1 Corinthians 13:1-7 & 13 NIV

1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Hi, church family! This is my first sermon. But, don’t let the title of my sermon, “God is like a Christmas Tree,” deceive you. I am not using my first chance to preach to start the advent season early! I don’t have the audacity. But I’m just using that metaphor because it’s helped me view God in a healthier way. I want to share with you a snippet of my spiritual journey. I want to show that faith is nonlinear. That we can talk to God even when we’re not sure God’s there. Or even if we’re pretty sure God’s there, but we don’t know if God loves us, we can s:ll talk to God. And I want to share that God is like a Christmas tree, whose ornaments don’t always reflect God’s loving nature, but we can change them.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been a perfectionist. And, as long as I can remember, adults hav scolded me to work harder, focus better, go faster, and be more e?cient. This is a lot to ask a five year-old who is cleaning up his room. I should run to put away my toys, set them nicely, and, think of the best way to do this? All at the same time? I was not a rebellious little kid. So, I took this perfectionism attitude to heart. It has followed me the rest of my life. I’ve seen everything through the lens of “do this better” or “you are not enough.” This means I thought I didn’t connect with God “correctly”…

For example, I was a preacher‘s kid, so I was raised in the church. Still, I must’ve prayed for Jesus to enter my heart five times just the age of 10. I guess I thought that one time wasn’t enough— that I might not have really meant it the first four times. Poor kid

From birth to age 7 I was raised in a Christian denomination called apostolic Lutheran. Don’t let the name trick you since this sect has nothing to do with the apostolic Church— nor is it associated with Lutheranism. Instead of going into the history of the name, I’ll explain some unique features of this belief system. They were into isolating from the world. Yes… they would often enroll their kids into public schools, but parents discourage their kids from playing sports or doing anything that would make themselves close with non-apps. By the way, we called it the A P church as shorthand, and we called ourselves APPs short for apolostolic lutheran. They also held the reactionary belief that society should go back to the way things were when “things were better” when men were manlier and women were more feminine, for example. This meant that my feminine side made me feel a lot of shame as a kid. Even if people weren’t overtly mean to me or shaming about it, I knew their ideals of men and women, and that I didn’t measure up.

Fast forward to moving from Michigan to Washington state when I was seven years old. This was due to a rift in my parents’ marriage. We left the Apostolic Lutheran Church, but joined another conservative church. This one was called non- denominational.

My young brain didn’t know how to process my parents telling me to throw away half of what I knew about church. One second, we were solemnly sitting in pews, singing hymns, and the next second I was supposed to ditch my button up shirt and dress pants for streetwear. And, I was supposed to stand up and wave my arms around to worship God?”

Same Christmas tree di?erent ornaments, I guess.

Much later in life, I decided that God is like a christmas. The ornaments WE put on it can change but God, the tree itself, is unchanging. The di?erent ways to worship could be seen as di?erent styles of ornaments. Just like the one’s I just experienced as a child: solemnly singing hymns, or dancing to Christian rock. Other ornaments could be beliefs about God or sacred rituals. But ultimately, God is love, so it’s best to have our ornaments reflect that.

But more on that later.

Within the first year of changing denominations, I dove into this new way of connecting with God. They prac:ced strange new worship methods. This meant speaking in tongues and falling to the floor spontaneously while praying. According to them, falling meant the Holy Spirit moved you deeply. The problem was this came with confusing and stressful expecta:ons. This new evangelical church stress that good actions aren’t as important as faith. You mostly just need a good relationship with Jesus, according to them.

I heard that God‘s presence was sometimes indicated by gettng goosebumps. Yes, literal hair-standing-up-on-your-arm goosebumps.

This did not go well for me. This made me obsessively chase God‘s presence. And I want to be gentle with this younger self—this perfectionist self. I know he was looking for order, love, and comfort during his parents divorce. I know he was seeking God in the best way he could with the education he received about God.

