This morning in Sunday School, we read 1 Corinthians 13, the famous “love chapter.” I would like to share a few thoughts inspired by our discussion.
Before diving in, I think it important to mention that, though I think this chapter can and does apply to committed relationships and marriages, Paul is not writing about romantic love but godly love, which should flow between and be expressed among all relationships for Christians.
Consider how Paul defines love: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4-7).1 Paul gives love a character sketch. Paul says, "This is what Love looks like; now you should be better able
to recognize Love walking down the street." We learn best by example, so
Paul gives us the example of Love by which to model our lives. This character, Love, does not celebrate hurtfulness but the truth. Love perseveres and trusts in the goodness that God has planted in all things. Love is defined not by individual characteristics, but by how Love responds and gives in relationship to others.
Paul’s character sketch of love is surrounded by two passages about various forms of ministry among the community of believers. In verses 1-3, Paul says that if he speaks earthly and heavenly languages, if he prophecies the truth and understands deep secrets of the universe and God, if he works miracles greater than Jesus or Moses ever did, but has not love, his words and actions are hollow. If he gives all that he owns to the poor and is martyred for his faith but has not love, his sacrifices are meaningless.
This reminds me of the word of God through the prophet Amos:
"I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
Amos 5:21-24
Celebrations, gifts offered to God, and the chords of a hymn are good things, but they are not good on their own. They are good when their source is a community whose relationships align with justice and righteousness, a community dwelling in love.
Paul's message is important for people participating in ministry. Is there love in my service? I may write a blog post that is so doctrinally sound that it makes Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics seem nearly heretical; I may visit a sick person in a hospital and in so doing, visit Christ; I may even heal the divides between congregations and nations, but if I have not love, my words are clanging pots and pans, and my actions are plastic food.
The way we do things, the manner or spirit in which we act, is just as important if not more important than the actions themselves.
In verse 8, Paul writes that while prophecies, tongues, and knowledge will cease, “love never ends.” Our ministries and communities, on their own, are like all mortal things in that they will end. My blog post will conclude with footnotes. The worship service will reach its final note, and after singing it, we will move onto other tasks that await us that day. A fellowship may stop gathering; a group of friends that I have come to love may one day scatter. But when we do our work for God in love, when we relate to one another in love, our love is carried, and maybe along with it our work and our relationships too, on into the fathomless depths of the future.
How, then, do we minister in love? How do we become loving people and communities? Paul does not directly answer those questions in this chapter. However, at the end of the chapter, Paul does say “And now faith, hope, and love abide” (v. 13). It is interesting that he is translated as using the verb “abide,” which comes from the Old English “abidan,” which means to wait, remain, dwell (as in “biding my time”).2 Love lingers, sits waiting in the living room, stands at the street corner looking for the bus. This suggests that the love of God is waiting for us. It lives and moves inside and around us, and as we respond in acceptance to it, we become more like love; we become more patient, more kind, and so on; we become more loving.
In other words, love is the host and we are the guests. Love is first; we are second. Love is entrusted to us, and the more we are faithful with it, the more love we are given. Like all relationships, love is a gift, one that must be accepted, treasured, and cultivated. As 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because [God] first loved us.” The Bible expresses in many ways God’s love for us; two core examples are God’s delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and God’s reconciling the world to God and to itself through the suffering and resurrection of Jesus the Anointed One. In addition, we can and should read our own experiences for expressions of God's love for us. Because Christians have been so loved, we are called to love one another, people outside of our communities, and even those who hate us. Because the world has been so loved, might this not also be God's call to the world?
God, whose love waits for us, help us to abide in love, so that we may abide in you, and that you may abide in us.
1 NRSV.
2 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abide?s=t.
