1 As long as we have First Corinthians 13 I am hopeful.

The last words of the chapter that leads into this one lead into this one: And I will show you a still more excellent way. First Corinthians 13 is a more excellent way. I’m sure Paul means by that what he says, but I have to say that how he says it is itself a more excellent way.

Paul doesn’t usually betray himself a poet. Yet, there’s a reason no chapter in the Bible is read as often without comment at weddings. Yes, it’s about love; but you also have to love the excellent way it’s about love. The way of love is a lovely way.

We’re a bit unprepared for it when chapter 13 begins. Paul’s spent twelve chapters on the culture wars of the church at Corinth. He’s hammered away at conflicts and clashes between church members—some playing favorites; some behaving badly and others so good they were bad; and then some with gifts others envied or resented. He’s been all prose until now. He’s made one argument after another. But here it’s as if he knows that reason may change minds but not hearts. Only love can change hearts.

So he launches into this beautiful composition that begins with its rhythmic “if I have this …, if I am this …, if I do this …, but have not love I have nothing, I am nothing, I gain nothing.” He goes on to say what love is in a cadence of crisp cuts that carve curves we can feel when we hear it as if we are looking at it. Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude …. He goes on to show how love is the most adult way to aspire to, because everything else gives way to it at last. Love never ends. And of the three things that remain or abide, he declares that the greatest of these is love.

And yet we have to learn this over and over because we don’t seem to get it.

There’s a legendary tale of a small east Texas town in which a bar began construction on a new building to increase business. The local Baptist church started a campaign to block the bar from opening with petitions and prayers. Work progressed right up till the week before opening when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground. The church folks were smug in their outlook after that, until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means. The church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building’s demise in its reply to the court. As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork. At the hearing he commented, I don’t know how I’m going to decide this, but as it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not.

Whether this story is historical fact or not hardly changes the fact that it’s true. We see this faceoff all the time in our culture. The church claims moral authority: We know what’s best and we’ll have our way, because our way is best for you too, whether you know it or not. It’s God’s way after all. And then when anyone objects to our way, we cry foul and rush to defend ourselves as having the right to state our case in the public realm without being criticized for it. But when you read Paul in chapter 13, is that what you hear? Isn’t he saying that being right is less important than being right rightly?

I often tell young couples that when they hear this passage recited at their wedding they ought to ask themselves from that day forward: Do I want to be right or do I want to be married? Love moves beyond right and wrong by moving toward relationship with the lover.

We’ve already been warming up this week for next Sunday’s Super Bowl clash of the titans. I don’t mean the contest between the Colts and the Saints. I mean the Super Bowl anti-abortion commercial made by football star Tim Tebow and his mother against those who think it inappropriate to air such a thing at that time, or some would say at any time. Focus on the Family produced this commercial and is using the true story of a mother whose pregnancy made her so sick that a doctor recommended abortion. She chose life and Tim Tebow is the result of that choice. But like many pregnancies themselves, there are complications here. CBS also decided not to air other ads with football themes they felt were too provocative: one about a gay dating service, and another for a web site hosting company that features a former pro football player who now calls herself Lola. CBS usually gets criticized for being left-wing media. They must have whiplash now as it appears they have taken a stand with a right-wing preference. You can’t win. Furthermore, when Mrs. Tebow chose to go ahead with her pregnancy, she was living in the Philippines where abortion was illegal, so she really didn’t have a choice to begin with. Complications.

We could go on and on, as these debates do. But to what end? Does raising the heat in this case shed more light? Does Christianity win with a 30-second commercial? And if we win, whom do we beat? Maybe the only answer that matters is that we save some lives of babies that would not have been born. I can truly hope that is so. But I worry that the way chosen is not the more excellent way Paul shows us—the way of love that does not insist on it own way, rejoices in the truth, is not boastful or arrogant or rude. When we are talking about saving lives, are we likely to save souls too with arguments that pit us against others rather than draw us together with them?

