Fr Robert Hendrickson

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful…”

This lovely piece of Scripture is one that is probably memorized by folks who have been to many weddings. Having just preached one this weekend it occurred to me to think again about the context of the scripture.

It is not a kind of lovely bon mot offered as a kind of spiritual advice. It is actually part of a firm exhortation of the church in Corinth. The Corinthian church was a remarkably diverse one with people from all walks of life, backgrounds, social classes, and more. It looked like what we’d imagine the Church at its best to look like--a community of diverse gifts and blessed in that diversity.

Yet it was a church that was full of quarrels and strife. Arguments over who was most important. An insistence on one way of doing things or another. A resentment when one party got its way. It was not a church exhibiting any kind of love--it was not in need of kindly affirmation.

So read the sentence again, now imagine it instead written to a community full of resentment and anxious squabbling.

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful…”

It sounds quite different with that realization. It sounds quite different if we hear it as a word for ourselves, a corrective one, reminding us of what it means to be the Church. If we hear the words calling us back to our most important vows, to our most essential duty to love one another, to our most effective witness to the love of God.

Of course, couples need this word, too, don’t we? We need to hear those reminders because it’s just as easy for a couple to get caught up in the disagreements that seem so important in the moment but that make us stray far from the call to patient, kind love.

The passage might serve as both a description of what should be and as a reminder when we stray from it. We can all use it right now, I think. Whether as citizens, church members, community members, family, and more. We all need to hear the Epistle written to and for us, ever reminding us to keep our hearts fixed on the love of God, which is patient, kind, humble, and is our model and our hope.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert