Saint Luke's Lutheran Church

Some years ago a young man, following the custom of that time, went to his sweetheart's father to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage. He was a little nervous, as would be expected, in part because her father was a formidable man and a hard-hitting criminal attorney. All he wanted to do was to get permission and get out of the house as quickly as possible. No such luck. The young man was forced to sit there and listen to the father's philosophy of life and love. As the old clichés and platitudes whizzed past his head, the young man started to zone out, but he did manage to catch one curious but profound imperative. The father concluded by saying, "And be sure to read 1 Corinthians 13 together at least once a week."

1 Corinthian 13 has long been a favorite text of brides and grooms. It probably appears in more wedding bulletins than any other Bible passage. It makes sense. 1 Corinthians 13 is Paul's well known love chapter, and as Frank Sinatra used to sing, "Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage." Love is not only a central theme at weddings, but also the theme of the month for February, which has Valentine's Day planted right in the middle of it.

Because 1 Corinthians 13 is so often read at weddings, its words are very familiar to many of us - so familiar in fact, that reading these words may seem like reading last week's newspaper - old news, sugared sentimentality from a previous era. But the message of 1 Corinthians 13 will never be old news - for love is as essential to life as food and drink, as the very air we breathe.

When 1 Corinthians 13 is read at weddings, everyone tends to think in terms of romantic love, but when Paul wrote this chapter, he was not thinking about romance at all. In fact, the love of which Paul wrote is much different, and much greater than romantic love. While the title of my sermon for today is "How to Be a Better Lover," I want to point out right at the beginning that this is not a sermon on "How to Improve Your Sex Life." I point that out because in our society today, love is so often associated with romance and romance usually associated with sex. In fact, sex and love are often confused with each other. In movies and books and daily conversation, having sex is often described as "making love," even when there is much more lust than love involved.

Paul wrote this letter to Christians living in Corinth - a Greek city lies at the foot of the Acrocorinth, a huge hill that rises almost 2,000 feet above the city itself. On top of the Acrocorinth in Paul's day was a Temple to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. One ancient tour guide says that there were 1,000 sacred prostitutes serving at this temple. The love that was offered at the Temple of Aphrodite was a totally selfish thing. It was all about lust and not really about love at all. The love about which Paul writes is just the opposite of this. The term Paul uses for love here is the Greek word agape. Agape love has nothing to do with lust, because it is a selfless thing, a self-giving love that puts the other person first.

To be able to love in this way, Paul says, is a gift. In fact, it is the greatest gift of all. It is greater than the gift of speaking in tongues, it is greater than the gift of knowledge or the gift of prophesy or the gift of faith-moving mountains. Love is the fundamental gift - without which nothing that we say or do has any real merit. Do you hear what Paul is saying here? I can be the best preacher in the world, but if I don't have love my sermons are nothing but empty words. You can come to church every Sunday, singing God's praise and offering up your prayers, but if you don't have love its just a bunch of noise. We can serve food at Degage or God's Kitchen every week, we can spend our vacation building a Habitat house, we can give thousands of dollars a year to charity, but if we don't have love it means nothing.

It is like the husband who gives his wife a very expensive diamond necklace for Valentine's Day. In spite of its cost, that gift has no real meaning and no real value unless it is given in love. Without love, such a gift is simply a tool of manipulation - given in order to get something in return. So you can say and do everything right and still get it all wrong if there is no love, because love is the leaven in the loaf, the oil in the lamp, the one essential ingredient that gives our words and our actions meaning and value.

In this chapter, Paul not only sings the praises of love, but he also describes it. Paul describes love as agape - as selfless and self-giving. A modern psychologist has put it this way: "Love exists when you are as interested in fulfilling the needs of another as you are in having your own fulfilled." This kind of agape love, Paul describes as patient and kind. Patience does not come easily to many of us, but it is always easier to be patient with those we love. It is always easier to become irritated with someone you don't love and to him in a rude and unkind way. When you care about the other person, however, when you put her first, then you more easily believe all things and hope all things and endure all things. Agape love, Paul says, is not envious or proud. Love is not jealous of what others have, but is happy for them. Love is not too proud to admit when it is wrong and it does not keep a record of what the other does wrong. Love is willing to forgive as well as to be forgiven.

Ogden Nash captures this thought in a little ditty that he wrote that goes like this: "If you want to keep your marriage sizzling, with love in the loving cup, whenever you're wrong admit it. Whenever you're right, shut up."

This kind of agape love is truly a thing of beauty. Even though agape love is the desire of every heart, it does not blossom in every heart, for this kind of love is not something that we can generate for ourselves. It is, as Paul says, a gift - a gift from God. Only those who have been loved are able to love others. And we are capable of loving only to the degree that we have experienced love.

Here's the good news. God loves you. God loves you with a love that is patient and kind, a love that keeps no record of wrongs, a love that knows no limit and has no end. The evidence of God's love for you is found in Christ Jesus. God's love for us is so absolutely and completely selfless and self-giving, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."

Jesus also once said, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." This is the kind of love Jesus has for us. For Jesus took up a cross in order to lay down his life for us. Jesus walked the way of sorrow and suffering in order to save us from sin and death. He did not hold back, but gave himself completely so that we might know God's love and God's forgiveness. Jesus did not do this because we were so lovable, or because we were so deserving, or because we were such good people. He did it because he loved us - pure and simple.

Now, Jesus calls us to love one another as he has loved us. He calls us to accept one another as we have been accepted - in spite of their faults and shortcomings. He calls us to forgive as we have been forgiven; to be willing to sacrifice and even to suffer, as Christ has sacrificed and suffered for us. He does not say this only to those who are married or to family and friends. He says that we are to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves and even to love our enemies. This level of loving is not something that we can reach on our own. This is the kind of love that we can have only when the love of God lives in our hearts and is the fundamental ingredient in our lives.

Today I invite you to take this gift of love that God is offering, and on the one hand, hold it dearly. On the other hand, give it away to anyone and everyone you meet. For like the two fish and five loaves, this love is never enough until you start to share it with someone else. Amen.