All You Need is Love
Love: The Greatest Characteristic
1 Corinthians 13: 4-8a, 13
Whoever thought love could be such a lucrative business? Retailers, that’s who! According to the National Retail Federation, the average amount spent on Valentine’s Day is $134/person in 2014, with a total spent for the holiday of $17 billion dollars. That number is expected to be higher in 2015. After all, nothing is going down in price except gasoline, and who knows when that might start going up again. Do we really show love by spending money? If Valentine’s Day is any indication, we certainly seem to think so. Valentine’s Day is the second largest Hallmark holiday, and it has, unfortunately, become the world’s definition of love—emotional, romantic, (dare I say?) erotic, and sometimes, downright corny
The Bible talks a lot about love, too, but it’s not the type of love the world talks about or that we celebrate on Valentine’s Day. Actually, the Bible says that love is the greatest characteristic we can exhibit as those who seek to be disciples of Jesus Christ. We find the Bible’s most compelling explanation of love in what is called the “Love” chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. We hear this passage recited at weddings, when man and woman stand before God and the congregation to pledge their love to one another, and though this passage is speaking of some emotional, romantic feeling that we have at weddings. Listen to the passage as the Apostle Paul writes it to the Corinthian Christians:
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
We are easily confused when it comes to the whole issue of love. Much of it has to do with the way we use the word. It is such an interchangeable word. We love our car. We love our job. We love our family. We love our church. We love going to the beach. We love our new hairstyle. We say things like, “Oh, I love how that new dress looks on you!” Or, “I just love how the light brings out the color of that painting.” The long and short of it is that we love everything, and in reality, we end up not loving very much at all.
As Paul writes, we need to understand that the Corinthian Christians were confused, too. That’s why Paul was writing—to correct their misunderstanding of what it means to love. Of course, much of Paul’s letter is spent correcting their understanding of a lot of issues. Corinth was a diverse city, and the church at Corinth reflected that diversity. The church was an odd mix of Jew and Greek, slave and free, rich and poor, and that fact alone was bound to raise tensions among them. Paul addresses sex and marriage, lawsuits, incest, food sacrificed to idols, and worship in the church. Now, he turns his attention to the issue of love.
The Corinthians knew what love was. Actually, they had a couple of different words they used regularly to communicate the idea of love. First, there was the word they used to communicate romantic love. There’s a little town south of here. It’s the place I served my first full-time appointment. The name of the town is Eros, and every year, thousands of people send their Valentine’s Day cards to Eros, LA to be postmarked to their sweetheart. That’s because Eros is the Greek word that indicates erotic or romantic love. Another word they would be familiar with communicated the idea of “brotherly” love—rather like a fond affection. That’s why Philadelphia is called the city of brotherly love. Its name is derived from this Greek word.
Paul uses a different word when he writes of love. He uses a new word for a new idea, and it’s a word not used outside the New Testament. The Corinthians didn’t quite get it. Sometimes, I think we don’t either. The word Paul uses is a?a?a?, and the shades of meaning that lie behind the word are sacrificial, self-denial, and unconditional.
Jesus used the word, too. In John’s Gospel, after the resurrection, Jesus comes along the seashore and calls the disciples who are out fishing. They get to shore and Jesus has cooked them breakfast. After breakfast, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” And, Jesus uses the word Paul uses. Do you love me sacrificially?
Peter responds, “Of course, I love you,” but uses the word that means brotherly love. “Yes, Lord, I have a brotherly affection for you.”
Jesus asks again, “Peter do you love me?” Again, Jesus uses agapao, to which Peter responds with brotherly affection.
Finally, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you even love me with a brotherly affection?” Peter responds the same way a third time.
We could unpack all the reasons Peter answered the way he did, but the point is that Peter wanted the “feel-good” relationship with Jesus, but what Jesus was asking for was the sacrificial, self-denying kind of relationship that is rooted in the will as much as in the emotions. That’s the same kind of love he asks from us. It’s the same kind of love we’re supposed to have for our spouse and children. It’s the same kind of love that we’re supposed to have for others. It’s not the kind of love the world is very familiar with.
The world says love is up to us, that love is strictly about a relationship between human beings. We sing about it in our songs. The Beatles classic All You Need is Love tells us it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, or what you’ve done, all you need is love. Love makes everything right. And, Dionne Warwick sang What the World Needs Now is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing there’s just too little of. Both seem to indicate if we just love each other enough, if we just “feel good” about everybody, then everything will be alright.
The Bible teaches that love is other-worldly. 1 John 4:8 says, “God is love.” Love as Jesus and Paul proclaimed in the New Testament is rooted in the nature and character of God. It’s more than a touchy feely, emotional fond affection. It is deeply sacrificial and fully self-denying. That’s the love that transforms the world, and it’s the love that will transform us. The world will never be a better place without the love of God. When we experience God’s love then we learn how to love others, for this love is a fruit of the Spirit.
The world also says, “We fall into and out of love.” The world says that love come and goes, that it diminishes over time—it just happens. Again, our music reflects this philosophy. Taylor Swift is good at writing these kinds of songs with You Belong with Me, or Begin Again. Elvis sang I Can’t Help Falling in Love, and the Righteous Brothers sang You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling. Man! I’m showing my age, aren’t I? There are a lot of songs today we call “love” songs. They’re really not. They’re “lust” songs. They’re all about the romantic, or the erotic—all about the physical. In contrast, the Bible says, “Love perseveres, is patient, and it grows.”
The world says love is when you think your husband is as handsome as Tom Cruise, as amusing as Rodney Dangerfield, as intellectual as Albert Einstein, as devout as Billy Graham and as athletic as Hulk Hogan. The Bible says love is realizing your husband is as handsome as Albert Einstein, as intellectual as Hulk Hogan, as devout as Tom Cruise, as athletic as Rodney Dangerfield, as amusing as Billy Graham, and you love him anyway. Biblical love is the greatest characteristic because it is rooted in God’s love, and because it grows deeper and wider with time. It doesn’t, as Paul says, pass away.
The world tells us love is getting what we need in a relationship. The Bible says love is self-denying. John 15:13 says, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” That’s the love Jesus Christ showed to us on the cross. It was the ultimate love—the ultimate sacrifice—the ultimate self-denial.
St. Valentine knew this kind of love. Have you heard his story? I’m sure you have, but let me remind you anyway. As the story goes, Valentinus was a Roman in the 3rd Century who protected Christians from persecution during the reign of the Roman emperor Claudius II. Valentinus was arrested, ironically enough, for breaking Christians out of prison. He converted to Christianity while in prison and was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs, stoned and finally beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate on February 14, 269. After his death, this gate was known as Porta Valentini. While he was in prison he sent messages to his friends saying, "Remember your Valentine!" and "I love you." On the night before he was executed, he sent a note to the jailer’s daughter, whom he had especially befriended, and he signed that note, “From your Valentine!” Valentine gave himself in sacrifice for others. He demonstrated the greatest characteristic—love in the biblical sense. What a shame that Hallmark and Hollywood have coopted the concept of love, and we’ve come to accept it as something totally other than it was ever meant to be.
So, here’s the challenge. Find ways to show biblical love this Valentine’s Day. I mean, guys, go ahead and buy the roses and the candy. You’ll be sorry if you don’t, but what way can you live more sacrificially toward your spouse? What time can you give up to serve in your community or in this congregation? Remember, it isn’t love until it costs us something. When love is costly, when love is about giving something up, when love is about surrendering our will to that of another, then we can sing with John, Paul, Ringo and George, All You Need is Love, and there’ll be meaning and transformation. What will you do? It’s up to you! Amen!
