Based on ‘The Love Chapter’, 1 Corinthians 13, this was written and used at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on February 1, 2004 and, with a very minor update (Included in this version…) again on May 18, 2008 at the Hartford East Maple Street Chapel…

       I have stated, at different times and different places, that change is sometimes a good and necessary thing… and I stand by that statement! However, if the truth be known most of us tend to resist change of any kind… I know that I certainly tend to resist it unless I can see a clear and present reason for it. Let me give you an example of what I mean from the time I had started back to driving over-the-road some years ago…

       After about the first or second week of being back I had gotten ‘settled’ into one particular truck. It was not one of the newer ones, but it worked just fine for what I was doing. Then happenstance caused it to be used by somebody else over a weekend and I was put in a still older one ‘temporarily’. After about two weeks of continually missing ‘my’ truck being on the lot at the same time that I was, I told them I’d just stay in my temporary one for now. You see, you get used to what you’re driving… you learn it’s quirks and it’s good points… and it is just easier to keep everything situated in a truck that you are familiar and comfortable with. However, the cold weather one week caused some of the other trucks to have problems, and my truck was needed to fill in on some other jobs that I just didn’t do. So, for the latter part of that week I played ‘musical trucks’ and had a different one everyday. Some mornings I wouldn’t even know which one until the office people would get there at 7 and see what was available! Even though this meant that I was in a much nicer, newer vehicle each time, it also meant that I couldn’t leave as early as I liked. I also had to put up with other people’s trash, the stink and ashes of cigarettes, and lots of other stuff that had been left in each one. Then, after hitting the road, I would have to learn how that particular truck handled and ‘drove’, if you will. And on that particular week, it happened more than once that snow was falling heavily out of the skies! Just give me something I know and am comfortable with!

       Another example of how some people resist change requires my telling a little bit of a story.

       My older cousin Jim had lived with us for some years as we were growing up, and was always one of my favorite cousins. When I was in my mid-teens, or so, he married into a very Slavic family. I can remember being at the reception where all kinds of ‘exotic’ foods… at least they were to me at the time… were being served, and the band… dressed in traditional costumes, as I recall… played the ‘Beer Barrel Polka’, and many, many others… and people actually got out on the dance floor and danced to them!!!

       As fate would have it, I went to work for Jim’s father-in-law in his heating-and-air-conditioning business for one summer during my short stint in college back then. He was really a great guy and I learned an awful lot from him about designing, building, and installing heating and cooling systems, and I have had occasion over the years to make use of that knowledge. He and his wife were both first-or-second generation from ‘the old country’, and still talked with slightly more than a trace of an accent. Indeed, the wedding that they had helped arrange for their daughter was probably like coming home for them… that was their normality! Still, they were Americans and proud of it, and tried very hard to adapt to the changing ways of both this country and the times. Yet, I remember working with him in the shop one day when Neil Diamond’s ‘Play Me’ chanced to be playing on the radio. Do you remember the words? “She was morning, and I was nighttime,” was how it started out. The words of the chorus were, “You are the sun, I am the moon. You are the words, I am the tune. Play.”

       Now, I was then, and still am, a huge Neil Diamond fan, and I thought this was one of his most beautiful and ‘soulful’ songs. Yet my employer listened to it playing and just about had a fit! “Listen to that,” he said. “Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous… ‘I am the words, you are the tune’… what does that mean? It’s just nonsense!” And he went on in that vein for some minutes… that was just too different… too much change, if you will… than he was able to deal with!

       One Sunday at the little church I pastored in Lynnville, IL, I used another Neil Diamond song as the prelude to that morning’s service… “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother!” This song was a huge hit in the early seventies, and was done by many performers over the years… we even sang a version of it in choir during one of my high-school years. And it is a very moving and meaningful song… I mean, just listen to these opening lyrics… “The road is long, with many a winding turn That leads us to who knows where, who knows where. But I’m strong, strong enough to carry him…He ain’t heavy – he’s my brother” Can you think of any more suitable thought to open a worship service with? And yet I’m sure that many of them there that morning, as some of you might, sat there and thought, ‘What is all of this?!’

