Ethic of Love

 

As we begin 2026, I invite us to focus on Paul’s vision of the ethic of love.  Remember, Paul is writing to a church that was divided and fighting about everything!  Can you imagine living in a time and with people who disagreed and dismissed one another, rather than from a foundation of dignity ~ that all are created in God’s image?  (note the sarcasm here).  Can you imagine living in a time and with people who claimed to follow Jesus but did not love their neighbor, enemy, or themselves?  Can you imagine living in a time where the air was suffocating from the toxicity of anger and fear?  I hear your shy soul saying, “Tell me more, and history is rubbing her forehead with a headache and a sigh, “I am tired of repeating myself.”  Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth is written to people then and now who were at each other’s throats and were failing to live the ethic of love.  Although 1 Corinthians 13 has become the “classic wedding verse”, it wasn’t meant for a couple ~ rather for a community.  It was written not to celebrate love, but to challenge the church to be the church.  Today, I invite you to think of our church.  Open your sacred imaginations to hear Paul’s words begin written to First Congregational UCC in Sarasota, FL.  All of us ~ you and me and we.  Slow chew on these words:

 

What if I speak in the most elegant languages of people or in the exotic languages of the heavenly messengers, but I live without love? Well then, anything I say is like the clanging of brass or a crashing cymbal. What if I have the gift of prophecy, am blessed with knowledge and insight to all the mysteries, or what if my faith is strong enough to scoop a mountain from its bedrock, yet I live without love? If so, I am nothing. I could give all that I have to feed the poor, I could surrender my body to be burned as a martyr, but if I do not live in love, I gain nothing by my selfless acts.  Love is patient; love is kind. Love isn’t envious, doesn’t boast, brag, or strut about. There’s no arrogance in love; it’s never rude, crude, or indecent—it’s not self-absorbed. Love isn’t easily upset. Love doesn’t tally wrongs or celebrate injustice; but truth—yes, truth—is love’s delight! Love puts up with anything and everything that comes along; it trusts, hopes, and endures no matter what. Love will never become obsolete. Now as for the prophetic gifts, they will not last; unknown languages will become silent, and the gift of knowledge will no longer be needed. Gifts of knowledge and prophecy are partial at best, at least for now, but when the perfection and fullness of God’s kingdom arrive, all the parts will end. When I was a child, I spoke, thought, and reasoned in childlike ways as we all do. But when I became a man, I left my childish ways behind. For now, we can only see a dim and blurry picture of things, as when we stare into polished metal. I realize that everything I know is only part of the big picture. But one day, when Jesus arrives, we will see clearly, face-to-face. In that day, I will fully know just as I have been wholly known by God. But now faith, hope, and love remain; these three virtues must characterize our lives. The greatest of these is love.

 

What did you hear in these words?  I want to know.  Email me sharing how this evokes and provokes new thoughts on how our church might embrace and embody these words might be lived together.  May these words disrupt, interrupt, and stretch us to be the church that lives the ethic of love in these days.  Amen.