Today, we look at a Day 4 text from this year’s summer curriculum, “From Generation to Generation.”
Prayer: Loving God, you meet us in all of our most childish of ways and offer to us the full maturation of your love. Help us to be grounded for community in your unconditional love, that we might reflect more fully the life in which you greet us. This we pray through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Reading: 1 Corinthians 3:11-12 (Click to read text) Stop and GROW: After reading the text, discuss/ponder the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Book of Faith questions, which are part of Camp Mount Luther's GROW Time with campers. QUESTION 1: What scares, confuses, challenges, or doesn’t make sense to me in this text? QUESTION 2: What delights me in this text or is my favorite part of the story? QUESTION 3: What stories or memories does this text stir in me? QUESTION 4: What is God up to in this text? Reflection: He’s talking about love, you know. As Paul writes to the Corinthians about his myriad of childish ways, he’s really reflecting on the scope of a love that he’s only ever caught glimpses of. Throughout these verses (that are probably most often quoted during wedding ceremonies), Paul exhorts the role of love and the foundation that it can provide, especially to communities rife with brewing potential conflict. But here’s the thing, this is no childish love. As a kid, I used to think that love was what you called it when you “like-liked” someone. Love was the designation you gave when you liked someone else enough that you wanted to spend more time with them than with anyone else. Turns out, though, that this is only seemingly dimly as through a mirror. The love that Paul is exhorting, the type of love that has the power to shape and form a whole community, now that’s different stuff. That’s the type of unconditioned love that’s willing to set aside personal interest to prioritize the other in our midst. It’s the unconditional love that’s willing to sacrifice self-advancement in order to ensure that the lowly are taken care of. It’s the unconditional love that endures all things because it requires the full investment of each participant in the well-being of everyone else at the table. It’s the type of love that’s not just about “like-liking” the person you choose to spend more time with, but it’s the love that’s about being known fully for who you are. And honestly, it’s a love that’s only ever been perfected in the one who has known you. While all else has been dim reflections of this perfected love, in the risen Christ, you have been met by the fully-formed love of God and claimed without condition in God’s life. We might not even fully know it yet, but we can rest in the promises that we have already been fully known in that love. ~ Justin Lingenfelter
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