Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Songs have been written to cover just about every topic imaginable, but there is one subject that seems to be the most popular: A crazy, little thing called love. It is estimated that more than 100 million love songs have been recorded. The variety of love songs is staggering as they appear in all genres. The songs tell us that love is all we need and that we will do anything for love. Yet most of these songs do not actually define love, they won’t do that. There are some that give some definition. Tina Turner cynically asked “what’s love got to do with it, and defined love as a secondhand emotion. Other songs are a bit more positive and assure us that love will never give you up, never let you down, and never hurt you. Singers of all varieties love to crone about love and hit the high notes when they proclaim, “I will always love you”, but they rarely actually say what love is. On the one hand, perhaps they do not need to. Perhaps they do not need to define love, because on some level we know what love is. Love is less something we explain and define and more something we feel on a deep level-which is why it is such a good topic for songs. Yet on the other hand, how we use words matter and definitions are important. Love is a kind of hard word to define in English, because of how the word is used. English has more than 170,000 words. It is one of the languages with the most words in active use in the world, yet we use the word love in a lot of different contexts. We use the word love to define the attraction and connection between two people. We use the world love to define how we relate to the divine, and we use the word love to describe how we feel about pizza. Because we do not ever define the word well, it does lose some of its meaning. Grammy winning song writer Jimmy Webb points this out in his book Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting. Where he wrote about love that the word is “overused and has no good rhymes.” Despite the fact it is overused, especially in songs, I think Jackie DeShannon was right when she sang “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” If that is true, then it is important to define just what this world needs. It is important to answer the question, “What is love?” And this morning’s scripture goes a long way in helping us do just that. There is a decent chance that you have heard this scripture before, because this is the go-to scripture for weddings. It makes sense, and it kind of works. After all, if a newlywed couple treated each other with love as it is described in this scripture then they would be off to a great start. However, this morning’s scripture is not about weddings. This morning’s scripture is part of the same general thought that started in 1 Corinthians 12 and continues into 1 Corinthians 14. The past two weeks we explored 1 Corinthians 12, as a reminder and to get us all on the same page. The church of Corinth had a question about spiritual gifts. While we do not know the exact question, we can infer from Paul’s writings that it had something to do with some gifts being more important or special than others. Specifically, we get the idea that there were some in the Corinthians church who seemed to believe that those who spoke in tongues or prophesied were somehow better than those who did not. Paul really tries to emphasize this is not the case. He points out that all spiritual gifts come from the Holy Spirit to accomplish God’s purposes, and he points out that the church is like a body where all fulfill their role, and all roles are needed and equally important. From there he turns to this morning’s scripture, to teach the Corinthians the most excellent way. The point that Paul makes is that the most amazing spiritual gifts are not worth much if our motivation is not in the right place. The church of Corinth desired these charismatic, exciting outward manifestations of the holy spirit, but Paul is urging them to instead desire an inward change. Their faith is not defined by the outward stuff they can do, but rather by a changed heart, a heart defined by love. Thankfully, Paul then goes on to define love. In just a couple of verses he does a much better job than most love songs at telling us what love is. Paul describes love as an entity and gives it characteristics. Love is not this independent thing, but rather it is an internal attitude that impacts and effects our thoughts and actions. So by describing the characteristics of love, Paul is telling us how love should impact and influence our thoughts and actions. Love should lead us to being patient and kind. It is out of love that we should refrain from being envious, being blinded by pride, or act in anger towards others. Love should motivate us to protect others, and love should be a source of strength in our life that keeps our hope from wavering and enables us to preserve, because we know love never fails. This kind of perfect love that Paul describes is the very love that God has for us. God proved this love to us through Jesus. On the night he gave himself up for us, Jesus met with his closest disciples in an upper room. The gospel of John records he told them many things including Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.” One of the disciples who was in the room that night used this experience to give their own definition of love in the epistle that he wrote. In 1 John 3:16 he wrote: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his lie for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” Love is Jesus Christ crucified. It is through the cross we see the perfect love of God displayed. A love that does not keep record of wrongs but blots our sins, transgressions, and iniquities. A love that is kind beyond measure, a love that is not self-seeking but fully selfless, a love that perseveres, and a love that never, ever fails. This morning’s scripture defines love, and the mighty acts of Jesus Christ prove this love. Love, as defined by this morning’s scripture is not just a poetic word. It is not just a theoretical or ethereal concept. Love is an attitude of the heart that inspires us to action. Jesus himself was clear about what kind of actions we should be motivated towards. He said the greatest command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. He said the second command is like it to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus demonstrated this love. He demonstrated his love for God by being obedient to God to death, even death on a cross. He demonstrated his love for neighbors by laying down his life both for his friends and for the whole world. The love that Jesus put into action, was the perfect love of God and one of the final points that Paul makes in this scripture, is that we too can love in this way. After Paul defines love so well in verses 4-7, the scripture does seem to take a bit of a turn. Verses 10 and 11 state: “but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” In this morning’s scripture Paul ties maturity to perfection and perfection to love. This connection between maturity, perfection, and love was one that fascinated John Wesley, the found of the Methodist movement. It was a connection that he saw repeated throughout the scripture. In our United Methodist tradition, we believe that faith is not a static thing, but through the Holy Spirit working in our lives our faith grows and matures. As our faith matures, it transforms and changes us to the point where we reach Christian perfection. Christian perfection does not mean we are flawless. There can still be missteps, bad connections and accidental fumbles. Christian perfection is when we truly and fully love God with all of our being, we truly and fully love our neighbor as ourself, and we willfully do not sin. Christian perfection is when we learn to love perfectly. Christian perfection is when the definition of love that Paul gives in this morning’s scripture is also a description of who we are. One of the things we still believe that we got from John Wesley is that Christian perfection is not a theoretical ideal. This is not some sort of impossible standard that we will never reach, but that this is a reality we can live into. About loving others, Jesus said in Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect.” Jesus would not have told us this if it were not possible. So we believe that Christian perfection is a level of maturity we can reach. Not only can we achieve it, but we should strive for it and make it our goal. This is the same the point that Paul made for the Corinthians in this morning’s scripture. They were desiring flashy spiritual gifts, but Paul urged them to not strive for these gifts but to strive for love. The Corinthians wanted outward manifestations of the Holy Spirit, but Paul urges them to desire an inward change. This morning’s scripture urged the Corinthians and us to pursue a perfect love that will change us from the inside out, that will bring us to maturity, and that will lead us to fully love God and love neighbors just like Jesus did. Jesus gives us the perfect example of perfect love to follow. He loved sacrificially, and we can do the same. Jesus sacrificed his life for the whole world, but we can follow the example of Jesus without going to the same scale as Jesus. Instead of the whole world, we can start with one person at a time. Instead of giving our lives like Jesus did, we can offer up what we have. We can sacrificially give of our resources, not just our excess, but we can share what we have to provide for those who do not have. We can sacrificially give of our time to meet the needs in the world around us. We can also sacrifice our assumptions, our comfort, our belief that our viewpoint is always the right one so that we better have empathy, we can better have compassion for, and we can want mercy for people who might be different than we are. In following the example of Jesus and relying on the empowerment of the holy spirit we can become perfect in love. This morning’s scripture lays out the most excellent way. It succeeds where many love songs fall short, and it defines love. May we desire that the Holy Spirit works in our life so that we may be perfected in love. May we pursue Christian perfection, not as a theoretical goal but as, by the grace of God, an achievable transformation of our hearts and lives. May truly and fully love God with all of our being. May we truly and fully love our neighbors. Friends, the Beatles really were right. All the world needs is love, and may we be the ones to show it to them what love is.
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