If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.8Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
This
week my friend Sara reminded me that the really amazing thing about 1st Corinthians 13 is that even 100s of
thousands of schlocky wedding and inspirational posters and bad
Christian coffee mugs can’t kill it.
Paul’s hymn to Love is perhaps one of the most recognizable texts in the
New Testament. And it is really
beautiful… but it has just about nothing to do with romance.
To be sure, the subject of love is a tricky one. I think because we so often are loved
poorly, loved incompletely, loved conditionally. The subject of love is a tricky one because we so often love poorly, incompletely and
conditionally. And, forgive the
pop psychology, but my theory is that when we are loved so poorly we begin to,
on some level, assume that we are maybe undeserving of being loved well. And from this state of being
loved poorly, feeling undeserving and then loving poorly in return, which let’s
face it, is the foundation of Oprah and Dr Phil’s entire empire….but from this
state we do some stuff that’s…unhelpful.
I’ve been thinking about the things I’ve done in my
life to try and make myself more lovable.
I lost weight, I tried to not use big words, I tried laughing even when
a joke wasn’t funny. And when I
was dating Matthew…and those of you who know me will get this, I went camping. I tried
showing the other person only the parts of myself which I thought were lovable
and if there weren’t enough of those parts then I just manufactured some. Because I was sure that to know me…
is actually not to Love me.
We come by this naturally…given messages as we are about what is ok and what is not. Strong smart girls learn to act ditzy and helpless…tender hearted boys learn to toughen up. And it’s no secret that some of these messages insisting on our fragmentation came from the church. I remember a male Sunday School teacher in 5th grade taking my parents aside and suggesting that they insist I stop answering all the questions in Sunday School so quickly because then the little boys, who really should be answering the questions, don’t really get a chance.
This
letter to the church in Corinth wasn’t providing a sentimental reading for
their weddings, it was a smack
down. They were bickering and dysfunctional
and competitive. Some of them had
some mad skills but were being asses about it, as though being church together
had become sort of a competitive sport.
They were being petty and prideful and ridiculous.
This love described by Paul isn’t mushy and sentimental. It’s tough and unwilling to yield. This love which is patient and kind and isn’t rude or boastful and is self-giving and all that…. here’s what is scary about this kind of love: you can’t manipulate it. There is no amount of weight loss, piety, personality management, big smiles or strained pretense that can effect this love. And maybe in the absence of manipulation we stand bare before the eyes of God. This love is found in the gaze of God as God looks upon us naked and whole. Because this type of love is characterized by the giver not the receiver. Gone are the strivings and manipulations and efforts to make ourselves more lovable. In the face to face Gaze of the beloved we are known because we are loved. We aren’t loved because we are known. …that leads again to trying to gussy ourselves up to be lovable.
We are known
by God because we are loved by God.
Think about that. The truth
of who we were before any pain and hurt was transmitted to us by those who are
hurt and in pain…before we forgot our song we were loved.
The truth of who you are is found in the
eyes of God, not the eyes of the world.
It is the love of God who created this world and called it Good….it is
the love of a God who brought the Israelites out of slavery, who fed Ruth and
Naomi, who walked among us as Jesus of Nazareth, it is the love of the God
who knit you together in your mother’s womb that gets to tell you who you are. Nothing
else. Not the media, not a family who wishes you were different, and not even
yourself. Only the God who
knows and loves you fully can tell you who you are. And this is true of
everyone – the good the bad and the boring.
In the Movie Dead Man Walking sister Helen Prejean
offered pastoral care to a despicable murderer. He was an unrepentant, wretched man. Yet her faith in a loving God allowed
her, moments before his execution, to say to him "I want the last face you
see in this world to be the face of love, so you look at me when they do this
thing. I'll be the face of love for you."
I
think Paul might be telling us to be the face of love for each other. When we know that we are loved by God
in the fullness of God’s knowledge of us we are free to live in this love. Free to transmit the love of Christ in
a hurting world. Free to see
ourselves and others as God sees us. Not because we are good, but because we
are loved. And seeing just a
glimpse, wanting it, moving toward it, brings us closer to what is promised to
us forever: that we will see God, who is love, face to face. Amen
This one kinda got up in my shit a bit. A good bit. Well done.
Posted by: amy | January 31, 2010 at 08:22 PM
"Little church plant gone bad" is such a great way to characterize the Corinthians. Thanks for the thoughts!
I agree - this passage, first and foremost, has nothing to do with romantic love or our culture's poor concept of love. It's about reminding us how we need to be love. We have to make the hard choices, accept people and love them as they are. There's a time and place for other things, but the love has got to come first. A real love - the kind that chooses to be there, to help, to show what love is. And we can't do that unless we learn to love as God does.
So, as you said, he loved us first - "We aren’t loved because we are known. …that leads again to trying to gussy ourselves up to be lovable." We need to know and accept that first, then learn to love others in the same way.
Posted by: Jennifer Wilson | January 31, 2010 at 09:26 PM
Wow... well done. I look forward to your postings as a way of spiritually rounding out what I missed today. Thank you for your thoughts and words.
Posted by: Adrienne | January 31, 2010 at 10:46 PM
Thanks for a great sermon. Any chance your sermons are available on podcast?
Posted by: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=656451961 | February 01, 2010 at 07:31 AM
Thank you for posting this, Nadia. It speaks somewhat to where I am these days.
Posted by: Clare | February 01, 2010 at 09:22 AM
Wow, I really needed to read this! I recently found out that a lot of the stuff from my past has affected the way I treat others, and sometimes I do things that's unhelpful. Thank you for reminding me that my value comes from God, not the approval of man.
Posted by: Travis Mamone | February 01, 2010 at 12:51 PM
Fantastic; it really highlights a lot of what I've been wrestling with in discussion on my blog as well.
Thanks for this, Jim!
Posted by: The WayWard Follower | February 02, 2010 at 09:45 AM
For the record: My parents loved that I knew the answers in Sunday School!
Posted by: Nadia | February 03, 2010 at 04:07 AM
This is the best sermon I've seen on this passage ever, and for me that means over fifty years.
Posted by: Ray Graumlich | February 04, 2010 at 03:59 PM
Well stated. Thanks for a great read and some much needed clarity.
Posted by: Kathleen | February 06, 2010 at 10:11 AM
Many thanks for the thoughts - I immediately thought of the workshop yesterday in Tempe with John Shelby Spong - and his thoughts on loving wastefully as a purpose in life. He said that we can't keep love - it goes away if we don't give it away. And if we give it away, we get it back over and over. Wonderful insights on Paul and what he was really saying!
Posted by: Andy Wangstad | February 21, 2010 at 03:50 PM
wow.
And House for All. Wow.
I can usually breeze a tightly-crafted essay into a passing text window, and maybe later, but for now...
...wow.
Posted by: pat wehren | March 08, 2010 at 12:56 AM