LOVE vs. LUST

a sermon preached by the Rev. Sue Judson Hamly
at Faith United Church, UCC
International Falls, MN
on Wednesday evening, March 14, 2012
for our Community Ecumenical Lenten Service


scriptures: Acts 8:18-25, Matthew 5:27-30, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13

I’m going to date myself when I say that I think the first time I ever  put any thought into the meaning of “lust” was when there was all that flack (to put it mildly) back in 1976 after then Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter talked about lust and adultery in a very controversial interview with Playboy magazine. 

He said he had looked at women with lust in his heart and that Jesus said that was the same thing as committing adultery. He said lust is a human failing and God forgives us, but that doesn’t mean we should be judgmental of others because condescension and pride are sins too.

Lust popped up again on my radar in 1987, just a couple months after I started seminary. The November issue of Harper’s Magazine had a photo spread on the seven deadly sins. Several advertising agencies had been given the task of creating an ad campaign for each of the seven deadly sins--to make them appealing! And the photographs of those ads were published in the magazine. I would love to show you a picture, but you can’t get into the Harper’s archives unless you’re a current subscriber, which I’m not--and I didn’t care to spend $17.00 on just one sermon, and besides the picture might not be appropriate for all ages...I can’t remember--but I do remember the PR people had made each of the seven deadly sins very appealing. I guess that’s not really surprising because they ARE appealing. That’s why they’re deadly!

So, instead of an appealing photograph of lust, I was amazed to find--on google images--this wonderful list that clearly states the difference between love and lust. But we’ll get back to that in a minute.

What do we find about lust and love in the bible? Well, wouldn’t you know, the bible relates lust to two of humankind’s favorite things: Money and Sex. Either one of those can get a person in all kinds of trouble. We see it in the news practically every day. And it wasn’t any different in biblical times either.

In our reading from the book of Acts, Stephen has just been stoned to death and Saul is running around persecuting Christians and throwing as many as he can in jail. The Christians are forced to leave home base and scatter throughout Judea and Samaria. Wherever they go they continue to tell the good news of Jesus Christ. 

Philip has gone to a city in Samaria, proclaiming the Message of the Messiah. The people were moved by the message and by the signs they saw of God’s action in Philip’s healing and casting out of unclean spirits. They began to follow him, hanging on his every word. 

Also in this town was a man named Simon who was a magician. He had been practicing magic there for years and everyone was really impressed with him and respected him. When Philip came, everyone was inspired by him and they were all baptized, including Simon, who was now following Philip.

The next thing you know, they heard in Jerusalem that the Samaritans had accepted the word of God, so they sent Peter and John there. They laid their hands on the people and they people received the Holy Spirit--with results something like Pentecost, I would imagine. 

Simon was amazed and impressed by this and thought it was magic he’d like to know how to do. So he offered them money to share their “secret” with him. I love Peter’s reaction as translated by Eugene Peterson in The Message, because I think it’s probably very close to what Peter would have said: “To hell with your money, and you along with it! ...trying to buy God’s gift! ...Ask the Master to forgive you for trying to use God to make money. I can see this is an old habit with you; you reek with money-lust.” [1]

Apparently Simon sees the error of his ways and asks for prayers that he would never be like that, and the disciples went on their way, proclaiming the Message of God’s salvation far and wide.

Wouldn’t the world be a great place if everyone saw the error of their ways as soon as it was pointed out to them?

Now, we move on to Jesus talking about lust. You heard the familiar NRSV, but listen to the same verses (Matthew 5:27-30) from The Message. See if it doesn’t hit you much more forcefully.

Jesus says to the people gathered around him, "You know the next commandment pretty well, too: 'Don't go to bed with another's spouse.' But don't think you've preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.

"Let's not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here's what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.”

Wow! That’s enough to make us never look at another person again!

So, what is lust? It’s selfishness. It’s thinking only of your own gain, or wanting what you can’t have, or wanting something or someone but not caring how they feel or how anyone else will be affected. Basically, lust is caring more about yourself--your needs, your wants, your success, or your wealth--than anything or anyone else.

And what is love, in comparison?

