St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Rev. Tyler Amundson
January 31, 2016
Cliché Love
Please join in a moment of prayer:
God of Love,
Agape Love
Love that extends beyond comprehension
Help us to listen for your love in our lives
May it heal our hearts, mend our eyes, and enable us to live loving lives.
We pray this in your sacred name,
Amen
This last week a group from our congregation returned from adventures in the Holy Land.
During the tours in Israel they saw many of the settings of Jesus’ life, saw the intermingling
of global religious ideologies, and saw some pretty interesting signs.
Here is one of the signs they saw: “No explanation in the church.”
While this sign would make my Sunday very simple, I believe fasting from explanation is
not usually something we practice at St. Paul’s. If you are looking for this kind of church,
one can be found in Israel.
Our scripture reading today is one of the most used, and overused scriptures we hear at
weddings. These poetic words in 1 Corinthians are written by the Apostle Paul are known
to people who have never picked up a Bible, and could be described as cliché. My invitation
to us today is to remember why these words are so cliché as we hear them, and remember
why they embody the hope of love we wish for couples as they enter into a covenant
relationship. These words might be cliché, but I believe they are what we hope for in all
loving relationships and for all people to experience in their lives.
1 Corinthians 13Common English Bible (CEB)
13 If I speak in tongues of human beings and of angels but I don’t have love, I’m a clanging
gong or a clashing cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all the mysteries and
everything else, and if I have such complete faith that I can move mountains but I don’t
have love, I’m nothing. 3 If I give away everything that I have and hand over my own body
to feel good about what I’ve done but I don’t have love, I receive no benefit whatsoever.
4 Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, 5 it isn’t rude,
it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints,
6 it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. 7 Love puts up with all things,
trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. As for
prophecies, they will be brought to an end. As for tongues, they will stop. As for knowledge,
it will be brought to an end. 9 We know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the
perfect comes, what is partial will be brought to an end. 11 When I was a child, I used to
speak like a child, reason like a child, think like a child. But now that I have become a man,
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I’ve put an end to childish things. 12 Now we see a reflection in a mirror; then we will see
face-to-face. Now I know partially, but then I will know completely in the same way that I
have been completely known. 13 Now faith, hope, and love remain—these three things—
and the greatest of these is love.
In our modern culture love gets often associated with the silly or the unwise. To follow our
heart is to go after that which may not help us achieve the amount of wealth or status we
could get. To follow love is something that is not a grown up thing to do.
As I prepared for this sermon I put out a question on Facebook, “What is love to you?”
The responses I got were pretty incredible and far from this definition of love as unwise:
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"Love" means something completely different to me as an adult than it did as a kid.
As an adult, Love means forgiveness and acceptance.
Love means service and self-sacrifice
A close friend of mine remarked, “Mutual decision that sends your wife on a journey
to the Holy Land for 2 weeks leaving you with 2 churches and 2 children.”
Being able to stand in your power while honoring the needs of another.
Having a best friend.
Empowering and encouraging one another to the best versions of themselves.
1 John 4:18, New American Standard Bible, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love
casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not
perfected in love.” Love to me is safety, and assurance, true love makes space for
you to be yourself without fear.
Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. There are lots of things you can
say that about besides hate.
The gift that keeps on giving.
The commitment of a significant other or the Holy Spirit where you focus on the
unconditional love you have. That deep feeling of nothing else matters and love for
both are equal.
Salvation.
Cheering for Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos only because they're your
super amazing wife's favorite team.
The version of love that often is our culture is not the version of love any of the people who
responded carry in their minds. Each of them identified love as more than some childish
notion. Love for us is that same love Paul writes about. The word Paul uses for love in this
passage is the Greek word “Agape.” In the Greek language there are multiple words for love,
but Agape is a kind of love that is an all-encompassing love that is unconditional and always
present. Paul uses this term because this type of love is the saving grace of the Christian
faith: God loves unconditionally, without reserve, or reservation.
As humans we crave this positive connection of love. It is at the very core of who we are
from children. We need a love to support us and remind us that we are capable. A love that
is persistent and firm to guide us in the direction that is most life giving. This love must
unconditionally be there even when we make a mistake or ignore that love.
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We often think of this passage and this kind of love in married relationships because it is
the celebration of love we see most often formalized in the church. However, this kind of
love is at the core of healthy relationships and is for us as, Christians, the salvation Jesus
speaks of.
How many of us are familiar with Intermountain? Intermountain is an organization started
and continually supported by Methodists in Montana that offers support to families and
children for healthy relationships. They work in our community with children to treat
severe mental illness, work through trauma, and support families. Intermountain has a
residential facility here in Helena that treats children with severe mental health and abuse
histories to help them function in healthy relationships. To do this they use a very
relational model of love with the children, a model in which they work to attach to a
positive adult or adults who offer a stable loving relationship while the child moves
through treatment. Through this model they have an incredible success rate of helping
children overcome huge adversity.
While this model of treatment Intermountain may sound like something everyone must be
doing, it is rarer than you might think. This seems especially strange when we know that
children who have at least one ongoing positive relationship with an adult are several
times more likely to overcome adversity experienced in childhood. Based on those
Facebook responses to what love is, it would seem like we would know that health loving
relationships help us to bear through some of the challenges of life. The truth is though
that many people do not experience this healthy form of love and are quite literally dying
for it.
