"Decide to Love"	May 16, 2010
I Corinthians 13, John 13: 31-35	7th Sunday after Easter
Colesville Presbyterian Church	Rev. Ken Eimer, Pastor (Interim)

At his retirement, a college teacher was asked what he considered to be the most important contribution of is career. The teacher said, “I’ve spent my entire working life trying to be a traffic officer. Most people who direct traffic are trying to avoid collisions. But I’ve been trying to make them happen. I’ve been trying to arrange collisions between the minds of young people and the great truths of human life. 

 

The apostle Paul was trying to impose that kind of traffic pattern on the members of the Corinthian Church. There were divisions in the church over what leaders to follow. Members of the church were taking each other to court instead of resolving their disputes within the fellowship. There were questions about the role of marriage and about sexual relationships. There was no clarity on what procedures to follow when celebrating the Lord’s Supper. Finally, there was a spirit of unhealthy competitiveness around the gifts and talents that members of the church brought to the congregation. Instead of using their gifts to unify the church, the Corinthian Christians were boasting over who had the best and most important ones. Instead of working for the common good they divided themselves into factions. 

 

So Paul tried to organize a collision between their unruly behavior and the rule of love. Comparing their church to a well functioning human body, he wrote, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’ nor can the head to the feet say, ‘I have no need of you.’ If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were the ear, where would the sense of smell be?” Paul was aware of our human tendency to see life in terms of what I want and what is mine, so he stressed cooperation and self-giving. He told the Corinthians that ‘we’ is more important than ‘me.’ The needs of the entire church are more important than any one individual. How the total body operates is more important than how one or two parts function by them selves. We’re part of a larger whole.[1] 

 

After Paul finished his thoughts about how we need each other, he uses the next portion of his letter to tell the Corinthians about a more excellent way – the way of love.     

 

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

 

Put yourself in a situation where your feelings have been hurt by someone. Let’s say you’re in a conversation with your spouse, a work colleague, or a personal friend. What do we do? What does the rule of love dictate? As I think about it, the rule of love can dictate one of three responses:   

 

Sometimes, the rule of love tells us to draw a line in the sand about what can and can’t be said. It’s appropriate to let people know that they can go only so far and no farther. From time to time it’s been said that absorbing verbal abuse is a form of exercising Christian discipleship and there might be a reason or two to do so. For example, someone who’s committed to non-violent resistance might interpret Jesus’ words about turning the other cheek in this way.   

 

And there may be special circumstances when this response is the right path. When I worked as a chaplain with mentally ill patients at a state psychiatric hospital, there were times when angry patients screamed and spit at me. I didn’t retaliate because they weren’t in their right minds – literally. But I would rarely let people overstep their bounds in everyday life because the vast majority knows exactly what they’re doing and we’re not helping them, or us, when we allow ourselves to be taken advantage of. 

 

In everyday life, there are clear boundaries that govern our behavior. In our contacts with strangers, we intuitively know that physical and emotional distance needs to be in place. But as we become more familiar, distance decreases. A formal meal at a dining table becomes a casual meal in the kitchen and we start expressing affection toward each other with transparent conversation and the kind of physical affection that’s common among friends.      

 

When we dine out, we understand that it’s not appropriate to bark at the person taking our dinner request. We try to be polite, hopefully, when we’re solicited over the phone for a product or service. Depending on circumstance and level of intimacy, boundaries vary but there are always boundaries – even in marriage.     

 

The rule of love requires that we set boundaries with those who go too far because before people can love us they need to respect us, and they’re not going to do that if we allow them to take undue liberties. Setting markers – saying you can go this far and no farther -- is an appropriate, healthy and Christian thing to do.

 

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So when someone oversteps their bounds, the rule of love requires that we reestablish them. But the rule of love may also tell us to stand back from our feelings – to bracket them for a time -- to find out why the person said what he or she did. If we can better understand their emotional reaction, if we can walk in their shoes, so to speak, it may help us resolve a conflict successfully. 

 

Active listening is a very powerful skill, especially in a culture like ours, where so many people feel compelled to speak their mind. We see and hear this today on television and on talk radio. CNN, for example, has tapped into social networking as it solicits comments from viewers on Face Book and Twitter, as are the multitude of forums and blogs on the Internet. Does this kind of communication reach a level of significance? Is it worth listening to? It’s hard to say but whether you think so or whether you don’t, access to the net, including e-mail, gives people a platform to sound off on and sometimes they can be pretty explosive.       

 

Professionally and personally, I’ve come to understand that active listening is a lot more important that talking, especially when we’re the target of someone’s anger and, when we are, it’s difficult to draw back and not retaliate in some way.  But if we can stay connected, it might facilitate love over the long term. This approach, at least for me, comes closest to Jesus’ teaching on turning the other cheek.

 

Finally, in emotionally charged situations, sometimes it’s better to say less, or nothing at all, because if we don’t the conflict we’re in may get worse. Retreating is not the final solution because the rule of love requires that we stay connected, similar to how it requires us to establish appropriate boundaries. But if we can’t move the process of reconciliation along because of how angry or hurt we are, the best tactic is to exercise restraint.      

 

Here are some great words of wisdom from the Bible about not sounding off:

 

“One who spares words is knowledgeable and one who is cool in spirit has understanding.”

 

“When words are many, transgression is not lacking; but the prudent are restrained in speech.”

