By Bishop Peggy Johnson, Eastern PA Conference
2021 Susquehanna Annual Conference, June 18, 2021
Scripture: I Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
Prayer: Your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. May you light a fire in our hearts this day that we will go from this place and do your Word in Spirit and truth. Now in spite of me or through me, speak your word to your people. Amen.
The Broadway Musical “Rent” officially closed production in 2008 making it one of the longest running musicals on Broadway. It included a show-stopper song that asks “Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear. Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure? Measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee, in inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure a year in the life?”
Then the chorus resounds with: “How about love? How about love? How about love?”
I would take some liberty with these lyrics and say, “Five hundred twenty five thousand sessions of conference. How do you measure your annual conference? In resolutions, in debate, in budgets, in nominations? How about love?
How about love? Your theme this year for annual conference is A Vision of the Beloved Community. It is all about love and the love we have for one another. It the most important measure of the success of an annual conference or a church or your very life. Without it, you are a clanging cymbal or a noisy gong.
How about love? In these most strife-filled times we are living, it still remains the more excellent way, the thing that never fails and is the very heart of God.
As you begin this session of annual conference: how about love?
No better words can be found than I Corinthians 13. Too often read at weddings and little else, it has the practical kernels of love embedded in verses 4-7. May they be your guide for annual conference 2021.
Qualities of love
So what are the qualities of love that we should measure?
Love is patient and kind
They say that a broke clock is right two times every day and that is a loving attitude. If you know someone who bothers you and works your last nerve? Think about the good things in them, even if it is only two things and get to know them.
There was a person in my life who I had experienced great conflict. Know anyone like that? I showed up at a peace walk last summer and there was this person: my star detractor. I stiffened up, hoping things could at least be civil, remembering the sting of the past. We ended up walking from the school parking lot to the church and really talked. I found out more about his life and background and slowly began to understand his perspectives and hurts. I was suddenly humbled to think all this time I had judged him wrongly. I had been impatient with this person but he was indeed a precious child of God.
Jesus saw the heart of people: The woman at the well, Nicodemus at night, Peter by the charcoal fire after the resurrection. He patiently listened, engaged and looked at them with the eyes of God’s love and kindness.
Sometimes we are so busy or so sure we know what a person is like ahead of time that we don’t really see them, hear their hearts and understand their backgrounds. Pope Francis recently wrote, “This haste, this everything-right-now, does not come from God. If we get worked up about the right-now, we forget what remains forever, and we follow the passing clouds and lose sight of the sky.” Love has patience and sees the sky.
I believe we would have less racial tension in this country if people would practice patience and kindness and really see each other as God sees them, learn their life’s story and take time to engage.
When I was in parish ministry there was a lady who lived in the house next door to the church who was always complaining. There were many concerns: the tree in the church yard, the trash cans, cars parked near the driveway, etc. She sent letters of complaint, and with each letter, we tried to fix things. But nothing made her happy. We even tried to shovel her sidewalk after a snowstorm. She shouted out the window “don’t touch my snow!”
At Christmas one year my assistant pastor Nancy said she would give homemade sugar cookies to all the neighbors and invite them to church on Christmas Eve. I warned her not to go to this house next door. “She will toss you and your cookies off the front porch,” I said. Nancy ignored my faithless counsel and marched right up the steps of the house next door. The door opened, Nancy went in. She stayed there a long time. We thought we would have to call the police and report a hostage incident.
Finally, the front door opened and Nancy came back to church smiling. She explained that this elderly lady was lonely and not well and she was happy to have these cookies and the visit and that she would be at church on Christmas Eve. We never heard another complaint. Love is kind. I know you can’t win over everyone with a can of cookies, but you can try.
Where can we show patience and kindness? How about love?
Love does not insist on its own way.
Who doesn’t want to win? Who doesn’t think they are right? Who isn’t tempted to quit when we don’t get our way? All of us! But love doesn’t think about winners and losers. Love is willing to find a win-win solution and even allow the other to win.
My grandfather loved poetry and he quoted many a vintage poem in my presence. One of his favorites was by a poet named Edwin Markham who describes this kind of love: “He drew a circle that shut me out! Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win. We drew a circle that took him in.”
This means loving so much that you are willing to work with the very people that hurt you and exclude you. That is the kind of love that God has for God’s children, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
It’s not selling out your cause or giving in. It’s more like Martin Luther King’s Jr’s strategy of non-violent resistance that is motivated by love. It is about hanging in there to overcome evil with good.
Bishop Michael Curry in his amazing book “Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times” notes that there will always be difficulties with people, but it is all about rising higher than those bonds so that you have the vantage and strength to break them. It is about looking for dawn in the midnight hour and believing in the power of love.”
One of our retired women bishops shared with me about the power of persistent love in her life. She finished seminary and was newly ordained and all ready to serve a church, but the bishop refused to appoint her. “No one wants a woman,” he said. It is hard to believe and very sad. But, she kept working as a lay person in a local church doing exceptional ministry, getting the attention of a district superintendent, being her talented self. The following year there was a church that was going part time because they were likely going to close. The DS appointed her there. Within the year this church grew under her excellence and became a full time ministry! She did not insist on her own way, she won by the power of overcoming love. This still works today.
How can you win the day in an impossible impasse that you are facing? How about love? Finally….
Love rejoices in the right
The world is full of negativity and people talking against each other. Love looks at the bright side of things. Instead of talking death, love talks about life. Instead of giving up, love keeps going. Instead of being happy when someone gets what they deserve, love believes in restorative justice.
In the city of Philadelphia, 498 young black and brown men and women murdered in gun violence incidences in the year 2020. It is overwhelming and sad for so many families. It make you want to give up and stay away from Philadelphia. But love goes straight for the problems and makes a difference.
There is a group known as “Every Murder is Real” in one of my churches and they have classes, therapy, and resources for families who have lost loved ones in gun violence. They are making things better for so many families. I was at one of their prayer meetings recently and they are full of positivity and praise and hope. They rejoice in every victory. Instead of wanting to give up I was drawn to the love in their hearts and am happy to join their efforts of waging peace.
Rejoicing in the right means taking notice of all the good even when things are looking bleak. Lifting up the positive where there is negative and doing what you can is love. Sometimes it causes snowball affect of goodness in this world.
A long time ago my husband and I served a student pastorate in Indiana and one of the little country churches was having a serious problem with the foundation. The church was sinking. It looked like they might have to close. If they state came in they would likely condemn the building.
Then there was Mr. Watson. He went down in the basement and found one part of the building that was still worth saving. He started digging around and before you know it some other men got involved, and then some of neighbors and the cabinet company down the street and the next thing you know they had talked someone with a crane into lifting the church off of its foundation and put down some concrete and the church was saved. It just took one person to see the good in one remaining part of the foundation. The church was saved and I still get a Christmas card from one of the members to this day.
Where can you rejoice in something good and not looking at the negative? It is all about where your focus. A loving heart is always rejoicing in the right. How about love?
May you have a blessed annual conference session Susquehanna! My sister conference. The United Methodist Church is a facing some incredible moments in the next few years. How will you move forward into these uncharted waters? How about love? “Faith, hope and love abide forever, but the greatest is love.”
