Self-Sacrifice and the Christian Life
This sermon was preached by Pastor Ted Carnahan for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, February 2, 2025.
Transcript
Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
I'll be honest with you. When I heard Taylor ask the question, "What is love?" I'm not the only person here who thought, "Baby, don't hurt me." But I'm going to stop. You don't need that. No one needs that.
No, this question of what is love, what does love look like, is kind of at the heart of what we're doing today as we're looking at our readings.
The Nature of Love
I want to start with thinking about 1 Corinthians 13. "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels but have not love, then I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." You know, that's a text that if you've heard it before, outside of this sort of setting on a Sunday for worship, you've probably heard it at a wedding. It's a very common text to use at weddings. It's as popular a text to use at weddings as Psalm 23 is to use at funerals. And there's a good reason for that.
Psalm 23 is wonderful. It reminds us that even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, that the Lord is with us, guiding us, protecting us. And similarly, at weddings, this idea that we are called to this high form of love is an important part of a Christian wedding.
Love in the Church
And yet, it's kind of funny to me because as much as this passage is wonderful, it's about love. It's about self-giving, agape, self-emptying love. It's not a passage that is about weddings at all. It's actually about a church, a church in Corinth that St. Paul is writing a letter to and basically saying to them, "If you don't have love for one another, then all of your exuberant worship, all of your spiritualization in front of other people is really just to build yourself up. It's not to honor and glorify Jesus Christ."
And so it's really about a church that's fighting with itself and he's admonishing them to love. And so he says things like, "If I speak in tongues of mortals and angels, but I don't have love, then I'm just making noise. If I have prophetic powers and I understand everything, I'm a Bible wizard. I know everything about the Bible, but I'm not loving." He says, "I am nothing." He says, "If I have faith to move mountains, I don't have love. It doesn't matter. If I give away all my possessions, if I sacrifice my own body, but I don't have love, there's nothing of value in that because love and the motive of love is at the heart of what it is to be a Christian."
Love in Marriage
It's a charge to be loving, which is why it's good to have it at a wedding. In fact, we might've even had that at our wedding, but honestly, I don't remember what scripture we had at my wedding, which is maybe a kind of a weird thing to admit, but I was more consumed with how beautiful my bride was that day. She's just so lovely. And so I just don't remember. I think I remember like 30 seconds of the whole wedding. Is that a very male thing to say? I don't know.
But this passage about love is about how we love one another in the church. And marriage happens to be an image of how Christ loves his church and how the church ought to respond to that. And in both cases, love in these situations is to be deeper than the outward expression of affection.
The Language of Love
It's kind of a shame that in English, we use the same word for love that we say, "I love you" to my spouse, but we also say, "I love cheesecake." And I love my wife and I love cheesecake. But if I love my wife the same way I love cheesecake, I have a problem. But love matures over time.
Love also starts, especially when we're talking about marriage, love starts in one place and it grows over time. That's the ideal. That's what's supposed to happen. So love might start with attraction, with erotic love, with this sort of desire, and then it matures over time. This is not a fading of love, but a deepening of it. Because it matures towards self-emptying love. Love which chooses the good of the other.
The Purpose of Marriage
The primary purpose of marriage is to choose the good of the other. It's taking our will and it's directing it in a particular direction so that our hearts are formed and shaped so that we might harness ourselves to the good of someone besides ourselves. In fact, Martin Luther is famous for talking about the idea of the human will as curved in on itself. Human beings curved in on themselves is sin. And the antidote to that is to be directed not inward, but outward towards the good of the other.
Therefore, marriage is a school of self-sacrifice, of agape love, self-emptying love, the love that says, "I will lay down my life for you." It is a school of growing in holiness. And not everybody gets married and that's okay. It has been chosen for that purpose by God. But all of us can learn from what marriage does and means as it applies to our lives of faith before God.
The Importance of Love
Without love, we are nothing. We gain nothing. In other words, talk is cheap. Actions are costly. I can say, "I love you," but if I don't act on that, then it's just empty words and it means nothing. It's about the actions that we take. It's about speaking the truth. And here's the thing. Not just saying things that are Minnesota nice, but actually telling the truth even when it's difficult. It's about being people who are caring about truth in love. It's about being committed to the good of others even when they aren't committed to the good of their own selves.
So love is the disposition of the heart inclined towards the good of other people. And when we do that, society flourishes. When we do that, when our hearts are harnessed and directed toward the good of the people around us, they benefit and so do we.
