Text: 1 Corinthians 12:31b-13

Conventional wisdom says you can’t improve on perfection. Some commentators discourage preaching on this text at all. They suggest that the preacher just read the text aloud several times and let it speak for itself. Chip demonstrated the power of this argument by reading so beautifully. In the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, the apostle Paul has come as close as one can to describing love, especially that understanding of love that makes us want to say that God is love.

I said last week that this was sort of a two-part sermon and you would have to come back today for the conclusion. Remember we considered that Paul is writing his letter to a fractious bunch of folk in Corinth, folk who are squabbling over who has the best gifts and who gets to sit at the head of the table and eat first. Paul is appalled at their un-Christ-like arguments and behavior. With deep feeling and brilliant argument, with compassion and eloquence, he tries to help the Corinthian Christians understand the meaning and nature of discipleship. We considered Paul’s pleas for unity in diversity, his argument that all gifts come from God and all are valuable, that it takes all the individual parts working together to be the body of Christ. As a focal example of his argument, he pays special attention to speaking in tongues. It is a gift, but it is a gift that turns one inward. We find in the 14th chapter of this letter Paul insisting that those with this gift keep quiet in public if there is not someone present with the gift of interpretation. That is, for Paul, the community is foremost, and it is only built up when there is clear communication and understanding among the members.

For years I only knew the 13th chapter in isolation. It was the “Love Chapter,” the great stand-alone prose poem, often read at weddings, anniversaries and other special events in which love was to be the focus. It was a work of great beauty that evoked deep sentiment. It wasn’t until I was in seminary that a professor asked us to look at the poem in its context. The 12th chapter, as we have seen, takes on the fussing and fighting in the Corinthian church, the jockeying for position and recognition. All gifts, if they are of the Spirit, are good gifts, according to Paul; gifts to be claimed and honored and cherished. However, he ends the chapter with these crucial words, “Are all apostles?” he asks rhetorically. “Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?” Well, of course not. Then we would all be one part – feet, eyes, hands – and the body wouldn’t be able to function as a whole body. So, he says, “…strive for the greater gifts.” That is, don’t get hung up on a particular gift so that you over value it at the expense of growing in the practice of your faith. There’s more to discipleship than claiming your particular gift and just hanging on for dear life.

And what is the measure of growth in the practice of your faith, your discipleship. Paul says to the self-assured Corinthians, “…I will show you a still more excellent way.” This is the culmination of a careful and clever argument he has been making throughout this letter. Every gift, every practice, every argument of the faith is ultimately superseded by the gift, the practice, the way of love, living love. He has carefully set up his audience to make this very argument about the power of love to override all other gifts, to shape the practice of one’s faith, to infuse and empower all of life.

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels…if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains…if I give away all my possessions, and I hand over my body to be burned…” but don’t have love, it means nothing, folks…nothing! These are not insignificant gifts Paul has been discussing. These are not easy expressions of faith. These are not simple commitments without consequence. So it is a huge thing for Paul to say these are meaningless unless they are grounded in, infused with, empowered by love.

Pause with me for a minute and consider what are your best gifts, what are your best qualities, what are your deepest commitments? What means most to you? Where have you invested your own life? Now pause again to consider the role that love plays in the dimensions of your life you just inventoried. What sort of lover have you been? I don’t mean in the bedroom, I mean in the boardroom, in the classroom, in the office, in your politics, in your leisure, in the practice of your faith, in your own discipleship? Because, harsh as it may seem, if love hasn’t played a central role, we haven’t made it, we haven’t really lived. Our best efforts, our grandest achievements, our most faithful discipleship, our most profound self-giving, is nothing without love.

We have talked before about how often love is tossed around in loose and sentimental ways. I imagine all of us know something about romantic love, about familial love, about love between friends. Again, let’s pause for a minute to consider what the word means. What does it mean to you? What are you saying when you utter the words, “I love…? Thankfully, Paul does not leave us dangling here. He has no intention that his audience be left with some warm fuzzy feelings about a vague, sentimental concept when they consider the living love about which he is talking.

