All are Loved

Jeremiah 1:4–10 ESV

Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord.” Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

1 Corinthians 13:1–13 ESV

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not 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 have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 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. 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. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

All are Loved

I’m actually surprised when I officiate a wedding and the couple has not requested this passage to be read and reflected on during the service. is sometimes called “The Love Hymn.” It’s long been one of the most popular passages read at weddings. While this is not an inappropriate passage to read at a wedding, we have to be careful not to save it for only weddings or to let it be tamed down into a sweet little campfire kumbaya moment. The author, Paul would have been quite surprised that this passage became associated with romance, however.

Let’s be clear: Paul is definitely not talking to the church in Corinth about romantic love here. This is not a sweet poem from a St. Valentines’ Day card. He’s not talking about warm fuzzy feelings and sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. He’s not trying to negate the trials and struggles of the world with a few hugs and candy hearts. In this section of the letter, he is talking to the people of the church about how they are to treat one another in light of their unity in Jesus Christ. They are to treat each other with love as modeled after God, and they have NOT been doing that. This passage was written with teeth.

In other places in scripture, the church – not any one church specifically, but the church meaning all believers, all followers – is called the “Bride of Christ.” There is a special bond between each believer and Jesus Christ, between each individual believer and each other individual believer, and between Jesus Christ and the company of all Christians throughout all the ages.

When the world slings hate and injustice and prejudice and stereotypes and anger and nitpicking and betrayal and abuse at one another, the answer is love. But this is no Brady Bunch feeling that solves every problem in half an hour. The answer is not just to hug it out after a mediation by Danny Tanner. Paul is not saying, “Look how sweet and wonderful love is and how easy it is to solve our problems.” Paul is saying, “Love is the answer and the answer is hard.”

This passage is meant to be our stencil, our outline, of what love looks like and it’s not an easy list to manage. God’s love is so much bigger and stronger and more powerful than anything we can imagine and it can be really hard to live into in a world that champions survival of the fittest and looking out for number 1.

This passage sounds really pretty when you read it, but think long and hard about these actions that love calls a person to. They are hard! Sometimes we hear the word “love” and write it off as soft or cutesy or weak or some wishy washy pipe dream that can’t actually work in today’s rough and tumble world. That couldn’t be further from the truth. What is weak is a failure to love everyone around us as Jesus does. This is one of the strongest and most powerful passages in all of scripture.

We can talk and talk and talk about it and it doesn’t mean anything if there isn’t any action to back it up.

This is not about feelings. There are no feelings in this passage, only actions. Love does not require easy action either. You can spend your whole life giving your stuff away and making self-sacrifices for others, but if you miss this basic scaffolding of what love really is and does, it didn’t matter.

This passage sounds really pretty when you read it, but think long and hard about these actions that love calls a person to. They are hard! Sometimes we hear the word “love” and write it off as soft or cutesy or weak. That couldn’t be further from the truth. What is weak is a failure to love everyone around us as Jesus does.

Love is Patient

Love is Patient

When people aren’t doing what you want or expect them to do or their ways make no sense to you, be patient with them and trust that God works in people you don’t get.

Love is kind.

Love is kind.

It doesn’t yell when it’s frustrated. It puts others first, takes care of a loved one when they are sick, speaks gently to them. Love takes seriously the well being of all people and matters of justice in the world.

A friend sent me an article the other night about a Thai woman running a local marathon. At mile 7, she spotted a tiny puppy on the side of the course. It was all alone, so she did what any reasonable marathoner would do. . . she scooped it up and carried it for the remaining 19.2 miles of the race. You can’t not finish the race. And you can’t just hand a puppy off to a stranger. And you can’t leave it there. It makes total sense to me. So she finished the marathon, puppy in her arms, and then went back to make sure there was no mama dog or owner looking for the puppy. When she was sure the puppy was alone, she took it home with her.

That is kindness. And patience, if you think about it. It sounds really cute, but it could not have been easy to carry that puppy - even if it only weighed a pound or two - for NINETEEN MILES. Kindness isn’t just picking someone up when they need help it’s finishing the race with them, even if it means your own finish time might suffer for it.

Love does not envy.

