Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19
1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13
Luke 4:21-30
These readings are about God knowing us and about us needing each other to know God, It’s about how even though we all exist in a web of connections between ourselves and others, it’s still difficult for us to know God so that we can see everything the way God sees it. In one translation of verse 17 in the first chapter of Jeremiah, God tells the prophet:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I dedicated you,
a prophet to the nations I appointed you.
Jermiah Chapter 1, Verses 4 and 5
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you / before you were born I dedicated you / a prophet to the nations I appointed you” (Jer. 1: 4-5).
But what does it mean to be a prophet?
My pastor said the word “prophet” comes from the Hebrew word for “spokesperson.” Who is a prophet spokesperson for? God, he said, and he reminded us that God is love.
The second reading describes what that love is like. In the famous words attributed to St. Paul:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth , it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Love never fails.
— 1 Corinthians, Verses 4-8
“Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth , it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails” (1 Cor. 4-8).
Like Luke Chapter 4, verse 18 that I posted about last week, this is another passage that, at first, feels nothing but encouraging to read. It feels wonderful to think of myself as receiving Divine Love that has the qualities described above.
But I’ve written before about how you, and I, and everyone else, reflects and receives that love so that we can return it, share it, and expand its reach. I wrote last week about how allowing the reach of that love to expand can be uncomfortable for all of us in a lot of different ways. It might mean seeing, and hearing and giving things that I might not be in a hurry to see, or hear, or give because seeing, or hearing, or giving what I haven’t previously means losing some metaphorical blinders, earplugs, and blankets that keep me comfortable and keep me from feeling, not only other people’s pain, but also the reality that others have something to share that I lack.
And I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly enjoy recognizing the idea that I lack anything or that anyone else does either. It’s daunting that I’m called to work with God, humbly and patiently, to participate in addressing both of these situations. What do I give up and what do I accept when I acknowledge that I need both to give and to receive? What do I give and receive when I acknowledge that the love described in Corinthians has the greatest reach when it moves, not just on the proverbial two-way street but on a highway that has more lanes going in both directions than I can imagine?
Why do we need so many love lanes connecting all members of the human family and God? Because, as I’ve written in previous posts, every one of us is created in the image of God (1 Gen. 26). As such, every one of us has gifts that the world needs (1 Cor. 12: 4-11). But in every one of us, the reach of those gifts gets limited — at least in so far as we can see in our lifetimes — by circumstances beyond our control, by our weaknesses, and by by doubt-and fear-fueled resistance to what receiving and sharing God’s love really means for all of us.
The wounds in our natures are why God warns Jeremiah that “the whole land… kings and princes… priests and people “…. will fight against” the message God gives them to share (Jer. 1:19).
From my perspective, as I wrote last week, these wounds are also the reason for the conflict between Jesus and the people he grew up with (See Luke 4: 22-30).
They are the reason that “[a]t present we see indistinctly… and “know partially” (1 Cor. 13:12). The Good News is that the more we choose faith, hope, and love, the better we’ll be able to see, and the more faith and hope we’ll have that when we’re not bound by a our current bodies, we will “know fully, as [we are] fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12).
Work cited
The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
Sitting with the Sacred 
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