Love - It's the greatest

So now, faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1st Corinthians 13:13

I'm sorry for the time between posts. Last Friday, I found myself officiating the funeral for a good friend, Roger Matthews. His passing, while not unexpected, came quickly, with friends and family at his side. The day before the funeral, I went to the family house to see what I could offer in the service, what they most wanted to say, and ran into something a little unexpected. While the family was going through Roger's things, they ran across my wedding announcement from 22 years ago! Made on an old Brother Word Processer in 1995, it still looked good as new. (We thought we were pretty on top of technology back then, too!) On the announcement was the familiar quotation from 1st Corinthians 13, a description of true love. They wanted this to be the theme of his service, because, in Roger, the family felt he truly embodied that love.

Well, I'll admit, I've seen the scripture used in plenty of weddings, but not a funeral! As I tried to grasp what I needed to say, I thought back on Roger myself, and listened to stories the family had about him. For me, he was grandfather to my nephew and niece, Trent and Alison, but I was always treated as a family member. For the family, time and time again, there were stories of unselfish giving of himself, thinking about his family first, friends first, others ahead of himself, so many times. And that is what love is about.

He was a man who loved music as well. Born into a musical family, guitar player and wonderful singer and arranger.

Great sense of humor. A story from his sister...As he lay in bed, with family around, the music in the background was slow, sad sounding gospel tunes. As his sister was about to have had enough of the sadness, Roger said, quietly, "Can't y'all put on some rock and roll?"

I got a chance to look at his Bible, an old Revised Standard Version. You can learn a lot about a person from their Bible. This one was well used, the cover worn through in places, and the binding barely holding on to the pages. Inside were MANY notes. Roger had no problems writing in his Bible, and there were underlined passages on almost every page. And the notes he wrote filled in many of the margins, a lot of them with exclamation points! But one thing stood out, in the front of the Bible, were his own handwritten interpretations of two verses of scripture, Romans chapter 8, verses 26 and 28.

26 "Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words."

28 "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose."

Under his thoughts on those verses, also handwritten, were the words "The two most wonderful things I can know!"

Love, in that 1st Corinthians 13 sense, is impossible to achieve on our own. So, how did Roger have it? Because he was not on his own. He held to the faith that in order to love, we must first be loved. And must hold on to our love, to then give to others. Roger's faith was in God's love for him, so strong that he could afford to give that love freely. The Spirit helped in weakness, and God's love worked through him.

I, and many others, will miss Roger's presence here, but his love will always remain, because Faith, Hope and Love abide, these three. But the greatest of these...is Love.

A Thread of Love

It's been a week of funerals, and I'm pretty worn out myself. My uncle Laney, my mom's older brother, passed away on Sunday, just one month shy of his 96th birthday. (Or as he would have said, 69th birthday.) Then the father of a dear friend passed away mid-week, and I'm glad to say I was able to be there to pay my respects, and help where I could, and just be there when I couldn't do more.

This has also been a week of celebration, leading the opening worship service for Annual Conference of the Southern Methodist Church. Getting together with friends and family, even in sad times, and laughing at ourselves. A sadness in our joy, and a joy in our sadness. And so goes life.

The unifying thread in all this is God. God's presence in those funerals, not to diminish the sorrow, and make it disingenuous, but to allow it, support it, and more so, to share in it. God's presence in worship, as men and women gather for the serious task of determining how the church shall proceed in the coming year, and finding God not a task master, but a shepherd. In His love given to us, and us to Him, and multiplied by sharing with each other.

And so (should) go life. Spend time loving God, and letting Him love you. Spend time loving others, and letting others love you. Me, I'm going to spend time in a nap in the not too distant future. Faith. Hope. Love.