Love is Patient

"LOVE IS PATIENT"

a message by Rev. Dr. Bruce Havens

Coral Isles Church, U.C.C.

September 1, 2024

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Luke 8: 43-48  NRSV

43 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, and immediately her flow of blood stopped. 45 Then Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds are hemming you in and pressing against you.” 46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I noticed that power had gone out from me.” 47 When the woman realized that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed. 48 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

Does anyone NOT want to have more love in their life?  I mean if you are like, nope, I’m good, no more love for me, ok.  But here’s the thing, I suspect if that is your attitude the people in your life may be saying the exact opposite!  Like, dude, you need to up your game when it comes to love.  I don’t know, I’m just suspecting.

I’m beginning a long series on learning to love more.  I am using the verses from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.  In it the writer, Paul, a follower of the risen Christ and a leader of the early church, gives 15 qualities of love. I want to focus on one characteristic of love a week.  This morning I’m beginning with “love is patient.”

Now that immediately brings about a dozen proverbs, truisms, or otherwise smart-aleck lines to mind.  Patience is a virtue.  Maturity brings patience.  Don’t pray for patience or God will give you something to be patient about.  Let me be clear, I’m not necessarily known as a patient person.  Someone once gave me a pillow with the saying sewed onto it, “Grant me patience Lord, right now!”  Perhaps the most helpful saying I read was “Patience is not simply the ability to wait – it’s how we behave while we wait.”  That may be the best place to start, if we want to discuss how patience is a quality or characteristic of love.  I have no doubt that it is a quality we can all develop further.

I doubt that it is an overstatement to say that anyone who has ever been in a relationship with anyone else, for more than about three minutes, has at some point probably had to practice patience.  Parents with kids, kids with parents, married couples, couples who are not married, people waiting in line at McDonald’s, people driving on the highway out there all qualify as tests of that truth.  Think of the name of someone you have had contact with for more than a few minutes, more than one time, that you may not have had to practice patience with.  And maybe you can think of a name, but what if I asked that person the same thing about you?  Hm.  Ouch.  In other words, as I said before, I suspect all of us can grow more loving when it comes to demonstrating patience. 

What about the example in our Scripture lesson today?  For me it lifts up at least two examples of patience, and maybe at least one of impatience.  The story tells us of a woman who has lived for 12 years with a “flow of blood.”  She has “spent all she had on physicians.”  A lot of us can relate to that, huh?  But she still is suffering.  And in her culture, as you may already know, that limited her ability to be in social settings.  The religious law required that anyone exuding bodily fluids, particularly women during their cycle, make special efforts at cleaning and staying away from others, and it limited their ability to be in worship with others.  The Scripture doesn’t specifically say she was patient during all this, but I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

So I don’t blame her when she takes things into her own hands, so to speak.  Despite the rules about not touching or being touched because of her condition, she hears Jesus is in town, pushes through the crowd and either on her knees or bending down, she touches just the hem of Jesus’ cloak.  She is instantly healed, and Jesus feels “power” going out from his spirit at that moment.  He asks who has touched him.  Peter, Jesus’ main man, ever-known for having a rather impatient spirit, basically asks Jesus “what the heck man, there’s dozens of people all pressing up against you, they’re all touching you.”  But Jesus knew that particular touch was different.  The woman comes forward and confesses she had touched him hoping to be healed and was.  Jesus’ answer might be one we would consider an expression of patience.  He says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.  Go in peace.”

I’m not interested in debating the fact of, the process, or the reality that this woman was healed, or why just one person was healed.  I believe the story was told to show us what love does.  Love is an essential quality of faith.  I believe the woman believed not only that Jesus could heal her, but loved her – as she was, unclean in some eyes, but perfectly worthy in Jesus’ eyes and healed her out of love.  In calling her “daughter” Jesus expressed affection for the woman as kin, not a lesser person because she was a woman, or worse, a woman considered unclean because of her condition.  Her touching Jesus would have technically made Jesus unclean, and therefore unable to be touched by others, or worship with others – the same restrictions the woman faced.  But he did not hold that against her. Perhaps that gets us to the root of what patience requires.

We all face situations where our patience is tested. This is true whether we are talking about those we profess to love, as well as just everyday encounters with strangers.  We may become impatient, even angry.  But remember the saying I mentioned above which reminds us, patience isn’t just about waiting, it’s about what we do while we wait.  Patience is the practice of not lashing out in anger, frustration, or for any other reason.  Patience stops and processes and chooses not to hold something against another.  In essence, impatience is an expression of anger directed at another person, or perhaps a situation.  I want to suggest that love chooses to let go of that anger before lashing out in impatience.

So there is one way we can grow in love.  We can be mature enough to recognize our anger.  It may even be that something that has nothing to do with that person or that situation started that flame of anger in us.  But before we take out that misplaced anger on someone else, maturity requires me to note that anger, check that anger, and let go of that anger before I treat the other person in a way that is unloving, and unworthy of someone striving to follow the way of Jesus.  That’s what I want to try to practice so that I might be worthy of having my picture up on someone’s heart wall along with those they consider “patient.” 

As we prepare to come to the table of grace, to take part in “communion” let me invite you to think about this:  First, we call it “communion” because we not only commune with the Living Christ, we do it so that we might “commune” more fully, more lovingly with others.  That includes not only those who come to this table with us, but those we will encounter in the coming hours, days, years, and etc.  Also note that the key elements of this experience take a lot of patience to produce.  Bread and – if we choose it – wine, take time to produce.  But it isn’t just the time passing that makes them bread and wine.  It is what happens to the elements in these that makes them taste good, satisfying our hunger and thirst.

One more thing that comes to mind for me is the prayer our next song invites us to pray:  “open the eyes of my heart, Lord.”  As we seek to grow in patience, perhaps our prayer might be, open the eyes of my heart Lord when impatience tempts me to rage in anger at someone else.  Help me to see them through your eyes – a daughter, a sister, a brother, a sibling.”  Help me to feel your love for them before I mistreat them and regret it.  And as it adds, “I want to see you,” I often remember that one of the most helpful things I can do is see Jesus in every face, in every person I encounter, and to treat them, love them, as much as I claim to love Jesus.  So let’s sing it: “open the eyes of my heart, Lord, open the eyes of my heart, I want to see you.” AMEN.