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; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13 makes it clear that no matter what one says or does, no matter how holy or righteous they may think they are, no matter what cause they are defending, if it’s not moved and animated by love, it’s worthless. And when you think about it, I would say worse than worthless. Such actually does harm, and we see plenty of that today from religious, “Christian” sources. It’s easy to see that there’s a great lack of wisdom in such, but when it’s all said and done, what it boils down to is a lack of love or unwittingly not lining up with love.
Real love of course doesn’t skirt truth or justice. It tells it like it is. But it does so with a redemptive hope or hope for redemption, for ultimate truth and reconciliation. For the good of each person, and for the good of all. Truth-telling is essential, no doubt. And the truth is that all too often those who aspire and act to be the biggest truth-tellers do not do so in love. Not at all. Truth telling does not equal loving. More is required.
Supposed truth telling can be a distortion of what is right, good and true, what amounts to an actual if inadvertent lie. Only a mind and heart committed to love can begin to see through lies and see what is good and right. There is nothing more deceptive than a commitment to truth if not accompanied with a commitment to love.
What is truth? According to many nowadays it aligns with certain unassailable facts. But truth biblically speaking really has little or nothing to do with truth as understood in the modernist period in which one can think they have the intellectual formula or final word on a given subject. It is much more in terms of life and experience. And this is not talking about “my truth” as if this is a free for all. No. It’s talking about what actually is in line with our full humanity and experience, yes, in God’s will on earth. Many aspects of that are not as cut and dried as people insist on making them. What is cut and dried is that love must be present. Otherwise, the so-called truth-telling sadly amounts to nothing more than a falsehood and is harmful.
What is also harmful is when those who are committed to love, still get it wrong. And we all will at times. There needs to be sincere humility to realize that one might be wrong. And openness as well as a commitment to truth and justice. All of that must be present if we’re to love in the way described in 1 Corinthians 13, and as seen in Jesus.
If the characteristics of love as quoted above are present in our lives, if that is the actual case, that is a sure sign that one is heading in the right direction in living out the humanity God intends. And for me this morning, that is the big message. I must keep on keeping on in love, even in the face of all that purports to be love, but plainly or plainly enough is not. There will be plenty of opportunities along the way to practice this and grow in it, beginning right at home. That includes others having to bear with me. Something God intends for each of us, for the entire human family.
Jesus community 