The answer to that question is in the verses that are chosen more often for weddings than any others. From 1 Corinthians 13, this is what love is: it’s patient and kind; it rejoices in the truth; it bears, believes, hopes and endures all things. And this is what love is not: It’s not envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, irritable or resentful; it doesn’t insist on its own way, and it doesn’t rejoice in wrongdoing. 

Love is pretty amazing! It definitely trumps lust any day, but of course it’s easier to lust than to love, so we have to work at loving--loving well, loving extravagantly, loving always.

Here’s where that list comes in… to help us remember the difference; to provide a reality check on whether we’re feeling lust or love. Just remember:

Love gives                  Lust uses

Love is personal         Lust is objectifying

Love is honest Lust is devious

Love waits                  Lust takes

Love is life-giving       Lust is lifeless

Love is life-long          Lust is temporary

Love chooses Lust uses

Love sympathizes Lust criticizes

Love is committed Lust is unattached

Love is faithful Lust is disloyal

Love is generous        Lust is selfish

Love communicates   Lust manipulates

Love is deep               Lust is shallow

Love is responsive Lust is insensitive

Love is pure                Lust is impure

Love understands       Lust makes demands

Love is kind                Lust is blind

Love appreciates        Lust intimidates

Love cares                  Lust dares

Love accepts              Lust discards

Love is given Lust is obsessed

Love talks                   Lust walks

Love adores               Lust keeps score

It’s pretty clear that the virtues of love outweigh the sins of lust, but just in case we forget--which human beings find it all too easy to do--we have a reminder from 1 Corinthians 13:13 in the Message:

“But for right now, ...we have three things to do...: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

It sure is!  AMEN.

Footnote

¹ Acts 8:20-23, The Message.

Give Up Loneliness

sermon preached by the Rev. Sue Judson Hamly
on March 11, 2012
at Faith United Church of Christ,
International Falls, MN


Scripture reading: Luke 14:1-14


Today is the second in a Lent to Easter sermon series based on the Lent Devotionals 2012 called Give it Up! that was written by the Stillspeaking Writers’ Group of the United Church of Christ. A few of you have the booklet and others of you picked up a copy of the accompanying calendar that gives us suggestions of things to do during each day in Lent, based on the devotional booklet. Today’s suggestion is very practical, especially if you looked at it first thing in the morning. It says: “Daylight Savings Time starts today. Spring forward! (And set your clocks ahead an hour too.)”

Today’s devotional was written by one of my favorites of the Stillspeaking Writers’ Group, the Rev. Lilian Daniel, Sr. Minister at First Congregational UCC in Glen Ellyn, IL.

Before I talk about the story she tells about giving up loneliness, I want to read part of the scripture text again: Luke 14:12-14, but this time from The Message translation of the bible by Eugene H. Peterson. You’ll notice it sounds a bit different in more contemporary language:

“Then [Jesus] turned to the host. ‘The next time you put on a dinner, don’t invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never gets invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You’ll be--and experience--a blessing. They won’t be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned--oh, how it will be returned!--at the resurrection of God’s people.’”

Lilian’s father was in the military when she was growing up and for a time her family lived in Japan. The story she tells in today’s devotional is about what her mother did while they were living there. She said her mother was always looking for “the lost lambs.” When it was getting close to Thanksgiving her mother would be keeping an eye out for soldiers who were separated from their families, and she would invite them over for Thanksgiving dinner. “She didn’t know these soldiers, and in almost every case [they] never saw them again, but [her] mother would put on a beautiful spread for them anyway.” [1] Lilian grew up thinking that Thanksgiving was a holiday you celebrated with strangers.

In today’s reading--whether you preferred the NRSV version or The Message--Jesus is making it clear to everyone that when we entertain extravagantly we shouldn’t do it for our friends and family, but instead for the people who need it most. He says not to invite people over who can and will invite us back or to pay them back for having had us over for dinner. “He says we should open our doors and our hearts wider.” [2]

In Middle Eastern culture in Jesus’ day it was all about obligation. If someone had you over for dinner you were obligated to reciprocate by having them over for a fine dinner at your house. So when you were planning a dinner party, you would build your guest list around who you owed and who you wanted to invite so you would be invited to their house for a meal in return. So if your neighbors have just totally remodeled their home, you might have them over for dinner so that they would have to invite you to their house and then you’d get to see what they had done to it!

