When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child..
When Jesus was asked how one might enter the kingdom of God, he drew a child from the crowd and replied, “You haven’t got a prayer of entering unless you can become like one of these.” I doubt he was advocating a rewinding of development – a return to childish ways. Children are born with limited physical and cognitive abilities because these are gained by interaction. To grow, children depend on the people around them to foster their well-being and introduce them to an ever-widening reality. With love and kindness, children grow into the selves that were only potential at birth.
Jesus was talking about something else. Children know there’s always something new to learn, and something more complete to become; children are not ashamed of being works-in-progress, unless someone has made them so. Perhaps it’s this quality, this recognition of our own in-progress state, and a willingness to own it, that can foster a childlike faith without the childish behavior…
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ICor 13:8-10, NRSV
Once we know something (barring suppression, brain injury or damage), we can’t unknow it – the end of a book, the punchline to the joke, the last note of a song. Resolution cannot be undone; even if we repeat the experience, we can’t go back to our original starting point because we know how it all ends. Our partial experience ends when we reach completion.
But love is something different than these things that come to an end. We are deeply loved by God in our first breath and our last, and in every breath between. Our days will come to an end, and our lives will end in death, but the love we give and receive is something that abides beyond life and death. Instead of abiding in death, we return to the love that gave us life in the first place. Because love isn’t partial – at least not God’s love.
It gives me hope that God will make out of my own partial love something complete.
In my local library, there are rows and rows of books in the nonfiction section – books about the local habitats, biographies of Bob Dylan, World War II political essays, and more cookbooks and knitting patterns than a person could want. Fifteen years back, there were rows of encyclopedias as well – victims of the digital age.
On a regular basis, librarians go through the nonfiction books, section by section, and remove the ones that in poor shape or out of date. The knowledge contained in the nonfiction books becomes obsolete as new insight is gained, and the old knowledge is revealed in all its incompleteness. How we number the planets (Rest In Peace, Pluto), how we understand the foundations of creation (Big Bang and String Theory, anyone?), whether animals see color as we do – our partial knowledge of these things gives way to a more complete understanding, and our old ways of knowing must be left behind.
This old world holds more mystery than I’ll ever know, and even the things I do know will always be subject to growth and change. If this life were a nonfiction section in an eternal library, it will take a lifetime to read the shortest sentence in a single book.
Since God created it all, it’s a matter for wonder and joy rather than discouragement.
It was never meant to be a badge of honor, or a gift that separated the true believers from the suspected doubters: speaking in tongues was a way to be open to the Spirit’s movement, and a word to the entire congregation because someone else would be gifted with its interpretation. But gifts meant to increase love and harmony are often the ones that can be twisted to decrease both.
Speaking in tongues will cease because the person with the gift will cease, and the gift was given to a particular place at a particular time. At the end of all things, all gifts end – including tongues. Used and valued rightly or wrongly, they end.
But that doesn’t mean the speaking was without value, or the gift a useless one. They are like the sandals Moses removed when he turned aside to approach the burning bush. He didn’t remove them because they were useless: he removed them because they got him where he was meant to go. They had done their job, given their service, fulfilled their purpose.
When we are in the presence of the Holy One, we leave the gifts on the threshold, thankful for their service and more than ready to let them go.
[For Paul’s complete love letter, click I Corinthians 13 above.]
But as for prophecies, they will come to an end… I Cor. 13:8b
[For full text, click I Corinthians 13 above.]
Biblical prophecies weren’t magical predictions of events that no one could foresee – that’s a more cinematic understanding, like Johnny Smith getting visions of the future from a single touch (The Dead Zone). Biblical prophecies were a long look down the road to hell that current actions were paving. Dealing in bad faith with others will eventually lead to ruin, even if it brings momentary gain; armed conflict as a way of solving international disputes will bring violence home in some form; impoverishing the vast majority for the luxury of the few isn’t sustainable forever. Prophets pointed out the consequences of current practices in the hope that people would change course, would choose a different road.
Whether the prophecy caused a change of heart or not, it found its end in its fulfillment or its avoidance. Once the present became the future, the prophecy ended.
The same is true today. No matter how insightful the prediction, prophecy ends in its fulfillment or avoidance. Once its task is done – giving people the chance to change course – the prophecy ends.
But not love, according to Paul. Because love isn’t limited to a specific time line or course of action. Love is the reason for prophecy in the first place, the hope for a better, holier life. Love is seeing the value of every single life, even and especially when human blindness to that value requires prophets.
Life ends, but love doesn’t. It’s all around me, this truth. The woman whose husband died years ago; the expression on the face of a son remembering his mother. Grief may remove the joy from love for a time, maybe even a long time, but the love we have for those who have died continues on.
