Lessons from The Teddy Bear
1 Corinthians 12:31b-13

Do you like to read or be read to?  I’ve always liked to read.  Reading is not only educational but fun!  One genre of books I enjoy reading are children’s books.  I really like the illustrations.  Some are simple and some are quite elaborate.  Although pictures are lovely, it is the story lines that really pull me in.  I don’t know if the authors of the children’s books I read are Christian but I have learned Christian lessons from many of the stories I read.

One book I read was entitled The Teddy Bear by David McPhail.  Do you know this story?  I’m going to read this book to you.  Unconventional? Yes.  Different approach to preaching? Probably, yes.  Fun? Definitely.  You may be asking yourself what a story about a teddy bear has to do with the Word of God.  Come. Go with me as we discover together.  Those of you who brought stuffed animals with you today snuggle up and listen.

Read THE TEDDY BEAR

What a story! Again, you say, how does this story relate to the Word of God?  Well, let’s look more closely at the story for clues.  The bear is love, the boy is us, the man is one in need of comfort.  As I read the story I kept thinking about “the more excellent way” described by Paul in 1 Corinthians. Let’s rescue 1 Corinthians 13, “the love text”, as it is called, from all the romantic sentimentality in which it has become entangled. This passage was originally an impassioned vision of “the more excellent way” in which members of the Corinthian church should treat one another.

They seemed to have had some real problems relating to one another in those days. There was jealousy, quarreling, divisions and outrageously disrespectful behavior at the Lord’s Supper, and more. Paul had to come along to tell them that they were behaving badly. It’s all about “real love”.  Lovingly is how we are to relate to one another.  It’s not the romantic infatuation the twenty-first century Person thinks of but love that is a right relation with others.  It’s the proper caring for another.  True love, as Paul sees it, always begins with God and always reaches beyond one’s self to others.  It’s about community, not selfish individuality.  Love asks, “What is best for you or what would help you”  not “What’s in it for me.”  Was all that in the story we just read?  The boy in the story seemed to be between the ages of 5 to 7 years old.  It doesn’t say for certain but I think it’s about right.  He came from a comfortable home filled with the things children like.  We can see that in the illustrations.  He and his parents did things together.  They were positive models of Christian behavior for him. He probably acted and reacted the way he saw his parents act and react to situations. You’ve seen this yourself.  You may have even commented to yourself and smiled as you said, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” as you’ve witnessed the behavior of some children and teens then thought about their parents.  I heard this last Thursday as I attended the funeral service of a 15 year old youngster.  There were many remarks about his home life and his upbringing and his loving parents.  Children live what they learn. Remember the poem

CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE?
(By Dr. Dorothy Law Nolte)

Here are a few lines from that poem.  If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.  If children live with tolerance, they practice patience.  If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.  If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.  If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.  If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place to live.  What are your children learning?  Luke 6:40 reminds us, 

“A student is not above his teacher,
but everyone who is fully trained 
will be like his teacher”

or Proverbs 22:6,

“Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.”

The boy appreciated and cared for his toys.  He even loved his Teddy Bear.  During an outing the bear was lost.  The family searched for the bear when they noticed it was gone. The entire family was sad.  The boy and his other stuffed friends were sad but as time went on their sadness lessened.  Their dark spirits lifted because they had each other. We can go through tough times a bit easier with loving people to support us. It’s about the community helping us bear our burdens.  That’s love in action. Psalm 30:5 reminds us that

“weeping may remain for a night
but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

The bear represented love and love was gone…or so it seemed.  Love, real love, never dies.  Psalm 136 tells us again and again that

“His love endures forever.”

