Some Valentine's Day Thoughts

It's Valentine's Day. (It's Saint Valentine's Day, actually. But I won't quibble.) The theme of this day is love, or at least some versions of that term.

The Bible has a thing or two to say about this subject, understandable since it's God's Word and one of the Biblical writers, John, summarizes God's character by saying simply that, "God is love."

In twenty-one years as a pastor, I've presided over many weddings and one of the themes that most couples seem anxious to underscore when they marry is love. Often, they pick the Bible's so-called love chapter, First Corinthians, chapter 13, to be read during the ceremony. But I sometimes wonder if they know what they're doing. The portrait of love painted by the writer of the passage, Paul of Tarsus, is, well, downright scary.

In Eugene Peterson's rendering of the passage, it reads like this:

1If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.

3If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

4Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,

Doesn't have a swelled head,

5Doesn't force itself on others,

Isn't always "me first,"

Doesn't fly off the handle,

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

6Doesn't revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

7Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.

8Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. 9We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. 10But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

11When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

The first thing that should be pointed out about this passage is that Paul didn't write it for weddings. In fact, he didn't even write it regarding marital relationships.

The words were written to a first-century church in the city of Corinth that had a problem. Some people who had the gift of tongues, the ability to speak in a kind of heavenly language, claimed to be spiritually superior to the people in that church to whom God had chosen not to grant that gift.

It had created a rift within the congregation, one faction composed of spiritual snobs who spoke in tongues and the other nursing resentments, legitimate and otherwise, against the first group.

Why this particular spiritual gift became such a bone of contention, I'm not sure. But jealousy and envy, even among Christians, because other people have gifts and blessings we don't have is a chronic human problem. "She's popular and I'm not. I hate her." "He seems to have the ability to make sound investments and I can't even balance my check book. What a creep he is!" "He's a great mechanic and I can't even pound a nail in straight. He's so stuck-up." It happens to preachers, too, this jealousy thing, "Why does he or she have a big church with an ample budget and I have to struggle all the time?" "Why are people so wowed by so-and so's preaching? What am I, chopped liver?"

And when it comes to what the Bible calls spiritual gifts, those special endowments granted to all Christians, for the good of the whole Church and for our own areas of service in the world, we never seem happy with what God has chosen to give to us. "I seem to have the gift of service, but I'd like to be a leader!" "I have the gift of being an administrator. But that's backroom stuff. I'd much rather have something that will get me notice, like the gift of teaching."

Nothing is more destructive of relationships than envy and jealousy. That's exactly why Paul wrote this portrait of love.

Recently I've discovered that, though I write a new sermon for every wedding, I really only have one wedding sermon. Each time I stand before a couple, I deliver exactly the same message, whether this passage for First Corinthians is read or not. It's sort of like that old anti-drug PSA that showed an egg in a frying pan in which a narrator said, "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?" My wedding sermons begin something like this, "This is love. We can't love like this..."

And I really believe that we can't love like this. Not on our own steam anyway.

Has any human being in the history of the world--apart from Adam and Eve before they fell into sin and Jesus, Who also happened to be God and was conceived in Mary's womb by the Holy Spirit--loved anybody else--be they lover, child, friend, enemy--in ways that conform with Paul's daunting description in First Corinthians 14:4-7?

I know that I haven't!

And I've never met anybody who has.

And yet, we all acknowledge that for our relationships to work, there must be love.

Not the syrupy, banal stuff sold as love by the writers of romance novels, the composers of sappy songs, or the creators of greeting cards.

Not the "love" that the diamond-sellers and florists say can be measured in how much we spend.

Not the "love" that views our beloved as someone we can use, per Bob Seger in Night Moves, most rap artists, and the cynics who churn out pornography.

Love, according to the Bible, isn't even primarily about our feelings at all. Love is a tough-minded commitment to the good of others.

Love says, "No matter what. No matter how often I may fail. No matter how often you fail. No matter how angry I may get at you. No matter how angry you may get with me. No matter what hard times we go through. No matter how dizzying our successes. No matter how my ego may be tempted to walk away from my commitment to you as a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend, a neighbor. No matter, I am committed to doing and thinking and living and striving for what's best for you."

Love moves away from looking out for number one. Love looks out for us, partners in a community of mutual commitment that includes God and you and me.

If that portrait doesn't frighten you, go back and read Paul's words again until you do get good and frightened. Until you can declare, "This is love. This is how I need to live. And I don't know how to live this way," you're not ready to read what I have to say next.

All of which leads to the third point I make with every couple over whose wedding I preside as they stand before the altar to become husband and wife. I put it this way at the wedding of my friends, Jim and Nancy, last year:

I wish that I had some pearls of wisdom with which I could dazzle you and everyone else who’s here today. But I’ve found that most of my wisdom is of the imported, downloaded variety, not original with me. I hope that it won’t surprise you that most of it has come from the Bible and has, without any exception that I can think of, been confirmed by my experiences in life...

When I blow it again in my life [failing to muster the love needed to make my relationships work], I realize again what I need to do. I need to ask God to fill me with love I simply cannot muster on my own. And a God Who went to a cross and rose from death, all because of His passionate and unconditional love for us, is fully capable of filling us with the love we need to make our marriages and other important relationships work.

After nearly thirty-one years of marriage, this is one thing that I have learned: The best way to begin a marriage is by asking God to help us to love each other fully and unconditionally, even when we may be displeased with one another. And the best way to keep it going and strong is by asking God to help us love each other fully and unconditionally, even when we may be displeased with one another...

...if I could summarize my message for you today, it would be this: Go into the import business. Keep importing God’s love into your lives and your marriage and the wonderful love that exists between you today will only keep growing!

"This is what love is like: selfless and giving even when we're not happy with the one to whom we're committed. We can't love like this because we're human. But those with repentant hearts and open wills can import the love they need from the God Whose heart of passionate, committed love has been made plain for all to see in Jesus Christ. Any questions?"

[Previous posts on this subject:
It's Time to Dethrone Romance
Celebrating Thirty-One Years of Marriage: Ten Things I've Learned
God and Sex]