There is a colleague of mine in Denver; I have spoken of him before, the preacher who has
started a church in bars called After Hours Denver. Jerry’s ministry is reaching people who
might never step foot in a church. The mission part of Jerry’s church is to go down to Civic
Center Park in Denver to be in relationship with the people there, mostly homeless, and to
feed them lunch, offer them communion, and share basic necessities for life like gloves,
hats, socks, coats, sleeping bags etc. In Denver there is not a single day in any week that
some United Methodist group is not in the park offering hospitality and relationships due
to Jerry and After Hours Denver’s leadership. Jerry reiterates in the stories of his
experience over and over again that it is never about charity in the park, but about loving
relationships.
Here is one example from Jerry:
Eddie’s a good guy. At first glance, you would never guess he was homeless. He’s clean-cut,
soft-spoken, gentle, and polite. He has struggled with the bottle but has been sober for
eighteen months.
One day he walked up to me and handed me a firecracker. He told me, “I want you to have
this. I was gonna use it last night. I had a toy gun, and I was gonna put myself into a
situation that would get the police called, light a few as they got there, and point the gun
at them. They would take me out quick. That was my plan at least. But because of how
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much you guys have been down here, I started thinking about all of you. I couldn’t do it. I
want you to have this firecracker to remind you that you guys are making a difference.”
Jerry says, “It took everything for me to not completely lose it.” 1
In this story Eddie isn’t just getting the love. Somewhere in this relationship Eddie knows
he matters, but Jerry and the folks down offering at the park realize how much their lives
matter to someone else. Love abounds when we start relationship in love with our
neighbors. For Eddie and Jerry there was saving grace in love that day as they learned how
much what they matter to one another.
I think many times we confuse the love of Christ as just a one-way road. Love seems to be a
road from God to us to others. It is way more complex and complicated to truly live love
out. Love has to be patient, and kind, and it must not be arrogant or boasting. Love is a
relationship; it is sharing of respect, kindness and sacrifice for one another. Love is a
multiple way road.
In a book called Half the Sky, there are stories of how women worldwide are seeking to
overcome oppression. There is a story about one of the author’s meeting with a group of
women Doctors and Nurses in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. When he raised the issue of women’s
rights with the group they bristled. They said, “Why does it matter so much what we wear?
Of all the issues…is that really so important?” They go on to say that they of course
complain about wearing certain things sometimes, but they also feel sorry for Western
women who have to bare their bodies for approval. Yes, they admit, their country has
strange ambiguities about women’s rights, but to let them have the dignity to fight their
own battles.2
If we truly are to trust the power of love we have to create space for people to be
themselves and do what they need to do. Loving people whole is not about saving them by
how we think they need saving, but being in relationship with them. Loving relationships
create space for people to ground themselves in their own power, and, in turn, share
themselves to change the world.
Jerry shares another story about offering hospitality in the park:
A while back, a man and his son were in line. This is actually pretty rare. Even though
families are the largest growing segment of the homeless population, most of the folks we
deal with in the park are what is often referred to as chronically homeless. They are a lot
of guys who look probably like the picture in your head: unkempt, dirty, dressed in old
clothes, and in some cases, smelly. You know, the kingdom of God.
Anyway, this guy in front of the father and son got out of line, came over to me, pulled me
aside, and said, “Hey man, are you cool if this guy and his son go to the front of the line?
1
Herships, Jerry (2015-11-06). Last Call: From Serving Drinks to Serving Jesus (Kindle
Locations 1836-1842). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
2
Kristof, N. D., & WuDunn, S. (2009). Half the sky: Turning oppression into opportunity for
women worldwide. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pg 154.
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This kid shouldn’t have to wait.” I told him that I needed to check with the other guys in
line. I asked them, “Hey all, are you cool if we let this guy and his son scoot up to the
front?” Like Moses parting the Red Sea, these guys all silently took a step back and let the
man and his boy walk by them to the front.
As they did, I heard one of the guys say to the man next to him, “That’s a shame, man. That
kid didn’t ask to be homeless.”
Few of them did. I rarely have been so proud of the guys. The goal is to give the guys a little
dignity, to make them feel a little less like a “them” and a little more like an “us.”
It is not to make them just like us. It is also not charity. Charity is when you give while
receiving nothing in return.3
In some translations of the bible the love in 1 Corinithians 13 is translated charity.
However, I know it is not charity at all. The love it speaks of is bigger than charity and not
as top down. Agape love is about relationships of mutual support, about love that listens,
and lets the other person act in their own power. By sharing that power with one another
we create a piece of God’s transformed world here on earth, through loving our neighbor.
By loving our neighbor we learn a little bit more about the love God shares with us. Loving
our neighbor is a spiritual practice in how to work to love God more. Do we see how by
loving one another people begin to know they can trust and love in return? God’s love is
the same, if we catch notice of God’s love as we learn to trust, listen and love in return we
will gain the world. Our lives can be transformed by love if we seek loving relationships
with God and our neighbors. By leaning into one another we build a framework of
listening, caring and supporting that can change the world and our future.
Healthy agape love is all too rare, this cliché love is not as cliché as we might think. It is
worth understanding it and explaining it, even in church. We have been given the greatest
law of all: to love god, and love your neighbor. This law will transform our lives and our
world as we live out love in relationship. Salvation in love is living in relationship with the
overarching love of creation and letting that love transform our lives.
Amen
Herships, Jerry (2015-11-06). Last Call: From Serving Drinks to Serving Jesus (Kindle
Locations 1853-1863). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
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