Wednesday, September 16, 2020      Memorial of Cornelius and Cyprian (today’s lectionary)
Love is patient, love is kind
My name is John. I’m one of the disciples of Jesus. As usual, I stand on the edge of the crowd, listening like them to Jesus.
In my Father’s house are many mansions. And in Jesus’ daily crowd are many who want to live in them. I watch them every morning and every night. They are always looking for something for nothing. Jesus doesn’t seem to mind. Should we?
Wisdom is vindicated by all her children.
Jesus invites the folks around him to eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow he dies. Play the flute while I am here. John the Baptist fasted and prayed, wore sackcloth and itched all day. They say we are all fanatics, one kind or another. But it’s far more pleasant to eat and drink than fast and pray.
All God’s works are trustworthy, and of the kindness of the Lord the earth is full.
Give thanks!
I must learn the art of loving people so unlike myself, people who settle for surface and ask for everything while offering nothing. Jesus loves them. He wants us to love the way he does.
I will show you the most excellent way.
You may speak in tongues, you may prophecy. You may possess faith to move mountains. You may give it all away, even your own body. But if you “have not love,” you have nothing. If you “are not love,” you are nothing.
Jesus asked the blind beggar Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” He spent hours with the adulterous woman who met him at the Samaritan well. He touches lepers who themselves shy away. He never resents the sudden, insistent, selfish attention of needy people everywhere we go. His eyes don’t go dark, or roll when he hears the same words he’s heard a thousand times. His words are rarely impatient and his touch is always gentle, even though he’s exhausted by the end of every day.
Love is patient, and love is kind.
Love is not quick-tempered and keeps no record of wrongs.
Yes, of course we eat and drink at the end of these amazing ministry times! God is no longer far away, he’s right here. We no longer need to plead with God to have mercy, the mercy we have always craved is here.
Once we knew in part and we prophesied in part
But when the perfect comes all this will pass away.
And has not the perfect come? Has not our “partial knowledge” passed away?
When I was a child I spoke as a child, and thought and reasoned as a child.
Now I am a man and childhood is behind me.
Jesus sometimes gets frustrated with the crowds, especially when their spokesmen are religious bigots. But in the evening when we tell stories from the day around our fire, in the morning when I sit up at dawn and see him praying on a big rock above us, I think I am seeing God face to face. When I turn away and am with myself again and others like me, then my uncertainty returns.
Then I see just a reflection in a mirror, then I know only in part.
But now and for always, these three remain: faith, hope and love.
And the greatest of these is love.
Jesus will not let us forget that.
           (1 Corinthians 12-13, Psalm 33, John 6, Luke 7)
#