       These verses that I read constitute what most call the Love chapter, and I’m sure that all of you have heard it a number of times in your life, and some of you may be very, very familiar with it. For many, it is one of the most beautiful, most eloquent passages in the Epistles… and probably one of the most quoted. It has also been ‘updated’ by various artists over the years to say the same things but in different, more modern connotations. Yet in any guise, it has never lost one iota of its meaning or intent. Who among you will deny that in these verses are found the most accurate and understanding definition and description of what love is supposed to be? Who here has never been moved by hearing, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

       Oft time, this is used in describing the relationship between a husband and wife, and is certainly suitable for that purpose! But the Life Application Commentary points out that, “Society confuses love and lust. Often, so do believers. Unlike lust, God’s kind of love is directed outward toward others, not inward toward one’s self. It is utterly unselfish. This kind of love goes against natural inclinations. It is possible to practice this love only if God helps us set aside our own desires and instincts so that we can give love while expecting nothing in return. Thus the more we become like Christ, the more love we will show to others.”

       Isn’t that an amazing thought? “… the more we become like Christ, the more love we will show to others.” Now, do you want to hear something even more ‘amazing’? Let me turn that idea around… The more love we show to others, the more we become like Christ! That’s what these verses are about… showing love for others! And that is what this Neil Diamond song is about… showing love for others! Let me read all of the lyrics to you…

The road is long, with many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where, who knows where
But I’m strong, strong enough to carry him
He ain’t heavy – he’s my brother

So on we go, his welfare is my concern
No burden is he to bear, we’ll get there
For I know he would not encumber me
He ain’t heavy – he’s my brother

If I’m laden at all, I’m laden with sadness
That everyone’s heart isn’t filled with gladness of love for one another

It’s a long long road from which there is no return
While we’re on our way to there, why not share
And the load, it doesn’t weigh me down at all
He ain’t heavy – he’s my brother

Again, I cannot think of a more appropriate song to use to help focus our minds on what God would have us do with our lives. And yet many would sit there and still think how much nicer a good, ‘regular’ hymn might have been to open a service with! We are resistant to change! And that is dangerous!!!

       I want you to take just a minute and think about some of the things you’ve done this past week… just think about some of the things you do each day. Now, think about the week before… and the week before that… how many of those things have been the same each week? How many of them do you think you’ll do again this week? We are resistant to change!

       And yet, the very idea of being Christian, even on its most basic level, means that we must change our hearts and our lives to reflect the overpowering love of Christ and pass it on to others! Being a Christian isn’t just about being at a worship service each Sunday, although that’s a part of it. Being a Christian isn’t just about reading our Bibles and praying, although that’s a part of it. Being a Christian isn’t just about singing hymns and putting money in the collection box, although that’s a part of it. Being a Christian is about being like Christ! Being a Christian is about love! Being a Christian is about taking care of our brothers and sisters! Being a Christian is about changing the world! And how are we going to do that when we won’t even admit that there is any more to the world than that small one we live in?

       Again quoting from The Life Application Commentary, “Paul wrote that love endures forever. In morally corrupt Corinth, who these letters were addressed to, love had become a mixed-up term with little meaning. Today, people are still confused about love. Love is the greatest of all human qualities and is an attribute of God himself. Love involves unselfish service to others. Now, listen to this… Faith is the foundation and content of God’s message; hope is the attitude and focus; love is the action. Faith informs action; hope influences action; love is action. When faith and hope are in line, you are free to love completely because you understand how God loves.”

If we are to become the Christians that we are called to be… called by Christ, Himself, mind you… then we have to get out of our ‘comfort zone’… we have to get out of the notion that the world revolves around us and our own little problems. That’s not to say that we can’t ask God for help with our own problems… that is also a part of what being a Christian means… but we have to open ourselves up to the rest of the world, and to all of its problems, as well! That’s what it means to love our fellow man! That’s what it means to be Christ-like! That’s what it means… to be a Christian!