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Friday, April 11, 2014

Without Love

We all know 1 Corinthians 13. You know, "the love chapter". They've written songs about it. It's that "warm feeling" passage about how wonderful love is. Makes you all gushy inside. Well, perhaps some of it. Because, you see, if we're honest what we're most familiar with, perhaps, is "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor 13:13). I've even seen it on secular signs. And, of course, the whole description of love (1 Cor 13:4-9). Except, I suspect, we've not really paid a whole lot of attention to it. I mean, some of the descriptors for love are pretty tough for those of us whose aim is to love.

The rest, however, isn't nearly as familiar. So it isn't a surprise that I got struck pretty hard recently with a single verse in the "love chapter" that hit way too close to home and cut way too close to the bone.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing (1 Cor 13:3).
"Um ... yeah ... okay," I can hear you saying, "... so?" I know. On the surface that seems fine. But when you look at it for a moment, it is really hard to take. Paul gives a hyperbole about the gift of generosity (or liberality, depending on your translation) (see, for instance, Rom 12:8). He lists "all I have" including "my body". This person has given it all away. One would expect, then, a "well done" from God, but Paul says without love "I gain nothing."

Think about it. Love is primarily "outward bound". It isn't about self. It's about the other one, the loved one, the recipients of this love. When a person, then, gives away everything without having at its core the care of those that are loved, that is a pointless venture. It isn't generosity; it's a waste.

And I ask myself how many times I've done anything like that? How often do I do things and think, "I deserve some attention for that"? Every time I hear myself say, "I'm not getting the appreciation I deserve," I'm saying, "I did this good thing for me." It was for appreciation or recognition or something for me, but not for love. Every time I might say something like, "My wife doesn't show me the respect I deserve" I demonstrate that I'm treating my wife well for what I can get out of it, not for love. And no matter how good I may be, how well behaved, how kind, how giving, how thoughtful, how wise, if I do it for me, I didn't do it for love and I wasted my time.

We tend to think that good deeds are sufficient. The fact is that love is the command, not good deeds. Obviously good deeds follow love, but if they are done in love, they are done in self-sacrifice, not with the hope of gain. And I'm embarrassed to think about how many "good deeds" I've wasted ("I gain nothing") giving them with expectation of return and not as a function of love. I would suspect, if you think about it, I'm not the only one.

3 comments:

Marshal Art said...

Another great post, Stan.

This one strikes home for me as well in that this expectation of reciprocity is just so natural. And indeed, we must have some such expectation for a great variety of things we do in our professional lives. However, some advisers and "success coaches" actually preach doing for others as the means by which success is truly attained. That if one serves one's customer properly, reward is automatic.

As such, this example indicates that if one ignores the self and focuses on serving, one is rewarded anyway, so there is really no need to worry about "what's in it for me?" Serving others, more importantly, serving God, has a natural consequence of reward, either now, in the great by an by or both.

Naum said...

Just finished reading this book, and toward the end (in a chapter on prophecy at early Christian "communion service" gatherings, the author examined 1 Cor 13 (in addition to Thessalonians, Acts, 2 Cor, Revelation) as sandwiched between 1 Cor 12 and 1 Cor 14 (pun!) and how Christians flipped the Roman tradition upside down. Paul admonishing people to behave in manner of self-sacrifice, to slay the ego, to discard status -- stressing fellowship (koinonia), friendship (philia) and equality (isonomia) with *equality* being totally different than Roman practice. That all were to adopt the manner of a slave in foot washing (following Jesus example).

Stan said...

Marshall Art, of course, the biblical questions should be "Is it for love?" and "What's in it for God"