Paul's Love Song is Not Law

We hear Paul properly only when we replace the word love with the name of Jesus.

The lectionary epistle assigned for this coming Sunday is a passage made familiar by its ubiquity at weddings, 1 Corinthians 13.

Too often its nuptial use insures Paul’s love song is preached in the register of advice— your love should be patient, you ought to be un-envious, etc.

This is to hear it according to what Paul calls the Law. The Law is shorthand for an accusing standard of performance. In the Bible, the Law is all those thou shalt and shalt nots. Be perfect as God is perfect, Jesus says. That’s the Law.

And the Law, Paul says, is inscribed in every human heart (Romans 2.15).

So even if you don’t believe in God or follow Jesus or read the Bible, the capital-L Law manifests itself in all the little-l laws in your life, all the shoulds and musts and oughts you hear constantly in the back of your mind, all those expectations and demands and obligations you feel bearing down on you from our culture.

Martin Luther said that the Law always accuses; that is, it points out our shortcomings. And when we hear Paul’s love song according to the Law that’s just what it does. When we hear 1 Corinthians 13 as advice or suggestions or, worse, commands, it just accuses us for how impatient and unkind and rude and conceited and quick to anger we know ourselves to be a whole lot of the time.

But Paul’s love song isn’t meant to be Law; it’s meant to be the opposite of the Law.

It’s meant to be Gospel.