Faith Works 2-9-19

Faith Works 2-9-19

Jeff Gill


Conversation hearts by any other name
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Yes, there's more to say about emergency shelter and addiction and the faith community coming together. Not this week! But more to come. Thank you again to the more than a dozen congregations which shared time, treasure, and talents to shelter over 30 persons who are currently homeless in our county, plus another dozen who for a variety of reasons stayed out of any shelter, formal and ongoing or temporary, but who received care and concern in a time of need.

 

Much more to say here. But not yet!

 

This week, we honor an obscure saint of the Christian faith who once lived in an ancient imperial capital.

 

Valentinus lived in Rome, did something for a young couple out of his faith in Jesus, which resulted in his martyrdom. Certainly he deserves honor and respect for that example, that witness – and that's what the word martyr literally means, witness – which lives on in the Christian community today.

 

The normal way to do that in the church calendar is to mark a saint's day, like St. Nicholas on Dec. 6 or Saint Lucia on Dec. 13. So St. Valentine is remembered on Feb. 14.

 

The commemoration has, um, changed over the years.

 

The community leader who died a martyr has been replaced with cupids and hearts and lots and lots of candy. It has become a festival of love, and that's not entirely beside the point. Love is at the heart of what Christians believe, and everyone knows something about love and its transformative power whatever your faith perspective. So Saint Valentine certainly can be shared, even if some of us would like to make sure he doesn't get buried in the cards and decorations and boxed delivered sets of pajamas and giant teddy bears holding a heart.

 

Saint Paul wrote a powerful passage in I Corinthians chapter 13 about faith, hope, and love, and how the greatest of these three is love. He didn't mean sentiment, and he surely wasn't talking about romance, but his Greek original talks about "agape," one of four Greek words that can be translated as "love" but is specifically "sacrificial" or self-giving love. It's not about deciding who gets the rose, or the chocolate covered cherries, but about giving of yourself.

 

My own Valentine is a woman who has given much to me over the years. Ministry is, to be blunt, not always the best thing that can happen to a marriage. When I was a little tiny baby minister, there were still older clergy who would come and tell seminary students, and I quote, "you need to understand that between the church and your family, the church will always come first." Ahem.

 

The hard reality of this is that there's a particular bandwidth of life and ministry where this is true. When a family event is happening, and the message comes that a church member is being rushed to the Emergency Department of the hospital; when the family schedule is set but a funeral plan intrudes, it's often true that the family has to make the change. But those critical incidents shouldn't become anything and everything to do with church life . . . yet I recall when I first moved to Ohio an older clergymember asking why I didn't come to a particular event in the region, on hearing me say "because it's the same weekend as my wedding anniversary," responded "I haven't been home for my anniversary for thirty years, son."

 

That's not the Body of Christ, that's just stupid. Thirty years ago, I didn't say stuff like that out loud, but I'm now that older minister, and I want to say loudly "don't go down that road." Sacrifice that is compelled is no sacrifice at all, it's basically theft.

 

Yet I know my wife has given up much so I can serve, and I honor her for that; she's gotten a chance in the last couple of decades to do some leadership of her own in building up the Body of Christ, and I hope I am at least making some offerings in response. We've learned, as couples do, that there's always the need to adapt, and to change. This year, the originator of "conversation hearts" has ceased production, but other makers have stepped in. Things change, and to keep the continuity of love, we have to figure out how to deal with the sacrifices of the temporary and external to allow the essence to carry on.

 

That's where many older couples are indeed a witness to us; my prayer for you, dear readers, is that you have an older couple or two around you to witness to what a life of adaptation and stability, change and enduring love, can look like. Sacrifice, and gift, and change, but something truly permanent in this changing world.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; write him at
knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.