“Words of Love”

“Come on people now, Smile on your brother, Everybody get together, Try to love one another, Right now.”

You’ve probably heard that song if you listen to an oldies station. If you’re not totally “cool” with your oldies history, the song was “Get Together,” sung by a group called “The Youngbloods” in the late 1960’s. That’s sometimes known as “hippie time,” when a lot of people were talking, singing, and even protesting in favor of universal love and harmony.

But things haven’t changed all that much. We still love to talk about love. We give all the right answers and they often boil down to that good old phrase, “loving other people.” You can’t go wrong when you say you’re in favor of loving other people.

But when Paul wrote those words to the Corinthians almost 2,000 years ago, he was not trying to give them a “warm, fuzzy, feel-good” experience. He was actually getting on their case. He knew that some of their behavior did not exactly measure up to the law of love that Jesus had commanded. He was trying to lay it on the line for them in very blunt and concrete terms. He was saying, “Hey, guys, you say you want to love other people? Well, here’s what that looks like. If you act like this, then you can say you love other people and don’t forget to include the ones you don’t like or get along with.”

For the great apostle, love was not an exercise in saccharine sentimentality but an ethical challenge. Paul, in describing the qualities of love, was seeking to promote the character formation of the members of the Corinthian community. He was not trying to stir up fleeting emotions but to inspire his readers to a way of life formed by the quality of love that Christ has for the church.

No Christian can excuse himself/herself from trying to get hold of these words and make them a lived reality. Jesus did so – Paul did so – now the challenge is ours!

Fr. Al Backmann