Love
Text: 1 Corinthians 13
February 14, 2010
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
Today is Valentine’s Day and it seems most appropriate to talk about love.
Valentine’s Day is one of those days when if you have people who love you in life, it’s great; and if you don’t, it’s a day that sets people off ranting. It can be a sweet day if you have a special someone to share it with; or a day when people might be reminded, almost cruelly, that, at the moment, they don’t have a special someone. If business is good, Valentine’s Day can be a great day for people who sell flowers. If you’ve ever lost a loved one near Valentine’s Day the purchasing of flowers is twice as expensive making the experience all the more painful.
And, of course, if you go out to eat on Valentine’s Day there are always “Valentine’s Day Specials,” which promise to cost more than average.
So, now that I have everyone suitably depressed about Valentine’s Day, we can start the sermon.
We have all heard the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. Most people, if there was a poll as to favorite piece of Scripture, would probably include 1 Corinthians 13 and the 23rd Psalm in their list. It is a Scripture used often at weddings and even at funerals. The words of St. Paul, about love, are classic and beautiful words. There is a cosmic elegance to the words he uses them and Paul’s statements about love are universally true. We know those words and we strive to live those words. To really get what St. Paul is driving at, however, we need to see what he is saying in context, something we rarely do with this passage.
The Corinthian church was a mess. It was a church badly divided and highly conflicted. There were theological, political, and economic divisions that were seriously dividing the church. Paul’s letter was a letter with one main agenda. His goal was to get people re-connected with one another, or, maybe better said, even connected in the first place. His premise was to unite a divided church.
In the course of his letter he writes of spiritual gifts and that everyone has some spiritual gifts to offer. There are, however, three that everyone needs to have, faith, hope, and, most importantly, love. 1 Corinthians 13 is a statement on the spiritual gift of love.
Paul’s words on love are universal words. They are not words specifically for people in committed relationships to each other, but they apply. They are not words specifically for parents and children, but they apply. They are not words specifically for friendship, but they apply. The words of Paul apply to people as community of faith or individually. They are words meant on interacting with family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers. They are even words meant for interacting with people we may not like.
There are three points that St. Paul is making that I want to focus on. The first aspect of love that is an over-riding aspect is that love is respectful of others.
If we read the words from verses 4-7 this becomes readily apparent:
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.
I’ve often thought about this and how easy it is to become disrespectful of others. I’ve done it, and I’m sure most everyone has done it.
I love the use of disclaimers, like using disclaimers make things okay.
Sometimes we’ll say something like, “With all due respect,” and then show a complete lack of respect for a person; presuming of course, by saying, ‘with all due respect,” made it okay.
Or, “I don’t mean to offend you, but,” and then they offend you.
Or, “I really shouldn’t be saying this, but,” and then they say it.
My favorite, of course, is when people say, “I say this in all Christian love,” and then they eviscerate whoever they were speaking to.
The premise of course is this. If you say a disclaimer, you can be as disrespectful as you want to be. This is, of course, completely bogus. Love is patient and kind. Patience and kindness demands we be respectful of others. It doesn’t matter if they are a spouse or partner, child, friend, relative, classmate, church-mate, stranger on the street. Paul’s words yell out to us to be patient and kind. It means that whoever we meet in life, whoever we interact with, is a person we must treat with respect. That is what the mandate of love means.
A second thing is this. Love, real love, is humble in nature.
Whenever I used to read this passage I used to wonder about a part of it that seemed to be disconnected from the rest of the chapter:
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.
Paul is making an observation about our ability to know. His observation is this. Our ability to know is very limited. We see as in a mirror, dimly. He goes on to reference things from the perspective as a child and as an adult.
Sometimes Sunday School teachers hear some interesting perspectives from children.
A Sunday School teacher was describing that when Lot's wife looked back at Sodom she turned into a pillar of salt, when Bobby interrupted. "My mommy looked back once while she was driving," he announced, "and she turned into a telephone pole."
Another Sunday School teacher said to her children, "We have been learning about how powerful the kings and queens were in Biblical times. But there is a higher power. Who can tell me what it is?" Tommy blurted out, "I know, Aces."
Lot again... A father was reading Bible stories to his young son. He read, "The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city, but his wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt."
His son asked, "What happened to the flea?"
These are amusing and we laugh at the funny questions children ask about God and the Bible. But, ponder this. These children are us compared to God. The knowledge we have is feeble. In the Book of Job, when Job wants to know why all these terrible things happened to him, God’s response to Job was to humble Job. We do not stand on equal footing with God.
The last thing I want to add to this are also words of St. Paul. Paul says that love never ends. Love is known by its endurance.
Giacomo Puccini was the great composer of operas like Madame Butterfly, La Boheme. He was rather young and contracted cancer, but he chose to spend his last days writing his final opera, Turandot, arguably, his most polished piece.
When his friends and disciples would say to him, “You are ailing, take it easy and rest.” He would always respond, “I’m going to do as much as I can on my piece and it’s up to you, my friends, to finish it if I don’t.”
Well, Puccini died before the opera was completed. Now his friends had a choice. They could forever mourn their friend and return to life as usual or they could build on his melody and his genius and complete what he had started.
They chose the latter.
So in 1926, La Scala Opera House in Milan, Turandot was performed for the first time. The famous Arturo Toscanini conducted.
In the middle of second act, Toscanini stopped everything, turned around with tears welling up in his eyes, and said to the crammed opera house,” This is where the maestro ends. He wept.
But then, after a few moments, he lifted his head, smiled broadly, and said, “And this is where his friends began,” raising the baton, and he finished the opera.
The legacy of the love and friendship of others helped finish the opera. Their love of their friend, and his love of them had a sense of endurance to it.
Ultimately, we are told to love everyone as brothers and sisters in Christ because we are not wise enough not to. If we want any chance of understanding God, at all, we need to learn to stand humbly before each other and love one another and do so with endurance.
Today is Valentine’s Day, a day about love. So let’s do it and love one another as Christ loves us.
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