We have four short verses here in the middle of the chapter, a brief paragraph chock so full that it is really overwhelming to try to take it all in at once. I really think we could take this passage apart and spend a day or a week or a long time considering the implications for living love of each phrase. Paul catches us up short at the very beginning. “Love is patient…” Well, how can you rush past that? He begins by urging the living lover to slow down, to learn patience. You don’t rush to judgment, you don’t jump to conclusions, you don’t leap over people or the process needed to understand and be with others.

“Love is kind…” Oh Lord! It just gets harder. What would it take for you to be more kind? How would you be different, how would life be different, how would the world be different if truly grounded in and guided by kindness? I think I’ve shared this story with you before, but it caught me up short in a way I’ve never forgotten when I first heard Rod Romney tell it. It’s the story about the little girl who kneels by her bed and prays, “Dear God, make the bad people good…and the good people kind.” No room for harsh judgment or self-righteousness among living lovers.

“Love is not envious…” We never find ourselves wishing we had what belongs to someone else, do we, whether it be an object, a position, a relationship, a quality? Living lovers are satisfied with what they have, with their own gifts and potentiality. They’re happy to be who God has made them to be and they’re happy for what their family, friends and neighbors have as well.

Love is not “boastful…” We never find ourselves in the position of building ourselves up by making sure that we tell everyone how great we are, what we’ve accomplished, where we’ve been, whom we’ve met. Living lovers know they’re fine as they are; they don’t need to build themselves up or over inflate their value.

Love is not “arrogant…” This is especially challenging for those of us whom circumstance has privileged. No room for “holier-than-thou” among living lovers; no looking down your nose at those with inferior gifts, lesser skills, fewer resources.

Love is not “rude…” Oh you mean, I have to be kind to that snippy sales associate, that idiot who thinks he knows it all, that guy who just cut me off, that kid who bullied me at school? Living lovers bite their tongues before they are inconsiderate to another, even if that other is hard to take and gets right in under the skin. Empathy and compassion, even for the most irritating, seem to be characteristics of living love.

Love does not “insist on its own way…” What? You mean I can’t be selfish and demanding? But what if I’m right and I know I am and the other fools just can’t see? I suppose this is one of those places where “speaking the truth in love” comes into play. According to Norman Pittenger and other Process theologians, love is never demanding. It is persistent in its gentle pull toward truth. True love lures the other; living lovers do not impose their way on the other.

Love is not “irritable…” Well, what if I didn’t get enough sleep? Or my body isn’t working properly? Or he nags at me all the time? Or I’m having a bad hair day? Living love says we can learn to live beyond our irritability, changing not only our own attitude by paying attention to it, but also potentially changing the irritating situation itself. As Gandhi urged his followers, “Be the change you want to see.”

Love is not “resentful…” No, no, not resentment. How can I let go of the resentment I feel for the way he mistreated me, ignored me, neglected me, hurt me? I don’t think Paul is speaking here of too-easy forgiveness or cheap grace. Living love lets go of resentment because its first and foremost victim is the one who holds on to it. Letting go of resentment opens the way to healing of situations and relationships when and if that opportunity presents itself.

Love “does not rejoice in wrongdoing…” Here we are cautioned to be aware of what is right and wrong to begin with. Living lovers, through empathy, are tuned into the rightness or wrongness of a situation. If you know its wrong, you don’t rejoice in it, even if it means the bad guy gets his. The ends don’t just the means when love is involved. No room for “gotcha,” here, for sweet revenge, for delight in malicious mischief or for laughing off little white lies. In his commentary on this phrase, John Short says love “…has no pleasure in reports either of failure on the part of others or of the wickedness they have done. It takes no pleasure in scandal or unedifying gossip.” (John Short, Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 10, p. 180.)

