This Alien Thing, This Stranger in Our Midst

I'm going to try to write briefly about love and what a strange thing it is.

Here is the NIV text of 1 Corinthians 13, the “love” chapter of New Testament:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I think these verses show that love is a very difficult thing, and a very strange thing.

It is obviously difficult to do all that is here: 1) To keep no record of wrongs; 2) To be slow to anger – especially at something unjust that happens to ourselves; 3) To be patient and kind; 4) To not rejoice at evil (especially evil directed at someone who has wronged us and therefore made us angry); 5) To protect, hope, persevere. The most difficult thing, though, is that love never fails in these things. If you act otherwise, then you are not acting in love. This, to me, is the hardest thing about love.

But love is such a strange thing as well. What kind of thing is love that I can give all my possessions to the poor, and surrender my body to the flames, and not have love? Am I not following Jesus by taking up my cross daily (Luke 9:23)? Or if I give all my possessions to the poor, what more could be asked of me (Matthew 19:21)? Such devotion, commitment, and courage – how is it possible without love?

What more is it that love asks? Self-sacrifice is not love. Devotion is not love. Trust in God is not the same as loving God. So what is love?

I can take up the cause of Christ, I can defend Christ, I can evangelize and speak with all wisdom, and yet lack love.

Insofar as I know anything about love – and I only claim to have a vague idea of what it is, and to only practice it on rare occasion – I think one of the chief things it requires is self-honesty and openness to others. How can I love someone if I will not listen to them, and see myself in light of how I affect them?

I may not know what sort of thing love is. But, based on 1 Corinthians 13, I still think I know what love does. I think that it is love which stays an indignant tongue when its words would be just but harmful. I think it is love that seeks to love others in the ways that they feel loved. I think it is love which puts others first, even when they don’t appreciate it. I think it is love that doesn’t require appreciation (even if it would – at the risk of being redundant – be appreciated). I think it is love that keeps anger from hurting others. Love is the heart that breaks for the pain of others. And I think that if I fail in these things, then I fail to love.

(And, for my brethren in the academic community, I think it is love that stops ink from spilling insults on the printed page that wound others in the body of Christ).

So I see now that though I may love someone, I will never act in perfect love. I can never fulfill all these things. Such is God’s domain alone.

In the end, I find that Love is strange, love is hard, love is compelling.