Paul has just treated us to a
3-verse hymn in which he insists that however clever I am, or you are, however
knowledgeable, however generous, if it is without love, which he calls agapē, we might as well not bother. And if you or I think he is overstating that,
diving into hyperbole, then I should mention that right at the start where he writes,
I will show you now a more excellent (or much better) way… that word “more excellent/much better” is indeed the Greek
word huperbolēn (ὑπερβολην),
hyperbole. Paul is deliberately “hyperbolising”
something the church and its people habitually forget, or simply let lapse: If we are not reflecting,
communicating, God’s agapē/
love, God’s inclusive mercy, or trying honestly to do so, then we have to ask
ourselves what we are doing. But
this love is not anything we generate. We
know it and receive it from God. It is
what God is doing in us, as we consent…. as we learn along the way necessary
skills of letting go, the essence of love… letting go of infantile images of
God, which are forms of idolatry, letting go of possessive or controlling
relationships with others, which often masquerade as love, refusing to accept
ourselves as loved and lovable. Agapē/ love is
the way we know God. It is the only way
– we love because he first loved us[1]. Agapē/
love then is our credentials, the indication that our hearts are being humbled,
changed and brought alive, day by day.
What follows now in this lyrical passage from
Paul is a string of words with which Paul strains to express the
inexpressible. Love, he says, first, is patient.
The Greek word conveys not so much what we would call patient waiting, as
in a phone queue, but rather calm and unhurried waiting to understand, suspending
judgement, bearing pain it may be – the kind of waiting the Psalmist sings
about. It can also mean persevering. Then he says, Love is kind. “Remember to be kind,”
said a senior minister to me years ago, when I was a student working in an
inner city church. Love is not envious, or boastful, or arrogant, or
rude… Not envious is a tricky one…
Agapē/
love does not insist on its own way… does not irritate… Remember our word “paroxysm”, from near
the end of last year…? Paroxysms of
love…? Here is the word again[2],
in a negative sense, this time connoting deliberate or careless, pointless
irritating of someone, annoying them. I
think it is a favourite ploy in many families, certainly in politics... Love doesn’t do that. …does
not tot up wrongs, but welcomes the truth.
The victim culture, so popular today, can sometimes be a matter of carefully
cataloguing wrongs, or perceived wrongs, when agapē/love might say it is a burden to be laid down so that life
can be reborn, memories brought into order, and we can all move on.
Then Paul gives us a quartet of verbs with agapē/ love as
the subject: Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things… love never fails. Well, If Jesus came singing love, Paul comes
singing hyperbole. We know, it is
equally true that in human perversity love can be betrayed, even destroyed. But the love from God that animates creation,
enlivens and inspires us, the love that Wesley called, all loves excelling, joy of heaven… remains just as Paul describes
in his hyperbole.
No comments:
Post a Comment