(1 Corinthians 13: 1-13)
In years past I played a lot of golf. I wasn’t competitive to the point of playing in tournaments or had a regular foursome for weekly golf dates. In fact, I really preferred to play by myself. One year I splurged and bought a membership at the local golf course which allowed me to go out whenever I got the urge, which was quite often. I liked going after work when there weren’t any other golfers on the course to slow me down or get in the way. I’d usually play the front side which all but guaranteed I had the course to myself. I’d start out with three balls and as I moved from hole to hole, I’d find other lost balls and within the span of four or five holes I’d be up to playing ten or twelve balls. If I fanned a seven iron or sliced a drive, I’d drop another ball until I got the shot I liked. By the time I got to the green I’d have about a dozen balls to putt. I was playing against myself and trying to perfect my game so as not to embarrass myself should I play in a group or a tournament. I liked golf, but I didn’t love it. Loving it would have taken more commitment than I had in me, more time, money, and energy than I was willing to devote.
That love that takes a real commitment is what the Apostle Paul is talking about in our scripture reading for this morning. But the kind of love Paul is talking about is not the love of golf, the love you feel for your spouse, your kids, your grandchildren, or your parents. It’s the kind of self-giving love, agape love, which he commends is the context for the “even better way” of exercising our spiritual gifts for the sake of building up Christ’s holy church. A deep and abiding love of Christ and wanting to do all you can to please him.
In the Corinthian love chapter, he’s writing to a church that isn’t clear on the concept of sacrificial love, the love of giving of yourself for greater good without expecting anything in return. He starts out by saying: If I speak in tongues of human beings and of angels but I don’t have love, I’m a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal. He knows that it is this kind of love for others that gives his words credibility and meaning. When he speaks, he speaks from the heart. He knows that without that kind of credibility, his words are just worthless noise to the listener who is sure to sense any insincerity. He continues: If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all the mysteries and everything else, and if I have such complete faith that I can move mountains, but I don’t have love, I’m nothing. You can be the smartest guy on the block, but for Paul, if you don’t have love; it’s really all meaningless. You’re a hollow shirt. He says that even if he gives everything he has away, in an effort to make himself feel better about himself, if he doesn’t have love; it is of no real benefit to him. He may get some thank you notes, maybe an award or a plaque, a gratitude dinner in his honor, but in the end it’s nothing if it doesn’t bring praise, glory, and honor to God. For Paul, love isn’t so much feeling warmly toward others as it is self-sacrificial action for their good. Paul feels that this kind of agape love is more important than all the spiritual gifts exercised in the church body. Great faith, acts of dedication or sacrifice, and miracle-working power produces very little without love. Love makes our actions and gifts useful and meaningful. And, although people have different gifts, love is available to everyone, it’s the glue that binds us as Christians. It’s the fuel that fires and feeds the spirit within us.
Paul then launches into his description of love that you’ve no doubt heard recited at a wedding. I even used it at a wedding I performed last year for a young couple with an eye toward reminding those in attendance how important love was in their relationships and not just this young couple starting out their life together. But Paul isn’t talking about the love between two people entering into a marriage. In describing the kind of love he is talking about, he says: Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. Saying love is patient means we have to do what we do in God’s time, according to God’s plan and timetable. For example, take our Saturday morning Clothes Closet and Food Pantry ministry. This ministry isn’t for everyone. It takes a person who is patient and kind when dealing with the people who come to us for help. I’ve watched how our missionaries interact with those who come to us for assistance, for relief. They are so very patient with the people who come in with all sorts of issues and needs, and there are some that can really try your patience. But they remain friendly and treat them with the utmost kindness and respect. God wants nothing more than for us to be kind and patient with his children, especially those who have fallen on hard times and need to experience a little tenderness. When people come to us for help, we are representing God and Jesus Christ knowing we’ll never get a second chance to make a good first impression, especially when some may have already had a bad experience with one or more churches or Christians. We want to be that good experience. This agape, self-sacrificing love isn’t proud and doesn’t brag about what it does. We’re not rude or arrogant or irritable, and we don’t keep score. In fact, we are extremely unhappy with injustice being the somebodies who do something, who want to be a part of the solution for the sake of others and not ourselves. We are happy with the truth, the truth that Jesus came to save sinners just like us and that his unmerited love is available to all and we’re more than willing to share it. Paul continues by saying: Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things. Because we live in an imperfect world filled with imperfect people, we know that there will always be injustice, inequities, and inequality. But as children of God, as Followers of the Way of Jesus Christ, we don’t sit idly by and tolerate any of it if there is anything within our power to do what it takes to address it in Jesus’ name. Love is action.
Paul closes out this portion of his letter by reminding us that love never fails. Everything he previously mentioned, the prophesies, the tongues, the knowledge, will one day come to an end. They will stop and be no more. They will end when the perfect, when Christ comes in his judgment. And Paul explains that when he was a child he used to speak like a child, he reasoned like a child, and he thought like a child. But now that he is a man, matured in Christ Jesus, he’s put an end to childish things and sees things more clearly, and one day will know all things completely. He ends by saying: Now faith, hope, and love remain, these three things, and the greatest of these is love. This agape, this unselfish and self-giving love, involves service to others. And of this service, faith is the foundation and content of God’s message; hope is the attitude and focus; and love is the action, the implementation of God’s plan for his kingdom. Nothing gets done without the action of love.
So, as the church grows into adulthood, the whole purpose of putting our spiritual gifts into practice is to aid in shaping or reshaping it into God’s publicly visible image. And if a church doesn’t adapt to the changing community all around it the church will cease to be relevant, and people will see Christ as irrelevant. At the present moment, the necessary condition for God to reshape us into the divine image remains faith in fidelity to God, active hope for God’s kingdom to come, and self-sacrificial love put into action. So, ask yourself; Does your faith fully express itself in loving others? If not, you know what you need. All you need is love.
Let us pray.
Living for Jesus a life that is true, striving to please him in all that I do, yielding allegiance, gladhearted and free, this is the pathway of blessing for me. Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, it’s living for Jesus wherever you are, doing each of your Christian duties in his holy name. It’s being willing to suffer affliction or loss and realizing that each trial is a part of the cross you picked up when you decided to follow Jesus. And it’s that living for Jesus during that short time we live here on earth when we seek the lost ones he died to redeem that we treasure his love and bask in the light of his smile as we bring the weary to find their rest in him. Grant us O Lord the self-sacrificing love we need to live a life for your son, our savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.