We are in a dangerous place in our culture right now. Everyone is taking sides. And because the battle lines are drawn so starkly, there seem no way forward together. We finally saw some breakthrough this week as President Obama met with House Republicans in retreat and had a mutually respectful conversation. They pledged to talk more with each other instead of only about each other. They pledged to move beyond the all or nothing at all approach to politics that prevents any progress.

To that end and in that same spirit, I have joined today with many pastors across the nation in a “Come Let Us Reason Together” movement. Most of the pastors are conservative evangelicals who are tired of seeing faith polarized politically and want to make a humble contribution in the spirit of Jesus, which is the more excellent way of Paul.

For instance, we should be able to agree—left and right, secular and Christian—that religion has a place in public life and should not be shoved off into a ghetto where nobody can talk to his or her neighbor about it freely. And can’t we work to find ways to reduce abortions without criminalizing or dehumanizing those whose position on it is different from ours? Can’t we agree that gay and lesbian people should be able to hold jobs and not be discriminated against in the workplace, whether you agree with their sexual orientation or not? Can’t we see that torturing our enemies is torturing our own values at the same time? Can’t we find ways to protect our borders against persons coming into America illegally and at the same time devise immigration policies that feature compassion and hospitality rather than fear and blame?

If the world can’t find ways to move toward one another in love, surely religious communities can show the way. Right?

During a service at an old synagogue in Eastern Europe, when the Shema prayer was said, half the congregants stood up and half remained sitting. The half that was seated started yelling at those standing to sit down, and the ones standing yelled at the ones sitting to stand up. The rabbi, learned as he was in the Law and commentaries, didn’t know what to do. His congregation suggested he consult a housebound, 98-year-old man who was one of the original founders of their temple. The rabbi hoped the elderly man would be able to tell him what the actual temple tradition was, so he went to the nursing home with a representative of each faction of the congregation.

The one whose followers stood during the Shema said to the old man, Is the tradition to stand during this prayer?  The old man answered, No that is not the tradition.

The one whose followers sat said, Then the tradition is to sit during Shema! The old man answered, No that is not the tradition.  

Then the rabbi said to the old man, But the congregants fight all the time, yelling at each other about whether they should sit or stand. The old man interrupted, exclaiming, THAT is the tradition!

When I heard that story, all I could think of was how much Baptists and Jews have in common. We could have told the same story about standing for the Gospel reading, or how much water it takes for a valid baptism, or whether we sit or kneel when we pray. The important question is whether we are drawing closer to one another or driving more distance between one another.

The word religion might as well mean division. To hear some people talk about it these days, you’d think the world would be better without it. Was John Lennon right to challenge us to imagine no religion? Recent books by the so-called new atheists say we need more reason and less religion of any kind. They figure the world will be kinder and gentler and better hospitable to animal, vegetable and mineral if we take religion out of it altogether. The problem, they think, is partly that no religion is true in the way science is true, and so religion only covers its falsity by turning up the zeal against anyone who disagrees with it. And we’ve certainly had plenty of examples of that being true.

But I find their love of reason as divisive as what they criticize in us. They want less passion from us, but their cool heads boil over into passionate superiority and arrogance that pushes people away as much as our passionate faith does. And pushing people way is not the way of love, whether you rely on reason or religion.

Before we speak or act in the name of Christ, we should all stop and ask ourselves: Will this bring people together or drive them apart? Does this way reflect the way of Jesus that Paul calls the more excellent way?

What we should all be after is the reason of love more than the love of reason. We should never settle for passion that lacks compassion.

Did you know that the word religion comes from the combination of re-, meaning again, and ligare, meaning to bind back together? It is where we get our word ligament. Religion, like science, assumes that behind the chaos there is a single set of laws, a single energy at play in the universe that holds things together. And what is that at the heart of that single set of laws, that single energy or force that binds things together when they threaten to break apart? The poet Paul tells us it is love.

At the end of The Divine Comedy, the poet Dante says just that. He sees at last all things fade from view, including his beloved Beatrice who led him to God. He concludes in wonder and praise that the thing that has guided his journey and keep him searching is the same thing that draws all things to God. It’s nothing more or less than the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.

Love. The way of love. The more excellent way of love.