1 Peter 4:7-11 (NRSV)

⁷ The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. ⁸ Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. ⁹ Be hospitable to one another without complaining. ¹⁰ Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. ¹¹ Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.

 Some will tell you that the end of all things is near for the entire world with the potential for nuclear war, or global warming, or some other catastrophe.  Some are expecting Jesus to return soon.  In my experience the end usually comes with our own individual deaths, and there are three on my mind right now:  Nancy Coultas, Amy Taylor, and Randy Pausch.

 Nancy is a friend of Pastor Janet's from the Northfield United Methodist Church.  Janet is visiting her regularly because Nancy is probably in her last week of life.  It is emotionally draining for Janet.  Amy Taylor is the young mother who may have just weeks or months to live.  Amy is fighting for each day of life.  She wants to live as long as she can with her husband and two children.  Randy Pausch is the Carnegie-Mellon professor who has been featured on television.  He has pancreatic cancer.  He has inspired me by his positive outlook in the face of his realization that he only has months to live.  Like Amy he wants to live as long as he can for his young children and his wife, Jai.

 In this passage from I Peter, in the face of the belief that the end of all things is near, the disciples are admonished to maintain constant love for one another, to be hospitable to one another.  That is what I see in Janet's ministry to Nancy; and it is what I sense in Amy's and Randy's lives right now as I read about what is going on in them.  No matter what is taking place in our lives we can seek to be loving and hospitable toward each other.  If the dying realize how important that is to do, so can we who are living and who have no end in sight for our lives.

 I Peter points out that love covers a multitude of sins.  There will always be sinning in our relationships with each other, but love can be the way of forgiveness. Sometimes it is spoken out loud, "I forgive you."  Sometimes it is just understood.  

 What I see or hear about the ones who are caring for and being hospitable to the dying is that they do so without complaining to those for whom they caring.  They may complain to others to relieve their stress an anxiety, but to the dying they do not complain.  They only want to love them for as long as they can.

 What will all this love bring?  I am absolutely convinced that it will give to each of us a sense of satisfaction that we have loved people to the very end, that we have loved them completely, and that we have loved them as Jesus would have wanted us to love them.

PRAYER

 Dear Lord Jesus, you took your love for us all the way to the Cross.  Help me to love people completely.  Even when their pain causes me pain, help me to find the strength to keep on loving.  Help me, O Lord, to appreciate each day that I live as a precious gift.  In your name I pray, Amen