So people tend to stick to inviting just the folks they know when they decide to throw a party. “But we all get stuck in our social ruts. We don’t have time to keep up with the friends we already have, or to make new ones, let alone have them over for dinner.” [3]

You know what Jesus says to that?

Invite them anyway and YOU will be blessed!!

When Lillian was an adult, she complimented her mother on her generosity to all the soldiers she had over for Thanksgiving meals. To her surprise her mother said oh no, Lillian had it all wrong. “‘I was doing it for myself,’ she said. ‘I was so lonely, living across the world in Japan and separated from my family, imagining them all celebrating Thanksgiving back home without me. I didn’t feel like putting on a big dinner, but having other lonely people over, I felt less lonely.’” [4]

So you see? She invited them even though she didn’t feel like going to all the trouble. And in the process she was blessed!

I remember what it was like when Rowland and I moved to Fremont, California when I was pregnant with Bruce. We moved into an apartment complex where we never did get to know anyone because no one seemed to be home during the weekdays. Rowland commuted to San Jose for work, so that meant he was away from home an extra hour on top of the hours he worked. Back in the ‘70s long distance phone calls were expensive and we didn’t have computers yet. The days were often long and lonely.

So I would put Bruce in his stroller and walk over to the open-air mall for something to do and people to talk to. There was a wonderful little shop that sold fresh-baked cookies. Their chocolate chip cookies were to die for! The woman who worked there was very nice and in the late mornings and early afternoons she often didn’t have many customers. So I would buy us a large cookie to share and then she and I would talk. We got to know each other quite well and passed some pleasant times, probably keeping both of us from being lonely, until her husband got sick and she quit her job to take care of him. I think we were both blessed by the times we spent visiting--I know I was--and able to keep some loneliness at bay.

As people grow older they become less mobile, for one reason or another. Maybe they can no longer drive, or walking is difficult so it’s just easier to stay home. Then they get lonely because they no longer interact with many people during the day like they used to when they were younger. Sometimes they will move into a place like the Villa where they can see other people during the day without even leaving the building. But sometimes that’s not an option and the loneliness can really set in when you live all by yourself.

We can help by offering someone a ride to church or community functions. Or maybe we can offer to take a neighbor grocery shopping with us. Or just invite someone over for coffee, or out to lunch. We may feel like we’re too busy or in too much of a hurry, but when we do dare to get involved, we’ll find that the blessings come to us just as much or more than to the person we think we’re helping.

If you’ve never been lonely, you’re very lucky. I think loneliness is a common human experience. But Jesus calls us to give up loneliness and offer an extravagant welcome, not just to our friends and acquaintances, but to others we don’t even know. Do it safely, of course, but consider really doing it and see how you end up being blessed.

Let us pray: “God, show me who needs an invitation from me, and give me the courage to make it happen.” [5]  AMEN.

Endnotes

¹ Lilian Daniel, “Give up Loneliness” from “Give it Up!” p. 23.

2-5 Ibid.

Give Up Despair

a sermon preached by 

the Rev. Sue Judson Hamly 

on March 4, 2012 

at Faith United Church, UCC, 

International Falls, MN

Psalm 31:9-16

Last week I had one of those “aha!” inspirational moments. I remembered how much I enjoyed doing the sermon series on the UCC booklet 16 Ways to Say ‘I Love My Church,’  and it occurred to me that here is the perfect opportunity to do something different for Lent and Easter by doing a sermon series based on the Lent Devotionals 2012 booklet, Give It Up! written by the Stillspeaking Writers’ Group--those folks who bring us the Stillspeaking Daily Devotional each morning in our email inbox or on our church’s and the UCC’s facebook pages.

It’s a whole new way of looking at Lent. In the booklet’s foreword, the writers tell us, “Lent has an image problem. We see it as a time when we should be giving something up--or feeling guilty if we don’t. It’s the serious season of the church year: Christmas is over, Easter is still far away. Lent, we think, is something to be gotten through.”