Remember love is not a mushy, gushy feeling that is changeable but it’s about relationship between God and us and each other.  As the bear was rescued from the trash, he found himself in the arms of someone new.  The new friend loved him like the boy did.  The surroundings weren’t the same -they lived in a dumpster and walked the street all day but even so, there was love. God’s love is found everywhere: the suburbs, the city, with people in expensive homes and those who are homeless.  God is love and his love endures forever.  By chance, the boy spots his bear sitting on a park bench.  He picks her up and is ready to go back to the way it was before the separation.  Then it happened.  Loud desperate crying.  “My bear! Where’s my bear?”  He could have kept walking, after all, it was his bear and he knew it.  But something happened when he looked and saw the man crying.  Perhaps he thought of himself when he first lost his bear.  He stands there frozen in space and time for a moment as he prepares to respond - compassion fills his being. He responds to the need of another with the love of Christ.  Perhaps in a fleeting second a long past Sunday school message about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you zips through his unconscious mind.  Can’t you see him as the model for these words?  Recorded in 

Colossians 3:12, 14-15-“
As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved,
clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”

Where did these feelings come from in him?  From the Holy Spirit who had touched his parents who modeled and taught him compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  They were salt and light to him.  He reflected what he saw in them.  Children learn what they live, remember?  As he turns to leave his parents to interact with the distressed man I am reminded of some of the most comforting words found in

2 Corinthians 1:3-4
“Praise be to the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion and God of all comfort
who comforts us in all our troubles,
so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

God’s comfort and compassion are not given to us as a personal possession.  Recipients of God’s merciful encouragement become the channels through whom God’s comfort is made available to others who are themselves “in any affliction”.  He couldn’t keep the compassion and love he received from family and friends during his time of affliction to himself.  He had to be compassionate to another as he had known compassion.  Although he was a little boy he knew what sorrow felt like.  He had lost the bear, too!

Proverbs 20:11
“Even a child is known by his actions,
by whether his conduct is pure and right.”

“Is this your bear?”  Through tears the man looked at the boy as the boy handed him the bear.  “Thank you.  I don’t know what I’d do without him.” In that instant, the boy knew how to love and what love was. “I know what you mean. I used to have one just like him.” That’s grace. Grace. It gives without the receiver realizing how great the gift is.  Love wasn’t lost.  Love passed from the boy to the man through a teddy bear.  This was love as it should be…as Jesus modeled.

1 John 4:11
“Dear children, let us not love
with words or tongue
but with actions and in truth”.

We have to show our love to each other.  Love is active.  Friends, do we know what love is?  What is your definition of love?  What does it look like?  This how I have seen love recently:

Love is a colleague knowing that you want something and without your asking she finds it and gives it to you and your heart is so warmed that you still well up when you think about it.

Love is a young man preparing a meal for his girlfriends’ family on a Sunday afternoon.

Love is a dad getting up at midnight to help his daughter hold back the water of a flood.

Love is a mother who follows her daughter everywhere she goes and is her encourager at all times.

Love is a grandson praying and telling God that he really should taste his grandma’s cooking.

Love is a church filled to capacity and spilling into the balcony by people young and old, black and white coming together in sorrowful celebration to support the family of a 15 year old youngster who sat in worship service the week before but was called home by God before he could return to that sanctuary again while he yet lived.

Love is when a friend tells you you’ve gone off the deep end and to knock it off!

Love is gathering together Sunday after Sunday to praise and worship God.

Love is being able to share Henry.  

The great example of love for us was Jesus.  Listen to

Romans 5:8:
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

1 John 4:19,
“We love because he first loved us.”

Love is not passive it’s active. It’s building and maintaining a relationship with others as a manifestation of our faith in God.

Galatians 5:6b says,
“The only thing that counts is faith
expressing itself through love.”

This shows our love for God.

“Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast,
it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
But where there are prophecies,
they will cease;
where there are tongues,
they will be stilled;
where there is knowledge,
it will pass away.
And now these three remain:
faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.”
“Love is the more excellent way”.

Was all that in the story we read? Was that really what The Teddy Bear was all about? At first glance, maybe not, but reading as a Christian one can’t help but see it.

I hope you did.