In The Name of Love | 6/15/25
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Which part of the “I am patient, I am kind…” exercise challenged you the most?
How might God be calling you to grow in that area this week?
Who in your life has modeled Christlike love for you?
What did their actions teach you about God’s love?
When has it been hardest for you to love someone in your community or family?
What practices or prayers helped you—or could help you—love even when it’s hard?
What would it look like for our congregation to be known in our community as “Christians by their love”?
What steps could you take to help make that a reality?
How does your love for others reflect your love for God?
In what ways might drawing closer to God help you draw closer to others?
Transcript:
Last week, we talked about the empowering of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday, and Marisa reminded us of the gift of Pentecost and the gift of the Spirit to the church to equip us.
And now we start working our way through the list. And we start today with love: the first one in the list. And so I'll be reading for us this morning the 13th chapter of First Corinthians, one of the letters that we find in the New Testament. I invite you to follow along as I read:
“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. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
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 ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love”
This is the Word of God for the people of God. And God's people say, “Thanks be to God.”
Would you pray with me?
Come, Holy Spirit, and breathe life into the words that I speak, that they might carry a word from you into our hearts and lives this morning. Amen.
If you've only ever heard that passage that I read just now once before today, chances are you heard it at a wedding. It often shows up at weddings with good reason, because as a couple is standing facing each other and before friends and family and before God, getting ready to commit themselves to vows that say that they will honor each other together for the rest of their lives—talking about what love really looks like is a really important thing.
Today, our attention won't be, though, on what it looks like for a young couple to be thinking about love in this way as they embark on a life together. But rather, what does love look like? And what does this passage have to say about living in community with one another?
After all, that is the original context of the letter and of this passage. The Apostle Paul, having founded the church in Corinth and now having continued on with other journeys where he is starting other churches in the region, is getting word that this community of faith that he started and dearly loves and cares about is at risk of coming apart at the seams.
Factions have formed. Divisions. Conflict. Argument. We know that there are lots of different things that they are at odds about among themselves, which is hard for Paul to imagine based on how they started and where the foundation was set. But we know just from what we have in terms of contextual information in these letters to the Corinthians in the New Testament, that at a minimum, there have been arguments popping up about what people can or can't eat. Arguments about who has been their favorite pastor—arguments (yeah, that happens actually), about who's in and who's out. Arguments about which of the spiritual gifts is most valuable or most important, and who has them.
It's that argument that is the immediate context preceding what we get in chapter 13. You see, chapter 12 in First Corinthians is the place where Paul reminds the community of all of the spiritual gifts and reminds them that no one with one gift should look down on anybody else with a different gift. There is not a hierarchy where one can say, “mine is more valuable than yours,” but rather it takes all the gifts together in the community to build up the body of Christ.
And when we get to chapter 13, not only do we have it just immediately following that chapter, but it is the culmination of all of the things that Paul has been addressing about the ways in which this community has been in conflict with each other. And so chapter 13 is Paul’s response and his urging for what they need to do now. And love is his answer. He is returning this community to the foundation—to the core of the message about God’s love for them, and therefore the love that they are called to have for one another.
And in chapter 13, he lays out a picture of love that has high expectations. Richard Hays, former professor at Duke Divinity School, just recently deceased, calls this in one of his writings about the New Testament and Paul’s writings, “a rigorous vision.”
Now, to help you see just how rigorous it is this morning, I'm going to invite you into an exercise with me. This is something that I first heard many years ago, and it has been so significant for me to return to again and again, to remind myself of the way that I am supposed to show up in the world as a person who loves others.
So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to read the middle section of chapter 13 again, and everywhere that the word “love” shows up, I am going to substitute the word “I,” and I invite you to imagine yourself—your own “I”—as you hear me read it:
“I am patient. I am kind. I am not envious or boastful or arrogant, or rude. I do not insist on my own way. I am not irritable. I keep no record of wrongs. I do not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoice in the truth. I bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things.”
How are we doing?
You read through that list and you do it that way and you realize: love is not for wimps or for chickens. Love is hard work that must be practiced day in and day out. And I wonder, as you hear that description today, who comes to mind for you? Who has lived out that description well? Who models what love looks like for you? And who comes to mind for you who doesn’t? And who is Jesus calling us to see as our models and as the people who guide us in our own time?
Paul, in this chapter, is holding the Corinthians accountable. He has addressed all of the different arguments that have been happening. And now, as he gives them a description of love, it is a moment of accountability. It is as if Paul is saying, 'Love is patient, and you have not been.' Love is kind, and you have not been. Love is not arrogant or resentful or rude—and you have been.
Paul is offering helpful accountability. Perhaps it is this kind of accountability that is exactly what Christians and the church need today. What we learn from Paul and from this Scripture passage is that love cannot be practiced in isolation. You cannot come to know how to be a loving person in isolation. It requires relationship.
The kinds of things that love calls us to in this passage are things that can only be practiced when others are engaged in relationship. And relationships can be messy, complicated, and imperfect. But Paul and Jesus do not give us a pass from practicing love, even when it is not reciprocated by the other.
Eknath Easwaran has written a book entitled Original Goodness, and you'll hear me share some more about that in a few weeks when we get to the message on the fruit of goodness. But he also offers some thoughts on what love looks like. Listen to this particular quote:
“If we function well only when people are kind to us, we are living only part-time. Love is a full-time occupation.”
And if we are going to learn to love, we will need to be in community. And if we are going to learn to love well, we will need to be in community where not everybody looks or acts or thinks or feels or believes exactly the way we do. Our love for other people will be the evidence of our love for God. You see, the two go hand in hand.
