AtomWhen you spell love, U ALWAYS comes before I!!
Pastor Dave Peterson
First Lutheran church
January 31, 2010
1 Corinthians 13
Before the Musical Message
While the Biblical language has three words for Love, the English language only contains one…and really doesn’t have a word for the third “level” of love, Agape Love!!
One of the first attempts to find a better word was made in the 1600’s (in old English) by the translators of the King James Bible…when they translated Agape into Charity…which works but still doesn’t reach the depth of Agape.
Back in 1971 Kenn Gullickson picked up on this and put 1 Corinthians 13 to music. Please join us on the chorus….
Before the lesson
Most often today, we hear the words of 1 Corinthians 13 at a wedding…and, thus, not surprisingly, many think of this as a wedding text. While this fits…this was not its original intent. In its context, 1 Corinthians 13 is a lesson written to teach “the more excellent way” on how the body of Christ in all of its diversity and with all of its differences lives and works together.
SERMON TIME
It’s time for a spelling lesson…what’s the rule that we’ve all been taught about how to spell words that have an i and e next to each other…
“i before e except after c.”
Most all of us have memorized this little spelling rule…For decades, it’s been used to help students learn how to spell these tough words in the English language…
ie words like: friend, thief and yield and
ei words such as: ceiling, receive and deceit.
And, we learned, as long as we stayed with the simple “ie” or “ei” words…this “short form” of the rule, first taught in a 1866 spelling manual, worked great!!
But then, along came words like neighbor and weigh …and we needed to learn a new rule...the long rule that said, “i before e except after c or when sounded like a as in neighbor and weigh.” By the way, this first appeared in a 1988 spelling rules book!!
But, this didn’t work out perfectly either…as neither of these rules didn’t offer any help for words like height, leisure, ancient, neither…including names in our own community of faith: Beilke or Beimert.
And…if you are still with me…consider seize and siege!! Another rule was invented to help us out with these…I won’t go into this one!!
Now, while this is kind of fun…I share it because it helps us see what’s happening in the lesson from 1 Corinthians 13 for today…
In the letter to the Corinthians today, Paul is giving them (and us) a spelling lesson on what it takes to live as the Body of Christ..on the rules of how to spell LOVE!!
Let’s go revisit some of the lesson from last week…1 Corinthians 12:
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
And then, after reflecting on the body needing every member, without distinction:
24But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, 25 that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Now, in chapter 13…the answer to how we do this…how we live as the body of Christ is given!! The answer…”you need to know how to spell love”…and we’re given 16 simple “rules” for spelling it…and you’ve heard them several times today already!!
• Love is patient…
• Love is kind
• Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
• Love never ends…
Now, here is the key point…while Paul’s rules are far more poetic than the sing-songy chant of “i before e except after c,” it’s very clear that, in spelling love, i doesn’t come before anything. Rather, Paul tells us, when you love someone, u always comes before i.
Here’s the key spelling rule for love: When you love someone, u always comes before i.
Let’s go back…Notice how everyone of these definitions of love are pointed toward the other: toward the u!!
• Love is patient…towards the other…towards the u…
Because, as William Barclay reminds us:
The Greek word used for patience ALWAYS describes patience towards people; not circumstances:
• Love is kindness expressed towards the other..towards the u.
• Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude…
again the direction is towards the other…toward the u!!.
Paul’s spelling lesson: When you love someone with Agape love, u always comes before i.
Now, while most people would agree with this: saying that “u should come before i” and living that way are often two different things.
One reason for this is that putting “u before i” doesn’t come naturally…it needs to be learned!
Timothy Merrill, when commenting about u before i rule of love, wrote:
Several years ago, the Nova TV series advertised that it was going to air an intimate portrait of two groups whose members labor exclusively for the good of the community. In these groups, no individual in either group put himself or herself first.
And who were these remarkable groups marked by such selfless love to the u…the other?
Some previously undiscovered tribe in the African jungle?
