Written and preached by David P. Nolte
1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-8
Lorraine Hansberry's play, "Raisin In The Sun," tells the story of an African-American family who receives $10,000 from their father's insurance policy. It is their opportunity to leave the ghetto life of Harlem and move out to the country into a house with flower boxes. Beneatha, the brilliant daughter of the family, sees the money as an opportunity to live out her dream and go to medical school.
The older brother, Walter, however, makes a plea to his mother, Lena. She isn't able to ignore his imploring. He wants to borrow the money so he and his "friend" can go into business. He assures his mother that he can make something of himself and ultimately help the family, too. Against her better judgment, she loans him $6500.00, feeling that life has never been good for the boy and that he deserved the chance the money might provide. She wanted to demonstrate maternal love as described by John Burke when he said, "To think of mother is to recall her unselfish devotion, her limitless, unfaltering love through good and evil report, never wavering, but growing stronger and stronger with the years; and to remember that she asks nothing in return for herself; she asks of us and for us that we be good men and women. If we fail, she does not love us less, but more. Wonderful, constant, miraculous mother's love."
Let us think this morning of love as Paul described it in its quintessence; here are words that set forth perfect love. Perhaps nowhere on earth does perfect love find such complete expression as in the heart of a mother. What is perfect love? Let's consider this morning.
Though Walter had probably made promises and broken them before, Lena goes on loving her son untiringly. She loans Walter the money; as you might guess, the "friend" takes the money and skips town. The desolate son returns home, breaks the tragic news that all their hopes are gone, their dreams shattered. Beneatha says to Mama to get out the casket; she implies that Walter is dead to her. She outright disowns him! "He is not my brother!" she declares. She berates him with a barrage of ugly words. She has an unlimited contempt for her brother. But her mother said, "I taught you to love him!" Lena's love was not altered by his malfeasance. She manifested another quality of perfect love.
Walter had carelessly blown the family fortune. His sister hated him for it. But his mother said to her, "I taught you to love him!" Beneatha sarcastically replied, "Love him? There's nothing left to love!" The boy loses the money, the sister hates him, but Mama says, "There's always something left to love!" Here she demonstrates the third quality of perfect love.
Beneatha said, "There's nothing left to love!" Lena told her, "There's always something left to love." Then she continued, "And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and the family because we lost all that money. I mean for him; for what he's been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most: when they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning, because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in himself 'cause the world done whipped him so. When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done take into account what hills and valleys he done come through before he got to wherever he is." I realize that some present today never experienced that sort of mother love. Some had mothers who didn't measure up to this ideal. Some of you have told me so. But you can still be loved like that! God loves you like that! God knows the hills and valleys you've come through; God knows what got you to wherever you are. And He loves you. He knows your secret sins, your presumptuous immorality, your besetting failings. And He loves you. He knows all about the foolish investments in folly and the losses you've sustained by doing it your way. And He loves you. He makes no excuse for sin; He tolerates no impenitence; He brooks no irreverence. But when we come to Him sincerely sorry, honestly humble, and really repentant, He embraces us in a love that is untiring, unconditional and unending; a perfect love. He Who loved us to death, waits to love us to life. Who just needs to be loved to life this morning? God waits to fill your need for perfect love.
Last modified: April 18, 2006