Remember, Jesus taught us this when he was asked about the most important commandment, and he said, “Love God.” And then he said, “And the second one is just like it: Love your neighbor.” All the law and the prophets hang on these two things: love God, love your neighbor.
Many years ago in seminary, one of my professors was Dr. Roberta Bondi, who wrote a book entitled To Love as God Loves, and there is an image that she uses in that book that I first heard in that class that helps me visualize this idea that the love of God and love of our neighbor are inseparable. You cannot do one without the other.
So, imagine with me for a moment a wheel. And at the hub of that wheel is God. And all of God’s children—all of humanity—are around the hub on that wheel. And as any one of us begins to move closer to God, we also are moving closer to each other. Conversely, as we are moving away from God, we are moving further away from one another.
To love God and to love each other go hand in hand.
First John puts it this way in the fourth chapter:
“Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters are liars.”
That is strong language. I didn’t say it—Scripture did. But I believe it, because this is what we hear time and time again: that love of God and love of neighbor cannot be separated. After all, those who don’t love their brothers or sisters whom they have seen can hardly love God whom they have not seen.
We are called to love one another, and friends, the church is the community that is meant to be the training ground that helps us learn how to love well. We’re reminded of this in our baptismal liturgy. Anytime somebody joins the congregation and becomes a new member of the community, there is a question in our Book of Worship that says this to the congregation:
“Will you nurture one another in the Christian faith and life and include these persons now before you in your care?”
And all of us respond saying:
“With God’s help, we will proclaim the good news and live according to the example of Christ.”
That's a big statement that we make—that we will offer people hope and good news, and that in the way in which each of us lives, we will seek to show people the way of Christ.
The response of the congregation continues:
“We will surround these persons with a community of love and forgiveness.”
Because anywhere that relationships are complicated and messy and imperfect—which is everywhere—we need forgiveness as one of the ways we express love.
This is who we are called to be, friends. And it seems to me that far too often today, and particularly as I listen to and watch and witness the church across communities throughout our country, it seems that far too often the church is neglecting this core principle to which the gospel calls us.
We have too often failed to be a community where people become deeply devoted followers of Jesus. We have forgotten that our primary allegiance as followers of Christ is not to a red way, or a blue way, or even a red, white, and blue way. Our primary allegiance is to the way of Christ.
Richard Hays again:
“Regrettably, as the church has tended to adopt the political habits and strategies of secular democracy, far too little attention has been given in our communities to this character-forming task of the church. We must deliberate carefully about how to reform the church so that we can more fully devote our energies to learning how to love.”
So I want to share with you a hopeful example that I just witnessed a little over a week ago at the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. I saw—I witnessed with my own eyes—a church that is seeking to reform in a way that is more fully devoting our energies to learning how to love.
I witnessed people from across our conference—from both urban and suburban and rural communities, from communities that reflect different demographics and different backgrounds, from communities far and wide—coming together and, with joy and celebration, offering expressions of welcome and hugs and kindness and grace to each other. Because we are excited to be the church together.
And we listened to reports of the work that is happening among us in communities and our conference where churches are coming alongside children who are hungry and giving them something to eat. Where churches are showing up in prisons where persons are incarcerated—sometimes unjustly—and are making sure that people know that God has not abandoned them and that God loves them. Where people are showing up in hospitals and in nursing homes and in other care facilities to offer care and a sign, as the hands and feet of Jesus, of God’s love and presence.
People showing up to offer hope and good news in places that seem dark and in despair.
And I was so grateful—as my colleagues around me were also—for the Rev. Dr. Rodrigo Cruz and his reminders to us in Bible study each of the two mornings we were there about the values that we hold dear as people of faith. The reminders, including the good news that diversity and equity and inclusion are not dirty words, my friends—they are gospel values.
To be a people of faith is to be a people who welcome everybody and seek to be a place of home and a place of care and concern for every one of God’s children. We may not all agree about policies, but none of us should ever be ashamed or embarrassed to speak up on behalf of any one of God’s children when they are not being treated with dignity and respect.
This is who we are, church. It is who we are.
They will know we are Christians by our love. Anybody ever heard that before? We sing it. What if that were the truth that the world experienced? What if Christians kept showing up in the way of love so that every person knows that their life matters, and they know that the church could be trusted to bear witness to the Christ that we say we serve?
It’s no accident that love is at the front of the list of the fruit of the Spirit. Because as we look at the rest of the list in the coming weeks, you’ll notice that some of the other fruit hinges on love. In fact, it was even used in the description of love in this morning’s passage. It would not be a stretch to say that all of the other characteristics grow out of this one, because learning how to love well is our primary calling.
A few weeks ago, Paul Chilcote was here with us for a weekend, and he preached on Sunday. And it just so happens that that very weekend was right around the time that a new book was coming out into print that he and his wife Janet, have coauthored—a tiny little book entitled On Love: 20 Lessons for the World We Seek. I commend it to you.
Just listen to a few of the 20 ways that they encourage us to show up in love:
Gather around tables.
Make eye contact. (Oh, do we need more of that! Just make eye contact with people.)
Listen more. Talk less.
Resist evil, injustice, and oppression (part of our baptismal vows).
Transform hostility into hospitality.
Create beauty.
Plant seeds of hope.
Showing up in love can take a lot of different forms. And wherever it shows up, I trust that it will look like the description we read about in the scripture today. And it will always show up with the well-being of others in mind.
Easwaran says this:
“Whenever you look into another person’s eyes, remember that you are looking into a city where the Lord dwells. And remember always that our arms and hands were given to us for others’ rescue, not for their ruin.”
The last verse in the passage today says this:
“And now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. And the greatest of these is love.”
What will love look like when you put it on this week?
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.