- 5 days ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
January 18, 2026
Isaiah 49:1-7 & 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Our second reading is the opening words of the first letter to the church in Corinth. Listen as God continues to speak to you today.
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Alright… a warning up front today… we’re going to go on a bit of a mental journey this morning as we put together this theological idea collage. Some different thoughts… which, I think at least… link together into one picture… the same picture as I think these two passages are giving us this morning… a picture of love, calling, and moral grounding.
So… let’s start in a weird place… with a dream I had the other night. Like most of my dreams… this dream was strange and had all these odd little bits running through them. One little bit was like watching a scene from a movie starring Jimmy Stewart from the late 1950’s and early 60’s. I guess he was James Stewart at that time… the older… silver haired James Stewart. In this scene from my dream movie… I think it was probably supposed to be some kind of romantic comedy… James Stewart and the actress… who was only a figment of my weird dream imagination and not anyone in particular… she and James Stewart are having one of those over-acted, silly arguments that happen in romantic comedies… where they are talking too loud and gesturing wildly. He doesn’t love her… and she… she can’t understand why he doesn’t love her… because all these other men have fallen in love with her… and she name drops all these famous men who have been simply crazy about her… giving her that power that comes from not having to return their affections. All men fall in love with her… it’s the way of things… but not this James Stewart character… he doesn’t love her. Instead, she drives him crazy. Crazy!
Anyway… I’m telling you all this dream foolishness because in this silly, comedic argument she says, “Well… apparently they loved me from a different place than you do!” Now… normally… I forget my dreams pretty quickly… but when I woke up on Thursday… this line kept going through my mind. The idea of love from a different place. The woman had no problem having men love her… but since it was a romantic comedy… we know that their love… their love wasn’t going to be anything compared to how old, silver haired James Stewart was going to love her. His was going to be a true love… the love that we know and yearn for.
Since Thursday is the day I normally sit down to start writing my sermons… I kept thinking about this line from my dream… this love that we know and yearn for… in a theological way. I mean… I look at the moral morass that surrounds us in this moment in time… and for me… for me the grounding I need isn’t only in the timeless principles I hold… the love of neighbor… Micah’s question, “what does the Lord require of you”… the teachings of Christ that call us to repentance and to embrace the kingdom through our discipleship… the principles that spring from faith like this… but also in knowing the kind of love from which they spring … a love that doesn’t come from fear or self-protection… or the desire to possess… but from God’s own heart. God loves us from a different place.
When I read Paul’s opening lines to this church in Corinth… I already know that he is writing to a church that is in disarray… a community that is mired in sinful conflict. But Paul starts his letter with the reminder that first… first… they are loved by God. It’s there in the words that he uses. Paul’s use of the word “call” is grounded in God’s love… in a love that comes from a different place. There is no way he could say he himself was called to be an apostle if he didn’t believe this with his whole being. His own calling is not about authority… or his attaining of spiritual or religious rank. Paul’s call comes to him in his unworthiness and his sin. Paul’s call is understood through the humility that comes from a love from God that is pure grace. God’s patience and steadfastness bring Paul to this place of faith where he will have to teach and guide the Corinthians in all their unworthiness and sin… all their pride and self-righteous anger and snobbery. It is in this letter that he will share with them the true nature of his call… in that whole chapter on love… a definition and understanding of love that without it… Paul simply wouldn’t be who he is. He is such a good example of faith… knowing and yearning for a love given by God… a love he leans on as he faces the challenges of the world… a love he hopes lives in him and through him. And through his letters, we know Paul will lose his patience… we know his temper still flares… but… he is trying… he is trying to be better… he is trying to live into the depth of his calling to be a saint sanctified in Christ Jesus.
