Love Is...
Text: 1 Corinthians 13
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
June 25, 2006

Love is...

People speak about love all the time.

Most movies usually get around to having a love story in them. Most novels do as well. The self-help section of most bookstores generally inspire us to either love better or teach us to find someone who will love us.

We use the word love in such a variety of ways.

We meet someone and fall in love and love them for our entire lives.

We love our children. We love our parents.

We love chocolate ice cream. We love sports. We love our favorite teams.

We love God. We love our friends. We love our neighbors as ourselves.

We use the word love a lot and mean a whole lot of different things by it.

Classically, the most poetic and best known statement on love is 1 Corinthians 13. If you’ve ever been to a wedding, you’ve probably heard it. It is the classic scripture for weddings. Sometimes there’s the joke that 9 out of every 10 wedding planners prefer 1 Corinthians 13 to any other passage in the Bible.

It really isn’t a passage that was written for weddings, but when you read these words:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.


When you read these words and have ever been married or partnered or known someone who is or has been married, you know that these words are pretty good advice to couples.

What the passage most specifically is about, however, is about conduct in the church. How we treat each other in these hallowed walls.

Paul is writing to the church at Corinth. The church at Corinth was a feisty, active, vibrant but badly divided church.

There were divisions on social status; they had rich and poor people.

There were divisions on how holy people were. There was a strong charismatic community in Corinth and some of the people in the charismatic community thought they were better, more holy than those who weren’t endowed by the specific gifts from the Holy Spirit.

There were divisions on morality. Corinth had a large population of prostitutes, bar tenders, brothel owners, and such. They also had a large population of those who visited the prostitutes, the bars, and the brothels.

The church at Corinth was a feisty, active, vibrant but badly divided church.

And they wrote to St. Paul asking for advice. Paul gave them a lot of advice, but in this letter, in what we call the 13th chapter, he, in the midst of speaking about spiritual gifts, tells them that the greatest spiritual gift of all is love.

The specific word Paul used was the word agape. 1 Corinthians, like the rest of the New Testament was written in ancient Greek and the Greeks had three words for love. Eros, romantic love, philia, the love of friends, and agape.

Agape is defined in many ways. Some say it means ‘unconditional love.’

Sort of.

Some will say it means to be charitable towards others.

Sort of.

Some call it the lowest, most basic foundational form of love; some call it the highest form of love.

Many have thought that this word represents divine, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, thoughtful love.

It is a profound love and respect of one’s neighbor, no matter what. No matter what. It is treating one another with profound dignity and respect...always. No matter what.

If you look around the room and can find a person who you would least like to spend time with, and please don’t share who that is, agape means that you need to treat that person with profound dignity and respect.

And Paul actually specifies that it is a mature kind of love. Agape is not for the weak, not for the immature, not for the childish. It is adult love, adults treating each other with profound dignity and respect.

By now you’ve been sitting here listening to the sermon and, no doubt a question has crossed your mind.

What does this have to do with the bank building?

In a word, nothing.

To be quite honest, I don’t care what we do about the bank building. If people vote to sell. Fine. If people vote to keep it. Fine. Years ago when I studied to go into the ministry worrying about what we did with empty buildings on church property was nothing I was terribly interested in learning about, worrying about, or spending that much time on. I’ve changed in a lot of ways over the years, but that hasn’t changed. I truly don’t care what we decide today. I won’t even cast a vote.

To be quite honest, I wonder if we wanted to have a discussion today on how to learn more about Jesus, and how to feed the hungry in our community, and care for those in need, if we’d have nearly as much excitement as we do in discussing the bank building.

But I digress.

I do care about something deeply.

In conversations in the church people get excited. People get passionate. People get worked up. Sometimes people get excited. Sometimes people get angry.

Sometimes in churches, people get passionate, worked up, excited, and angry and they begin talking. And sometimes we begin talking not to people but at people. We talk to make our points----and forget to listen.

We speak, and we don’t weigh the words carefully. We don’t treat each other with profound love and respect.

Sometimes it is easy to say things that are not kind.

Sometimes it is easy to say things which do not reflect patience with others.

Sometimes it is easy to say things that are rude.

Sometimes it is easy to say things that are self-seeking.

Sometimes it is easy to say things which come out of easy anger.

Sometimes it is easy to say things which reflect keeping a record of wrongs.

Sometimes it is easy to say things which week to destroy the integrity of another person.

But, St. Paul said, Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

So, here is what I want us to do today.

First, please practice true agape love towards one another. Express your point of view, but if you cannot do it with patience and kindness, and feel you have no choice but to be rude and debasing towards another, please choose not to share. St. Marks Church has many great qualities, but sometimes one of our less than stellar qualities is the fact that sometimes people have a habit of hauling off at each other. I have rarely encountered this in churches----sometimes I understand it because this church has endured, in its history, some great hardship and pain----but hauling off at each other is, frankly, intolerable. Let’s get over it.

Secondly, Paul makes a point to discuss maturity in this passage.

Sometimes being an adult is overrated. I just wanted to say that.

Being an adult, so often, is over-rated.

When I was a child people didn’t expect much from me. Whatever little I did, I was praised for. Now people expect a lot more than that.

When I was a child I could let my emotions run amuck.

If I was very happy and excited did something stupid or said something foolish it was excused because I was young and just got carried away.

When I was angry and said something crass or hurtful I was excused because I was young and didn’t know any better.

If I behaved badly because I didn’t get my way it was excused because I was young and no one expected better behavior than that.

Something happened along the way, however. I got older. Then I hit middle age. Then I ended up being eligible for AARP. Now that I am an adult it is presumed that I know better.

Whenever we come together as a church to discuss and decide things, it is an adult activity. It requires maturity; the kind of maturity Paul speaks of. And maturity, for a Christian, is listening and treating one another with profound respect.

Thirdly, please recognize that the greatest spiritual gift God has given us is this gift of agape love, an ability, a profound desire even, to treat each other with profound graciousness, dignity and respect. Nothing reflects our faith more than when we are loving; and nothing shows a gap in our souls more than when we are not.

I’ve decided to end where Paul begins. Paul begins my saying that if we say the words, but do not have love, we are no more than making noise.

Today, as we gather, what we decide is what we decide. I’m neutral and frankly can live with either choice.

But how we decide it means a lot to me. How we treat one another means everything.

If we treat one another with dignity and respect, we will have made an honorable decision and that will be a good thing and we will bring honor unto each other, unto this church, and unto God.

But if we treat one another with derision, without charity, without respect, whatever decision we make, will bring dishonor to each other, dishonor to this church, and dishonor, ultimately to God.

So, whenever you speak, weight what you choose to say and ask yourself one question: Am I bringing honor or dishonor to God?

And choose your words according.