Marks of True Stewardship
Reconciling Love
2 Corinthians 5: 16 – 20
One of the nice things about following the choir is that I don’t have to fall over myself trying to inspire you. The glory of God proclaimed in song by witnesses with willing hearts – soaring melodies – the voices of children – the ringing of bells. It is all so wonderful and inspiring and I am grateful to Bill and Katie and our Choirs for sharing their gifts with God and with us here at HMPC.
Today I want to talk for just a couple of moments about the reconciling love of God as it is expressed in 2 Corinthians. This is the kind of love that inspired Presbyterians a generation ago to write a new confession – the Confession of 1967 – written in a moment when the country’s future was unknown, when the nation and the world were in turmoil, and the very nature of the church seemed to be in flux. Sound familiar? And in that moment, those folk turned to these words, words about reconciling love from 2nd Corinthians.
Love, as we discussed several weeks ago, is a divine gift given by a God who’s very nature is love. Love is something we all know, because we are given each of as creatures of God’s image – it is a little like art, but more personal than art. The Germans have a word for this type of knowing – they call it ursprache – language that is written on our hearts, language that we all know regardless of the tongue we speak:
We know love when we see it and feel it.
Like so often he does, the Psalmist perhaps says it best in the 92nd Psalm when he writes, “It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night.” We praise and we proclaim our love for God because God has first given us his love. And one of the primary means by which we feel the love the love of God is through the reconciliation that God offers us – the making of all things new; the new creation and creations that God is constantly authoring as a loving God.
This text from 2nd Corinthians enters into our faith to tell us to dare not limit or underestimate this love of God. In his wonderful commentary on 2nd Corinthians New Testament Scholar Ernest Best writes, “This is one of Paul’s greatest passages in which, after affirming what Christ means to him, he goes on to trace the nature of him ministry. Seeing Christ in a new way has given him a new understanding of ministry. This passage is so packed with vital theology that every verse in it requires careful attention.”[1]
Or to put this directly: if this passage is vital, if this passage is life-giving, then we need to pay attention. If this text sets a pattern for Paul’s ministry, and as Paul was one of the first apostles, it should set some pattern for our ministry as well. This passage is all about one of the expressions of God’s love, but not just any expression of love. To be honest the word love, in any of its 6 forms in Hebrew and Greek, appears more than 550 times in the Bible. And the type of love that is suggested here is reconciling love:
The Germans have another phrase, another word, that is central to many early European literature and story telling traditions. The word is schadenfreude[2] – or comeuppance, or getting what you deserve, lying in the bed you made. The fable of the hare and the tortoise is in one part about ‘slow and steady wins the race.’ But it is also at its core about the hare getting what he deserves because he is overconfident and arrogant. Reconciling love, 2nd Corinthians 5 reconciliation means not getting what we deserve; it means getting better than what we deserve; it means that God is going to make all things right, reconcile all things through Jesus. This God is going to settle all accounts, no matter how bad things seem or how in debt we might be.
And this is a mark of true stewardship, because churches are supposed to love like this. We are supposed to give second chances. We are supposed to make bridges. Long before we can talk about sharing our gifts, our monies, or our resources, we have to talk about sharing our love, the love that finds its source in God, our love with one another.
I pray that our church is loving like this in all we do. I pray that we share vital theology, lovely theology and beautiful love for a God who loves us. I pray that our church is reconciled, in balance, with itself. Because when and if we are, then we can share in vital mission and ministry, and God is praised, and dare I say God is pleased when this happens.
The poet
Wendell Berry, by birth a farmer from
Teach me
work that honors Thy work,
The true
economies of good and words
To make
arts compatible with the songs of local birds.
Teach me
patience beyond work
Beyond
patience. The Blessed Sabbath of thy
unresting love,
Which lights all things and gives rest.[3]
Indeed, ‘tis true that the love of God lights all things: our work, our words, our goods, our arts, our wants, our patience, yes, even our love. And the testimony of 2nd Corinthians, which has led the church and guided men and women for two millennia reminds us ever that this love reconciles all things to itself. May we be led in like paths of reconciliation and know the truest nature of stewardship, of sharing that which we are called to share. Amen.
[1] Interpretation. Second Corinthians. Louisville:
John Knox. 1987. Page 52.
[2] Technically, schadenfreude is also taking delight in the comeuppance – celebrating in the fall of the one who has fallen mightily.
[3] Given: Poems.