Mountain". It is one of my favorites I have heard it many times---and this evening

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1 We don t remember how it actually happened, but our older daughter signed up for the middle school orchestra. The school was known for its excellent band program, but not for orchestra. We ve always given our children a fair amount of latitude, so we let it slide, and we wondered: where is this going to lead? 1 She became a part of a middle school string ensemble. Our daughter played the viola. At the end of the year we went to a concert, to hear them perform. There were maybe eight of them. The music began. Now when I describe what I heard that evening, using words like "ensemble", "concert" and even "music" is a stretch. It was.i am searching for the right word it was like nothing I have heard before, or since! I thought about that experience this fall. I was sitting in a concert hall, listening to musicians from across the state. They were playing Mussorgsky s "Night on Bald Mountain". It is one of my favorites I have heard it many times---and this evening it was especially beautiful. Yes, our older daughter was playing in the orchestra. I believe another girl from that same middle school ensemble was as well. It was a journey of several years, from that evening in a small inner city auditorium, with a few people there, mostly parents and grandparents, to a packed concert hall with teachers, professors, parents and music lovers from all over. The conductor, who led the orchestra this fall, is a professor of music at a university in New England. She received thunderous applause when it was all over. I thought back, as I actually have several times, to the woman who led that middle school ensemble. I have sometimes said that middle school orchestra teachers are saints. They hear the beginning notes. They suffer through the out of tune instruments. They help these musicians take those first baby steps. We see this woman about once a year. I have thanked her, profusely, many times, for what she does. The apostle Paul is in the midst of an extended reflection on what it means to be a Christian community, and that has to do with the nature of spiritual gifts, our spiritual lives and how we live them out, and that has to do, primarily, with our motivations, and the greatest gift, the essential motivation, is love. It is a prominent passage within the whole Bible. It is often read at weddings. Many of you know it by heart.

2 2 It is all about the nature of love, what we often assume love to be, and what love actually is. If I speak like the angels, if I have analytic abilities to discern the present and predict the future, if I have faith to overcome any obstacle if I have all of these characteristics, but not love, it amounts to nothing. We may be applauded. We may be admired. We may be recognized. But if our motivation is not love, it means nothing. Then Paul defines love: Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not jealous or boastful. Love does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. I realize, in hearing this scripture again, that Paul is speaking not only about how we might love others. Paul always has in mind, as well, a deeper meaning: how God already loves us. God is patient. God is kind. God bears all things, God believes all things, God hopes all things, God endures all things. Can you see you the cross as you hear these words? God s love is not an abstaction. God s love is always personal, even as it is universal. God so loves the world, John testifies, that he gave his only son. God s love is specific and tangible. It takes place in this human being, Jesus, who is born in a particular place, Palestine. And yet it is for the world; that includes you and me and all people! God reaches out to us in love, with patience and kindness. It is not a general theory. It is practical, tangible, human, real. God is in the details. Not only in those moments where we have strength to move mountains, but in the hidden, quiet places, God comes to live among us, love is there. If we believe in a personal God, who knows us and loves us---and I believe this has been the contribution of evangelical Christianity over the past fifty years---it follows that our love for others, our love for the world, has to do with personal relationships borne of knowledge of others, even those unlike us, even those we assume to be beneath us. Love requires our patience, our kindness. Love requires us to bear all things, to believe all things, to hope all things, to endure all things. Love is in the details.

3 3 And so, my almost heretical thought, as I have struggled with what to say about this passage that you have heard, some of you, all of your lives is this: God is a lot like a middle school orchestra teacher! God listens to our screeching, hangs in there when our instruments are out of tune, reminds us that we can t always be the soloist, corrects us when we want to play the music in a way that is different from the composer s intent. God is patient and kind with us. God s love is present in our lives, as we learn, day by day, in the details, to forgive each other, to welcome strangers, to share our faith, to be more generous, to know more about the scriptures, to pray for each other, to discover our gifts. God is in the details. The more we see his love for us in these details, the more clearly we recognize him---it is a matter or perception and focus. The more we pay attention to the details of life, the more clearly we know that Jesus loves us and gave himself for us. The earliest followers of Jesus were described in this way, in a letter to the Emperor Hadrian, by an outside observer: "The Christians know and trust God. They do good to their enemies They love one another They rescue the orphan from violence If any one of them is poor and needy and they do not have food to spare, They fast for two or three days, that they may supply them with necessary food. They scrupulously obey the commands of their Messiah. Every morning and hour they thank and praise God for his loving-kindness toward them.. Because of them there flows forth all the beauty that there is in the world. But the good deeds they do, they do not proclaim in the ears of the multitude, But they take care that no one shall perceive them Truly this is a new people and there is something divine in them". There is something divine in us. We do not boast about it. It is a gift. We do have different gifts. That is a part of Paul s larger message, in the chapter preceding this one, and in the chapter following this one as well. We will see the details in different ways. It is true in this church. One is an evangelist. One is a musician.

4 4 One is an administrator. One is a shepherd. One is a teacher. Lots of details go into these actions. Love is in the details. It is true in a family. One attends to the schedules of children. One is a peacemaker. One takes care of everyday tasks. One brings joy and laughter. Lots of details go into the everyday lives of families. Love is in the details. Do we notice? It is a matter of focus and perception. Not only the conductor who leads the beautiful symphony that takes your breath away, but the teacher who helps you to know how to hold the instrument in the first place, and convinces you that you are a musician, that you can do this, that you have it in you, it is just waiting to be released, like a gift. The greatest gift, Paul says, is love. Love one another, Jesus said, as I have loved you. Jesus took a towel and washed the feet of the disciples. Love is in the details. The journey we are on, as Christians, is to become people who love. It begins with a few steps. We take a risk. We listen for a call. We pick up an instrument, we stay with it. We take life one day at a time. It continues as we pay attention to what is going on around us---the details---a loaf of bread, a cup, a line of a hymn, a smile, a still, small voice, a meal enjoyed, an accomplishment celebrated, a sacrifice shared. The notes. The timing. The silences. The rhythms. And over time, we are changed, transformed into the image of God, the God who is love, this image is restored in us, and we realize that even with all of this talk about love, a word we have almost lost in the marketplace where love is bought and sold and manipulated, even with all of this talk about love, it somehow misses the point: love is in the details, love is something we give and receive, over a lifetime, and that this is God s great project, to keep us on this journey, to help us to become people who love. You don t have to be perfect to be a part of this body; you just have to show up. You don t have to be perfect to follow Jesus; you just have to practice. When you come to this altar, the kneeling means something, the open hand means something, the bread means something, the music means something. It all adds up, we get better at it, maybe, more humble, more receptive, more grateful, more

5 5 connected. It takes time. And at some point we recognize that we have become the body of Christ. And it is beautiful. Even in its brokenness, the body of Christ is beautiful. There is something divine in us. It is the gift of God; it is love; it is in the details. Sources: