Community Church Sermons

Year A

April 27, 2014

The First Sunday after Easter

Love Never Ends

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Rev. Martin C. Singley, III

Senior Pastor

There is a saying among preachers that there are some sermons you can only preach on your last Sunday. These are sermons that give expression to pent up frustrations, or getting back at folks for the slings and arrows – as Shakespeare put it - they have shot your way, or sometimes even to express the most radically unorthodox ideas you’ve developed over the years but were afraid to preach about - ideas that would certainly result in your being run out of town on a rail – if it wasn’t your last Sunday. There are some sermons you can only preach on your last Sunday!

This – is not one of those sermons.

It is, rather, simply a sermon that says, “Love never ends.”

It is love that brought this world – indeed all creation - into being.

It is love that brought each of us to life – first in the imagination of God before the beginning of time, and later in our birth.

It is love that has formed us into families and brought us spouses, and children, and friends.

It is love that has wooed us and caused us to aim our lives at higher things.

It is love that has drawn us to Christ.

It is love that has formed us into this church.

It is love that is our church’s mission.

And love never ends.

That’s because – as the Bible puts it in 1 John 4:8 – God IS love!

I’ve experienced this love all my life – even when I didn’t know it. Once upon a time I thought that the religious turning point in my life occurred when I was a sophomore in college and going through a rough time. I remember going back to my dorm room and throwing myself on the bed. With deep sighs and sobs I cried out to God. And in some miraculous way I cannot even describe, God came to me. God became real to me. That was my conversion experience, and it came with a calling to ministry. For years I told that story as my personal testimony about how I cried out to God and how God came to me.

Only trouble is, it wasn’t true.

Oh sure, the story is factually accurate, but the part I got wrong is the part about God - that I cried out and God came, like I whistled and my dog came running.

No, God was already there.

Always had been.

But I’d been too busy to notice – too caught up in myself. And years later, after I’d had a chance to think about it, I realized that since the time of my earliest memories as a little boy, God has been whispering in my ear, “I’m here. I love you.”

God IS love.

And God has enlisted a vast conspiracy of people to help me open my eyes – and heart – to experience this God who is love.

My parents – Martin and Shirley.

My siblings – Karen and Steve.

My childhood pastor - George and his wife Nancy – and the people of the Adams Square Congregational Church.

My best boyhood friend - Dennis Astrella.

My wife - Sandy.

My children - Peter and Bethany – and later, their spouses, Melissa and Keith.

My grandchildren – Ryan, who some of you may remember was visiting here some years ago on a weekend when Pope John Paul II was visiting New York. In those days, Ryan aspired to be an opera singer AND a comedian when he grew up. So at church that morning – over in the Founders Chapel – I asked Ryan if he’d like to come forward and tell us a joke. He jumped out of his seat, bounded up the stairs, took the microphone and said, “Speed it up, Papa, the Pope’s on TV.”

I’m blessed with beautiful grandchildren – Ryan, Rebecca, Lukas who is in heaven, Avery and Elijah.

God has formed this massive conspiracy of beautiful people to embrace me with love and show me His face.

God IS love.

And there have been thousands of others who have touched me with God – the people of Holy Trinity United Methodist Church who patiently nurtured me as a young seminary student who thought he knew everything but didn’t know nothin’– the people of the old First Congregational Church in North Attleboro, MA who were the first to teach me what it means to be a pastor – the people of Greendale People’s Church who introduced me to the Community Church movement and showed me in real terms what it means to accept difference and to see God’s love at work in people others have given up on.

And then there’s you.

It was Bob Puckett who told me the fantastic story about his dream for starting a Community Church here in the newly born Tellico Village, and how it miraculously came to be. He shared about the amazing work our Founding Pastor Cark Burke was doing – with just a handful of people – planting the seed and growing it into a thriving church family whose only label is Christian and whose only Head is Christ – a church that aspires to be as inclusive as the love of God.

Because, you see, God IS love.

And then Bob told me that Carl wanted to retire – again - for about the fifth time – and I should throw my hat into the ring.

I went home and told Sandy about what Bob had said. She said, “Are you crazy? Forget it! I’m not moving to Tennessee!”

