The LOVE passage and the Story

The yearning for love being lived out wisely is repeated often at weddings:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

But the Story helps explains why it

is only a partially successful experience:

1 Corinthians 13:9-13

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect (teleion/complete) comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Column 1 = love focused. God is love, creates man in his image, and creation is good.

Column 2 = the loving order is broken through rebellion and creation stands between humanity and the Creator.

Column 3 = the Creator demonstrates his love in Christ suffering death, and in the victory of the resurrection.

Column 4 = humanity still only sees God incompletely and indirectly. We have spiritual gifts to compensate for our separation, but they only exist until the separation is over.

Column 5 = love restored and matured; completed; made perfect.

We are created for love, to give and receive it wisely. We can and should love, but we cannot do it directly and completely like we sense wee should. We, and our world, is out of order. Love is out of alignment and struggles to drive a straight course. Spiritual gifts can help us in our efforts, but ultimately we need a complete overhaul: a re-ordering of the cosmos in relation to the Creator.

That is what we do in church (help one another to keep realigning toward God and the genuineness of Love) and to invite others in to understand the urge for love and the hope that it can be done.