Crescent Springs Presbyterian
28 January 2007
ONE MORE LOVE SONG
1 Corinthians 13
While writing to the quarrelsome congregation at Corinth, the apostle Paul composed one of the most
cherished chapters in the New Testament, what some commentators call the “hymn to love.” Since the 1st
century, we’ve had a glut of love songs, few of them as sincere as Paul’s, even fewer as profound. Another
Paul—Paul McCartney—summed it up in a song of his own: “You’d think that people would have had enough of
silly love songs. But I look around me and I see it isn’t so.”
Why do we never get enough of songs about love and movies about love and books about love? Maybe it’s
because most people, even people without faith, agree with Jefferson Starship that, “Love’s the finest thing
around.” In spite of all our cynicism and disillusionment, we keep on believing that, thank God, because love
really is the finest thing around and the apostle Paul tells us why.
He tells us first that all love is a gift from God. We chuckle about city-bred kids who think milk comes from
plastic jugs and eggs come from Styrofoam cartons, kids who confuse the source with the container. But many
adults are just as confused because they believe love originates in the human heart. It doesn’t. Love comes
from God and we are the containers. Better yet, we are the channels, the pipelines for that love. The Spirit pours
God’s love into our lives and we irrigate the world by sharing that love with others. The more we give away, the
more God pours in. And on the other hand, the more we withhold love from others, the more we cut ourselves off
from the source of love.
Love is good because it comes from God. In fact, love is such a fundamental aspect of God’s nature that
John the apostle resorts to shorthand and says that God is love! When we love someone, we partake of the
nature of God. When we love, we participate in that power which created the universe, which sustains all life,
heals all brokenness, and shoulders the cross without hesitation.
Love is good because it comes from a good God, and because it comes from God, love is the one unselfish
thing in the world. The Corinthian Christians were arguing about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. One said, “I am a
teacher and we all know teaching is the highest gift.” Another said, “No! No! To be a prophet, as I am, that’s the
most important gift. And so they squabbled about teaching and prophecy and speaking in tongues, and the very
gifts that should have united the Corinthians instead drove them apart.
When Paul wrote to them, you can sense an edge of sarcasm in his tone. “I’m glad you are so zealous in
seeking the higher gifts. So allow me to point you toward the highest gift of all, the gift of love. Love provides the
context for every other spiritual gift and guides us in the use of those gifts. Where pride divides us, love brings us
together because love focuses on the other.
That’s why genuine love is such a challenge most of the time. We tend to be selfish, and love isn’t. We
measure most things by a simple yardstick: Will this be good for me? Will this make things easier for me? Will
this enrich me? But love has a different measure. Love seeks the good of the other.
That’s why love is never rude, never cuts in line, never interrupts. That’s why love is never boastful or
conceited, never works hard to make itself look good or belittles the accomplishments of another. Love takes no
smug delight in the shortcomings of others, doesn’t relish gossip or revel in scandal or take secret pleasure in
the downfall of a neighbor. Love is not thin-skinned or resentful, is not offended by imagined slights, does not
keep score.
Love is none of those things because love looks beyond self. Love offers trust, gives the benefit of the doubt,
and hopes for the best. And when others prove unworthy of our trust and hope, love forgives.
Elie Wiesel is a Jewish writer who was a child in the days of the Nazi holocaust.
In his book, All Rivers Run to the Sea, he tells of his family living in Hungary during those dark days. His family
lived in the shadow of death, knowing that any day the Nazis might arrive at their door.
Wiesel tells about a peasant woman by the name of Maria who was almost like a
member of their family. She was a Christian. During the early years of the war she continued to visit them, but
eventually non-Jews were no longer allowed entrance to the ghettos. That did not deter Maria. She found her
way through the barbed wire and she came anyway, bringing the Wiesels fruits, vegetables, and cheese.
One day she came knocking at their door. There was a cabin that she had up in the hills. She wanted to take the
children, of which Elie was one, and hide them there before the SS came. They decided after much debate to
stay together as a family, although they were deeply moved at this gesture.
Years later, this is what Elie Wiesel writes about that good woman:
“Dear Maria. If other Christians had acted like her, the trains rolling toward the unknown would have been
less crowded. If priests and pastors had raised their voices, if the Vatican had broken its silence, the enemy’s
hand would not have been so free. But most thought only of themselves. A Jewish home was barely emptied of
its inhabitants before they descended like vultures.
“I think of Maria often, with affection and gratitude, and with wonder as well. This simple, uneducated woman
stood taller than the city’s intellectuals, dignitaries and clergy. My father had many acquaintances and even
friends in the Christian community, not one of them showed the strength of character of this peasant woman. Of
what value was their faith, their education, their social position, if it did not arouse their love? It was a simple and
devout Christian woman who saved the town’s honor.”
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging
cymbal.
Love is the highest gift because it gives purpose to every other gift, because it cures the disease of
selfishness—or at least tempers that disease—and because love alone is eternal. Faith will be replaced by
certainty. Hope will give way to fulfillment. In the kingdom of God, only love abides.
You’d think that people would have had enough of silly love songs, but I look around me and I see it isn’t so,
because even though love songs are often silly and shallow, the love that inspires them is not. In the end, love
matters more than anything else, outlasts and out gives everything else, and remains the surest sign that God
is present in our lives and in our world.
Soli Deo Gloria!