Are You Patient and Kind?
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged.
-- 1 Corinthians 13:4-5
Paul didn’t write this passage of Scripture for weddings. I know. Shocking. Because that’s usually where we hear it and we assume -- incorrectly -- that Paul was talking about marriage and the love needed between two spouses.
Don’t get me wrong. Paul’s words are beautiful and certainly useful for newlyweds to hear and reflect on. But Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to deal with questions and fusses in the church in Corinth. He wanted the church members to get along with each other and love one another. Obviously, a few churches need to take that advice to heart.
But what would happen if all of us -- liberal and conservative, democrat and republican, Protestant and Catholic -- followed Paul’s advice? We might surprise ourselves by actually listening to the views of others. We might find that Jesus really is all we need to have in common to get along. We might find that showing love to everyone -- especially those with whom we disagree -- might lead to solutions rather than anger and bitterness.
I get really frustrated with the Obama bashers. I don’t like getting the e-mails or the posts on Facebook. There’s something really frustrating about people condemning this country’s president because they disagree with his politics. Whatever happened to praying for our leaders? Or seeing the good right along with the bad, because no one is either all good or all bad?
The next presidential race has already heated up. But right now Obama is the president. As Christians, we’re to respect our leaders. That’s biblical and has nothing to do with agreeing with them or not, or even whether they’re Christians. We forget that sometimes.
God calls us to live our faith. Hard hearts and condemnation only tears this country further apart -- and gives people a fairly good picture of what they don’t want to be. We’re suppose to use our lives to draw others toward Christ, not push them away.
Adam Hamilton, minister and author, suggests that we each substitute our own names for “love” in the passage above. So you would read it, “(your name) is patient. (Your name) is kind.” It takes the focus off of other people and their flaws and puts it back on you. Are you patient? Are you kind? Are you rude or self-seeking? Be honest. No one will know but you and God.
Getting along with people, especially those with whom we disagree, isn’t easy. No one ever said it was. But as Christians, God calls us to do it anyway. It’s called living our faith for the world to see.
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