Love in Different Contexts
In a husband and a wife, when their hearts are focused towards giving themselves to one another, sacrificing of themselves for the good of the other, then it creates an environment where children can be raised up in the Christian faith and prepared in the next generation. When members of a church love one another, they are so busy sacrificing of themselves for the sake of the people around them that there's no occasion to argue or fight about everything. We're falling over ourselves, loving each other instead of ourselves.
When a community and a nation takes up self-sacrificing love, then we're willing even to lay down our lives for the safety of the people around us. This is not a mechanistic thing. It doesn't insist upon itself. You can't, in love, go to somebody and say, "Insist that you love me." But rather, we simply choose in our own hearts to love the other.
Jesus in Nazareth
Jesus, in our gospel reading, has come to Nazareth. And you remember that we talked about this last week. Nazareth is Jesus' hometown. This is where he was raised. He was born in Bethlehem, but he was raised in Nazareth. And in Nazareth, he's the local boy. And last week, he came to the synagogue in Nazareth after having preached and done miracles in other places. And when he comes there, he takes the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He reads from Isaiah chapter 61, which says that there's a Messiah coming who's going to change the world. And then he says, "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." In other words, that's me. I'm the Messiah. And then he sits down and begins to teach with authority.
And the people in Nazareth have a problem. Because Jesus of Nazareth, in Nazareth, has just said, "I am the Messiah. I am the chosen one. I am the anointed one who will fulfill the prophecy made from God through the prophets for hundreds of years leading up to that moment." And their problem is this. They remember Jesus in diapers. They remember Jesus running around as a little kid in town. They remember Jesus growing up at the elbow of his father, Joseph, the builder or the carpenter, learning a vocation. And so they look at Jesus and they say, "I know what you're about. I know who you are and where you fit into this world. And you have risen above your station. You're the Messiah. You're the anointed one. Come on, kid. You put your pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody here. I remember you in diapers."
It's a small town. Hey, folks who come from a small town, you know what that's like? Where somebody looks at you and says, "Wait, hey, aren't you getting a little big for your britches? Aren't you coming up a little bit higher than your station? We know who you are and what you're about. We know where you belong." And as soon as you get a little bit, you know, somebody who comes up and has a little success and people start looking at them different, don't they? Who are you and what do you think you mean? And that's not just Jackson. That's small towns in general. I've seen that all over. It's also church. It's hard when you've shared that amount of life with somebody to see that they've grown and changed and become a different person.
A couple years ago, I had a church that was important to me approach me about coming and being their pastor. It was a church I grew up in. And it would have been a neat call. Would have been close to my parents. Would have been a really beautiful church. Huge, thriving ministry. Maybe not a setting that I would have been excited about, St. Louis County, Missouri, but it was pretty neat. But there were a lot of people still around that church that remember me as a kid in Sunday school. They remember me as a kid in confirmation class. And it's one thing to come to them and say, "Jesus loves you. Everything's great." But what happens when the pastor preaches law and gospel, comes in and tells the truth about sin? That's a little different thing, isn't it? Who the heck am I to be able to say that to them?
And so Jesus, you know, is already anticipating. He's not going to be welcome in his hometown. And now here come the demands. In fact, he cuts this off. He doesn't wait for them to ask. He says, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself.' But no prophet is welcome in their own hometown. You want me to do miracles to prove that I am who I say I am. But you're not motivated by love. You're motivated by your own entitlement and entertainment."
In other words, what he knows that the people are thinking, if not saying, and that they're going to say soon is "dance monkey dance." You're famous. You're doing these miracles. You can do all this stuff. Fantastic. Do it for us. We want to see. We're going to put you to the test. Dance monkey. Do what you have to do in order to prove it to us. I get kind of get this. I'm from Missouri. Missouri is the show me state. Their question is tinged with a bit of anger. This idea that this man could rise above his station going from the son of a builder, a general contractor. I know that we talk about Jesus as a carpenter, but honestly, the word tech for Joseph probably means more like builder. So he would have worked with more than just wood. It would have been stone. He would have built houses and things like this. So Jesus, the son of the general contractor in town, he's getting a little uppity, isn't he?
Jesus preempts them and he begins to show them that they are not prepared to welcome him because they're not prepared to welcome his ministry. And his ministry, while focused on the Israelites, on the people of Israel, the Jews that are gathered there in the ancient Near East, is bigger than just them. And so he says, "You want miracles, but you don't believe the miracles when they come, when they're not directed towards you." And he quotes, he points out two particular instances, where that's the case. Two of the greatest prophets that Israel has ever known, Elijah and Elisha. Elijah talking about the widow of Zarephath and Elisha talking about Naaman the Syrian.
