Musings on the Daily Lectionary

If you have the occasion to attend weddings on a regular basis, then you probably know as well as I do that today's reading from 1 Corinthians is quite popular at marriage services. That's hardly surprising, considering Paul's soaring language on love, culminating with "And the greatest of these is love."

Many years ago when my wife and I were planning our wedding, we pulled out one of the pew Bibles in her hometown church to find Paul's words on love. I was something of a nominal Christian in those days, but I had a pretty good idea of where these verses were. Yet not matter how much I looked, I could not find them. I chalked it up to my own lack of biblical literacy, but I later discovered that I was looking in the right place. (I thought it was in 1 Corinthians but didn't know what chapter.) But the pew Bibles in that Southern Baptist Church were the old King James Version, and the word "love" never appears in 1 Corinthians 13. The chapter ends this way. "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." It is charity that never ends and charity that is patient and kind. (Actually it isn't patient but rather it "suffereth long.")

Western culture is enamored with love, but we often don't mean it the way the Bible does. Charity may not be the best translation, but the love spoken of by Paul is not the love of passion or feelings that most couples mean when they choose these words for their wedding. Rather this is the love that God has for the world, the love that causes Jesus to endure the cross, the love that leads him to say, "Father forgive them" while he is on that cross.

The love of passion is a gift from God, but many marriages would probably last much longer if couples focused a bit more on the sort of love Paul describes in 1 Corinthians. But even more, a lot of the partisan division and nastiness so common in our country could be greatly reduced if we realized that Paul is speaking more about our daily life with our neighbors than he is about marital relationships.

When Paul writes the Corinthian congregation, he is worried because he has heard of divisions and factions in that church. And he is not dispensing marital advice but advice on living in community when he speaks of love as kind and patient; not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude; not insisting on its own way; not irritable or resentful. What might happen if we all took those words to heart in our day to day encounters with others, especially with those others who drive us crazy?

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