Some isolated clan living in the interior of South America?
Some unique cohort in the far, frozen North?
No. They were colonies of ants and cockroaches. To find individuals who are by nature selfless, Nova had to look outside the human species.
“u before i” takes effort…it’s not natural for human beings…and I sense that part of the “why” is how we define love in our society. As mentioned, while the English language has only one word for love, Paul had the choice of at least three different words for Love: eros, philos, or agape!!
And here’s the major distinction: while the other two words, eros and philos, have more to do with FEELINGS: AGAPE has more to do with an act of the will than a feeling of the heart.
In other words, Agape love means whether or not it’s possible to feel like putting u before i, it is possible to behave so that in our practice we put u before i.
For a simple example: Yesterday, while sitting in the lobby at St. Ben’s University putting some finishing touches on this sermon…in a simple way,
you could say that it is AGAPE love that prompts old parents to get up before 5 on a Saturday morning to drive 2-3 hours so we get to sit all day at a tournament for our kids!!
I can’t say Joy and I (or Sarah or Nancy…who asked to get into the sermon today) really FELT like getting up yesterday at before 5 yesterday…but…because we love our kids…because when we spell agape love the u is always before the i…we did!!
And, in a simple way, this is the spelling lesson that Paul invites the Body of Christ to discover and learn and put into practice!! Let’s back up again:
So often in our society we operate with the spelling rules that we need to FEEL love before we can act on it.
For example…think of all the commercials these days seeking to tap into our emotions so we FEEL like giving our love to the people of Haiti.
Not so for Agape love.
Agape love gives even when the feelings aren’t there because Agape love is actions, it’s living out deeds of love, regardless of the feelings that are inside…and then, while we’re doing actions of love, Agape love is trusting that the acts of love will affect the feelings…but…even if they don’t…we still love the other with acts of love, placing the u before the i!
Today is about Spelling lessons:
• i before e except after c…or when it sounds like an a…or…there are lots of exceptions!!
• How do we spell love? For members of the Body of Christ, u always comes before i. And, there are NO exceptions!!
Why do we need to learn to spell?
Because we are the body of Christ…the one’s God gave to care for one another…to mourn with…to celebrate with…
2 thoughts as this comes to a close…
First…since the ELCA vote last August…the bonds that hold together the Body of Christ have been stretched and tested at First Lutheran. And…we’re still in our journey as to how to respond.
Today, as we learn how to spell love, I say THANK YOU to all who have and continue to love the other with agape love…all who place the u before the i…even when seeing the issues from extremely diverse angles…
may this continue to happen among us…because,
what unites us is the one who placed us together in the body of Christ…the Lord Jesus himself…
who out of his agape love…even though he didn’t feel like it, went to the cross with ACTION Agape love…placing the u before the i…for you and for me.
A second thought: from a Christmas letter Joy and I received this year…a letter that speaks of the power of the Body of Christ when it’s living out this powerful definition of agape love…
The lady of the house starts out by writing in capital letters:
WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT HIM!
And then she writes:
The words of “HANDEL’S MESSIAH” from Isaiah 53:4-6 are very meaningful to us these days. We’ve not been able to celebrate Christmas as usual this year. There’s a sadness in the air – the thought of losing my beloved husband. He wrote the following a few weeks ago:
“I must tell you the bad news. I have been diagnosed with cancer. I have been so healthy my whole life that this has been quite a shock to us. I am signed up for hospice care and would very much like to remain home until the rest of the close family arrives in January. These have been wonderful and adventurous times with many great friends, almost all of whom we know, not only personally, but also ‘in the Spirit’. We have come to see how very important is the Body of Christ and the people who make up the body. Don’t sell yourself short. We are all so very important to one another. Find your place in Christ!!”
Did you hear them spell love…where u always comes before i??
This is the love Jesus has for us…and the love he invites us to have for one another.
May it continue be so with God’s People today!!
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