Tuesdays With Morrie:
Love is the Only Rational Act

I Corinthians 15:1-8
Paul's letters are the earliest writings and witness to Jesus' life that we have. We will be reading two passages from Paul's first letter to the Corinthian Church today. This letter is written approximately 23-24 years after Jesus' death and resurrection. These readings remind us that God's Kingdom of Heaven is a promise and hope in our future, but also a reality that we experience, in part, in our lives today. As one theologian stated, "If eternal life is real, we have already begun living it." Easter, more than any other time, causes us to pause and think about this promise and seek the reassurance of it in our eternal life journey even now. Part of our hope this day comes from the fact that we have the testimony of those who experienced first hand the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. Let us hear one of those accounts.

Read I Corinthians 15:1-8

I Corinthians 13:8-13
In this passage, Paul shares that there are many ways in which God enters our lives and we catch glimpses of God's presence. These glimpses, he tells us, result in faith, hope and love. Faith which means to have a deep belief and trust in God. The encouragement we need to follow God, even in our hard times. These glimpses give us hope, the promise of that which is not yet realized, but one we know is possible. The last and greatest glimpse of God's presence is love. The intimate, personal, experience of God that makes our faith and hope of the someday real, while helping us to fully live in our lives today. If our hope is to live in Gods kingdom, the possibility surrounds us even now.

Read I Corinthians 13:8-13

Someone came up to me this week and asked, "Are we resurrecting Morrie this week? Morrie died last week and we said our 'Goodbyes' so what are you going to do this week?" It is an important question, as we have been using the book, Tuesdays With Morrie, as a companion with scripture to look at Lent in a way that adds to the fullness of living our lives. As a way of deepening our relationship to God. And as we have lived through Lent knowing our journey culminates at Easter, there was also the implication that we would find a conclusion to Morrie's story as well. The ending for both is in the teachings and examples we have received to live our lives by. Let us hear Morrie's words to Mitch.

Show clip:

The life and teachings of Jesus, which we still have to guide us, are the legacy we have received that leads us to our hope of eternal life. In these teachings, in the modeling of his life, we have caught the most important glimpse of all, a glimpse into the character of God. A God, scripture tells us, is love. Love is the only rational act, for it is the path to God and experiencing the presence of God most fully in our lives. It is only in love we enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Sermon:

We had developed a relationship that was deeper than parishioner and pastor. We had spent a lot of time together the last couple of months as he battled against Prostate Cancer. I believe we became friends in the deepest and most intimate of ways. It seemed we could talk about anything in an honest and truthful way. But, as time went on it was becoming apparent that he was loosing his battle against the cancer, and he, better than anyone knew it, for he was an M.D. One day as I was visiting he asked me, "Do you really believe there is more than this life? Do you believe in a heaven and eternal life?" I knew he was not really asking me a yes or no question. What he was asking of me was, "Please convince me and help me know that there is more than this life. Help me feel an assurance that there is indeed an eternal life in the presence of God. I want to live the rest of my days in the peace of knowing that this is indeed what awaits me."

So what can I say to him this friend who is looking for a real word of hope? Why do I believe? Well there is the biblical witness to Jesus' death and resurrection. We have the story from his followers that is saved in scripture which witnesses to this event. And we can see how the followers of Jesus were transformed in their own lives from a deep fear that caused them to deny Jesus and abandon him in his deepest time of need, and then have the strength and courage to preach and witness about him after the resurrection. It must have happened, for some of the disciples actually faced their own times of crucifixion. And Paul tells us in his letter to the Church in Corinth that not only has he seen the risen Christ, but he knows of 500 others who have as well. Surely, that could not be something he made up, for anyone could ask him who these people were and see if what he said was true. There must be something to all of this if there is indeed this many first hand accounts of the event. Yet, they are still second or third hand accounts to me. And real belief and trust comes from having your own experiences.

So what could I say to my doctor friend? Charles, we have been honest with each other, and I will be now. I cannot prove beyond any shadow of doubt that eternity in a place called heaven is for sure. I only have the hope and promise of the life and teachings of Jesus like everyone else. But, I have experienced the glimpses of truth from those teachings. Everything I have ever tried that Jesus taught has come true. And because of that, I can only conclude he was telling us the truth about this as well. What I can say for sure, is I have truly experienced the love of God in my life. And because of that, I fully believe that even in my time of death, or time of transitioning that God will continue to respond to me out of that love. So I simply believe that God will do all that is in God's power to do out of the love God has for me and you and all people."

After a few moments my friend said, "That makes sense, and it is really helpful. Thanks." Let me just say, do all you can to catch the glimpses of the kingdom, for in them lies the true basis for hope and trust in the promises of God through Jesus our Lord.

