“Love is a Verb”
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
I have read this passage of Scripture at every wedding over which I have presided.
It’s practically an anthem for Christian Weddings in the Western World.
It’s often printed on napkins and programs, even balloons.
It’s read for two people who love one another and are dedicating their lives to one another.
This is interesting, though, when you think about it because Paul was writing this in response to the opposite kind of situation.
He was writing it to a group of people who didn’t love one another or at the very least, weren’t acting as if they loved one another.
And so, unlike a wedding ceremony, Paul isn’t writing this to affirm something that is already present in the community.
He’s writing it as a way to introduce the community to what is necessary if they are going to survive, thrive, and be the Christian Church.
The Church at Corinth or the Corinthian Church was made up of very diverse people.
It was made up of people who broke the traditional boundaries of ethnicity, gender, age, rank, social status and life situation.
They were married and unmarried men and woman as well as widows and children.
While most members were converted Gentiles, this church was also made up of converted Jews.
And some of these Jewish members were powerful people who served as former synagogue leaders, like Crispus who is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 1:14 and Acts 18:8 and Sosthenes who is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 1:1 and Acts 18:17.
Most of the members were from the lower classes but some were from the upper class.
Erastus, for example, was the city treasurer of Corinth and Gaius had enough money to support Paul and the entire church.
Some of the members were slaves and others were free.
And sadly, the diversity within the Corinthian Church dissolved into discord and rivalries.
Members divided into cliques and contentious groups.
They had lawsuits going on among themselves, and they disagreed on how to deal with food that had been sacrificed to idols and the freedom Christ offers.
They were also in competition with one another over who had the best and most important spiritual gifts.
Those who spoke in tongues thought they were superior to those who didn’t.
Those who had the gift of prophecy, were knowledgeable, and appeared to have the strongest faith out of the bunch were holding these things over the heads of others and using their gifts to prop themselves up, rather than help others, and those who were generous bragged about it.
And Paul is making it clear that things like being right or powerful or honored or generous, or strong in faith, or smart or popular or whatever don’t mean a thing—are worthless really if the person does not have love.
As a matter of fact, it would be better to have love than to even have faith and hope.
Because even faith and hope are worthless if they don’t accompany love.
Yes, the Corinthian Church was a rough and tumble bunch.
They were not united.
They were a community that was fragmented and fighting rather than being enriched by their differences and diversity.
Yet, Paul is very firm on the fact that their diversity is non-negotiable.
God has called this Church to be diverse and to love one another and be stronger because of their differences because, in God’s eyes, diversity is a good thing.
So, Paul’s amazing Chapter on Love was not written to celebrate the unifying love that this community already had for one another.
It was a call to action.
It wasn’t a tribute to what is, but it is an instruction manual on what is supposed to be.
1 Corinthians 13 is arguably one of the most popular passages of Scripture in the entire Bible, but set in its original context it would have made this church angry.
The point was not to make the reader feel comfortable but challenged.
So, let’s allow this passage to challenge us this morning as well.
Because if we are honest about it none of us have reached the heights of love that Paul talks about.
All of us have room to grow, and I’m preaching to myself here.
We often fight about things that don’t get to the core of the teachings of Jesus.
We disagree on disputable and splinter over disputable matters.
We argue about different political perspectives.
We disagree on the causes and extent of climate change, and who can and should be accepted fully and equally into our group.
We get mad if we don’t sing our favorite songs.
We fight over lots of things.
Some of us could even be called
“spiritual snobs.”
We might think we are more Christian than other members and our job is to put the rest of the group in their place.
We often find it hard to agree on many things and the world is watching, and the world is unimpressed.
So, what hope is there, for the Church with a capital “C”, and also for local churches?
What can hold together such a diverse group of Christians with so many different points of view?
The culture and the world would probably answer that “nothing can keep us together.”
It seems to them that Jesus’ friends simply choose sides and divide over contentious issues.
The Bible calls us to a different way.
We are called not to divide and isolate ourselves from those with whom we disagree.
God, instead, calls us to love one another, wholeheartedly and unconditionally, the way God loves us.
That was Jesus’ last command to us: “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this people will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
And so the love we have for one another is supposed to look like a cross.
It is self-sacrificing.
It is self-giving.
It is humble.
It’s not just some cute subject of a Valentine’s Day card.
It’s a collection of intentional actions.
In verses 4-7, Paul offers a rich description of the kind of love he is talking about.
However, what most of our English translations fail to capture is that all these descriptions are verbs, not the adjectives with which they are often translated.
So, these descriptions might be better translated along the lines of the way Eugene Peterson’s The Message puts it:
“Love never gives up.
Love cares for others more than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut or show off.
Love doesn’t have a swelled head.
Love doesn’t force itself upon others.
Love isn’t about putting ‘me first.’
Love doesn’t fly off the handle.
Love doesn’t keep score of the sins of others.
Love doesn’t celebrate when others grovel.
Love puts up with anything.
Love always trusts God.
Love always looks for the best.
Love keeps going to the end.
Love never dies.”
Then in verses 9-13 Paul tells us that just about everything else in the world has limitations, everything that is, except for love.
In verse 12 Paul says, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
We might think that a mirror gives us a pretty good idea of what things look like, but in Paul’s day mirrors were made out of copper.
It was like looking at your reflection in a spoon or a window or a puddle.
It was not clear.
It was imperfect.
It was only part of the picture.
And that is what we now know about God, about our faith, about the way the world works, about the things we disagree on.
None of us have all the answers.
None of us are completely right.
None of us know God fully or understand God’s mysteries.
But what we can know is that LOVE is the most important thing.
It TRUMPS all!!!
So if we are going to err, we are to err on the side of LOVE!!!
Let God sort out the details, let God be the judge--we don’t see clearly enough to do that ourselves.
And wouldn’t it be nice if we all decided to live this way?
What would the Christian Church look like if we all put love above everything else?
Would the world want to join us in following Christ?
Would not millions upon billions be saved?
A picture is worth a thousand words.
As James, the actual physical flesh and blood brother of Jesus wrote in James Chapter 2: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?
Can such a faith save them?
Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.
If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead.
But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by [what I do].”
On this Mother’s day, how many of us decided to be Christians because we had a Christian mother who lived, to the best of her ability, with the love of Christ in her heart, and in her actions?
My guess is a number of us.
I know that my faith is the faith of my mom.
Now, some of us didn’t have good parental role models, but we decided to follow Christ because we saw His love lived out in somebody else.
And that is what it’s about.
This is how Christians are made.
This is how people are saved.
This is how we make disciples.
Shall we seek to live as if love were an action word as if love were a verb—the most important thing?
Lord God,
We so often get caught up in disagreements about theology, the Bible and what Christianity is really about.
You tell us over and over again that most of all and first of all it is about love.
It is about love for God and for other people—and this love is unconditional, it is patient, it is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoice with the truth.
It always protects, always hopes always perseveres.
Love never fails.
Help us to live into this description of love.
Make us more like You.
This we pray, in Jesus’ name and for His sake.
Amen.
