The apostle Paul was a prolific letter-writer. But he doesn’t merely scribble informal notes to friends and family in faraway places. Paul’s letters – at least the ones that ended up in the Bible’s New Testament – are situational documents that speak to problems he thinks need prompt attention in a particular community of believers. And Paul has serious concern for the church in the ancient Greek city of Corinth.
From start to finish, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians commands unity that honors distinctiveness and diversity. Paul urges those first believers to proper care for one another, to the formation and nurture of faith in Christ that leaves out no one. First Corinthians is a textbook on moral reasoning and on the relation of the individual to the larger community. And this morning’s lesson is laser-focused on re-enforcing the foundation of Christian community: love. Listen to the Word that God has spoken –
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
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 does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part. But when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-13)
This passage is often a go-to Scripture for weddings, because it offers some helpful advice about the kind of love for which those entering the covenant of marriage must strive. But Paul waxes poetic not just about romantic love between wife and husband. His message to the Corinthians urges unconditional love: the kind of deep affection that endures between God and each of us, even though our words and actions aren’t always very endearing or honoring to God. Yet, despite the self-centered sin and brokenness that make us hard to love, God nevertheless loves us still with gracious love that is total, absolute, and unreserved.
In response to such great, unconditional love – in response to such amazing, undeserved grace, God calls us to love each other in the same way: To love not just those who look like we look, or think like we think, but also to love those who are different that we are, and those who have different ideas and opinions than we do; to love friends, neighbors, and strangers who are irritatingly different or frustratingly contrary. God calls us to show these folks the type of self-giving, self-sacrificing love that God shows us in coming to dwell among us, and taking human form in the person of Jesus, and fully giving himself on the Cross, and sacrificing himself fully unto death that each of us might live.
Despite their claims to extraordinary spirituality, Paul tells the Corinthians to get their act together: You are incapable of making the Spirit of God in Christ evident in your life, Paul in as much reckons, unless the focus of your life is grounded in genuine, unconditional love for each other.
For you and me, our best response to these ancient-but-ever-true words is exercising the practices that reveal the Holy Spirit present and active within our hearts and minds – exercising the Spirit-led practices that embody unconditional love. On the active side, that is the stuff of demonstrating goodness, kindness, gentleness, and justice. On the avoidance side, that means relying on the Spirit’s power to overcome the grips of envy, arrogance, rudeness, self-centeredness, irritability, resentment, and rejoicing when others fail or fall short.
I call these “practices” for good reason: We cannot change ourselves overnight. It takes conscious effort – submission to the Spirit of Christ – to bring about meaningful change. As any athlete or musician knows, the more your practice, the more you learn, and the better you get. And eventually practice pays off! Those practiced actions that began with the requirement of conscious effort in time become unconscious response, second nature, part of your spiritual muscle memory, innate part and parcel of who and what you are as disciples of Jesus and members of Christ’s body.
And when you let the Spirit hone your unconditional commitment to love as you yourself want to be loved, well, then, you become more fully able to participate in God’s efforts to heal the wounds of the world, repair its malfunction, and declare with full throat that indeed the Kingdom of God has drawn neigh.
It is unconditional discipleship to Jesus that calls us to participate in God’s efforts to let those who feel forgotten and despised know that they are remembered and loved: the abused spouse, the battered child, the homeless man, the hungry woman, the forgotten neighbor; the alcoholic, the drug addict, the prisoner, and yes the immigrant. It is unconditional discipleship to Jesus that calls us to participate in God’s efforts to bring hope to places where all hope seems lost, and these days, that feels just about everywhere!
Whenever we give money, or donate time, or offer skills – to close friends and total strangers in places near and far, we do so not to draw attention to ourselves, or to make ourselves feel good, or to experience the excitement of travel, or to gain a tax advantage. We do these things unconditionally, because the Holy Spirit has conditioned us in the practice of being the hands and feet of Christ, whose hands and feet were pieced for us and our salvation in an act of unconditional love.
Let me leave you with this cinematic picture of unconditional love. I’ve shared it before, but it bears repeating in our social and political moment.
Noah Calhoon and his wife, Allie, are the lead characters in the movie and novel “The Notebook.” Allie suffers with dementia, and the disease is slowly erasing all memory of Noah and their long, loving marriage. Day by day, lost memory by lost memory, Noah is becoming more and more isolated from Allie.
Their adult children urge Dad “to just let the folks at the nursing home take care of Mom” so Dad can get on with his life. But Noah refuses to abandon Allie, even though there’s really nothing in it for him. The marriage that once was so rich and powerful has, no thanks to dementia, become poor and anemic. Whatever joy they once shared as husband and wife is all but gone.
Yet, Noah stays. Noah abides with Allie even though severe, chronic memory loss keeps Allie from abiding with Noah. Their kids don’t understand this glorious, magnificent, splendorous, beautiful, wondrous, grand love. But here’s how their Dad explains it:
“I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me, and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect, I’ve succeeded as gloriously as anyone who has ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.”
Love always prevails, doesn’t it! Indeed, love never ends! Hold fast to that Good News!
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, August 10, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship and commentary by J. Paul Sampley informs the message.