Faith, Hope and Love
I've been thinking since last Sunday about the 1 Corinthians 13 passage. Our pastor preached about it, and while I've heard it a million times, including my own wedding, for some reason it hit me a little differently this time. I was really struck by the last verse: Now faith, hope, love, abide these three, but the greatest of these is love.
What does that mean to you that the GREATEST is love?
I started thinking about faith. I have struggled a lot with my faith in the last 15 months, since Kyle's death. Sometimes I have been so cynical and bitter that I haven't even acknowledged God. I have been so disappointed that I have rejected God. I have been so angered at human suffering that I have distanced myself from a God who could allow such to happen. My faith has felt threatened, it has felt flat, it has not sustained me. So I have not abided in faith.
I also thought of how faith seems to be the banner of American Christian evangelism. The same that I grew up with in the Bible belt of wanting to "win others over for Christ." The message of walking the aisle, saving your soul and trusting your eternity to a God you can't see. That's faith. And unfortunately for many Christians, this faith is more important than anything else. I mean that in the way of being more concerned with your neighbor's (family member, co-worker, classmate, etc) "salvation" than you are with their life here on earth. The question of "Are you saved?" is more readily asked and important than "How are you doing? or How can I help"
Ok, so I'm pretty negative about faith. On to hope...
Hope seems to fall into the category saved for those who are desperate for it. Those of us who are blessed to have heating and a/c, food on the table, jobs, family, safety, and general piece of mind don't think about hope much until we are confronted by someone else who doesn't have any - or until it is striped away from us by some tragedy. I have wrested with my hope as well. Grief has a way of stripping away more than you can imagine and hope was a by-product I was unprepared to lose. I started losing hope in many things - our country, our leadership, our churches, our example, our economy, our future, our relationships with races and countries and tribes. How could we mend the damage we have done in the Middle East? How can we function as a nation? How can we help those less fortunate? I was feeling frustrated with Sunday sermons and evening news. No one was offering me a word of hope that I could latch on to. And the Christian hope of eternal life did not seem to be enough to sustain my daily living. I found myself turning to politics or societal "heroes" to give me hope. And while I have found a few lately who have inspired me and given me hope in our future as a nation, it has not replaced the need for hope in God and God's plans. So I have not abided in hope either.
And like I said before, hope seems like it should be reserved for those less fortunate than me. I can see how the African American church hangs hope as their banner, as do other groups in suffering. It is hard for me to feel like I have much to say on this issue when I have had so much for all of my life.
So on to love. If the greatest of these is love, then it should rise above all and matter the most. It should not fail, it should sustain. I have to ask myself honestly, then, where has love sustained me? When has love been the greatest? How do I SEE that? But the truth is, well, the question is the answer. Love has sustained me because I know it wasn't anything else. Love keeps me alive. Love provides for my future. Love gives me a reason to hope in eternity. Love allows my husband and I to live in harmony and learn to support each other. Love replaces my grief so that I can have joy again. And even when I wish to deny it, love is all around me (to steal a line from Love Actually).
Ok, so what do we do with this? We have to be confronted and shaken by this verse. The GREATEST of these is love. So, more important than wanting others to have eternal life, to have faith, to have hope, we have to LOVE. Our banner, our example, our words, our lives, our stories, our focus, our message, our desire, everything, has to be about love. The rest doesn't matter. How do you interpret that passage, how do you feel about worship style, what role does church play in your life, why do you reach out to others, they all have to answer LOVE. I think we would actually bring others hope and provide them a way to have faith, if we let LOVE be the greatest thing out of our mouths and our lives. And so we have to ask, how do we love? Well, read the rest of 1 Corinthians 13 to find the answer. It won't be easy. But guess what, love will give us strength and show us the way.
What does that mean to you that the GREATEST is love?
I started thinking about faith. I have struggled a lot with my faith in the last 15 months, since Kyle's death. Sometimes I have been so cynical and bitter that I haven't even acknowledged God. I have been so disappointed that I have rejected God. I have been so angered at human suffering that I have distanced myself from a God who could allow such to happen. My faith has felt threatened, it has felt flat, it has not sustained me. So I have not abided in faith.
I also thought of how faith seems to be the banner of American Christian evangelism. The same that I grew up with in the Bible belt of wanting to "win others over for Christ." The message of walking the aisle, saving your soul and trusting your eternity to a God you can't see. That's faith. And unfortunately for many Christians, this faith is more important than anything else. I mean that in the way of being more concerned with your neighbor's (family member, co-worker, classmate, etc) "salvation" than you are with their life here on earth. The question of "Are you saved?" is more readily asked and important than "How are you doing? or How can I help"
Ok, so I'm pretty negative about faith. On to hope...
Hope seems to fall into the category saved for those who are desperate for it. Those of us who are blessed to have heating and a/c, food on the table, jobs, family, safety, and general piece of mind don't think about hope much until we are confronted by someone else who doesn't have any - or until it is striped away from us by some tragedy. I have wrested with my hope as well. Grief has a way of stripping away more than you can imagine and hope was a by-product I was unprepared to lose. I started losing hope in many things - our country, our leadership, our churches, our example, our economy, our future, our relationships with races and countries and tribes. How could we mend the damage we have done in the Middle East? How can we function as a nation? How can we help those less fortunate? I was feeling frustrated with Sunday sermons and evening news. No one was offering me a word of hope that I could latch on to. And the Christian hope of eternal life did not seem to be enough to sustain my daily living. I found myself turning to politics or societal "heroes" to give me hope. And while I have found a few lately who have inspired me and given me hope in our future as a nation, it has not replaced the need for hope in God and God's plans. So I have not abided in hope either.
And like I said before, hope seems like it should be reserved for those less fortunate than me. I can see how the African American church hangs hope as their banner, as do other groups in suffering. It is hard for me to feel like I have much to say on this issue when I have had so much for all of my life.
So on to love. If the greatest of these is love, then it should rise above all and matter the most. It should not fail, it should sustain. I have to ask myself honestly, then, where has love sustained me? When has love been the greatest? How do I SEE that? But the truth is, well, the question is the answer. Love has sustained me because I know it wasn't anything else. Love keeps me alive. Love provides for my future. Love gives me a reason to hope in eternity. Love allows my husband and I to live in harmony and learn to support each other. Love replaces my grief so that I can have joy again. And even when I wish to deny it, love is all around me (to steal a line from Love Actually).
Ok, so what do we do with this? We have to be confronted and shaken by this verse. The GREATEST of these is love. So, more important than wanting others to have eternal life, to have faith, to have hope, we have to LOVE. Our banner, our example, our words, our lives, our stories, our focus, our message, our desire, everything, has to be about love. The rest doesn't matter. How do you interpret that passage, how do you feel about worship style, what role does church play in your life, why do you reach out to others, they all have to answer LOVE. I think we would actually bring others hope and provide them a way to have faith, if we let LOVE be the greatest thing out of our mouths and our lives. And so we have to ask, how do we love? Well, read the rest of 1 Corinthians 13 to find the answer. It won't be easy. But guess what, love will give us strength and show us the way.
posted by gnat @ 10:00 PM
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