So I was desperately craving God’s love and presence. ‘Cause why wouldn’t God always be present with someone he loved? Why wouldn’t someone want to be close to God? I thought this meant only a bad, evil, ugly, awful person wouldn’t chase God‘s presence. Only a rotten person wouldn’t chase the goosebumps. And, IF I didn’t feelthem when I was in a worship service, this meant God was mad at me. Or, even worse, I thought deep down in my heart, I didn’t love God. I thought love was bait that lured God to you—like he was a dumb fish? God’s not a dumb fish. God is love and God loves everyone everywhere all the time.

As an adult, I don’t know what to think of the goosebumps. Often, after praying in tongues with others I’d get the goosebumps. And, it felt amazing. Maybe, it was the close emotional connection I felt to others in these moments. Maybe, this caused my skin to tingle because these prayer sessions were passionate. Five people had their hands on me and were crying out to God to heal me. All five people loved me. You could hear it when they wailed for my pain, crying for God to end my su?ering. And with my parents’ marital problem? And with my hidden sexuality? I was su?ering. They didn’t know the specifics of my pain, but I felt them calling on God to take away my su?ering. I get tingles now just thinking of it of these intimate vulnerable moments.

Unfortunately, my perfectionist need to always win God‘s love left me burnt out on God as a 16 year- old. A 16 year-old who knows he’s gay. The hormones of puberty made THAT clear. And, I was told that God hates that I’m gay. Yet, God wouldn’t take my attraction to men away. Why not? This felt cruel.

Well, actually, not to spoil the ending, but God loves everyone, and God doesn’t need or want me to change my sexuality. The idea that he does is something I learned from humans—not God. God loves me and you the way we are. This was just a hurtful ornament someone else put on my christmas tree of God.

But at the time, I truly believed that I couldn’t be close to God and be gay. I even tried conversion therapy. But, God didn’t change me. I guess it was time for me to take a break from God. I never was an atheist nor even an agnostic. I always believed in the God of the Bible, but I stopped talking to God. I stopped talking because the image of God I was taught was downright abusive. A metaphor I use to explain this is I can still believe in a boyfriend, but break up with him because he is hurting me.

So, I broke up with God—or at least took a break from our relationship. Flash forward to 2020 and the Mental Health low point that came with it. I revisited this God idea. I felt so alone—so completely, utterly, and existentially alone. No one was there to comfort me the way my old God used to. So, I reopened the door to that God. But, I decided that God was like a Christmas tree. And, a Christmas tree can provide comfort in the cold months of winter. The problem was my former church put ugly ornaments on it, to put it lightly.

These ornaments were unhelpful at best—and homophobic at worst… In my Mental Health crisis caused by the pandemic, I realized something. To my surprise, these ornaments weren’t part of the ACTUAL tree. I really believed that an unconditionally loving God had to, and I mean, just HAD to hate gay people. But, to my delight. This was not true. I felt a purer love when I took o? these ugly ornaments. They don’t belong on my God tree. This was a truly life-saving revelation.

My God was never really abusive, but my perception of God hurt me deeply. I realize that I don’t know why sometimes God feels close and why sometimes he doesn’t seem to care about my life. But then I remember that God is goodness, joy, love, compassion, and many more virtues. I can pray to God about my joys and concerns. I can meditate on God’s perfect virtues. This reminds me that those virtues exist in this universe even when I’m feeling like only my misery exists. God is love. And in my mind God is like a Christmas tree. I ask you to check if your ornaments convey that God is Love. The ornaments symbolize your beliefs and worship practices. I’ve witnessed your love for me and others, so I know you all are working to make your ornaments loving and lovely to others. However, I want to take it a step further. I ask you to check if your ornaments are conveying God’s love for YOU. Remember my perfectionist anxie:es? My ornaments about needing to feel God’s presence always? I ask that you try to find and replace your own versions of these ornaments that cause anxiety. Because God is Love and that means he loves your community and that he loves you. God is alway with you. Amen

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

25 So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another. 26 Be angry but do not sin;[a] do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not make room for the devil. 28 Those who steal must give up stealing; rather, let them labor, doing good work with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. 29 Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is good for building up,[b] as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. 31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.[c]

5 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 

For me, sermon writing is a process. First comes research. In this case, what kind of place was Ephesus?  Who lived there?  What sort of commerce did they engage in?  What was the political and religious situation?  Who wrote the epistle?  Why did they do it?  What problems were they trying to address?  There are always a lot of questions, and some of the answers never appear in the finished sermon, but they’re important nonetheless. 

