Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time C
In my 15+ years as a priest,
I
figure I’ve done about 100 weddings—maybe more.
And
of those 100 weddings,
I’m
going to guess that at least 75 of them
have
included today’s second reading.
It
can begin to become a bit of a cliché.
But
I had a wedding once
where
St. Paul’s lofty hymn to love
really
managed to stand out.
The
bride was from the local parish,
but
the groom was from Sweden.
And
although he’d been in the States for awhile,
we
wanted to include something in the ceremony
to
celebrate his culture and heritage.
It
was decided that one of the readings
would
be done in his native tongue.
So
when the time came for the second reading,
the
groom’s sister made her way to the pulpit,
opened
her Swedish Bible,
and
began to read.
What
came out of her mouth rather startled me!
Have
you ever heard Swedish spoken before?
Now—I
mean no offense—but Swedish
isn’t
quite what I’d consider a “sweet-sounding” language;
to
my unaccustomed ears, anyway,
it
came off about as harsh and frosty as the Nordic winter.
It sounded
more to me like this pretty young woman
was
declaring World War III,
rather
than singing love’s lofty praises.
Clearly,
something got lost in the translation!
And
that’s the case in general
when
we read or hear this particular passage of Scripture.
Greek
is the original language of the New Testament,
each
one with a different twist.
There
was the word storge,
which
referred to the love of natural attachments—
the
way a parent loves a child or a dog loves its master.
There
was the word philos,
which
referred to emotional love,
meaning
a strong liking or affection,
such
as that between true friends.
Then
there was eros,
which
referred to passionate love—
particularly
of the romantic or sexual kind.
And
finally there was agape,
which
is unconditional love—
love
which cares not if the other is unresponsive,
or
unkind, or unworthy, or even unlovable.
Agape is the sort of love that’s
only delight is in giving,
and
that’s only desire is the good of its beloved.
This
is the highest form of love.
It’s
also what we could accurately call divine love,
since
it’s the love God has for us
and,
therefore, the love we’re called to have
both
for God and for one another.
Yup—you
guessed it:
it’s
agape that St. Paul is talking about
when
he writes to the Corinthians.
We tend
to hear these very poetic verses
and
get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.
At
many a wedding, in fact, the reader gets all teared up
while
trying to make his or her way through this passage.
But
what Paul is describing here isn’t a feeling at all,
as
our modern notions of love would misleadingly have us assume.
In
just a few lines of text,
St.
Paul uses 15 different verbs to tell us
what
love does or does not do.
He’s
quite clear: love is about action.
The
love he’s encouraging is all about doing something—
more
specifically, about doing what God does.
And
what does God do for those whom he loves?
He
lets himself be nailed to the Cross.
You
see, that seemingly rough and disturbing
Swedish
rendering I heard of this reading
was
not all that far off the mark!
The
sort of love St. Paul tells us is most excellent
may
not be harsh, but it is demanding:
it’s
all about dying.
Truly
unconditional love is most willing
to
lay down it’s very life for another.
No—not
everyone will be asked
to
take a bullet for his or her neighbor,
as
much as we rightly admire people who show love in this way…
…but
there are countless times
scattered
throughout each and every day
when
I’m given the opportunity to die to myself—
to
put the needs, the desires, the good of another person
ahead
of my own.
With
the help of God’s grace,
am
I ready and willing to love—to die—like that?
What’s
set before us in everybody’s favorite wedding reading
is not
the love of Christian marriage in particular,
but
the love of Christian living in general:
to
love with our whole person;
to
love by putting the other first;
to
love not only in word, but in deed;
to
love and never count the cost;
to love as God loves.
to love as God loves.
*That's "love" in Swedish.
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