As I worked on this particular sermon I texted my best friend and told her that I was working on a sermon about love when it seemed like there was no love in the world. The Church is fighting. There is fighting in politics. The world stands desperately in need of love.
And perhaps that is why we need 1 Cor. 13 today just as much as when Paul penned it. We seem to not know what love is so we don't know how to go about showing it or sharing it with the world. We have made love into an option instead of an imperative. Or to put it another way, we put ourselves above the idea that we should love others.
The church in Corinth was a mess. Folks were not acting as the body of Christ, just as sometimes we are messy and fail to be the body of Christ today. To that church, Paul wrote this letter calling them to live into love, but not just any love - the love of Christ. Agape love.
We need to re-learn what it means to be a people of love. And not just any love, but a people of love that was shown on the cross for us and for the world. What would it look like for the body of Christ to be known as the people who share the love of God, first and foremost? How could the world be changed?
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