Scripture Reading
Life of Love
I’ve read this passage numerous times and I’ve also preached on it before. But this time around what really hit me hard was, this phrase that keeps on repeating in the beginning. Let me read it for you again. “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I’m a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 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. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3) It doesn’t say that love is a quality that one may or may not have. It says that without love who I am and the one life that I’m living can be meaningless. And I experienced this whenever I go to a funeral. Every life is precious and it is to be celebrated. And we celebrate with the person, but it is so evident whenever I go to a funeral that the person who lived with a lot of love , have shared that love. There’s something unique about that person’s funeral, there’s a particular, abundance, fullness, and warmth at that funeral. And every time, every funeral, I walk away thinking it’s love. Ultimately, it’s the love that matters. It’s not what I’ve accumulated or how much I’ve achieved. Ultimately at the end, it’s love that counts. And it’s the love that person that has shared receives in the end. And then these verses make me question then, what is love? What really is love? It’s interesting how often we think we know what love is because it’s so commonly used. It’s an everyday word that we rarely stop to think and wonder about its meaning. But after reading this first Corinthians passage, I couldn’t help wondering to myself, do I really know what love is?
After explaining how vital love is in life. Saint Paul describes what love is, and I’m going to again, read it for you carefully, slowly so that you may think and ponder about it. “Love is patient love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-6) As I was reading and meditating upon this slowly, I felt really uneasy at the end, recognizing that I don’t fully have any of these qualities in my life. According to Saint Paul love is anything and everything, but that comes easily and naturally to us. It is so much easier to be impatient and criticize than to slow to judge and be patient. It is so much easier to hold grudges and close our hearts immediately than to forgive and continually seek to see the good in the other person. It is so tempting and so very easy to be wrapped up in my own world and be indifferent than to look out to the bigger world where there’s so much hurt and needs. It takes effort to persevere and not to give up on hope, when it comes to people and relationships. All these qualities, I’ve realized that we don’t need when we love those who are simply loveable. But all these qualities of love, we can not cultivate without humility and courage to really look deep inside myself and first recognize and acknowledge my own brokenness, my own darkness, and without struggle and going through the challenges without persistency and perseverance, we can not build any of these characteristics of love. So the question is, how can we endure through this? And how can we love those we find kind of difficult to love. I never realized that we begin with this truth, that within every individual, there is a precious and beautiful being. We’re all unique, we’re all different. But we start with the truth that, yes, I’m a beloved child of God, and you, she, and he is a beloved child of God. We start with this unwavering truth that every individual is a fundamentally beautiful, precious being. And I realized that’s where love starts, love begins with that acknowledgement, understanding and determination saying, I’m going to love, and I’m going to love this person.
Someone said that love implies looking and speaking to the person behind the action that we see, behind the behaviors, beyond their knowledge, their capacities, it’s seeing beyond that. It’s interesting because often we see their behavior and we get turned off or we decide, okay, I can ‘t love you. But love is going and seeing beyond the behavior and external things. And when you have that, you start to be present differently. You start to understand differently. You start to listen differently. It’s going to take effort. It will demand effort. It will be challenging. But when we are able to do that, that love eventually helps that person to be themselves fully. And I think this is the kind of love that we see in our parents, no matter what your child does, sometimes you know, they may unintentionally hurt you with their words, their actions. Our Hi-C, they’re going through hormonal changes, it’s not their fault. And yet, parents, you get hurt, but you don’t turn away from your child. You consistently loved them. You cannot stall, but love them and continually hope in them. And you see this beautiful being that I think sometimes other people just don’t see, that is the love of a parent.
Learning To Love
Some of you may know, Jean Vanier, he’s a founder of a large community. He’s the one who founded this large community where people with various disabilities, they come and live together. So this was the time when everybody with those certain disabilities were hospitalized or put in institutions. He had a vision that, you know, why don’t we come together and live as a community. We learn from each other. We make homes with them. And so right now in 33 different countries, 135 large communities exist. Henry Nouwen, whose book we often read, he was also influenced by Vanier, and he ended up going to one in Toronto, and lived with those people. And he shares a story where one day this woman came into their community named Pauline. She was 40 years old, one of her arms and one of her legs, was paralyzed, she was epileptic and diabetic, but something that really stood her out from the rest of the people there was that she was extraordinarily violent. She was often enraged, yelling and screaming, breaking things, making it very difficult to live together with others in the community. So Vanier and other people in that community decided we need to help. How can we help this woman? And what can we do? A psychiatrist said and reminded them that this woman had lived 40 years. And experienced rejection and humiliation, you have to start with that understanding. She would’ve been looked down upon, mocked by people in her life. And this was in the 1940- 1950’s, where society did not welcome and accept them. So she was someone who had been through tremendous humiliation and experienced rejection. And when someone experiences humiliation, they develop a broken self image. They can not love themselves. And there’s a division in their hearts. And when there’s division, it leads to suffering. And for her case, that suffering came out in violence. She was fighting. She had to be in a fighting mode. She had to somehow protect herself and out came all the violence. And through this violence, she’s screaming out, I’m hurting, inside, I want to be loved.
