1 COR.13
Within a three-year span in the late 80s, I was a bridesmaid in 9 weddings. Wearing
an assortment of Easter-egg-colored taffeta dresses and at least one floppy hat in my
cousin’s wedding, I listened again and again to someone’s Aunt read I Corinthians 13.
Each reading provoked a member of the congregation to tears or a thoughtful nod in
agreement that, yes this young couple was an example of such divine love. To this day,
whenever I hear the opening lines of the passage my feet start to hurt (bridesmaids
always have to wear horribly uncomfortable dyed-to-match shoes) and I start to crave
fruit punch and wedding cake.
When I consider the question (or challenge) of how to be evangels of God’s
transforming love, I am drawn back to this familiar passage in Corinthians. It occurs
to me that the best way to bear witness to God’s boundless love is to live it. Could this
mean I will need to be patient, kind, bear all things, hope all things, believe all things
and endure all things for the sake of the other? Easy enough, right?
As those young couples glowingly pledged a life free of rudeness, arrogance or
envy, they could not have imagined just how unkindly, and sometimes down-right
ugly, each of them would someday behave. Even if you haven’t stood at an altar
making dewy-eyed promises to another, you have found moments in your life when
loving wasn’t easy. It is easy to extend kindness to a newborn baby smiling up from
your arms. However, when that same baby becomes a disrespectful and oppositional
teenager….
well, you get the picture.
In recent days I have heard said some less-than-loving remarks about the growing
number of people who are choosing (for a variety of reasons) to walk away from and/or
to criticize the Church. Now I know it is baffling to some and hurtful to most of us in
the traditional Church. We can argue till Jesus returns about whether they have any
valid criticisms or grudges, but that would be missing the point. If we are to take this
passage to heart, then all of that is as a clanging bell.
We are enjoined by Christ to love one another as we have been loved. It is easy to
get our egos bruised in the face of sometimes harsh criticism, but Love bears all things.
God’s transformative Love requires us to love as God loves us……even the neighbor
who blocks your driveway, the politician with whom you vehemently disagree, the
friend who betrayed you, and the person who mocks everything you hold dear. We are
called to love as God loved. Being “right” does not invite love. Only love does that.
Prayer: As I seek to share the good news of God’s transforming love, let me share
that love even when I am tempted to share frustration, irritation, or anger. May I
not be a clanging cymbal but an embodiment of love that inspires love.
Amen.
Tami Groves is the pastor of the Table, a new DOC church in Berkeley
called to minister to those on the margins of the traditional Church (the
self-identified Spiritual But Not Religious).