Love cheers for the other when they accomplish amazing things and celebrates their adventures. One the other side of the same coin, it also doesn’t hold on so tight to its own privilege that it refuses to see the plight of others. It’s easy to fall into either of these traps. We want to have our own successes and adventures and it’s hard to watch other people have fun doing things we would like to do. It’s hard to see other people get recognized for their hard work when our own equally hard work goes unnoticed - or worse watch someone else’s mediocre work get noticed when our hard work gets passed over. It’s also easy to ride along on systems that favor us to the harm of others - systems like sweat shop based cheap clothing sales or white privilege.

Love does not envy. It acknowledges that all are equally deserving and loved.

it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

It also doesn’t hold on so tight to its own privilege that it refuses to see the plight of others.

Love doesn’t boast

In Chicago this week, the weather was even worse than it was here. It was dangerously cold. One homeless encampment had some propane tanks to help provide heat, but when one of the tanks exploded, the fire department confiscated the rest of them for safety reasons. This left alot of very vulnerable people - many with mental illnesses, addictions, or other health concerns - out on the streets in deadly cold. Yesterday morning, NPR interviewed a woman who decided to pay for a block of hotel rooms to put as many of them as she could up for the night in a warm place. She put out a facebook appeal and was able to gather food, clothes, and more money for more rooms for an entire week to get people to safety during the cold. The thing that struck me about her demeanor in that interview was her humble assumption that she did what any reasonable person with extra funds would have done. There was not a shred of boasting in the way she spoke.

“I am a regular person,” Ms. Payne said. “It all sounded like a rich person did this, but I’m just a little black girl from the South Side. I thought it was unattainable, but after seeing this and seeing people from all around the world, that just tells me that it’s not that unattainable. We can all do this together.”

Every time you drive your car, you drive it because someone designed it, someone built it, someone delivered it at some point to a car lot, once upon a time, someone taught you how to drive, you have had opportunities presented to you in life that led to your financial ability to buy or lease or rent that car. Someone built the roads, this time of year, someone (hopefully) plowed and salted those roads. If you’re lucky, you’re even driving on roads that have had the potholes repaired by a hard working road crew. You can’t even drive your car without a whole bunch of other people.

Every time you drive your car, you drive it because someone designed it, someone built it, someone delivered it at some point to a car lot, once upon a time, someone taught you how to drive, you have had opportunities presented to you in life that led to your financial ability to buy or lease or rent that car. Someone built the roads, this time of year, someone (hopefully) plowed and salted those roads. If you’re lucky, you’re even driving on roads that have had the potholes repaired by a hard working road crew. You can’t even drive your car without a whole bunch of other people.

Love is not arrogant or rude

Love doesn’t assume that it knows the best way to do something. It’s humble enough to listen to others and accept their input.

Love thinks about the feelings of the people around it, it’s considerate and never rude.

Love does not insist on its own way

Love does not insist on its own way

– it stands up for the other even if they aren’t present, even if it’s frustrated.

Love doesn’t get angry easily or hold a grudge

– it takes a step back, counts to ten, takes a deep breath, and works in all things for peace. It doesn’t keep a tally sheet of who won which fight when and who did what to whom.

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing

At first glance, this one may seem obvious, but remember that we’re supposed to love even our enemies. So, that time that jerk on the road that passed you got pulled over up ahead and you gloated about it? Don’t do that.

Love is honest

– it is open even when the truth is painful or full of shame. Honesty isn’t just about not lying - it’s about accepting the truth, living the truth, being open and truthful about who you are. That is hard. Especially if you aren’t too fond of yourself.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love keeps loving until the very end of time without giving up.

This is all really really hard stuff. If it sounds easy, you’re kidding yourself or misunderstanding what Paul is getting at here.

Does that mean we shouldn’t use this passage at weddings? Absolutely not. Because marriage is hard. And marriage is meant to be modeled after God’s love for us and God’s relationship with the church.

But it does mean that we need to remember what a difficult passage this is. It means that we have to be careful how we toss around the word “love”. The way we love - especially when we’re talking about the church “we” - reflects the love of God in the world around us and if our love is less than what we read in this passage here, we aren’t living up to our jobs as God’s representatives in the world.

We love one another because God loved us first and because love for one another is how we let the love of God shine in the world around us.