Not your typical love story

 This is the lesson for this morning's Student Venues. It's not your typical love story nor is it about the kind of love you might expect on Valentine's day, but it is about the kind kind of love that we (or at least I) most need to hear today.

 

It’s Valentine’s Day!
St Valentine was executed on February 14, 470 CE for performing weddings for Roman soldiers - which was against the law. I guess it’s appropriate to celebrate romantic love by honoring a guy that was killed for performing illegal marriages. It’s a little weird how little we’ve changed in 1500 years.

When it comes to talking about romantic love, 1Corinthians 13 is often read or recited. It’s a common wedding text. It was read at our wedding nearly 40 years ago.
Although we might be familiar with the text, we rarely consider that Paul wasn’t writing it for future wedding ceremonies. He was writing it as an admonition to a church group that was in conflict and needed some instruction on how to get along with each other.  When I find myself thinking about that now I’m a little embarrassed at how I’ve acted toward some of my “neighbors” that have different political views or even religious views. In fact, I’ve probably been more tolerant (or loving) toward those with different religious views than with different political views.
Shame on me.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 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 have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

Paul begins this text by really emphasizing the importance of love. He says that without it, we are nothing and all of our status and stuff is worth nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

In looking at what he writes about what love is, we are reminded of the kind of love that God has for us. Our love for others isn’t supposed to be about us; it’s about them. It isn’t about them understanding us; it’s about us understanding them. It isn’t about them being patient and kind toward us; it’s about us being patient and kind to them. Love isn’t about getting our way and it isn’t resentful about letting them have their way.
Geez! Love is hard!

Sometimes you may find yourself loving someone that doesn’t really love you back - at least not to the extent that you love them. This can be the kind of love between friends, coworkers, even family members. Understanding our differences and making allowances for them is difficult. Many friendships or even romantic relationships and marriages are lost because we fail at understanding each other.

Right now there is a great level of disharmony in our nation. It goes beyond the political divide. There is also distrust and division between social classes, between races and cultures, between people of different sexual orientation or gender identity, and of course--people of different religious backgrounds.
The community at Corinth was facing the same kinds of diversity that devolved into discord that we are facing today. Paul’s words from nearly two thousand years ago are very appropriate for us today. We need to seek to understand each other and care for each other -- we need to love one another.

Even though these words make for a pretty wedding reading, that’s not how they were written. I think Paul was angry when he wrote them. He was writing to people that were supposed to be modeling the love of Jesus and they were being selfish and childish. Paul closes out this admonition by saying - Grow up! Quit acting like spoiled brats! 

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Ugh!
Is he talkin’ to me?
Am I going to have to delete social media posts or comments?
Love is hard, isn’t it?

But there is good news --
In the end -- Love wins!

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

John