SUNDAY, MAY 5 2024 - UNIFYING LOVE
May 5, 2024
Deborah Laforet
Unifying Love
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by
your Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
As many of you know, there are eight United churches in Oakville. Over the years, they
have mostly been separate, doing their own ministries, and doing it in their own ways. There
have been moments of connection like sharing in an outreach project or worshipping together on
Good Friday, but mostly they stayed apart. Over time, although many of these church plants
came out of older, established congregations, they each developed their own culture, their own
flavour, their own identity.
Over the past year and a half, these churches have begun to meet monthly. First it was
five of the churches, but eventually all eight churches begin to meet. They began to get to know
each other, their gifts, their challenges, their personalities. Ministers, board chairs, committee
leads, and others slowly stepped into this circle and added to the conversations. Out of that work
together, there has been opportunities for the ministers and others to get to know each other more
deeply, for more shared worship services, shared projects that support our community, a
combined newsletter, and last month, a concert featuring the United church choirs of Oakville.
There has also been the opportunity to talk about the long term vision of the churches in
Oakville. Many churches in Oakville are struggling. Sometimes financially. Sometimes with
finding volunteers. Sometimes it’s about managing a large property with very few people to
support it. What does the future look like for the church in Oakville? Might we take this
opportunity to actually talk about what the community needs from our United churches? We
could continue as we are, focusing on the survival of our own communities, continuing to
dwindle in number, managing aging buildings in need of repair and upkeep, or could we find a
way together to do church differently?
St. Paul’s reached out recently to a few of the other churches, those that seemed more
ready to take the conversation further, and on Tuesday, members from four of the United
churches in Oakville sat together in a circle and talked about what a more formal collaboration
might look like. Now, we didn’t actually come up with a plan or even ideas, but it was a time of
feeling each other out and determining whether we all truly wanted to move forward together.
The good news is that all four churches have another meeting planned in a month.
When we meet again we are going to talk about our different identities. Although we are
part of the United Church of Canada, we all live it out in different ways. A fear that many have
is that if one community decides to join another, that their identity will be lost. Many of these
churches have been around for decades and even centuries. Two weeks ago, St. Paul’s celebrated
its 68th anniversary. When we celebrate an anniversary, we honour the many who have gone
before and we celebrate the many accomplishments and beautiful memories from over the years.
If a smaller church community closes its doors and enters the building of another faith
community, do they lose themselves in the traditions of another congregation? The joining of
congregations, called amalgamations, are rarely successful. There is a lot of heartache, loss, and
usually conflict with two communities trying to come together as one. So the big question is
how do we do this well? How do churches feel that they have continued their ministry into
another chapter of its life and that it hasn’t come to the end?
The apostle Paul wrote several letters to the community in Corinth. We heard an excerpt
from one of those letters this morning. From the words and the tone, we know this was a
community in conflict. These new Jesus followers were trying to gather as a community, as a
church, but they were from so many walks of life that it was not easy. Paul, who did a lot of
travelling and sometimes spent time in jail for his ministry, would receive letters from them
complaining about disagreements, and Paul would send letters back, offering them wisdom and
advice. In chapter 12, just before the chapter Kent read for us today, Paul explains the many
gifts that can be found within a community: words of wisdom, words of knowledge, faith, gifts
of healing, powerful deeds, prophecy, discernment, interpretation, all gifts activated by the Spirit.
He talks about one body with several parts but that all the parts have to work together to help the
body function in a way that is whole and fruitful.
One caveat though that he offered about all of these gifts is they are not for the betterment
of each person. The Spirit offers us these gifts for the common good and Paul expounds on this
in the chapter we heard this morning. “If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do
not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and
understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but
do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so
that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.” He says that all of these gifts will come to
an end, but love never ends. We speak of this at funerals when we mourn over those who have
left us. Their lives have ended but love continues. It’s why we hurt so much after they are gone.
Our love continues for them and their love for us remains with us.
Although this passage is often read at weddings, how might we hear it differently if we
spoke these poetic words of Paul’s that describe love at gatherings of a diverse group of people,
people who come from different cultures, with different religious practices, different life
experiences and different flavours or identities. What if these four United churches gathered
together, and before they began discussing collaboration, might read:
“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; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in
wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things.”
Differences are not a bad thing. Our differences make us richer. Our gifts, our quirks,
our knowledge and experiences, the different ways we live out our faith, can all be woven into a
beautiful tapestry of colours and textures. Coming together doesn’t mean we have to assimilate
and lose our uniqueness. It’s much harder work to create a community that honours and respects
its differences, but if we always remember to carry with us faith, hope, and love, it can be done.
As Pauls says though, to this community filled with its differences and its conflicts, the
greatest of faith, hope, and love, is love. Love is what unifies us. Paul didn’t write this
description of love as as something this community had already accomplished. It was a call to
action. When this passage is read at weddings, in churches, in faith-based gatherings, or even in
the secular world, hopefully it’s not only celebrating the love that is already present, but also
offers inspiration as a call forward, how we live together, how we honour each other’s gifts, how
we love each other.
St. Paul’s, as a faith community that carries differences, that sometimes enters into
conflict, that is currently visioning with other faith communities different from ourselves, I invite
you to read these words together.
“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; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in
wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things.” May it be so. Amen.
This morning, our passage is from the first letter the apostle Paul wrote to a
community of new Jesus followers in Corinth. This passage will be familiar to
many. It’s chosen often for weddings. I am reading from the thirteenth chapter,
the first thirteen verses.
If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a
noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers and understand
all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains
but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions and if I
hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude.
It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs;
6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues,
they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in
part, and we prophesy only in part, 10 but when the complete comes, the partial
will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a
child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish
ways. 12 For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face
to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully
known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of
these is love.
May the Spirit guide our understanding of this sacred scripture. Amen.