So the people in that community were determined and were encouraged. They were challenged to see Pauline underneath her anger, underneath her rage, underneath her violence and her depression. They try to see beyond that. And they sought out to be present with Pauline, the beloved. And so Vanier, and the rest of the people in Pauline’s community practiced, they practiced the nature of love described in first Corinthians chapter 13. They waited patiently, so whenever anger or violence came out, they waited. When they’re washing or helping her take a bath, they would purposely and intentionally hold the parts of her body that she herself has rejected tenderly and lovingly with reverence so that she could start to love herself and accept herself. And through this patience, kindness, being truthful and enduring with her, through her pains, even whenever a broken image would emerge time to time, they helped her to know the truth, that she is beautiful. That despite her disabilities, but with everything as she is, she is a precious human being. And it took a long, long time, many years, for healing to happen and for Pauline’s true self to come out. But eventually it did, little by little. She was able to accept herself and love herself. But interestingly, Vanier shares that he was actually grateful to this woman for, it was Pauline who taught him what love is, it was Pauline who taught him how to love, what loving is all about and that they need to grow together in love.
True Love
It is when all of these characteristics, the qualities of love, patience, humility, openness, kindness, acceptance, respect, forgiveness, truth, hope, and trust. When they are cultivated and ingrained within us. That’s when love is manifested, that is when we are able to love. And of course, we cannot do this on our own, merely with our effort, we need to draw our strength and even the desire to want to love from the source of love, who is God. When you look at first Corinthians chapter 13, it’s the love that God shows us his endless patience. He sees us beyond our brokenness and our darkness. He loves us despite our failings and shortcomings, studying Hosea, we learn that God does get disappointed. He gets angry, passionately. He gets hurt because he loves us.
The greatest thing is that God never gives up on us. He waits for us to come back. He waits for us to understand and know God’s love. And when we’re able to see and encounter ourselves in the light of this love, that we are empowered to continue to strive, and take the challenge of really loving those around us. And that is why I believe that Saint Paul says love will never end because God’s love for us will never end. And when you think about this, spiritual community is the best place for us to practice and grow in this love, in every community, wherever you go, there’ll be people who will be different from us. And there might be people who we find a challenge to be with and unintentionally hurt us. But Saint Paul reminds us today through today’s scripture that they’re the ones who will teach us how to love. Those challenging moments are times for us to practice and cultivate love. Enabling us to live a life that’s not lived in vain, enabling us to live a life that matters because we have loved and we have received love. With this in mind, the perspective changes, when they encounter a challenging situation, instead of backing out, what I’m encouraged to think is this is a time for me to practice love. This is an opportunity for me to grow in love. This person, who I see differently, is a person who will teach me how to love. And I’m going to love this person. I’m going to strive to love those who are different. There were a few pastoral visitations I had this past week. I visited two spouses, one KSM couple and one ESM couple, and both of the couples where one of the spouses is sick in bed. I visit and I see the other spouse just being there tenderly giving care. Of course it wasn’t the most comfortable situation and circumstance. But I witnessed how the one giving care just stood by their side, with patience, with tenderness, with kindness and enduring without giving up hope.
And I say to myself, every time I come out of that visitation, wow, that is love. That is what first Corinthians is trying to say. That is love. It is in when we’re able to be present with those who are suffering, not willing to give up, but strive through that suffering and come out of that suffering. That’s when we are able to say that I have loved. And I pray that we press on to know this love of God. We press on to know the love of God that will encourage us, enable us and challenge us to cultivate love within us, grow love within us. So that in every encounter we see that it’s an opportunity to love, and to grow.
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