The greatest thing of all

Faith and hope are indispensable marks of the Christian life and of any church. But, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:13, love tops the list. Indeed, he warns us at the beginning of the chapter that the possession of the greatest gifts without love is meaningless. Even being prepared to sacrifice all, including life itself, without love is fruitless.

Martyrdom is futile without love. This may seem ridiculous, for would not the martyr be self-evidently filled with love for God? As we can see from the contemporary experience of suicide bombers, martyrdom is no necessary proof of love. There may be all sorts of self-serving reasons for a person to wish for death, or they may be prepared to die for a cause or an ideology. The inner purpose should be clear and so too the capacity of the martyr to offer forgiveness and to pray for those who persecute us.

Likewise, we may be engaged in very praiseworthy good works which bring tangible benefit to many. But the motive and aim must be love, or the work will prove fruitless in the end. It is so simple merely to institutionalise our care for others, to do it by rote and to pride ourselves that we are doing good. It is another thing to love others – for love gives us eyes to see them as they are, love demands that we respect others, love involves compassion. One of the great ironies is that the word ‘charity’ has come to mean doing good without love, whereas the original meaning of the word is the love described in 1 Corinthians 13.

There is a sort of worldly estimate of the true Christian life which sees holiness in a sort of serious asceticism. There is a holy smile, a holy weariness, a holy face and holy clothes. Of course a person who wears special clothes may or may not be holy. The real test is love, not appearance. And is this love active in serving others out of a heartfelt concern for others?  One thing that is clear in the Bible is that God looks on the heart, not outward appearance and judges us by thoughts, words and deeds. It is the inner person that matters, and holiness may be found in all shapes and sizes and situations. It is rarely self-conscious.

True love is a heart matter. It willingly seeks as much good for the other person as one would seek for oneself. It shows up in patience, in forgiveness, in practical aid, in kindness, in humility, in appropriate discipline, in taking responsibility, in prayer. It is strong, not weak. It promotes and defends the truth, especially the truth of Christ. True love loves truth.

True love is not to be confused with tolerance. Love may require tolerance and show it. But the sort of tolerance which our culture values means the capacity to live and let live. It is a pale shadow of what the Lord calls for, which is love. We are called on to love our neighbour, not to ‘tolerate’ them. The longing for tolerance as the great virtue is the reverse side of the belief that freedom is the great good to which human life aspires. If only we can be independent of others, free to make our own choices, we will be happy. That is what human life is for.

Love shows what a lie this is. Love forces us to get involved in the lives of others, to seek their good, to unite ourselves with them. That is what love does. It cannot stand back in detachment and tolerance. It comes forward, just as the Lord Jesus himself came forward to die for his enemies.

Connect09, the great campaign in which we are involving ourselves, could be a loveless church program designed merely to get people to come to church in the face of competing pressures. As we personally contact people with the word of God, it may all be for nothing. If this is what it is, and if that is how we intend to conduct it, it will fail even as it succeeds. Our motive must arise from our love of God and our love for the neighbour amongst whom God has set us. One of the great tests of our love will be the genuineness of our commitment to pray.

It is because God so loved the world that our salvation in Christ was secured. Love drove him to unite himself with us, so that we may be united with him. It is no good thinking that this was some sort of passionless and abstract thought which gave us Christ. Love is not passionless. His salvation through Christ has become the very measure and meaning of love in the world. Some reflection of that is what our neighbours need to see in us and experience when they come into our midst. A church which lacks love is no church, because God is love.

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