1 Corinthians 13 … LOVE is (12/15/13)
“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 to be burned 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.” ~ the “apostle” Paul (1 Corinthians 13:1-7)
Over the past several years, I have been known to give Paul a bit of a hard time (often rightfully so) about openly contradicting The Way of Jesus Christ in his Biblical letters … Where Jesus would have us forgive “seventy times seven” (i.e. everyone, always & completely), Paul often criticizes & cajoles & condemns his enemies. Where Jesus sees God the Father as having a Love that is perfect and without condition, Paul often hints that God is wrathful & judgmental & exclusivist. Where Jesus preaches that the Kingdom of Heaven is right here & right now — and that it can only be entered by humbly & selflessly serving others, Paul believes that Heaven is a reward for proper worship — someplace “elsewhere” that only “worthy believers” will be allowed to go after they die.
And yet in all fairness, just like the rest of us who are similarly flawed and similarly struggle with our desires & our fears, Paul also has his moments of sheer brilliance — and this passage in 1 Corinthians is certainly one of them.
So here’s to you, Paul … You may not have known the same Way that Jesus knew, and yet you at times did indeed know the same LOVE; a LOVE that echoes & reverberates to the same, perfect Harmony — and this no matter where its beat is struck, and no matter who is doing its drumming.
Amen … Let it be so.
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