 

“The mind of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil.”

 

“Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

 

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and don’t practice restraint; if I babble with no conceivable reason; if I talk to entertain myself; if I don’t use my reason to place a check on my emotions; if I have no insight as to how my words impact others; if I have not love, I’m a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

 

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Paul goes on to write, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful. Love does not insist on its own way. Love rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.”

 

In our culture, we often think about love as a feeling. “I feel like I’m in love,” or “I’m falling in love,” as if love is something we emotionally travel into. We say that we love to do things, like gardening or running, playing an instrument, shopping, or building a desk for our office. When we use love in this sense, love is something we’re enthusiastic about. We also associate love with sex. Love and sex are everywhere: on television, in the movies, in magazines and newspapers, on the radio, and in the music that we download on our MP3 players.

 

Because of how love and sex are overused in our culture, we might want to set aside, dampen, or turn the volume down on the romantic side of love but it’s a critical part of life. The Greek word for sexual love is Eros, from which we get the word, ‘erotic.’ Eros is critical tool in helping couples stay connected. Erotic love glues a husband and wife together. It keeps them from seeking sexual liaisons outside of marriage, adds color to their relationship, and gives it depth. The appropriate use of our sexuality is a key factor in the development of intimacy and creativity. 

 

For reasons that are too long to go into here, the Bible gives us mixed signals on the role of Eros in human life. This is especially true in the New Testament where it was believed the world was going to come to an end within a generation, so sexual relationships among men and women were relegated to a ‘stop gap measure’ to prevent Eros from getting out of control.    

 

In the New Testament, the biological family was seen as secondary. More important was the family of believers that you became part of through baptism and participation in the Lord’s Supper. We get a hint of this in an amazing encounter with Jesus who, on one occasion, was told by the crowd that his mother and brothers were looking for him. Jesus, in turn, asked, “Who is my mother and my brothers? Those who do the will of God are my mother, brother and sister.” Your Christian family may include members of your biological family but it may not. It all depended on your relationship with Christ.

 

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Love, of course, has other meanings and dimensions. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful. . .” Sometimes we don’t feel loving but we love anyway because “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” When we feel particularly selfish, we’re reminded that “love does not insist on its own way.” When we harbor grudges, the voice of God within tells us that we can’t love unless we empty ourselves of resentments.     

 

When a friend tries to justify a poor decision, or is on the wrong path in life, or when we see something at our work place that needs to be corrected, we may not want to speak up because we’re afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or we don’t want to risk a confrontation. If this is our tendency – to avoid conflict because we want to get along -- how do we reconcile this with speaking the truth in love? Paul says that love rejoices in the truth. There’s a feeling dimension to love but love’s an act of will. Love’s a decision that helps us build Christian community.     

 

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Finally, Paul says that love opens us up to the fact that all knowledge is partial. “For we know only in part and we prophesy in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.” “For now, we see in a mirror dimly but then we’ll see face to face.” 

 

There are lots of things in life that we don’t understand. We don’t understand why children die when they have their whole lives in front of them. We don’t understand how people of ill repute do well and why hard working folk fall behind. It’s hard to understand why there’s so much poverty in the world or the violence that we witness around us. In the face of things we don’t understand, love encourages us to face life with humility. Love gives us permission to look through a glass darkly and to say that we don’t know. 

 

I tend to be a pretty practical person so my interest in the Christian faith is limited to things that I can do something about and what I can do something about is my behavior. One of the job hazards that pastors face is that people sometimes think that we have special knowledge of the universe and some clergy (unfortunately) play on this need. They come up with superficial explanations for the unexplainable or theological observations that blatantly contradict experience and common sense. They think their role in life is to speak for God and believe that God has commissioned them to do so.      

 

I think God should speak for himself and God has done so in the Bible and in the unique contexts of how we hear him today. Speaking for myself alone, I don’t need anyone telling me what God is doing in the world in the sense of knowing what the divine plan is from the Book of Revelation. What I need is challenging questions and insights on how to live my Christian faith. No one can predict the future and it’s hard, if not impossible, to arrive at reasonable explanations for unnecessary suffering and tragedy.   

 

No one can explain why Tim stepped on a mine in Iraq and got his leg blown off and why John came back with both legs intact. There’s no theological explanation that will help us understand this. No one knows why an athlete, with no family history of heart disease, had a massive stroke while running a marathon or why Susan was knocked off her bike and killed in a hit and run. The driver may have had too much to drink but why was Susan there at that particular time? How do we explain the meeting between bike and car? This is what we have no explanation for. Our knowledge is partial. We look through a glass darkly.

 

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This morning, I’ve tried to draw some practical applications to the subject of love in I Corinthians 13. Acting in love means to set realistic and effective boundaries with people who may take liberties with us; acting in love means to learn the art of active listening and it requires that we exercise restraint in our language. Don’t babble. Don’t shout. Don’t bang the table. Don’t explode. Say only what you need to because there’s great virtue is saying little.

 

Second, while emotion and passion can never be divorced from love, love is about character development. Love is kind; love is patient; love is not envious or boastful; love does not insist on its own way; love is not resentful. We choose to love even if we don’t feel loving because it’s the right thing to do. And it’s far better to speak the truth in love than to let people live at the lowest common denominator of self-deception and poor behavior. Love is a decision. Love is an act of will. We act in love to build Christian community.      

 

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