“The Harmony Way”
The 13th chapter of First Corinthians is the Apostle Paul’s great song of love: love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love is never envious, or jealous, or rude. Faith, hope, and love abide, but the greatest of these is love. Sometimes people think that agape love is self-giving love, sacrificial love. Dr. King called this kind of love, “disinterested love,” because it is love that does not seek its own way. I borrowed the phrase “the Harmony Way,” from a Native American scholar, Randy Woodly. The harmony way is a way that is seeking balance, wholeness, and right relationships. That’s agape love. Love that seeks the well-being of others and of our community.
When Martin Luther King, Jr., talked about this kind of love, he said that agape love does not discriminate between worthy and unworthy people. It begins by loving other people because they are people. This kind of love, the love Paul speaks about in his first letter to the Corinthians is not weak or passive love. It is love in action. It is love that seeks to create and preserve community. We have our differences, but these differences don’t need to be a source of conflict and division. Differences can be a source of new-found strength if we build on them.
This kind of love that we are thinking about today, envisions a community that is very different from the community that our political leaders and some Christian leaders are talking about these days. They are talking about a love that is exclusive, not inclusive. It is of power that seeks to create divisions and sows the seeds of suspicion and distrust. Those of us who have been following what is happening in our state legislature think that many of the members need to learn about agape love. The Kansas Interfaith Alliance says that Senate Bill 180, a bill that discriminates against people in the trans community, is born of prejudice and political calculation. KIFA calls on communities of faith to support the rights of LGBT people. In a recent press release KIFA says, “We will not comply or cooperate with the victimization or vilification of trans Kansans.” That’s a message of agape love. That’s agape love.
I think of Edwin Markham’s poem about love: “He drew a circle to keep me out, rebel, heretic, thing to flout, But love and I had the wit to win, we drew a circle that took him in. That’s what Paul is talking about in the letters to the Corinthians.
In the first letter he has this wonderful song extolling the power of love, then in the second letter he puts it to the test. In the second chapter of this letter, Paul recalls his last visit to Corinth. He says that it was a painful memory. We can only imagine. Paul was not one to pull his punches. I’m sure it was an intense meeting. And in the second chapter, Paul remembers this exchange. But then in the third chapter he tells the congregation, “Your life is a letter to be read by the world. This letter is written not on tables of stone but on your heart. God makes us all competent to be letter carriers.” That’s a paraphrase. Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Paul says, “Once we regarded Christ from a human point of view, but no more. Now we don’t think about anyone in the old way.
Then in the fourth chapter, Paul says, in effect, “This work is not designed to be easy. In verse eight he writes, “We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed.” The principalities and powers of this world will put roadblocks in the way. But in the next chapter Paul writes not once but twice, “be of good courage.’ We have work to do. We have a gospel to share.
While I was working on this sermon a friend from the past paid me a visit–not in the flesh but in person. His name is Kimo. He was a wonderful friend. He was a Hawaiian pastor and a very wise man. He loved to tell stories. One of his stories was about a tourist who approached him one day and asked: “Can you tell me what ‘Aloha’ means. I see it everywhere. It’s on the license plate. People say it when they meet and when they leave and they talk about in their conversations, what it is? What does “aloha’ mean?” Kimo realized at once that this was a very important question. He had to think about it before he could give her an answer. When he was ready he told her, “Me.” and he hit his chest, and he repeated, “I am aloha.” It is not just an idea, or a word, or greeting or a topic of conversation–it is a way of life. “I am aloha.”
Paul is saying to the church in Corinth and now to us, we are agape. It is not just an idea or an ideal. It is not just a word. Agape is a way of life–it is us. Thanks be to God.