But what about those who are still alive, whose love for another is gone? Bitter divorce, denouncing or renouncing family ties, cruel actions that break the ties that bind people together: there is no love to be found in these. Forgiveness may be sought and given, but love is another thing altogether.
Paul wasn’t writing about our emotions and our individual limited loves. He wrote about the love that found him. With all that he did wrong in his life, he was never for one second unloved by God. There is no end to love because it came before us and continues on well past our lives. No matter what we have done, we are loved from our first breath and well beyond our last.
Love never ends because God is the never ending source of it. And us? We are vital parts of this never-ending love story that is creation.
(Love) It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
I Corinthians 13:7, NRSV
Love may bear all things, but I can’t. I don’t always react with compassion to every person in every situation; I don’t give the benefit of the doubt universally; I make snap judgements and am reluctant to recognize, much less honor, the holiness of every life God has created. I don’t have eyes to see the transfiguring light or ears to hear the voice of God – sometimes because I can’t, sometimes because I won’t.
I’m not love personified. Neither was Paul. But in his imperfection, he knew and lived into a profound truth: when I cannot love, love will bear me, holding me and whomever I cannot love in an infinite, all-encompassing embrace.
Love did the same for Paul. Love does the same for you.
Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. I Cor13:6, NRSV
Gifts, like a knife, can be used for good or harm. The people in the church at Corinth had a nasty habit of valuing certain gifts over others – speaking in tongues over hospitality, preaching and prophecy over acts of care and compassion. This valuing of some gifts over others led to a valuing of the people with those gifts over those with the more subtle ones. What was intended to increase love and appreciation among the congregation was used to tear it apart – a wrongdoing that caused internal damage to the community, diminishing love for one another, self, and for God. How could anyone rejoice over such behavior?
The truth that was overlooked in this wrongdoing: every single person brings something unique and valuable to this world – even when it isn’t obvious. Loving self, each other, and God gives us the ability to value the gifts of others and our own gifts without jealousy or judgement. If we can’t rejoice in such an amazing truth, can we rejoice in anything at all?
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. I Corinthians 13:4-6, NRSV
When I resent someone else’s good fortune, I can feel my heart constrict – squeezed by a giant fist of jealousy and envy. I think that’s as much a lack of love and appreciation for what I do have as it is a lack of love for the person who has what I don’t. With some effort and a larger perspective, I can let go of resentment over such things.
But what about that feeling of irritation that comes over someone else’s behavior? Talking too much, not talking enough; laughing too loud, not laughing at all; correcting my mistakes to be helpful or to be annoying – the list goes on and on. Perhaps I don’t usually ascribe my own irritability to a lack of love because it’s so easy to believe it’s the result of the other person’s shortcoming rather than my own.
Why is it so easy to see someone else’s irritability as self-generated, but so difficult to see mine as the same? If I ask myself this question, perhaps with some effort and this larger perspective I’ll be able to let go of irritability as well.
[For the full text, click I Corinthians 13 above.]
It does not insist on its own way. I Corinthians 13:5, NRSV
[For the full text, click I Corinthians 13 above.]
The coffee pot was moved back to the corner, and thus began the battle…
The church kitchen had been a disorganized mess for years, so the youth group took it on as a way to contribute to the life of the community. Cupboards that hadn’t been opened in years, much less emptied, were given a thorough scrubbing; what was broken or dangerous was removed; what was left was cleaned, organized, and labeled. The walls were degreased and repainted. It took hours, but the transformation was spectacular.
One of the best things: the coffee station had been relocated to a space near the service window. Everything was within easy reach, and it made coffee hour so much easier for hosts and guest alike. The youth group did the honors that first Sunday after the reorganization, hosting the coffee hour and revealing the new kitchen.
The grumbling started within hours. How could the teens change the kitchen without asking (they had permission from the church leaders)? How could they toss things out without permission (only broken and expired things were thrown away)? What right did they have to change anything?
The next Sunday, the coffee pots and machine had been moved back to the corner by persons unknown, recreating the old set-up. The youth, assuming someone didn’t know about the new place, moved it again. The next Sunday, it happened again. And again. And again. Finally, the youth gave up. Their hard work and best intentions had run into a communal unwillingness to change. The coffee making status quo was restored, but the damage was significant: the youth no longer believed that their efforts or their presence were welcome.
I doubt the adults who moved the coffee pots were intentionally causing damage to the teens of the church. I’m almost positive that there wasn’t a conspiracy intent on rejecting and dismantling the gift of time and effort given by the youth. This was just a typical knee-jerk reaction, a reclaiming of turf, an exercise of power. I wish the adults had asked themselves this question:
What is more important: keeping things the way I want them or honoring the gift offered by others?
The true and most disturbing question: what would have been their answer?