Many of you saw the movie, "Mr. Holland's Opus." Mr. Holland was a music teacher at a high school. There was a scene in the movie where his wife is pregnant. Mr. Holland comes home and says I learned that babies can hear even while they are in the womb. Wanting his child to get as early an appreciation for music as he can, Mr. Holland puts on a classical album and then takes a head set and places it around his wife's belly so his child can hear the music. Now this may sound a little strange, but I wondered what it must be like to be in this quiet, tightly enclosed and damp world and all of a sudden hear music. What is that? Where is that coming from? Glimpses of what is to be from beyond? But can you imagine the conversation that would happen with the baby. The music is just one of many wonders you will experience in a few months. I know it may be hard for you to believe, but there is a huge, beautiful and bright world waiting for you outside what you know. You can hear the cynicism already. Right. No, its true. There is a universe that extends on into infinity. There are stars in the sky which are billions of miles from you. There are other people just like you who are anxiously awaiting your arrival into this world. They can't wait to hold you and hug you and they will take care of you. There are colors that blend together in incredible beauty. It is not black all the time out here. And on and on the conversation could go. But how hard it would be to believe it is true. But we know it is now, don't we. We are here. Yet, even though the baby could hear the music, even though he could experience glimpses that life really was more than what he knew, how hard it would be to believe. And maybe, someday that will be our experience again when we have a first hand experience of our next life.

But for now, we only have glimpses. I have had those glimpses. You have had those glimpses. I have heard what Jesus has to say about life and I have been able to try and test what he has to say, and it has always been true. I have seen lives turned around and fully transformed by the presence of Christ in life. I have seen my own life changed and resurrected by God. I know the Good Friday of divorce and the deep and wonderful resurrection of love again in a new marriage that has been the most wonderful gift life could offer.

I have seen God take other Good Fridays and use them for an incredible witness to God and the goodness of life that is ours, even now, if we would only listen and follow. Sometimes the glimpses are not so clear at first, and we need to trust that God can use all things for good, which is in itself an incredible glimpse into the kingdom. I used to pastor the United Methodist Church in Blythe, California. The Lutheran Pastor and I became very good friends. We played tennis together. He co-officiated at Nancy and my wedding. And because we were close, we also did a lot of joint activities together with our churches. So the congregations became closer. One day I received a phone call from a woman in the Lutheran church asking if we would be willing to help them support a family in their church. The son had leukemia and the cost of the treatments had just about used up all of the allotted insurance for the boy. Would we be willing to take a collection to help the family? Of course, and we did. But the effort did not stop here. Other churches and groups found out about what was happening, and they, too, began to help. Before anyone realized it, it had become a community project. There were dinners and other fund raising events taking place.

But the conventional treatments were not working and it was determined that the eight year-old boy needed a bone-marrow transplant. Sadly, there was no match in his immediate family or on the current bone-marrow donor's list. So again, the community rallied and sponsored a bone-marrow donor's drive. And hundreds of people showed up to be tested. I believe that everyone hoped they would be the one who would match. Sadly, it was not to be, and just a couple of months later, the young boy died. The whole community was devastated. We had all tried so hard, but we felt like we had failed him and his family. One day, it was as if God hit me over the head, for I all of a sudden knew this was not about the little boy, it was about us as the community. It was the little boy who had helped us as a community. He, and his struggle, had been the real blessing, we just had not seen it. He had provided us the means to show us what we were capable of being and becoming as a community. He was the blessing, not us.

I was reading a novel a few weeks ago, and one of the lines was, "God's deepest sadness is that we have not lived up to our potential." We are created to love, to care and to be compassionate people. Sometimes we need to look at what happens when we do not follow a path to see the rightness and beauty of what we resist. In the irrationality of war we see why love is the only rational act. This winter we had a homeless man sleeping on our front porch of the old sanctuary. The temps were single digit at night, but we could not find a place for him to get out of the cold and food. What is our potential as a community? In event after event, in relationship after relationship we see why only love makes sense. When we live this way, we not only catch glimpses of God and God's reign, we catch glimpses of who we are capable of being. Morrie's teaching to Mitch is no different than Jesus' teachings to us. "Love is the only rational act." In people like Morrie, we catch glimpses of why. In events like the one I shared with Uriah, we can see why.

Love is what unites us to the character of God. Love helps us realize our own character as people created in the image of God. Love is what causes us to enter fully into the kingdom of God someday, and helps us catch glimpses of that kingdom even now in our lives. Love is indeed the only rational act.

Sermon delived by Rev. George Cushman on April 8, 2007.