This week our scripture passage is 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Today, we will meditate on the passage and then explore our own ideas about love in response.
I invite you to breathe deeply several times and then to center yourself with prayer.
God of all creation, you are the source of all love and inspiration. Breathe your love into us as we approach your words. Breathe your inspiration through our hearts and minds, revealing your truth for us in this time. Amen.
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
These words are so familiar, so I invite you to meditate on them sentence by sentence. Some questions to reflect upon:
How do I prefer to show love? Which describes something I excel at?
How do I struggle to show love? Which description makes me uncomfortable?
Spend some time in prayer and meditation. You could also use a journal if that helps you focus.
If you were to write something like Paul’s love poem, what might you include?
Though you might not feel poetic, try to find some of your own words to use.
What are things considered important by your congregation, community or society that are useless without love?
What are some adjectives that you would use to describe love? Or opposites of love?
What are things that you know to be true about love?
Take some time to thank God for being present with you in this time and pray for those who have been examples of love and who need to know love.
Feel free to share your responses with a friend, in our Facebook group or with Pastor Lecia (pastorlecia@risenlordlc.org).
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