manifestation of God at work in our world. There are a thousand different stories that demonstrate love in action. I'd like to tell you one. Dr. Richard Selzer, a physician, gives an account of the way love accepts and bears with other people. He saw love in action between a husband and wife in a dimly lit hospital room. He said,

I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face post-operative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of a facial nerve -- the one that controls the muscles of her mouth -- has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon has followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh. I promise you that.  Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve.

Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. "What are they?" I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at each other and touch each other so generously, so greedily?

The young woman speaks, "Will my mouth always be like this?"

I answer her, "Yes, it will. It's because the nerve was cut."

She nods and is silent, but the young husband smiles.  He says, "I like it. It's kind of cute."

All at once I know who he is. I understand and lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth. I'm so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate hers, to show her that their kiss still works. I remember that the gods appeared in ancient Greece as mortals, and I hold my breath and let the wonder in.

When Christians act in love, the Spirit of Christ Himself is there. We are never more like God than when we act in love toward one of His children. Yet, having said that, I know there's a way in which those who love are benefitted by that love. We were made in God's image, and when we become Christians, we are able to live and act as we were designed to live and act. That sets us free to fulfill God's purpose. And when we are fulfilling God's purposes, that's when we really come alive.

Let me share with you another story. It demonstrates in a small way how loving other people can be a death and life matter. Somewhere in the Midwest on the outskirts of a large city is an old well-kept cemetery. A few years ago the elderly caretaker of this peaceful and lovely spot received a check every month from a woman whom he had never met. He understood that the lady who sent the check was an invalid in one of the hospitals in that city. As he told the story

Yes, she sent me a check every month so I could buy fresh flowers for the grave of her son. The young man had been killed in an automobile accident a couple of years before.

One day a sleek black car drove into the cemetery and stopped in from of the ivy-covered building where I work. A man was driving the automobile. In the back seat sat an elderly woman. She looked pale as death. She sat back in her seat. Her eyes were half-closed. Then the man driving the car spoke to me.

"The lady is too sick to walk. Would you mind taking a few moments to come with us to her son's grave? She has a favor to ask of you. You see, she's dying, and she has asked me as an old family friend to bring her out here today. She wants to take one last look at her son's grave."

I asked him, "Is that Mrs. Wilson?" He nodded. "Yes, I know who she is. She's the lady who has been sending me money every month to place flowers on her son's grave."

Then I opened the car door and got in and sat beside the woman. She was frail and obviously close to death. But there was something else about her face that I noticed.  Her eyes were dark and sullen. She seemed to be hiding some deep, long-lasting hurt.

She whispered to me in her weak sick voice, "I am Mrs. Wilson. Every month for the last two years I've . . . "Yes, I know, I've attended to the grave just as you asked."

Then she went on, "I have come here today because the doctors tell me I have only a few weeks left. I shall not be sorry to go. There is nothing left to live for. But before I die, I wanted to come here for one last look and to make arrangements with you to keep on placing the flowers on my son's grave.

She seemed exhausted, the effort to speak sapping her strength. The driver guided the car down a narrow gravel road to her son's grave. When we reached the site, the woman, with great effort, raised herself slightly and gazed out of the window of the car at her son's tombstone. There was no sound during the moments that followed, only the chirping of the birds in the tall old trees scattered among the graves.

Finally I spoke: "You know, ma'am, I was always sorry you kept sending the money for the flowers."

At first she didn't seem to hear what I said.  Then slowly she turned toward me and whispered, "Sorry? Do you realize what you're saying? My son, those flowers were for him."

I spoke as gently as I could: "Yes, I know.  But you see, I belong to a church group that every week visits hospitals, asylums and jails. There are lots of live people in those places who need cheering up. They need it bad. Most of them love flowers, and they can see them and smell them. That grave -- over there -- there's no one living there, no one to see or smell the beauty of the flowers . . ."

The woman didn't answer. She just kept staring out at the grave of her son. After what seemed like an hour, she lifted her hand and the driver drove us back to my building. I got out of the car, and without a word they drove off out of the cemetery.

I thought, "I've offended her. I shouldn't have said what I did."

Some months later I was astonished to have another visit from the same woman. This time there was no driver. She was driving the car herself. I could hardly believe my eyes. 

She smiled at me and said, "You were right, absolutely right about the flowers. That's why there have been no more checks. After I got back to the hospital, I couldn't get what you said out of my mind. So I started buying flowers for some patients in the hospital who didn't have any. It gave me such a feeling of joy to see how much they enjoyed them -- and from a total stranger. It made them happy. But more than that, it made me happy. The doctors don't know what is suddenly making me well again, but I do."

Love is unselfish. It gives itself to other people. But it often blesses the person who loves. Selfishness often warps us, and indeed, can sometimes lead to an early death. That' not just my opinion. It' the opinion of someone like the noted psychiatrist, Dr. Karl Menninger. He once gave a lecture on mental health and was answering questions from the audience. One of the people in the audience asked, "What would you advise a person to do if that person felt a nervous breakdown coming on? Consult a psychiatrist?"