“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not
envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it
is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices
in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things. Love never fails.”
The only problem with these beautiful words is
that they don’t ring true. “Love never fails.”
I wonder if St. Paul had the foresight to know
that this reading would become the single most popular scripture reading for a
wedding ceremony?
Yet in America today, some reports indicate
that almost half of all marriages end in divorce. Paul writes that love never
fails. Why then does it seem as if love fails about half the time?
Think about it, if “love never fails” then
there would be no country music, and much literature, not to mention film and
television would go away…!
When we read the passage in English, it looks
as if God doesn’t show up in Paul’s definition of love. Which is why I guess it
shows up not only in weddings but in greeting cards, self-help books on Oprah,
and in various “spiritual but not religious” type books like The Four
Agreements all of which tend to make love all about “me, myself, and I.”
But look again.
A quick look at the Greek text of this passage
shows that Paul writes using the word “agape.” Agape is one of the three Greek words for love used in the New
Testament. There is eros or “erotic
love,” and phileo or “brotherly
love.” Finally, there is agape, a
“self-giving love,” routinely shown to be the love that God has for us. It is agape that “bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” It is this self-giving agape love of God that “never fails.”
We most often hear this passage all by itself at
event like weddings and such. But when the Apostle Paul wrote his meditation on
love, it comes right after the passages we’ve been hearing these last few weeks
about how Christian community works and how Christians in community “show off”
or “reveal” Jesus.
Paul was writing to a Christian community that
fell into some bad, but all to common, habits. They held some people as more
important than others by virtue of their spiritual gifts, or their wealth, or
their eloquence, or their background, and so on. Paul had to teach and remind
them that everyone who says “Jesus is Lord” has the Holy Spirit, and
that we all have gifts that God activates for service equally, and that
all of us together, with our different roles and gifts, all present Christ and that
together we are all the living example of Jesus to the world.
If in fact all of us together are the body of
Christ, then how do we show off Christ?
Paul says that he will show a “still more
excellent way.” Agape love is that “excellent
way!”
The Apostle writes that if even if one
understands all mysteries of the universe and has enough faith to move
mountains, but has no agape love, then he is nothing.
If a person were to have all the generosity
imaginable—so as to give away everything he owns and even to the point of handing
over his very life, but is without agape
love, then he is nothing.
Put another way: that variety of gifts that Paul
talks about (the utterance of wisdom, or the utterance of knowledge,
the gifts of faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, a discerning spirit, various
kinds of tongues and their interpretation not to meantion teaching,
prophecy, leadership, and so on) that all come from the same Holy Spirit, means
nothing—nothing!—without agape love.
So, what is the difference between this godly
love, called agape, that never fails and the kind of love that shows up
in all those country songs?
One kind is a kind of love that starts with us
and goes out to another person and is usually conditional. “I love you as I
think you are.” Or “I love you as you are now.” Or worse yet, “I love you as I
wish you were and hope to change you to be like the ideal of you that I love.”
All of these are examples of love that start
with “me.” Yet, if I change and you change, this feeling of love will likely go
away. I’ll wake up and realize that the feeling I had has gone away and may
never return. At that point, I can either give up on love and stick with a
loveless marriage, or I can give up on you and seek love elsewhere. None of
these options are suggested by scripture.
Paul’s “more excellent way” is that we infuse
our lives with agape love, that is, love that starts with
God, and God’s love for us, and flows from there. With agape love in our
lives, our actions, attitudes, ideas, and relationships, we can then begin to
see other people as God sees them. From this experience, we reach out in love
to others with the love that begins in the very life and nature of God.
The love that is within the Trinity is not
conditional. God’s love is not dependent on our likes and dislikes, job, our mood
or temperament nor anything else that can change. God’s love does not depend on
our lovability. God’s love is dependable and continues even when we are not. God’s
love happens whether we always get things right or not.
The love of God was in the Trinity before
creation and never fails. This is the love Jesus had when he was dying on the
cross and looked out at those who were killing him, as they mocked him, and said,
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
In Jesus’ incarnation – when the fullness of God
becoming fully human in the person of Jesus – God risked everything for love.
With real love, there is no force or coercion. There is always the possibility
in love that the love will not be returned. In fact, that possibility is reality
all the time. God’s love persists even though humanity time and again both
refuses to return God’s love and acts as if the only love that counts are own
preferences, biases, and what makes us feel good or rich or powerful.
God’s agape love is so persistent and so
all pervasive that God came and lived among us in the person of Jesus; and when
the cost of that love was a brutal death, Jesus still did not give up on that
love. Jesus came, lived among us, died for that love, and even though many
people fail to notice or care, his love
persists—not grudgingly but extravagantly. This precarious act of loving even
though it may well not be returned is, in fact, at the very heart of the agape love of God.
God’s love is being more concerned about the
other than about your own self, but it is not about self-loathing or being
abused. Agape love is not a feeling. Agape love is a decision, it is an act
of will. It is act of will that we all can participate in when we choose, when
we decide, to see others as God sees them. When we act on this decision to love
rather than just when you feel the emotions of love, then we become practical,
living, everyday participants in God’s agape love.
When we choose experience that sort of godly
love for our friends, our co-workers and the people we meet, and for our loved
one, then we have chosen to love because agape love is. It is not
transactional—what can I get for my loving you. It is not love that attempts to
control or coerce, or own. It is love that you have for others that start with
God, and begins with our decision to live our faith by participating in the
love God has for all of us, all of humanity, all of creation.
Paul started out talking to the friends and
apprentices of Jesus in the church in Corinth about spiritual gifts but he can’t
leave the subject without getting to the heart of the matter. He told the
members of this church that they were immensely talented, able, and ready to be
the Church… and what would tip the balance, what would make all the difference,
was love. The choice to live, think, act—participate!—in the fullness of God’s agape
love would change everything!
And you know what? We also took on this gift,
and we made this choice in our baptismal covenant. And if those promises were
first made when you were a baby, you chose to take on the promise for yourself
at your confirmation or your reception, and every time you come to this
Communion table.
And you can always ask God to give you this
gift and deepen it in you wherever you are, in whatever you are doing.
We can choose to participate in the practices and
habits that nurture God’s kind of love. Nurture the habits of daily prayer, regular
encounters with Scripture, fellowship, companionship, and service that not only
open us to grace but teaches us how to be express and experience agape
love.
Live life sacramentally, mercifully, graciously.
Choose to cut each other some slack and give
people space to grow and learn.
Choose not to be so easily offended.
Pray for God to reveal to you the way God sees
these other people in your life, especially the difficult people you deal with.
Begin to see the people God gives you every day
as God sees them.
It is not always easy, but when we get it
right, but when we choose to live a life that daily, bit by bit, grows in agape
love, we find that this love never fails us.
The agape
love of God is a gift from God, a daily grace of the Holy Spirit, and the daily
embodiment of Christ.
The agape way of love is always and
every day the “still more excellent way” and through the gift and power of the Holy
Spirit is available in many everyday
ways to all of God’s people.
God’s agape love is how Christians are
best seen and known as is healing balm for a world desperate to experience
genuine love.
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