These folks are saying, "Hey, Jesus, now that you're here, why don't you prove to us who you say you are? We're going to put you to the test. You're going to come here and you're going to make our community great? Fantastic. Dance, monkey, do my will." Which is the opposite of love, right? Is a disposition of the will for the good of someone else. But what they're doing, and so often what you and I do, is we want other people to love us and give for us, but we're not willing to reciprocate. It's not a commitment of our will towards the good of others, but rather it is a disposition of our heart that says, "I am an empty hole, fill me up."
There's special preference for Nazareth because I grew up here. God doesn't even prefer you over non-Israelites. And ooh, if you're going to get the Israelites angry about something, you point out the ways that God has blessed non-Israelites. They're about to get really hot under the collar. This is provocative. He says, "You want me to love you? You don't even love your neighbors, let alone people outside your tribe, the people you'd never expect."
And he points out in the story of Elijah, it was the Israelites who were trying to kill Elijah. And Elijah had to flee Israel and run into the desert, and then eventually God cares for him and sends him up to Zarephath to a widow who is in Sidon, which is not part of Israel. And when a terrible famine and drought comes and afflicts the whole area, up in Syria where Elijah is staying, God miraculously provides for him and a woman and her son who are not Israelites.
And then he takes it a step farther and he says, "What about the story of Elisha? Were there not many people afflicted with leprosy in the time of Elisha? And yet the only person that we have a record of Elisha curing of leprosy is a general of the Syrian army whom apparently God was willing to cure when he wasn't willing to cure Israelites who were right there and needing that themselves."
This is the thing that makes them furious. The thing that makes them so angry that they're now willing to kill him is when they say, "God might love you and choose you, but God also loves and chooses them." And suddenly, they're so enraged by his unwillingness to dance for them, by their own selfish and incurved hearts, and their unsatisfied reaction to his preaching and prophetic word that they drive him to the brow of a cliff and they're about to push him off. And then miraculously, he gets out. We don't know exactly how or what that looked like, but he goes through the midst of them and disappears. Who knows exactly how that worked? We just know that Jesus's ministry was not ended that day, even though they were mad enough to push him off a cliff.
Living in Love
People of God, you and I have reasons to feel hurt. You and I have reasons to wonder what is it that God is doing when we pray and we pray, and it seems as if we get no answer. But I would tell you this, that this world that we live in is a school for shifting the disposition of our hearts, for moving our direction in life away from our own selves and outward towards others.
What takes more faith when your life immediately gets better than when you prayed or when your life doesn't get better right away and you struggle? Will you be embittered by the success of others when it seems like miracles are on tap and flowing for everybody but not for you? When it seems like everything seems to be going wrong, your life is a country song, are you hurt by God's willingness to bless others or are you happy for them? Will you love the people who have received blessings that you don't currently have? Will you be willing to give yourself for the sake of others even if they don't deserve it?
See, because it's easy to celebrate when things are going well, and it's hard when you're suffering and looking for help, when you're looking for a miracle and you don't receive one. But in the heart of that is faithfulness, trust, and self-sacrifice, saying God's goodness is not contingent upon me getting what I want, but God's love has been poured into my heart because I've received the one thing that I need. That one thing is the forgiveness of sins through the cross of Jesus Christ.
People of God, your sins are forgiven on account of Christ. They have been nailed to the cross and they have died with Christ. You have put on the robe of righteousness. You have been given new life and salvation. And that purpose of that is not just so you can live your best life now, but so that you can then follow the example of Jesus Christ, sacrifice of yourself, take up your cross, and live for others, figuratively or materially.
Because love doesn't seek our own benefit. It says, "I will empty myself out and pour myself out from others." Your Lord Jesus Christ has given you the great example in pouring himself out for you. And those who love, who truly love, as God calls us to love, can say that my love for others is higher than my love for myself. Not because they deserve it, but because I have been shown great love. My sins have been forgiven. My innocent Lord, by his suffering and death, has given me a gift I could never deserve. And so because I have received this great gift, I will live in that same way for others.
People of God, empty yourselves of your own prerogatives and follow the cross of Jesus. Take up your own cross. And be so focused on others in love that you care not for yourself. Because there you will find the peace of God. And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds strong in Christ Jesus our Lord, until life everlasting. Amen.
