December 28: The Greatest of These is Love
♫ Music:
Saturday, December 28
Title: THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE
Scripture: I Corinthians 13: 1-13
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 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. 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. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Poetry:
Doing Laundry on Sunday
by Brigit Pegeen Kelly
So this is the Sabbath, the stillness
in the garden, magnolia
bells drying damp petticoats
over the porch rail, while bicycle
wheels thrum and the full-breasted tulips
open their pink blouses
for the hands that pressed them first
as bulbs into the earth.
Bread, too, cools on the sill,
and finches scatter bees
by the Shell Station where a boy
in blue denim watches oil
spread in phosphorescent scarves
over the cement. He dips
his brush into a bucket and begins
to scrub, making slow circles
and stopping to splash water on the children
who, hours before it opens,
juggle bean bags outside Gantsy’s
Ice Cream Parlor,
while they wait for color to drench their tongues,
as I wait for water to bloom
behind me—white foam, as of magnolias,
as of green and yellow
birds bathing in leaves—wait,
as always, for the day, like bread, to rise
and, with movement
imperceptible, accomplish everything.
THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE
During these Christmas days, joyous celebration of our Lord Jesus’ birth unifies Christ-followers worldwide. We rejoice that Love became incarnate. We celebrate Light coming to our darkness. We pause in awestruck wonder that God-with-us made himself present to us in an extravagant movement of humility, vulnerability, and loving-kindness. With carols and feasts, lights and gifts, Christ’s Body unites in wonder over the greatest gift the world has ever known.
And yet… a brief scroll through Twitter or Facebook or today’s newspaper headlines illustrate what remains underneath the festivities: deeply embedded divisions within faith communities, fueled by competing echo-chambers of political and social ideologies. These divisions in Christ’s Body can sometimes seem irreconcilable.
Today’s Church is not unlike the Corinthian communities that first heard our scripture reading for today. The Corinthian churches were also marked by factions, plagued by status - and power-seeking behaviors as groups and individuals argued over which teacher spoke with greatest spiritual wisdom (1 Cor. 1), boasted over engagement in particular cultural and civic practices (1 Cor. 8-10), sought platform through prophecies and tongue-speaking (1 Cor. 12), and divided themselves by socio-economic status while taking the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11).
After twelve chapters of exhortation that the Corinthian believers stop their self-serving behaviors and instead build each other up into a strong and unified community (1 Cor. 8:1, 12:13), Paul writes this litany on love, beautifully interpreted in the strings and vocals of “Movement III (V.11-13)” from the album Love Never Ends. English translations don’t often capture the action-oriented nature of love Paul calls the Corinthians to embody: love waits patiently and shows kindness. English translations also struggle to render succinctly the colorful imagery Paul uses to describe what love is not: love does not burn with envy, inflate its own importance, or boil over with frustration. Love is not preoccupied with self-interest or the interest of one’s own peer group. The love Paul describes is an always-hoping, always-believing, always-enduring kind of love that draws to the center those on the margins and seeks to build up the whole. It is a solid, stable, never-failing kind of love.
For those of us in Christ, Jesus’ self-giving, bending-down-in-mercy kind of love has become our new reality. Here, Paul exhorts us to live into this new reality, received when we agreed to Jesus’ Lordship over our lives. In our divisive political and social climate, the unity of Christ’s Body is actualized when I value those who bring a diverse perspective (1 Cor. 12:12-30), create space for the vulnerable (1 Cor. 8:12), learn from those I may perceive to be weak (1 Cor. 1:27, 12:22), and give up my own ease and interests for the well-being of the whole (1 Cor. 12).
Lord, have mercy… this is hard work. Lord, in your mercy and by the power of your Spirit, cultivate in us your humble, vulnerable, self-giving, never-failing kind of love for each other.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, as we abide in your God-with-us Love, empower us to also live from your God-with-us Love. Cultivate in us a desire to listen to differing voices, value the gifts of the vulnerable, and de-center self-interest for the well-being of the whole. Give us the courage to live in and from the never-ending love you offer us - vulnerability, humility, and loving kindness personified.
Amen.
Lisa Igram
Dean of Student Wellness
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Bending to Love; Kintsokuroi: to Repair with Gold
Grace Carol Bomer
2013
Encaustic and mixed media on canvas
36 in. x 36 in.
T. S. Eliot writes, "Bending to Love is about a love that is eternal, a love that bends to serve others, where past and future are reconciled." Grace Carol Bomer's painting depicts a bending figure on whose back the Hebrew word hesed is rendered. Love that is bending, love that is hesed, is humble and serves others. It is the love of God, as seen in Christ's sacrifice: "And Jesus bowed his head (hesed love) and breathed his last." In Bomer's painting, she employs the ancient Japanese technique of Kintsugi, where broken ceramics are repaired with gold or silver. In this context, Kintsugi represents divine healing and restoration.
About the Artist:
Grace Carol Bomer was born in Alberta, Canada, and pursued a career in teaching before she became a professional painter. Moving to North Carolina to study art at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, Carol established her Soli Deo Gloria Studio there. As an abstract expressionist characterized by sumptuous colors, textures and palpable light, Bomer seeks to explore themes that center around “the human condition surprised by the grace of God.” She is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions for her art. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and juried exhibitions and is held in many public, private, and corporate collections including Wachovia Bank, Westinghouse, Holiday Inns, Inc., and Cessna Corp.
Artist website: gracecarolbomer.com/home.html
About the Music:
“Movement III (V.11-13)” from the album Love Never Ends
Lyrics:
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
About the Composer and Performer:
Adam Wright’s life-long pursuit is setting Scripture to music and providing a resource to help God’s people engage with the Bible more deeply. Adam began this process, as music minister for Cahaba Park Church in 2013, by writing Psalms to music for a summer sermon series on the Psalms. Almost six years later, he's written and recorded over 25 songs straight from the pages of Scripture under the moniker, The Corner Room. As each passage has a different character and intent, each song he writes takes on a unique style, drawing from his deep love of acoustic music. A singer/songwriter at heart, Adam enjoys arranging each passage into an accessible work that makes memorization and meditation easy. “These songs are a treasure to me,” says Wright, “They've not only impacted my family, my church and my community, but have made a lasting impact on my own personal love and understanding of Scripture. I look forward to where the Lord leads from here.”
https://www.
About the Poet:
Brigit Pegeen Kelly (1951–2016) was an American poet and teacher. An intensely private woman, little is known about her life. Kelly was the winner of numerous awards and citations for her poetry, including the Yale Younger Poets Award, a Whiting Award, and was named the Lamont Poet at the Phillips Exeter Academy (1997). Kelly was a professor of Creative Writing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and served as senior poetry editor of Ninth Letter. Kelly received some of American poetry’s most prestigious honors, including a Discovery/The Nation Award, the Yale Younger Poets Prize, a Whiting Writers Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of American Poets. Kelly taught at various colleges and universities, including the University of California-Irvine, Purdue University, Warren Wilson College, and the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/brigit-pegeen-kelly
About the Devotion Writer:
Lisa Igram
Dean of Student Wellness
Biola University
Lisa Igram’s work in higher education includes a variety of classroom-teaching and co-curricular programming experiences in the U.S. and abroad. She was recently appointed Dean of Student Wellness, where she works with a team dedicated to developing proactive and preventative strategies to support students’ holistic well-being towards academic persistence and thriving. Lisa is currently pursuing a PhD in New Testament Studies at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.