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 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:I’d like to begin today by talking about lovelessness. There is a kind of lovelessness that is irrational and there is a kind that is rational. Irrational lovelenssness just doesn’t make sense. Rational lovelessness makes sense. Irrational lovelessness is when people do things that are mean for no good reason. Rational lovelessness is when people do things that will make them get ahead of others. Both kinds of lovelessness are real problems for us human beings. I think we’d like to believe that, by and large, we’re alright. If there is any lovelessness, then it’s of the rational kind. We’re mean in order to get ourselves or our team ahead. But that’s not true. It’s not hard to find meanness just for meanness’s sake. If you could be a fly on the wall of an elementary, middle, or high school classroom, you wouldn’t have to wait too long to observe meanness. There’s no good reason for this meanness. It seems to be done just for the pleasure of it. Meanness can also be found in a lot of families’ homes. Fathers and mothers can be mean to their children. Perhaps they themselves were treated meanly by their parents and so they hardly know anything different. Sometimes children can be mean to their parents. They just want to hurt them. Siblings can be mean. Husbands can be mean to wives. Wives can be mean to husbands. If we were required to give an answer for ourselves for why we are so mean we might say that we were somehow hurt by them at some point in the past. This is a condition that always exists, by the way, if two or more people live together long enough. So with the justification of having been hurt at some point in the past, whenever the opportunity arises to get back at them we make sure we don’t let that opportunity pass. This is an evil spirit. Whether it is literally and explicitly demonic, I wouldn’t want to say, but it certainly fits the pattern of the devil and the demons. They are mean. They hurt for no good reason. One of the things that Jesus did as he moved about was he cast out evil spirits. We should not assume that we are somehow immune from having an evil spirit. A lot of folks figure that since we live in modern times there’s no such thing as evil spirits. Now we call these phenomena psychopathy and sociopathy, so no evil spirits around here! But the older way of speaking has something to it. It does a better job of explaining, for example, how it is that the victims of abuse can very easily end up being abusers themselves. The unclean spirit got passed on. Jesus is the one who can truly get rid of evil spirits. The demons are subject to him because he is God. There’s nothing more fundamental to Jesus’s work than bringing about a change from lovelessness to love. As John says, “God is love.”  Lovelessness, meanness, is the opposite of God. God could have just destroyed us, which is what the demon of the man in the synagogue was afraid of, but instead of destroying us God redeems us and sets us free. There is something old that used to be said at a Christian baptism, which very nearly made it into our hymnal (but some thought it to be too medieval). It was an exorcism said just before the baptism. It said: “Depart, O unclean spirit, and make room for the Holy Spirit.” Thankfully the hymnal committee wasn’t too modern to get rid of the renunciation of the devil. At baptism we renounce the devil. We renounce all his works. We renounce all his ways. We renounce our old Lord and believe in our new Lord—the Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Our Lord Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, which certainly includes irrational lovelessness—this meanness whose existence is hard to explain. A more rational lovelessness can be much harder for people be ashamed of. Meanness is straight forward. When sin grows up it puts away these childish ways. Lovelessness learns logic and wraps itself up in fine sounding words. Instead of a loveless action being a loveless action it becomes a shrewd way to do business. Or it’s done to teach them a lesson. Through lying to one’s self disobeying the authorities is not disobeying the authorities. Adultery is not adultery. Stealing is not stealing. Gossiping is not gossiping. Coveting is not coveting. All these sins, you see, are not actually sins. They might be manifestations of great wisdom, or even, (God forbid!), the manifestation of deep piety. I’ve already mentioned that sheer meanness is devilish. You know what else is devilish? Lying. It’s hard to know which of the two kinds of lovelessness is worse. We tend to think that random acts of meanness are worse, perhaps because we don’t understand them, but does having a rationale make the evil any less evil? Adam was led astray not just by the meanness of disobeying God, but also by the rationale that was supposed to make it acceptable. People kind of pride themselves on not being psychopaths or sociopaths, like the ones on 48 hours or Dateline, who do evil things without hardly any reasons at all. Respectable people aren’t like that. But this is foolish. What credit is it to anyone to break God’s commandments with impunity because they can dream up some reason for doing it. Psychopaths, sociopaths, as well as the more sophisticated sinners all need to get thrown into the same pot. We are all sinners, the Bible says. We are all liars, the Bible says. If we are not set free from our bondage to evil spirits, then we will never be free. We will never love. Love is a word that gets used so much that we all think that we know what it means. How could anybody not know what the word means? But if you think of how loveless we are by nature, then you will see how this assumption is mistaken. How can creatures who are loveless know what love is? To know what love is, we have to be taught by God. God is love. The apostle Paul has been inspired by God. He teaches about love in our epistle reading today. I’d like to go through what he teaches so that we may be benefited by it. I want to give you a word of advice before we get into it. When you hear what Paul says you must be careful that you only judge yourself. If you don’t want to judge yourself, then you might as well leave, because it won’t do you a scrap of good to be thinking of other people’s lovelessness while ignoring your own. We each will be judged by God for our own actions. Nobody is excused because somebody else is worse. You are responsible for your own actions, so don’t waste your time puffing yourself up in comparison to somebody else. Paul says, “Love is patient.” This word means that we should not be easily provoked. It is a sin to be angry. Anger is the sinful root of the fifth commandment. “Love is kind.” This word means that a person is mild rather than harsh. There is an affection behind their actions rather than judgment and a disregard.  “Love does not envy.” Literally this says, “Love is not zealous.” Zeal is not always a bad thing. It is a bad thing when it is done for one’s own personal advancement and hates it when anybody else is better than one’s self. “Love does not brag.” Bragging is a way to get ahead in life. If you don’t toot your own horn, nobody else is going to do it for you. Everybody else is too busy tooting for themselves already. But someone who believes in God knows that God sees, judges, rewards, and punishes. We do not need to make our own case by bragging. “Love is not arrogant.” The old King James says, “Love is not puffed up.” That’s an exact translation. Puffing one’s self up, thinking you are really something, is not love—except, of course, love for one’s self, which comes perfectly naturally to us sinners. “Love does not behave indecently.” Literally this says, “Love does not reject the scheme of things.” The way things are set up is a scheme. Love does not require everything to revolve around one’s self and one’s own thoughts and desires. Love joins with the others so as not to bring about discord. “Love does not seek one’s own.” Here, again, seeking one’s own can seem like the only way to get ahead in life. Nobody gives it to you, you have to take it. But Paul means what he says, even if people think he is stupid. Love isn’t zealous for one’s self, but for others. “Love is not irritable.” The word here means “to sharpen, to make sharp,” as you would with a sword. So this is saying that love doesn’t have those little needling words and actions that are purposely done to annoy somebody else. They irritate. But they do not go so far or are so blatant that you can be charged with any serious crime. Another way you could put this is that love does not push the other’s buttons. “Love does not keep a record of wrongs.” How prone we are to do this, and how poisonous this record of wrongs is for any and every relationship! Why does any relationship get destroyed? Isn’t it precisely because we tally up a good long list of why they are such bad people that not only is it allowable to write them off, it is positively the right thing to do? These damned records of wrongs are the documentation for every unhappy marriage, every divorce, every ended friendship. Whenever you start making a mental list of how much other people stink, realize that this does not come from the Holy Spirit, but from an evil spirit. “Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.” This shows that love is not merely utilitarian. There is a kind of love that is extremely pragmatic. There is a kind of love that is nice, non-judgmental, and wouldn’t hurt a fly. But the goal is only to look good in the eyes of our fellow human beings. It is a shallow love that won’t risk hurting someone in order to help them. “Love bears all things.” This means that love will take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. “Love believes all things.” This means that love is gullible. It’s willing to be hurt. “Love hopes all things.” This means that love is not cynical. It doesn’t say, “They will never change,” so not only is it allowable to write them off, but it is positively the right thing to do. “Love endures all things.” This means that love doesn’t quit. In fact, “Love never comes to an end.” Love can’t come to an end. How could it? God is love. At this point in the reading Paul goes on to speak about heaven. Heaven is where we will no longer know in part, but will be fully known. Heaven is when we will no longer have to puzzle things out as in a mirror, but will see God, who is love, face to face. Heaven is where love will be all in all. Love never ends. Since love never ends, I hope you can begin to see through those lies that we tell ourselves in order to justify our lovelessness. We make all those excuses for why we can’t possibly keep God’s commandments because, you see, otherwise we will be left behind. We can’t be naïve, or gullible, or a so-called doormat. That would be a waste. Not so. The opposite is in fact the case. What good will it do you to have a charmed life for 70 years, or, by reason of strength, 80—always seeing to your own happiness first, and only willing to suffer for others if it is beneficial for one’s self? What are 70 or 80 years compared to eternity? Love never ends. God is love. Paul says that when he was a child he spoke like a child, he thought like a child, he reasoned like a child, when he became a man he gave up childish ways. So also we have been born loveless. We are selfish. Nobody had to teach us how to lie or manipulate. This is how we were as a child. A lot of people think that growing up means you just get shrewder and shrewder, meaner and meaner, richer and richer, better and better. I suppose you can do that if you are training yourself for going to hell. There you will be taught by the true master how to get ahead in life. As Christians we should put away these childish, selfish ways. Maturity is not cynicism and becoming worldly wise. Maturity is becoming like a child. Jesus points to the child as the one who is great in the kingdom of heaven. “Unless we turn and become like little children,” Jesus says, “we will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Why? Because otherwise we don’t belong in heaven. With lovelessness, and tireless training in lovelessness, the sinner will go to hell, which is where he belongs. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. He came to set us free from evil spirits. He came to open us up so that we can love. This is the work that God has begun in you with your baptism. Remain in Jesus’s word. Then you will be his disciple instead of the devil’s disciple. Then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Being set free allows us to love others and not just ourselves.