New Year Blues
According to the Revised Common lectionary, one of the texts for this week is 1 Corinthians 13:1-13:
13:1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
13:2 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 do not have love, I am nothing.
13:3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing
13:4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
13:5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
13:6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.
13:7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
13:8 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.
13:9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;
13:10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
13:11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
13:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13:13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Like many of us, I know this text well. After spending years working in the wedding industry, I know this verse better than most. I wonder how many of us carry this kind of love into our daily lives. Are we always showing this kind of love to our partners, parents, children, siblings, and friends? To be honest with you church, sometimes I fail at this perfect unconditional love. I can be quite irritable and resentful. I can be envious. And yet, I hope that the love I have to give is good enough for the people that I give it to.
However, I remind myself that this perfect love can feel unattainable in my daily life, because it is only attainable through God. I wish I had a easy how-to love like God paragraph to end this blog post with. But in all honesty, I am trying to figure it out myself. How do I still offer this love when I am hurt and angry? How do I advocate for myself and still be kind and generous? How do I best love others when other emotions get in the way between the love they deserve as beautiful children of God?
The most faithful answer I can give, is that we must keep trying. Even when we fall short, we must keep trying. And I promise, as a church, we will be trying right alongside you. Because church, as a body of believers, that’s what we do. That is the love that we owe each other.