“I give thanks to my God always for you,” he writes, “because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus…” It’s so easy to make that into some flowery, throwaway theological line. Words that are said that sound good together… but not really meant. But what if… what if we took those words seriously. Paul knows that the only way he can speak to their conflict is going to be from that honest place of his own being reshaped by the love he experienced in God’s grace. Paul writes this letter from his transforming heart… from his being a work in progress… to a people he hopes are also a work in progress as their hearts transform. So again… what if we could believe that Paul… in writing this difficult letter to a community in conflict… didn’t have to start with threat… didn’t have to start from a place of fear of punishment… but could instead begin with an honest reminder of their potential… a potential graciously given to them from God… with all the spiritual gifts they needed to rise above the many different conflicts that were bringing them down… conflicts and divisions that were taking them further and further from this different kind of love. “God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Paul starts this letter in the right place… reminding these Corinthians… God believes in you. God’s love for you is not superficial… nor is it conditional. God is faithful. Let’s restart this journey of faith by first putting our trust there… in God’s faithfulness… and believe in the possibility of ourselves… believe in ourselves as God sees we are. God’s call is for us to let go of the sin that… paradoxically… feels safe… sin that is cynically sure and certain and gives us a feeling of control… the kind we cling to because it is so familiar to us. God calls us to not become another person per se, but to become our unsinful self… our repentant self… the person God sees that we are. To live in God’s love from a different place. To know that peace.
Speaking of which… have you all heard about the Buddhist monks who are on a peace walk. They’ve been popping up quite a bit in my Facebook feed recently. I think they will be making it to Greensboro tomorrow or Tuesday. Theirs is a different religion than ours… but our faith is the same in so many ways. Through their walk… their literal faith journey… they are trying to bring a message of a love from a different place. They are trying to get us to think about the peace that is missing in this time of chaos and disarray. Like the Corinthians… it’s not that the chaos and disarray come from some malevolent outside force… it is created from within… from our own choices. The chaos and disarray is of our own making. The promise of peace is that we can choose otherwise.
Buddhists would say it’s our inability to let go of the material world. As a minister, I can recognize that truth. I just spoke the same truth to you a minute ago. My wording was just a little different. If we can make the chaos and disarray that we’re drowning in… then why can’t we make the peace and harmony that would lift us up and bring us together? If we can intentionally choose the one… then why can’t we intentionally choose the other?
And I just have to take a moment to ask… what is it that makes the Buddhist monks so easy for us to hear. They don’t say much. They aren’t entertaining people or bringing them anything or making empty promises that appeal to our egos. Just by their presence… people are moved. They hear from them a message of the love that they know and have been yearning for. They bring gifts of flowers for the monks and will walk quietly behind them for miles… feeling what I would describe as a renewal of trust in their own call… a call that comes from a place of love that doesn’t demand some form of transaction… a love that doesn’t demand you first prove your worthiness to receive it. I mean… is it the outfits… the sense of otherworldliness? You are saints sanctified in Christ! Perhaps the difference is that it’s easier to see how the monks are being transformed in their faith… that the love they seek and receive is truly having an effect upon them. How can we see that same thing in ourselves?
Which brings us back to the words of Isaiah… “It is too light a thing…” Isaiah looks at the worldly thing that the people after exile want the most to happen. He looks at what they are dreaming of as their future is opening up before them… as hope is returning after a time of chaos and disarray… a hope they are giving thanks to the Persian King Cyrus whose power of empire they claim is God’s actions in this world. Isaiah says the words from God that is meant to lift their vision higher… lift their vision of their call to a higher place of a different kind of love. “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel: I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
In my dream, the woman had no problem being loved by men… she could be that woman easily. But the love for her that was in James Stewart… that love was from a different place… it was a love that would transform her into a different woman so she couldn’t go back. That love you have been given, said Paul to the Corinthians, that love… and what comes with that love… ought to be lifting your vision higher and taking you away from these petty divisions and useless squabbles over power and authority… over who is greater and who is lesser… over who is right and who is wrong. This call to be saints in Christ Jesus… transforms us toward a love that is patient and kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant and rude. A love that cannot rejoice in wrongdoing because it is a love that comes from the pure truth of God. To throw in a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. as the last piece of our theological collage this morning, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” We can recognize these words embodied in Buddhist monks… when will we begin to believe in them for ourselves? Our love coming from the different place of God’s love… God’s love coming to us through daily grace. Amen.