To be honest, as I was listening to the first reading yesterday from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, I listened about as far as ‘Love is patient . . .’ before my inner SNL cast member started singing and dancing to “What is Love?”, a song made popular to my generation by the SNL skit and eventual movie “Night at the Roxbury” :
“What is love, baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more!”
After telling my inner SNL cast member to be quiet, the importance of this reading hit me in a way it has never before. In the past this has just been the reading I assumed I was going to hear at a wedding, explaining the hope that newly married couples have for how they are committing to love one another (certainly noble!). Perhaps married couples treasure this reading so much, because it is the answer to a question they are beginning to ask in this new project of their whole lives, a question which we all ask and all yearn to know the answer to, what is love?
“Baby don’t hurt me!”
In this song, though, the immediate reaction to asking this question is fear. We desire and expect so much from love that the experience of disappointment in the face of this hope can leave us empty, not wanting to look again. And this is not only true for romantic love, but friendships, family, and our desire for a world that generally holds love as the standard for human community. This fear can creep its way into our expectations for how others treat us, how we treat others, and even our concept of who God is in our lives.
St. Paul was writing to a community who needed to be reminded that whatever their place was in the community, their actions needed to be founded on a correct understanding of love. But this reading does not only need to be read in terms of what is expected of us, but in the context of our expectation for being loved. I think today we need to hear this reading and let it form both our love for others and our expectation and search for love. People in our lives are not always going to be able to live up to these expectations for love, but if we understand this reading we can see clearly what is love and what falls short. And perhaps most importantly, we can be confident that God who is Love will not hurt your heart if you open it to Him.
I’m not saying we will get to perfection in our relationships, but I think we can all afford to remind others (in charity!) and be reminded how to love. If we strive for this with the Lord we can answer His call to “Be not afraid” in the face of our search for love.
“Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, love is not pompous,
it is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.”
-1 Corinthians 13
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