Learning to be Lovers

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal…Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face…And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love (I Cor. 13:  1, 12-13) Knowledge puffs up but love builds up (I Cor. 8: 1b).

September is the month of love at Redeemer – no, not couples falling in love (well, maybe that too) but rather the community honeymoon of the beginning of the year.  Just listen to conversations in the Williams coffee line or feel the hallway buzz between classes and you pick it up:  love is in the air.

The global news this past week is filled with hate:  an anti-Islam video posted on the web (produced by supposed Christians) hit the Muslim world and evoked riots, protests and killings in twenty-five different countries. 

The Redeemer bubble feels contagious with love; the world out there seems to be contagious with hate.  And somehow the name of Jesus is linked to both of these realities.  What’s going on?

Hatred and violence that flow from religious conviction often misunderstand the relationship between knowledge and love.  The misunderstanding (simply put) looks like this:  “I know that I am right; I know that you are wrong; therefore, I am permitted to treat you with contempt. You don’t deserve to be loved.”

Or, to rephrase it in terms of this year’s theme:  “All things are held in Christ,” is replaced with “All things are held in my kind of knowledge about Christ.”  And then the focus is placed upon me instead of upon Christ.  My knowledge becomes the idol that takes the place of Christ, and justifies treating those with whom I disagree with contempt. 

The Apostle Paul, dealing with a similar problem in Corinth, deliberately contrasts love and knowledge.  What is our knowledge like?  It’s “a poor reflection in a mirror.”  In other words, it captures the general outlines of reality and serves an important purpose, but it’s not our foundation and definitely not our idol.  Jesus is THE Truth (John 14: 6), and our call is to surrender to the one who holds all things together, and embody this surrender by being profoundly contagious with his sacrificial love. 

Living as sacrificial lovers in a broken world filled with hate calls for lifelong learning.  That’s what all of us (students, staff and professors) are called to do!   Embodying the love of Christ in all that we are and do is very complex and requires a great deal of knowledge, wisdom and discernment.  That’s why Paul writes to another church:

“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1: 9-11). 

And my prayer for our Redeemer community is that the September honeymoon love that fills our hallways at the moment will mature into such profound and sturdy love.