Do you have pictures in your house that you quite like
but it's almost as if familiarity breeds contempt?
You pass them every day but hardly ever stop to take them in?
1 Corinthians 13 a bit like that, a favourite scripture passage
often read at weddings and funerals (e.g. Princess Diana's)
and yet the great words flow over us, soothe us but we should look deeper.
Let me be a sort of Sr. Wendy Beckett (the nun who explains great art)
and try to unpack some of the great and even uncomfortable truths in it.

The theme of course is love and the setting is the touchy church at Corinth
where there was a dispute about spiritual gifts
which was the best one, and how they should be exercised in the fellowship.
Issues still relevant and not just in Pentecostal or Charismatic churches -
show me a church of any denomination where there are not tensions
between members as to their different roles and how they carry them out
and disputes or disagreements as to what is proper in worship.
What Paul outlines is what someone wisely gave me recently
as a general principle for church life: 'Love is the way, the only way'.
You may be a very spiritual person, a very bible believing person,
you may be someone who works hard for the church
someone who prays and gives and serves and all of that is good
but everything must be done in love or it is worthless
for love is the very character of our God.
Or as someone once suggested, wisely:
'Maybe it's not so much what we do that matters
as how we do what we do.'

What then is love? There are some common misunderstandings:
The old version of the Bible used the word 'charity' in 1 Cor. 13
but that word is debased and is reduced to just helping a good cause
Love is so much more than just buying a Big Issues or a flag on flag day
and it is also much more than having a good feeling or even sexual satisfaction,
nor is it about indulging people, giving them a nice time, what they want.
What the Bible means by love is deeper and more solid:
Love, God's love and the love he wants us to show others is
a committed sacrificial relationship which will give others what is best for them
(which is of course not always what they want or cry out for).

But what does a sacrificial committed relationship mean?


1-3 Love DOES NOT SHOW OFF, it is not superficial
a sacrificial committed relationship is not about hype,
not about making the right noises, having the right gestures,
writing the biggest cheques, or even making the biggest sacrifice
in a world increasingly sold out on performance, effectiveness, success
we need to be tuned in to what really matters
that without love, without a sacrificial committed relationship
all the rest is noise, froth, nothing.
Of course here we are in a church situation where by worldly terms
we don't have the performance, success, results:
but what matters is, do we have the love, the sacrificial committed relationship?
Just listen to this rewriting of 1 Cor. 13 by a church group in England

'If I deliver leaflets to every house in the parish but have no love,
I might as well be a newsagent.
If I witness to others about the love of God, but don't show it to them,
I am a withered plant.
If I give time to people and share things with them, but don't share Jesus
I might as well not bother.
If I'm a member of a lot of committees but have not love, I am nothing.
If I serve in the parish and give up lots of time but the motivation is not love,
it does no one any good.
If I do jobs in the church, but have no love, then there's no point.
I may have a grasp of theology or understand psychology;
I may have grand plans for the inside of the church and the halL
but if I have no love I am nothing.'
When I read that I go 'Ouch!' more than once. What about you?
Love does not show off or remain on the surface:
it is all about the quality of our sacrificial committed relationship
with God and each other


(Love does not show off) LOVE DOES NOT GIVE UP.
Just read vv 4-7 again ..
'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.'
Did you have many 'Ouches' reading that?
This is how the church group rewrites it
'Love puts up with a lot of things and puts itself out.
It does not want to copy other people's gifts.,
it does not make out that it is more important than others
and it doesn't pat itself on the back for the gifts it has.
it doesn't put others down or push itself forward;
its nose is not easily out of joint.
It doesn't hold on to resentment
and is not secretly pleased when other people fail.
Instead it is best pleased when everything is straight and above board.
It looks after and encourages others, it expects the best of them;
it gives them room to make mistakes, but trusts they'll get it right in the end.
Love does not gossip and grumble and go about vandalism.
Love does not keep on about being few in numbers. Love is forward looking.
Love never fails. it goes from beginning to end.'
That's something of what sacrificial committed permanent relationship means.
Take time to confess in the light of such love
how your love and mine is weak and faint and very fragile


(Love does not show off , give up) LOVE NEVER ENDS
That's what that beautiful v 12 means:
'Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror
then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part,-
then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known'
One day we shall no longer have need of faith,
for faith is our confidence in what we do not yet see
but one day we shall see Christ, so we shall have then no more need of faith
One day we shall no longer need to hope,
for hope is our confidence in the future
what we expect and look forward to now
but only at the moment see dimly
shall be fully revealed in the presence face to face of Jesus Christ.
Now we see dimly, we struggle, we believe, we hope, we love
but then, the end of struggle, the end of faith, hope but no end to love.
no more dim reflections in a mirror
but an ever deeper and deeper relationship with him whose love never ends
when we shall know even as also we are known.

Someone has said the dynamic in this chapter
is from a picture of how Christ loved
to a picture of how we shall and how we may now love
It is difficult now.
Florence Allshorn arrived as a young missionary in Uganda
and soon realised that being a missionary
did not make you a perfect and a loving person.
There was an older missionary there who was
as missionaries (or ministers) can be
a difficult person, so difficult that 
no one had been able to live with this older missionary for years.
Florence was about to join the ranks of those who had gone home in despair
but she met an African lady weeping
because for 15 years no one had found the grace to go on.
She determined to stay and read 1 Corinthians 13 every day for a year.
'I suddenly realised that it didn't matter two hoots what happened to me; the only thing that mattered was what happened to God and to the other person.
From that moment everything changed.
Life became an adventure in learning to love
instead of the agony it had been before.' 

Lord, thank you that you love us as we are, you accept us
while we were sinners Christ died for us
and you love us too much to let us stay as we are.
May your love be poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit 
that we may know your perfect love that casts out fear 
and that we may perfectly love you and through you love each other.
Show us what this means
when we are really fed up and frustrated in our homes 
when some situation at work or in our street really annoys us and angers us 
when we are deeply disturbed by something amiss in church


May the Lord make your love increase and overflow
for each other and for everyone else
May he strengthen your hearts
so that you will be blameless and holy
in the presence of our God and Father
when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.