I Corinthians 13 2nd in series 3/8/09
Without a doubt, I Corinthians 13 is the most popular scripture of them all to be read at weddings. It is indeed a beautiful hymn to love, but I think it is a dangerous piece of scripture to read as two people take their vows to love one another till death do them part because it sets up too many false expectations as to what love will be like.
In the glow of that moment, they may take it all a bit too seriously. They may actually believe that that is how their partner is always going to love them -- that dirty clothes on the floor or how you squeeze the toothpaste won't ever be a serious issue.
But the unfortunate truth is that you don't have to be married very long to discover that your spouse is not always patient and kind - that they don't always bear everything in a spirit of gentleness -- and neither do you.
The truth is the kind of love this passage describes is NOT how the people we love the most always love us. It is not how we always love them. If we are being honest, we are frequently jealous and rude and all too often we DO want our own way.
So this passage has a tendency to leave us feeling just a little disappointed in other people and more than a little guilty about ourselves. It just doesn't ring true. It doesn't sound like the kind of love we know and experience. It sounds instead like a beautiful fantasy, a perfect dream world, than an accurate description of how love gets played out in our day to day lives.
So we read it at weddings and say that's nice. Then we forget all about it and go back to dealing with the way things are.
But perhaps we're missing the real meaning of the passage. Perhaps it's not so much about the way we love each other as it is about the way God loves us - because God loves us unconditionally. He is there saying I love you. I am committed to you. I will always be there no matter what.
That is what God offers us. That is what Christ showed us -- God's love reaching out to us, no matter what - no matter if we are sinner or saint - no matter if we are a poor woman caught in adultery or a Pharisee seeking the way to the kingdom of God - no matter if we are a tax collector cheating both the people and the government or a rich ruler whose only daughter is dying. God's love is there for us - whoever we are, whatever we have done. Unconditional love.
God does not say "I'll love you if." He does not say "I'll love you when." He does not tell us "I'll love you but first you must meet the following conditions." God just loves us, exactly the way we are, right now.
But how does this message of love fit in with all the sermons we have ever heard about the requirements of discipleship? Don't these two concepts - unconditional love and discipleship - contradict one another? Isn't God more of a hard taskmaster than a lover and a friend? Doesn't He demand that we change -- that we become perfect even as He is perfect?
No. God's love for us never wavers, but it is also true that His love calls us to a vision of wholeness and discipleship that is quite different from the way we live our lives now. God's love calls us to change -- to accept a new vision of all our lives can be. Our journey toward that new vision is our response to His love. It is not a prerequisite for it.
No, rather God's love is always there, patient and kind, gentle and forbearing, as we attempt to live out His vision for our lives. He does not give up on us because we are slow learners or because we fail to trust Him and move out in faith. I don't think anything illustrates this more than the story of Israel's journey in the wilderness. That story shows us as nothing else can, God's great love and His unending patience with us as a people.
There they were - the tribes of Israel. God had rescued them from slavery in Egypt. He had led them across the Red Sea. He had provided manna from heaven and water from a rock. He had seen to the people's every need and led them by a cloud at day and a pillar of fire by night. Yet the people never seemed to be satisfied. It was never enough.
At every opportunity, there they were, complaining about their lot in life and about the way God was treating them. At every opportunity they turned away from the Lord, rebelling against Him, breaking His laws, refusing to listen to His prophets. They were doing a perfect impression of a 15 year old!
But God was always there, calling the people back to Him, surrounding them with His love and protection -- always patient.
And so He is with us. Patiently waiting when we get off track, giving us guidance and calling us back to Himself, but never giving up on us, no matter how far a field we go. God is there - loving us.
And God is not only patient, but He is gentle and kind. I see this best in the pictures we are given of Jesus -- a man who called the children to come and sit on His lap while He talked with them a while and told them a story. A man with strong hands built for rough work, yet hands that were always reaching out in a gentle, healing touch.
One day, Jesus was traveling when suddenly a leper appeared -- a man whose body was scarred and disfigured by a terrible disease -- a man declared unclean and forced to live alone without any human contact or touch.
This man fell on his knees before Jesus and begged "If you want to, You can heal me." And Christ looked at Him with all the longing in His heart and said, "Of course I want to. Be healed." And He reached out and He touched him. He touched the untouchable and made him whole.
And so He looks at us today and He reaches out with gentleness and love, longing to touch that part of us that we believe to be untouchable - longing to make us whole.
When my soul is troubled and I feel most helpless and most alone, it is to that kind and gentle God I go for healing and for comfort -- just as a small child goes to its mother and asks to be held and rocked until the hurt is soothed away. And God is always there in those moments to enfold me in arms of gentleness.
God's love for us is patient and kind.
But it is also a tough love - a love that does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right - a love that can be stern - a love that lets us know the limits and pulls us back when we want to go beyond them -- a love that will not stand still if we choose to hurt ourselves or others around us - a love that can get angry with a righteous anger -- a love that showed itself when Christ took a whip and cleaned out the temple -- a love that wept over Jerusalem because she did not know the things that make for peace - but a love that will never turn its back and just walk away no matter how much it is hurting.
This love of God bears all things. It believes all things. It endures all things. Nothing we can ever do will turn God's love for us aside.
I think that perhaps that is one of the most difficult things for us to believe - it may, in fact, be the real struggle of faith - to believe that God loves us and to understand that His love is not a reward for good behavior but is instead undeserved grace.
But once we begin to accept that, to believe that God loves us no matter what, we can begin to love ourselves - to treat ourselves with patience and gentleness instead of always insisting that we do everything perfectly - insisting that we should never fail - insisting that we should never show a sign of weakness.
And if we can allow ourselves weakness -- and yes, even failure - then we can begin to understand when other people are weak. We can understand how they can fail us.
As we begin to love ourselves, to treat ourselves with understanding and kindness, then -- and only then - can we truly begin to love and accept those around us.
So finally we come to look at this passage as we normally see it, as a passage that teaches us how we are to love other people, because now we can see how it is possible. We can love others like this because we know it is how we are loved by God. And when we know how much we are loved, we can risk reaching out to others.
We can make the commitment to love them - perhaps imperfectly - but willing to try, willing to learn, willing to care, not just with our emotions, but with our whole selves.