Love “rejoices in the truth…” So then this seems obvious, if I don’t rejoice in wrongdoing, I am free to rejoice in the truth. Living lovers want to believe the best, encourage honesty and goodness and be glad when it is found.

Love “bears all things…” Love is long-suffering, not a doormat, but this goes with patience. Living love characteristically allows us to put up with more than we imagined we could, to wait with the father for the return of the Prodigal while affirming the elder brother, to bear the other’s burden, even to bear a cross as Jesus did.

Love “believes all things…” This does not mean that love is gullible; it means that love is trusting, completely trusting. By trusting, living lovers might actually help others to become trustworthy. William Barclay tells a charming story of a man who became headmaster of British school for boys, a school noted as “a terror and a tyranny.” The headmaster called the boys together and “told them there was going to be much more liberty and much less flogging. ‘You are free, ‘ he said, ‘but you are responsible…I intend to leave you much to yourselves and put you upon your honor, because I believe if you are guarded and watched and spied upon, you will grow up knowing only…fear; and when your liberty is finally given you…. you will not know how to use it.’” When the boys were brought before him, relying on their old excuses and rationalizations for bad behavior, he would say, “Boys if you say so, it must be true – I believe your word.” Eventually there came a time when the boys said, “‘It is a shame to tell Arnold a lie – he always believes you.’ He believed in them and he made them what he believed them to be.” According to Barclay, living love “ennobles even the ignoble by believing the best.”

Love “hopes all things…” Living love is always looking for, anticipating, wanting the best, even when there seems to be no adequate reason to hope. Living lovers hope always that love will make a way precisely where there is no way. Living love gives us the strength to face an uncertain future, hoping always for the coming culture of God.

Love “endures all things…” Living love can endure anything. I went to a memorial service yesterday for a friend who died much too soon. Terry was a classmate in the doctoral program in Religion and Psychology at the Graduate Theological Union. His specialty was working with those struggling with substance abuse and addiction. He was a big-hearted, compassionate man with a ready smile and a winning way. There has been much in the treatment of substance abusers that is harsh and punitive. Trust is a risk; hope is a risk; love is a risk in working with these populations in particular. A couple of things that were said about Terry seem to go to this concern for endurance. First, Terry always saw his clients as persons. Labels like addict, and worse, were dehumanizing and he knew this. Second, his colleagues testified that in case conferences in the treatment setting, his was the voice that always said of some resident or client who had broken the rules and was facing expulsion, “Let’s give her one more chance.” Living lovers have learned to endure, to see beyond the obvious, to hold the hope and speak the belief that love will find a way.

In the end, it is far easier to talk about love than to live it. Living love will take us out of our comfort zones, will challenge our positions of privilege, will call us out of ourselves, will ask us to be present for the least, will want us to speak truth to power, will ask us to let go of enmity and enemies, will call us to say no to war and violence of any sort. Living lovers are peacemakers and workers for justice always, for this is categorically the way of living love.

Well, as I noted earlier, spelling out and living out these four little verses could and should take a long time and lot of work, maybe a lifetime and a life’s work. Paul implies this in the last verses of this chapter. Love never ends. All of our other gifts may come to an end, may outlive their usefulness, may find completion in the coming culture of God, but not love. It goes on and on and on… There is here an understanding that living love is something into which we grow. When we were children, we understood love in the selfish, demanding ways that children often do. Of course, that love was often coupled with sheer trust and pure joy as well, the dimensions of childlikeness that Jesus says we must hold on to, or recover, if we ever hope to inhabit fully the coming culture of God. But there is much of childishness we need to grow beyond. The challenges of living love we just went over are precisely what we need to grow into. I’ve got an inkling of what’s expected of me as a living lover. I have a clouded view of that person, when I take the time to really look at myself. The time is coming, the culture of God is coming, the new creation is coming – in fact, it is close enough that I can already experience it. When it is fully here, I will know and love fully, even as I have been fully known and loved. Now, faith, hope and love abide, and the greatest of these … the most challenging, the most encompassing, the most empowering of these is love, living love.