2025-05-05
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
Confirmation Sunday Sermon. May 4, 2025. Rev. Betsy Wooster
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13
If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.
Sermon May 4, 2025
Let us pray:
Holy God, may the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable to you, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
The Rabbi Abraham Heschel said “when I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.” Doesn’t that sound right? Imagine you had to choose between having a friend who was brilliant and well-educated but rude to strangers and selfish in friendship, or a friend who didn’t know or understand much of the world, but was tender-hearted to others, and showed great kindness to you, wouldn’t you choose love over knowledge and accomplishment?
That’s what Paul had decided, as he described in this famous passage from the letter known as First Corinthians. Paul wrote that speaking well, and knowing a lot, and having great faith really amount to nothing if you don’t have love.
Acting in love for others is most important. Showing compassion, mercy, empathy, generosity, and simple kindness—that’s what means the most.
Now, we also hope that we will grow in knowledge, and in understanding, and in faith, in addition to growing in love. If you have to choose just one, then choose love. But I hope we will also grow in our understanding, our knowledge, and our faith. These are not mutually exclusive. In fact…(and you know this)…growing deeper in faith should strengthen a growing deeper in love.
Today, a group of teenagers are affirming their faith in God and their belonging in the Christian community. The rite of confirmation is a significant milestone in a person’s life. It is a coming-of-age ritual, and these students have been preparing since last fall. Over the past eight/nine months, they have examined the Christian faith: the ideas, the practices, the writings, and the values of this faith tradition. They have considered and questioned and learned about the life of our church, and the ways of understanding God.
And we did this not because knowledge or understanding are the most important attributes of Christian faith, but because knowledge and understanding are pathways to growing deeper in the practice of love, which is the center of our faith.
When the apostle Paul wrote about the centrality of love, he described the attributes of love, including patience, kindness, and ability to bear all things. And in that same passage he described a process of growing in faith and understanding. For now, he wrote, our understanding is partial, but it will become complete.
Now I know only in part, then I will know fully.
The life of faith invites us to wrestle with the big questions:
What is most important, and what should we value? What should we love with our time and our energy? What is right and what is wrong? What does love look like in ethical choices? How do we understand the reality of our existence? What deeper spirituality gives meaning to the things we see and touch?
These are not questions that anyone can definitively answer, not at age 14 or 15, or at age 50 or 85. But These are questions that can lead us to lives that are fuller and more complete as we continue to seek for wisdom about how to live, what to focus on, and where our values lie. Paul reminds us that faith is a journey from partial to complete, and a journey at all times that holds love at its center.
A recent article in the New York Times by Lauren Jackson reviewed religion in the United States.[1] After years of decline, religious affiliation has recently been holding steady. The decline has halted. In her article, Jackson also summarized research about what faith looks in people’s lives.
Research shows that people who regularly attend a house of worship tend to have better mental and physical health; they report greater feelings of gratitude, happiness, spiritual peace, and a connection with humanity.
Is anyone surprised? Here we are, getting together to learn and participate in meaningful ideas and practices, centered in an ethic of love, and focused on paying attention to what is good and valuable, and hoping to grow as people of faith and love. We can admit that the church is not perfect, and that the church has a history of conspiring with injustice and dealing in hypocrisy, but we also have a history of nurturing well-being, establishing justice, and loving with generosity.
Let me speak directly to you who are being confirmed this morning. Spending time with you over the past year has been meaningful for me, for Jill, and for Zach. I see in your lives the gifts that God has blessed you with, as you are growing into maturity, and I am confident of the ways that your big hearts will continue to bring the love of God into the world.
And all of this is possible because God’s love will always hold you, as well as the love of this congregation will hold you, even in the times when you can’t quite feel it. We need each other in this walk of faith, and we are here for you. All of us, here (gesture to congregation), will continue to grow in understanding, in faith, and in love. And praise be to God, the greatest of these is love. Amen.
[1] Lauren Jackson, “Americans Haven’t Found a Satisfying Alternative to Religion,” New York Times, April 18, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/style/religion-america.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ck8.xY0v.VDt0whl9tQM1&smid=url-share