Well, little by little I chipped away at her, and finally we agreed to accept an invitation to come visit the church. So a week or so after Easter – with snow still piled pretty high on the ground - we backed out of our driveway and headed south. The world started turning green as we sped along Interstate-81 through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, and by the time we drove past the fountain and arrived in Tellico Village the dogwoods and redbud were in full bloom, daffodils and irises were everywhere, and people were out mowing their lawns.

Sandy said, “I could live here!”

That was eighteen years ago and we have never looked back.

The first time I stood in the pulpit here at Tellico, I gazed out over the congregation in our Founder’s Chapel and saw a great sea of anonymous faces. I did not know the names of more than a handful of the people there that day, or anything about them, really.

Today, I look out from this pulpit and that sea of anonymous faces has somehow been transformed into a deep ocean of beloved friends and beautiful stories – human dramas of every kind. I have been so honored to have been invited to share the most intimate experiences of your lives. With you, I remember and cherish your loved ones who have now gone home to God, and I feel privileged to have been able to celebrate the richness of their lives in their time of passing. I sense them among us today, sitting close by you in love.

Because God IS love and God’s love never lets us go.

And I am so blessed to have been touched by the children of our church – such bright and beautiful sons and daughters of God – and I commend their parents and grandparents for nurturing them in a faith that teaches unconditional love and service. The world needs kids like yours – and parents like you!

What can I say about my colleagues – the ministers who have labored alongside me over these years? Good people. Gifted people. Loving people.

My first Associate, Steve Nash – then Margaret Manning – and then Tim Meadows – and Rhonda Blevins – and John Orr. Tim is a gifted caregiver, wonderful teacher, trusted confidant and a dependable servant of God. Rhonda is one of the best preachers I’ve ever known. She is proof-positive that those who say women can’t serve as preachers or senior pastors don’t know what they’re talking about. John has inherited a beautiful music ministry from Pat Provart and Anne Trentham and Linda Collins and Joy Merder and – together with Fred Pogue at the organ and Nancy Owen at the guitar - has lifted it even higher. And then there’s the Friendliest Man in Tellico Village, Bob Puckett who – I pray – will continue hugging all the women and hunting turkeys for hungry people at Thanksgiving.

I’m glad that the New Testament mentions by name many people who blessed Jesus’ life and the lives of the apostles. If I were writing a new book for the Bible I’d mention Judy Stiles, and Jeff McDaniel, and Nancy Moser, and Cynthia Hart, and Austin Hicks, and Margaret Neuzil and all those who served before them. And most of all I’d write about Pat Ouderkirk who is the glue that holds us all together and has been my right hand – and left hand – for all these years.

We’ve shared a lot of life, haven’t we? We’ve shed tears together – and laughed – and prayed – and worked – and dreamed – and become a family. You have embraced our Singley family’s joys and sorrows and made them your own. And your joys and sorrows have become ours. Together we have walked a long ways as the children of God.

And now it’s time to say “farewell.”

For Christians, “farewell” is not a concluding remark made at the end of a relationship. No, for Christians “farewell” is an opening prayer offered in hope between people whose journeys must now take separate directions for a time.

“Farewell.”

It is a wish for well-being, and new discovery, and successful work. It is a reminder that the Christian journey is bigger than any particular moment – any one pastor - or any one step along the way.

It is a reminder that we must continue on toward our true destination.

Here’s how the apostle Paul put it, and I share his sentiments:

“I thank my God every time I think of you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this: that he who began a good work in you will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

God has yet more to do with our lives!

So – dearest friends - press on. Work hard. Love unfailingly. Proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ.

God IS love!

It is love that brought this world – indeed all creation - into being.

It is love that brought each of us to life – first in the imagination of God before the beginning of time, and later in our birth.

It is love that has formed us into families and brought us spouses, and children, and friends.

It is love that has wooed us and caused us to aim our lives at higher things.

It is love that has drawn us to Christ.

It is love that has formed us into a church.

It is love that is our church’s mission.

God IS love.

And now, all I have left to say as your pastor is this: “I love you.”

And love never ends.