The Give It Up! Devotional booklet is asking us “to take [our] old idea of Lent and give it up! It will not ask [us] to give up chocolate, or pepperoni on [our] pizza. It will invite [us] instead to re-think the Lenten themes of sacrifice, repentance and renewal in some new and unexpected ways.” It also asks us to “listen to Jesus, whose 40 days and nights in the wilderness Lent recalls.” 1

Some of you have picked up the Give It Up! Lenten calendar which makes suggestions of things we might do each day during Lent and right up through Easter. Yesterday’s suggestion might be a new kind of sacrifice. Instead of personally giving up something, it suggested going to the grocery store and picking up 10 food items and delivering them to a local food bank or shelter. In addition, the calendar suggested that if we have children, we should take them along to help choose the food and deliver it.

It IS a whole new approach to Lent, including inviting a friend to church and telling them why it’s important to us.

And so we arrive at today’s theme: Give Up Despair. 

Have you ever been in despair? I imagine most of us have experienced some degree of despair at some point in our lives. And when we’re in the middle of it, it’s not going to be easy to give it up. The psalmist describes despair quite vividly in verses 9-16 of Psalm 31. Can you feel it? 

“...my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away. I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbors, an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me. I have passed out of mind like one who is dead…” 2

The psalms are wonderful because they are full of raw emotion. They are full of emotions that we can all identify with. They are comforting because they show us that the bible was written by and for real people--real people with real problems, real disappointments, and real joys. They also remind us that even in our despair we can count on God. We can trust God. Verse 16 demonstrates that as it calls upon God, saying: “Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.”

The person who wrote about giving up despair in the devotional booklet is the Rev. Donna Schaper, Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York City. She tells a story about visiting  an 85-year-old friend in the nursing home. Now this nursing home is one I’d like to visit, for sure! When Donna arrives, her friend is playing chess with another patient and they are both so excited that she’s come to visit that they invite her to join them in the facility’s new cafe for a vodka and tonic! That’s the nursing home for me! I remember quite a few years ago when Harry Anderson had a countertop fridge full of beer in his room at the LIttlefork Nursing Home, but I’ve never visited anyone in a care center and had the opportunity to share a glass of wine or beer with them.

Anyway… in the story, there was, at another table in this cafe, an elderly woman suffering from osteoporosis. With her was her considerably younger, very well-dressed daughter. The mother wanted pancakes and was not handling it well when the waitress told her she couldn’t get pancakes after 4 pm. There was much eye-rolling and misery going on between the mother and daughter   who couldn’t get her mom to understand she just couldn’t have pancakes that day. But then Donna Schaper’s friend went over and whispered in the elderly mother’s ear, “Have a vodka and tonic.” So she did, and she “required the waitress to bring syrup with it.” 3

Donna writes, “Old age is not for sissies. It’s not that good for caretakers either. Our strength does fail. Our bones do waste away. What besides chess and vodka and humor can sustain us?” 4

She continues by saying that she thinks the psalms can and that she often memorizes them in preparation for the time that may come when she can no longer get something she wants at the time she wants it.

But how does one go about giving up despair? The kind of despair I’m talking about is different from clinical depression. Someone who’s suffering from clinical depression will need professional help to get through it and there’s no shame whatsoever in that, and there are good people available to provide assistance.

But despair of the kind where you feel like nothing you do is right, everything you say comes out wrong, things just aren’t going well for you these days…. I think it’s about equivalent to being severely “down in the dumps.” It can be fairly easy to just allow ourselves to wallow in it; to be filled with self-pity. But after throwing ourselves a little “pity party,” it’s time to give up despair and move on.

How? 

Read a few psalms. They’ll help you realize you’re not alone. 

Make yourself get out and do something with others instead of staying home being miserable.

Do something nice for someone--whether you know them or not.

Read a good book, preferably one that makes you laugh out loud.

Go outside--take your camera if you have one--and focus on finding--and taking pictures of--10 beautiful things. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to find them no matter what season it is.

Volunteer your time for a few hours each week--there are plenty of opportunities to do that in this town, whether you know it or not!

And call upon God as the psalmist suggests. Say: “I trust in you, O Lord; You are my God. … Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.”

It’s Lent, so give up something worthwhile! Give up despair.  AMEN.

Endnotes

¹ From the foreword of Give It Up! Lent Devotionals 2012, the Stillspeaking Writers’ Group, Christina Villa, Editorial Director, 700 Prospect Ave., Cleveland Ohio. 

² Psalm 31:10-12, NRSV.

³ from “Give Up Despair” by Donna Schaper, Give it Up Lent Devotionals 2012, p. 16.

⁴ Ibid.