The Will of God

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

February 3, 2013

The Will of God

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

The picture went viral as soon it was posted.

It showed nothing more than a receipt,

a restaurant receipt.

Apparently a group from a church had gone to a restaurant,

and because the group was larger than 8,

the restaurant followed its posted practice,

a practice common at many restaurants,

and added an 18% gratuity to the total.

When the server brought the bill to the table,

it was the pastor who took it.

She then scratched out the 18% amount,

and wrote, “I give God 10%; why should you get 18%?”

The pastor signed the bill with no tip at all,

and left the restaurant.

Now there are some who might think this funny;

others of you who might be remembering poor service

you received on some occasion at a restaurant

and are thinking, “Good for the pastor!”

But apparently this wasn’t about poor service,

it was just something the pastor decided to do.

Self-righteousness is a virus that infects all Christians,

including clergy.

                 

But beyond the apparent self-righteousness,

let’s stop for a minute and think as disciples of Jesus Christ,

why was this wrong?

Why was this the wrong thing for the pastor to do?

There are many different reasons we could point to,

but I am hoping the most obvious to you

is that as followers of Jesus Christ

we are called to act generously,

generously

in everything we do, everything we say.

How many times throughout the Bible do we read,

do we learn,

that God expects us to share what we have

generously, eagerly,

acknowledging that everything we have

has come from God in the first place?

We may think that what we have came through

our own hard work, our own efforts,

but the reality is that everything,

everything we have have

comes from God.

The will of God is that we are to be generous

in our hearts and minds,

in our words and deeds.

The will of God is that we are to err on the side of giving more,

not less.     

“Give”, Jesus teaches us,

“give, and it will be given to you.

A good measure, pressed down, shaken together,

running over,

will be put into your lap;

for the measure you give

will be the measure you get back.”

(Luke 6:38)

That’s Jesus’ word to us,

teaching us the will of God.

We are called to be generous because

that is what it means to live in love,

to live in the love we are given by God in Jesus Christ,

the love we are given so generously,

without condition,

without hesitation;

the love we are called to share in the same way –

generously.

That’s the will of God.

Discerning the will of God,

weaving the will of God into our lives,

being guided at all times and place by the will of God:

it isn’t easy.

We get it wrong lots more times than we get it right.

Adam and Eve set the pattern for humans

showing that when we are given a choice

between choosing to follow God’s will

or following our own,

we are far quicker to choose our own will,

our own way,

than we are to choose God’s will, God’s way.

Paul helps us, though, by providing us with a framework

which can help us with discernment,

a framework we find in our lesson,

words we know so well,

words we’ve heard at many weddings.

But for as appropriate as the words are for weddings,

Paul did not write them with marriage in mind.

Paul wrote the words to guide the faithful in Corinth

to live by God’s will,

to help them ground their lives in love,

not romantic, matrimonial love,

but, using the Greek word, agape love,

the love that binds us all together in community

love that is more than Valentines and roses,

love that calls us to the selflessness modeled by Jesus,

love that “seeks not its own good,

but the good of others.”

So to address the question of whether

something is the will of God

we have to ask,

is what we are doing grounded in love?

Do our words and actions spring from love?

Are we more focused on the needs of someone else,

or our we focused on ourselves?

When we fail to act in love,

fail to build love,

then we may well get our own way,

we may be successful in achieving what we set out to achieve,

we may well even enjoy the accolades of the crowds,

but Paul would tell us that we are nothing more than

noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.

So, as Paul tells us, even if you have

“prophetic powers,

and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,

and if [you] have all faith, so as to remove mountains,

but do not have love, [you are] nothing.”

This is love in action, acted out and acted upon

in ways that are always,

“patient;

kind;

[never] envious or boastful;

[never] arrogant nor rude;”

and certainly, never self-righteous or judgmental.

In a world where it seems like the dominant faith

is “me-ism”,

with everyone shouting for what they want,

the love that reflects the will of God

“does not insist on its own way;”

and it is never “irritable or resentful.”

With this kind of love grounding us,

guiding us, and leading us, we can

“bear all things

believe all things

hope all things

and endure all things.”

For it is love that abides, love that endures.

Nothing else will endure;

everything else, including all those things

that we get so excited about,

will crumble and turn to dust:

“… as for prophecies, they will come to an end;

as for tongues, they will cease;

as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

[But], faith, hope, and love abide, these three;

and the greatest of these is love.”

The greatest is love, for “God is love”,

and, as the written Word teaches us,

“those who abide in love abide in God,

and God abides in them…

and whoever does not love does not know God.”

(1 John 4)

The will of God for the believers in Corinth,

and for you and me,

is that we live in love,

that we live out love,

that we share love,

act in love

in all places, all times,

even in restaurants.

To live otherwise is to become a

noisy gong,

a clanging cymbal,

and isn’t the world noisy enough as it is?

AMEN