Title: Divine Love

Scripture: I Corinthians 13: 1-13

2/1/04 Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Rev. Joy R. Haertig

I Corinthians 13 is believed to be a hymn or a piece of liturgy because of its lyrical flow. (I have recently learned that it was probably not written by Paul, but quoted by him.)  Most of us have heard this particular passage so many times that we often no longer hear it, or we only hear it used at weddings so we miss its broader message as a call to spiritual/emotional maturity within any form of human community.  

If you listen to Paul's description, you can get a sense about what kind of behavior is going on in the family of God, and it sounds fairly dysfunctional.  

If “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude”, then you can bet that there was a lot of impatience, jealously, boasting and bossing going on!

Perhaps the church at Corinth might have some candidates for the next “Survivor” show!

Perhaps it is the “survivor” part of our nature that gets us into conflicts such as the one that Paul is trying to address.  

I ran across a quote this week from author Deborah Tannen from her book The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words.  Her thesis is that the media, especially, trains us to frame everything in categories, most often either/or categories, because there is more interest and energy in conflict.  This is the exact opposite of what we know in Christ.

Paul believes that for those in Christ, God, is a life-force. You can easily replace the word “God” for love in this passage.  

God is patient

God is kind.

God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

God does not insist on its own way.

God does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.

God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love in this way, is not a virtue or a skill or a subjective feeling.  It is an objective and motivating Presence that wants to move through us and remove our need to act or speak out of fear.  We must make a conscious choice to be open to that presence, to participate in it.  And though love is not a skill, it is helpful to learn some skills to help us participate in Divine Love.

In order for Divine Love to flow through our lives, first and foremost, we must take care of ourselves.  It won't flow through us if we work 70 hours a week or not get the rest we need or allow people to take advantage of us or ignore our need for quiet, play or exercise.

 

Secondly, one must intentionally nurture a relationship with God through prayer, reading and community.  As we do this we come to understand the centrality of Love as a motivating factor in the use of our skills and gifts.  Without love, benevolence becomes egotism.  Without love, music is no more than notes on a page; a patient is no more than a body in a chair.

One of the goals of Christianity is to help our hearts be shaped in such a way that we have an active interest in the wellbeing of others and that this compassion and concern for justice grow steadily larger.  

Have you ever had a conversation with someone that you knew wasn't really listening but was just busy forming what they were going to say next?  Consider what a different experience it is when you know the other person is really listening to you and clearly cares about what you are saying.  

While Fran and I were on a walk the other day she told me about an experience she had a number of years ago with a neighbor named Nancy.  Fran was getting ready to do a project in the garage when her neighbor came over to talk.  At first Fran was a little put out, she had wanted to work on her project, not talk.  But she decided to let it go and focus her attention on Nancy.  Nancy seemed so happy to be visiting and Fran listened closely to what she had to share.  After a while Nancy returned home and Fran returned to her project.  She still remembers, after all these years, the feeling of love that welled up inside of her after her neighbor left.  She was glad she had set aside her plans.

Writer Robert C. Morris proclaims that when we choose to participate in this kind of Love in our daily lives, that “the tyranny of our individual preferences is challenged.”  

Paul believes we CAN learn the demands and the disciplines of Love, the more we open our hearts and minds to Divine Love.  

Remember when we were children and our parents taught us three important things to do before we crossed a street?  “Stop, look and listen”, they said.  A spiritual teacher of our time, Harold Klemp, suggests three questions we can ask ourselves before we speak or act: 1. Is it true? 2. Is it kind? 3. Is it necessary?  Three basic and life-saving measures in learning the disciplines of love.

The love we know in Christ is counter to the often-destructive ways of relating we practice.  As we prepare to share at the Lord's table, may we find strength to keep seeking to understand and live the demands and disciplines of God's love regardless of what others might be doing around us.  Amen.