I learned things I didn’t know and some things I had forgotten. Did you know that Ephesus was founded in the 10th century BCE?  Did you know that before Greeks settled the area that the place had been inhabited for about 10,000 years?  Ephesus was on a major trade route and it was attacked frequently. A nearby river silted in the harbor and the city was moved several times in response. Today, the ruins are about 2 miles from the sea in part because of deforestation, and overgrazing that left the land vulnerable to washing away. 

I knew that most of the 13 epistles in the New Testament weren’t written by Paul. In fact, only 5 were his authorship.  Ephesians wasn’t one of them. It was written probably 10-15 years after Paul’s death in Rome. I had forgotten that. 

All of this is to say that I take the preparation part of sermon writing seriously. The problem with this preparation is that I’m easily led down one rabbit hole after another. It’s all interesting stuff, at least to me, but it isn’t helpful in addressing the subject at hand. 

In this case, there’s a very large elephant in the room contained in the center of this passage.    

   Be angry, but do not sin

   Thieves, stop thieving and get a job

   Quit gossiping

In my family of origin, anger wasn’t allowed. We weren’t allowed to even have anger, much less express it. It was well into adulthood that I learned to get angry and not explode like a volcano when the pressure got to be too much. Anger scares me. It means the end of relationships. The reality is, however, that anger is normal. When someone does you wrong, it’s ok to be angry and it’s ok to express that anger. But what about the “do not sin” part?

To answer that, first we have to understand what sin is. We tend to think sin is something that we do—lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery. What all these disparate things have in common is relationships. If I lie to you, I’ve damaged our relationship. If I’ve cheated you, I’ve damaged our relationship. You can say the same for everything on that list. Doing any of them will damage your relationship with the one to whom you’ve done harm, moreover, you have damaged your relationship with yourself. In some respects, damage to your relationship with yourself is more of a problem than damage to relationships with others. If we are to be whole, happy people, we have to be able to express our feelings in such a way as not to do damage to our relationships. 

It all comes down to this:  Love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself. 

So be angry if that’s how you feel, but speak the truth in love. 

If you are stealing—by that I don’t necessarily mean robbing banks or convenience stores or picking pockets or embezzling from you employer or any other overt criminal activity. Maybe you think it’s smart not to pay taxes or you think it’s ok to to finagle a bit so you pay less than the going rate for something, or borrowing without paying it back. In any of these examples, and many more, you are stealing. Many people do things like this and think nothing of it. The point here is that is you are doing anything that takes from the community or the people within the community, you are stealing. The writer of Ephesians says stop doing that and give back to the community. 

It all comes down to this:  Love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself. 

And then there’s gossip. This is another place I’m easily sucked in. You know, did you know that Chris and Tony are getting divorced?  I hear that Chris did X Y Z and Tony is devastated. I know you’ve heard and participated in such conversations. The question is does this sort of conversation lead to community uplift?  Is it helpful?  Is it loving?  Or is it a way for you or me to feel like we’re better than others because we know something the others don’t—even if we don’t actually know anything at all. 

These are 3 large elephants and we can’t ignore them, nor can we ignore any of the other elephants this passage mentions. If we are to be the Body of Christ, we have to build loving relationships, empathetic relationships, real relationships where we can authentically be who we are. 

Some time ago, Bishop Karen Oliveto posted something that stuck with me. She quoted Sheryl Strayed saying,

How do you build empathy?  You risk vulnerability. Tell the truth about yourself as often as possible. We have to revise the ways we think about the soft things like empathy and vulnerability and love if we’re going to create a more compassionate world. 

Hold others in unconditional positive regards. Say I accept you for who you are. I’m going to hear your story compassionately. I’m not going to try to assess whether I think you’re good or bad. I’m    going to decide that I like you, I believe you, and I find you worthy of love. 

That can be hard work, to be vulnerable, to tell the truth about ourselves, or to simply tell the truth rather than glossing over something to make it easier. It’s hard, necessary work if we are to live peacefully in community with each other.  

In the end, it all comes down to this:  Love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself.