1 Corinthians 13:1-7

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 my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. RSV

Some Christians believe that a great sermon demonstrates the best of Christianity. Others believe it is demonstrated by great charitable acts. For others it’s publishing Christian books or being a lifelong missionary or being a popular conference speaker. In fact, in most ways, Americans judge another’s Christianity using secular measures (popularity, charisma, financial success, renown, etc.) rather than using the one measure given in scripture: love.

The thing is, Paul cuts down every other measure except love as a way to deem whether or not a Christian has actually met the mark.

• speak in tongues (in order to reach those that cannot be reached in one’s native language)
• prophetic powers (not only prophetic in a futuristic sense, but prophetic in the sense of dynamic preaching and teaching)
• understand all mysteries and all knowledge (including authors, speakers, teachers, professors, and anyone else who communicates to others)
• have all faith (the ability to do any kind of signs or miracles)
• give away all I have (the give of charity, the ability to live in poverty and yet minister to the poor)
• deliver my body to be burned (the ultimate sacrifice of giving one’s life completely for others)

These are amazing feats, these things that Paul lists. They are the stuff saints (in the secular sense) are made of. In fact, we often hear stories of people who achieve or sacrifice beyond the norm and we are astonished at their deeds.

“ . . . but have not love, I gain nothing.”

None of these deeds are meaningful in themselves. And every other deed, regardless how small, is equally meaningful if done with love. That is Paul’s point in this. Again (as we’ve noticed before), for God, our actions come down to our motivations. For even the greatest sinner can draw crowds, can do miracles, can live sacrificially. What is done for the sake of the wrong motivation remains . . . wrong.

I think that, as Christians, we need to ask ourselves on a daily, an hourly, a moment by moment basis, why we are doing what it is we are doing. Are we doing it to try to please someone (ourselves even), to achieve something? Then likely we are doing it for the wrong reasons. For love has as its author only One: Father God. And we love because He first loved us. For no other reason. In other words, love exists simply as an outpouring of our response to His love, as an outpouring of His Spirit in our lives to those around us. As Christians, our normal state should be to respond to the Spirit within by allowing Him to love.

Unfortunately, we too often get in the way of what God wants to do with us and through us. We live in such a state where our consciences are numbed (a state of unconscienceness, as it were) that we often don’t even know what this feels like or looks like, no less how to live it on any kind of consistent manner. We are so worried about getting for ourselves that the idea of living a life of sacrificial love is not only foreign, but actually scary to us. Think about it. How many roles models do we even actually know who live this way? Can anyone say “Imitate me as I imitate Christ” as Paul did (1 Corinthians 11:1)? And yet Paul is emphatic in his description of the futility of everything unless done through love.

In the 70's, many of us sang a song, “Let There Be Peace on Earth” ( words and music by Jill Jackson and Sy Miller, Circa 1955). The song ends with this line: “Let it begin with me.” It isn’t enough that we should expect those Christians around us to live through love. This day, this hour we need to say, “If the American Church is going to truly be Christian, then it needs to live the agape love of the Father and that love needs to begin with me.”