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FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

Love's Expectations

I Corinthians 13; Luke 4:21-30

            Nearly all couples start out their marriage with high expectations, expectations that are expressed in the words: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.”

            Couples often start their marriage out with these words because they are in love and they have high expectations for their love and for their marriage.  We all have those expectations – about what marriage will be like, about what marriage will do for us, and especially we have expectations about the other person – that the other person will complete us, or, at least, make our lives a whole lot easier than they are now.

            It doesn’t take us very long to realize that this isn’t going to happen, at least, not in the way we thought.  Usually sometime around 18 months to two years, we realize that being married to this person isn’t what we expected.  That the person isn’t going to change in the way that we want.  Or that the person changed in ways we didn’t want.  Or maybe there were simply unlikable aspects to this person that we just did not see before.

            In short, one day, we wake up and realize that the person sleeping next to us isn’t Jesus.  This person is not going to make our life easier.  This person is not going to complete us in the way that we want to be completed.  This person will not guarantee that we live happily ever after.  We realize that this person is not Jesus.  And we want to push them off the cliff.

            We shouldn’t be surprised when this happens, because it happens with Jesus, too.

            After Jesus is baptized and does his desert time, he begins his ministry in Galilee .  He is creating quite a buzz, because by the time he gets to his hometown – Nazareth – he’s got everybody talking.

            On the Sabbath, as he always does, Jesus goes to the synagogue.  He gets up to read the scripture and is handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.  He reads these words aloud:

            “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim acceptable year of the Lord.”

            He sits down and he begins to teach – “This scripture is being fulfilled right now before your very eyes!”

            At first, people are amazed and delighted.  “Could this really be Joseph’s son?” they ask each other.  “We remember him as a boy!”

            But Jesus is not who they think he is.  He is not a hometown boy.  He is not really even Joseph’s son.  He has been anointed with the Spirit of God. 

            So he says to them, “You’re probably going to want me to do here what you’ve been hearing about me doing in other places.  Let me remind you, though, that during the time of the great famine, the prophet Elijah brought food to only one person, and she was not from Israel .  She was from Sidon !  And, let me remind you as well, that, even though there were many lepers in Israel , his disciple, the prophet Elisha healed only one leper and he wasn’t from Israel either.  He was Naaman, from Syria .

            Jesus is not what they expect.  He is not going to make their lives easier.  He is not going to usher in the time of happily ever after in Nazareth .  So, they try to push him off a cliff.  But he slips away.

            In his book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller talks about stories, the endings of stories, and if there is such a thing as happily ever after.  He also reflects on why a relationship with a woman whom he planned to marry didn’t work out because of the unrealistic expectations they had of each other.  Then he writes this:

            I was once interviewing my friend Susan Isaacs after her book, Angry Conversations with God, came out.  We were in front of a live audience, and I was reading questions to her off of index cards submitted by the audience.  Because so much of her book talks about relational needs, relational fulfillment and unfulfillment, one of the questions asked was whether she believed there was one true love for every person.

            Susan essentially said no.  And she said that with her husband sitting right there in the audience.  She said she and her husband believed they were a cherished prize for each other, and they would probably drive any other people mad.  But then she said something that I thought was wise.  She said she had married a guy, and he was just a guy.  He wasn’t going to make all her problems go away, because he was just a guy.  And that freed her to really love him as a guy, not as an ultimate problem solver.  And because her husband believed that she was just a girl, he was really free to love her too.  Neither needed the other to make everything okay.  They were simply content to have good company through life’s conflicts.  I thought that was beautiful.  (p.205)

            So, one day we wake up and we realize it’s not Jesus sleeping next to us.  It’s not someone who meets all our expectations.  It’s a real person.  And we have to ask ourselves, “What’s it going to take to live with this person?  What’s it going to take to love this person for who they really are?”

            And they have to do that with us.  They begin to see us for who we really are.  But that opens the possibility that they can love us for who we really are.  That takes a lot of work.  But it’s also really good news.

            Then Miller goes on to say something that I think is wise:

            There is a lot of money and power to be had in convincing people we can create an Eden here on earth. Cults are formed when leaders make such absurd promises.  Products are sold convincing people that they are missing out on the perfect life.  And political groups tend to scare people by convincing them we are losing Eden , or inspire them by telling them we can rebuild what God has destroyed.  We get worked into a frenzy over things that will not happen until Jesus returns.  The truth is, we can make things a little better or a little worse, but utopia doesn’t hang in the balance of how we vote or what products we buy.

            All of this may sound depressing to you, but I don’t mean it to be.  I’ve lived some good stories now, and those stories have improved the quality of my life.  But I’ve also let go of the idea things will ever be made perfect, at least while I’m walking around on this planet.  I’ve let go of the idea that life has a climax.  I’m trying to be more Danish, I guess [by having lower expectations about life.]  And the thing is, it works. When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they really are.  And when you stop expecting material possessions to complete you, you’d be surprised how much pleasure you get in material possessions.  And when you stop expecting God to end all your troubles, you’d be surprised how much you like spending time with God.

            Do I still think there will be a day when all wrongs are made right, when our souls find the completion they are looking for?  I do.  But when all things are made right, it won’t be because of some preacher or snake-oil salesman or politician or writer making promises in his book.  I think, instead, this will be done by Jesus.  And it will be at a wedding.  And there will be a feast. (p. 205-6)

            At the end Jesus will set things right.  He will make everything new.  He will bring all things together.  And he will transform us completely.  For at that wedding feast the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, 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.  And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."