The Foundation of Unity: Love
I Corinthians 13:4-7 (RSV) Love is patient and kind; love is not
jealous or boastful; 5it is not arrogant
or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not
rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7Love bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never ends.
These four verses
often can be found inscribed in lovely calligraphy, framed and hung in homes
and offices. “A hymn to love,” it’s called. But the beauty of the language may obscure
the practical, compelling force of the words. The setting and context: a
conflicted congregation caught up in a distorted spirituality, engaged in
intense power struggles… all that may be lost in the admiration of the
beautiful poetry.
The biblical
preacher’s first task, then, is to anchor the text solidly in its context. Of course,
the words are beautiful; but they are not written to rhapsodize love. They were
written as a remedy for a church that was quarreling over whose spiritual gifts
are more important (the gift of speaking in unknown tongues seems to have risen
to the top of the pecking order). They’re boasting about how “spiritual” they
are; and these words tell the Corinthian Christians that their fervent
religiosity isn’t worth a plugged nickel apart from a new relationship with one
another. Apart from love, “If I speak in the
tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a
resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”
The conflicts at
Corinth emerge from a loveless spirituality. The remedy is not to further hone
the gifts, but to practice—not to theorize or theologize or idealize, but to
practice—“a still more excellent way” (12:31).
The spiritual
gifts are not unimportant. They are essential to the full manifestation of the
Body of Christ; but their end will come. Love, on the other hand, is the
supreme quality of God’s reign and therefore “never ends.” As such it
participates in and describes the unity that is that “Mystery of God’s Will” (the
first biblical principle of unity). Rather than discount the exercise of
spiritual gifts, love transforms their practice into a positive endeavor.
If the world’s
population would live by this “still more excellent way”, there would be no problems.
These four verses describe fifteen qualities of love:
1.
Love is
patient,
2.
and
kind.
3.
Love is
not jealous,
4.
or
boastful;
5.
it is not arrogant.
6.
or
rude. (NIV says, “It does not dishonor others,” MSG says, “…doesn’t force
itself on others”)
7.
Love does not insist on its own way; (NLT says, “…does not demand
its own way,” NIV says, “it is not self-seeking,” GNT says, “…it
is not selfish,” MSG says, “…isn’t always ‘me first’”)
8.
it is
not irritable “NIV says, “…easily angered,”)
9. or resentful; (NIV says, “…it keeps no record
of wrongs.” MSG says, “…doesn’t keep score of
the sins of others,” and the ERV says, “…does not remember wrongs done against
it.”)
10. does not
rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
11. Love bears all things, (The variations are
very interesting here! NIV says, “…always protects,” NLT says, “…never gives
up,” MSG says, “…puts up with anything,” and ERV says, “never gives up on people,”)
12. believes all things, (NIV says, “…always
trusts, NLT says, “…never loses faith,” MSG notes, specifically, “…trusts God always,”)
13. Hopes all things, (MSG says, “…always looks
for the best,”)
14. endures all things. (NIV says, “…always
perseveres.” MSG says, “…never looks back, but keeps going to the end.”
15. Love never ends.
Whew! Are you
exhausted? How can one ever love in the way this passage describes? Had we read
the remainder of the chapter we would find a clue in the contrast between the
passing, incomplete present and the permanent and fulfilled future. The images
are powerful: like the difference between the way a child thinks and the way an
adult thinks; like the difference between a distorted view through a flawed
pane of glass and a face-to-face meeting.
Things
get complicated when we begin with ourselves. But, I remember
reading or hearing somewhere that love is best received when you do something
for another that is a blessing to him or her "as she or he sees it."
No
man ever loved a woman more than Jo Lynn’s dad loved her mom. They met when he
was 13 and got a paper route and started delivering papers to her house. From
the first moment he saw her, he was a goner. Never was there a more beautiful
love story.
He
loved to surprise her with romantic gifts—and she loved it (especially when it
was cash!) In their later years Joe wanted to take her on a train trip across
the country, and he made all the arrangements. He envisioned them holding hands
in the club car, watching the Great Plains slide by. He envisioned sunset
dinners in the dining car, with the Rocky Mountains majestically saluting as
they rode by.
But
there was a lump in the gravy. She didn’t like trains. She told him so. She
didn’t want to take that trip; but, he wanted it so bad; and he was just sure
that once she got aboard and the trip was underway, she’d love it.
The
only harsh word I ever heard from either of the about the other, was her resentment
about being pressured to go on that train trip. Truly loving someone means that
he or she gets to decide what is the "loving way" in which to be
treated.
Which
is just another way of saying, “Therefore all things
whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12 KJV).
And that’s the way I see it through the flawed glass that is
my world view.
Together in the Walk,
Jim
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