A SPECIAL KIND OF LOVE

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

            When Bev and I married we chose to speak the words of today’s epistle lesson to one another.  Bev read part of it, and I read part of it; and together we heard those powerful words about love.  First Corinthians 13 is a popular text for wedding services.  But when Paul sent that hymn off to the Christians in Corinth he didn’t have in mind their marriages, although you can see how these words can apply to marriage, so much so that husbands and wives probably ought to recite these words to one another each year on their wedding anniversary.  Still, that is not Paul’s primary purpose in sending these words to the Church in Corinth.  The beautiful words that we find in 1 Corinthians 13 are addressed to a divided and troubled church.  It makes you think.  If your task were to try to heal a divided church, what message would you want to send to them?  I would want the congregation to remember that Christ died for each one of them.  So they are all unified in the fact that they are all people for whom Christ died.  I would want them to realize that, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.  So they are all unified in the fact that God’s reconciling work in Christ is for them all.  Then I would want to let the divided church know that there is a God-given power that can be put to work that will heal their congregation, if they let that power go to work among themselves.  Yes, I would want a divided church know about that God-given power.  That power is love.

            Enter the apostle Paul.  A budding Christian congregation in Corinth needs to hear about love.  The church in Corinth is split into factions, and the prescription Paul writes out for the factional Corinthian church is love.  Love—like food, water, and air—is necessary for life.  It's hard to imagine being able to exist without any exchanging of love on a regular basis.  Surely love is what will heal a divided church.  In her delightful Hug Therapy Book, mental-health counselor Kathleen Keating recommends that we hug.  "Scientific research," she says, "Scientific research supports the theory that stimulation by touch is absolutely necessary for our physical as well as our emotional well-being."  Keating proposes hugging as a special form of touch that contributes to healing.  And what is a hug but a non-verbal form of expressing love?  Add to hugs a word, a gift of a flower, a meal shared, sharing grief silently, reconciling a brokenness, a ride in a car, a walk in the park, a card hidden where it will be found later, a kiss.  These also are expressions of love.  Peanuts cartoon:  Charlie Brown warns Snoopy, "Don't go near that house today, Snoopy.  Lucy's having a 'crab-in.'"  Next frame:  Snoopy raps on the door.  Third frame:  Snoopy surprises Lucy with a kiss.  Last frame:  Snoopy says, "That's how you break up a 'crab-in.'"  Love, expressed in so many different ways, Paul elevates to the greatest thing, even above hope and faith.  "Love," he says, "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."  Paul prescribes love to a divided church, because love is medication for any human heart.  Love removes divisions because the self is made whole.  With individual wholeness, corporate healing can't be far off.  Paul's prescription for love can be refilled without limit, for love, he says, never ends.

            Are you joking, Paul?  Love ends, and all present know it.  Every reader of your letter is aware of the transitory nature of love.  Why tell us "Love never ends"?  All around us it ends.  Sad to say, now more than half of the marriages end up in divorce courts.  Those who have been through that can tell you, Paul, love ends.  Love, once on fire with passion, often diminishes into cold ashes.  Look:  A man and a woman fall deeply in love.  The sun shines brighter, the flowers somehow are more colorful because this love flows between them like magic electricity.  Then suddenly the magic is gone, and there is an unexplainable power failure.  He and she no longer walk hand-in-hand, nor can they hardly face each other.  Love ends, and that's a fact.  Or again, once there were two buddies who had a very close friendship, but something happened.  One played a tasteless prank on the other at a very formal occasion.  The friendship cooled off.  Love ends.  So, we've got to wonder, Paul, are you joking with us?  You say "Love never ends," but it does.  It does!  Just show us one place where love never ends.  Show us just one place!

            The cross.  At the cross is God's love, which never ends.  Self-giving, suffering love is amplified on that cross, like a message on a huge billboard, love spelled out in all capital letters.  Our love for God fades, but not God's love for us.  We forsake God.  We forsake each other.  But the steadfast love of God endures forever.  Christ's life, death, and resurrection spell out God's abiding love.  The word for this kind of love is agape.  Agape is not a love given on the condition that the beloved be loveable.  Rather, agape is self-giving love, given unconditionally.  God loves sinners unconditionally.  "God shows his love," says Paul, "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."  Agape never rejects the sinner, even if the sin itself must be rejected.  Agape is not glandular infatuation.  It is not a fickle attraction.  Agape cares, even when it is particularly hard to love.  Agape is drawn to the unlovely.  Agape even embraces the enemy.  Agape is the very love with which God loves us.  This is the kind of love Paul says never ends.  Agape never ends.

            Now we have a standard to shoot for.  Agape is the church's goal, for agape is enduring, self-giving love.  In a world of broken relationships, here we come with our oddball love.  Like bow ties in a swimming pool, agape will seem like a strange kind of love to some people.  Look at what agape does:  Someone is hostile to you, but you don't retaliate.  Talk about oddball love!  But that's you doing the loving.  You announce, "What you say hurts me, but I still want to be your friend when you're ready for a friendship."  Without forcing a relationship, you remain available, waiting for the moment when reconciliation is possible.  Admittedly, what makes agape difficult is that we truly feel pain when someone is hostile to us.  Fact is, we might have to feel angry for a while before we can truly forgive.  Still, agape is the goal of the church.  We aim at reconciling brokenness.  Granted, a particular marriage may not be able to be restored, but ex-spouses can forgive each other and experience some form of reconciliation.  True, people in the church in Corinth—or any Christian congregation today—may have different positions they hold passionately.  That's got to be true of us, for, after all, we're Presbyterians!  Yet, fundamentally, agape proclaims that there are no sides, no divisions, no ins, no outs.  Agape seeks reconciliation.  God seeks reconciliation with all who are estranged from him.  "Beloved," pleads the writer of First John, "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."  There's the church's standard:  to love with Christ-like love.  Agape is our goal.