Love...

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 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. 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.
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.

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. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 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. 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. ~ I Corinthians 13


Between putting together a wedding liturgy planning booklet, doing my own wedding planning, and reading all the hype about Rob Bell's new book (which I really want to get my hands on), I have been thinking a lot about love.

Well, the liturgy planning booklet hasn't gotten me thinking about love that much, although I do enjoy projects like this where there is actually a visible proof that I have accomplished something.

And while I have been enjoying the ease with which wedding planning has gone so far (thanks to my fabulous family), it's not the planning that gets me thinking about love...I love my fiancee and I love the idea that, by the grace of God, we will get to spend the rest of our lives together. But I don't have to think about it that much, I just love him.

So I guess it's the Rob Bell book that's gotten me thinking about love...and not just any love, divine love.


As I mentioned, I haven't read the book yet...but the more I read about the accusations of heresy and the more my friends talk about it, the more I want to run to the book store down town and get a copy...except the bookstore downtown doesn't have it yet and it's too new to find at the used book sellers in town.

I am a fan of Rob Bell. I like the Nooma series and have found it to have more of a Lutheran spin to it than an Evangelical one...though I must admit that as open minded as I claim to be, I tend to be overly cautious about things that are labeled as Evangelical...it could have something to do with the fact that some who call themselves Evangelical would not consider my call to ministry valid, or that many televangelists who label themselves as Evangelicals have been exposed as hypocrites or have given the word Christian a bad rap by spouting hate language, blaming this group or that group (though it's usually the gays) for this or that disaster. I do know that not all Evangelicals are bad...after all, I am ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and therefore, by association, am technically Evangelical. And if you work with the traditional meaning of Evangelical, I will claim that...but I shy away from how is has been seen in the public eye lately.

But I digress.

This whole deal about whether or not Rob Bell is a heretic based off of a 2:30 minute video is kind of silly, I think. There was one blog I read where the blogger, attacked Bell's theology based off of something that the blogger misquoted. It could be that we heard the same thing, but heard it differently...I'm not here to say that this blogger is wrong. But I am perplexed that people are calling Bell a heretic for suggesting the following:
#1) Mahatma Ghandi is in heaven
#2) Heaven is full of surprises and we don't know the full extent of God's love..and most likely, it's greater than we imagine.

Where's the heresy in that?

Mahatma Ghandi is very well known for being fond of the teachings of Christ. Christ's teaching to "turn the other cheek" from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 is where Ghandi gleaned the idea of non-violent resistance. He even said "I like your Christ, I don't like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Could it be that while Ghandi was not a Christian, he was a Christ follower?

As far as the heaven being full of surprises and not knowing the full extent of God's love, isn't that Gospel good news? I don't know about you, but stories like this past week's Gospel about the Samaritan Woman at the Well from John 4, and the parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee from the Gospel of Luke, bring me to tears sometimes because they remind me of just how great God's love truly is...that God would have mercy on even a poor sinner like me (Growing up in the LCMS, I got used to referring to myself as a "poor miserable sinner" on almost a weekly basis, and I admit it, try as I might to be otherwise, that is what I am...though I will also answer to "beloved child of God"). And if you know me and my faith story, about the crisis I went through in my late teens, you know that I believe in an all loving God...one who loved the world so much that he made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be his. So if someone is suggesting that above all, Love wins, I have no problem with that.

Again, I haven't read the book, this is only what I have gleaned from the promo-video and the reviews of said video. I will report back when I have read the book. These are just my thoughts on the hype.

I welcome your thoughts as well.