What is this thing called ‘love’? (A sermon on 1 Corinthians 13)

I wonder by my troth, what thou and I did, till we loved?rnWere we not wean’d till then?rnBut suck’d on country pleasures, childishly?rnOr snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den? ‘Twas so ; but this, all pleasures fancies be ;rnIf ever any beauty I did see,rnWhich I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee. John Donne from “The Good Morrow”. Let me offer you another piece of classic verse: “Ya it’s you – it could only be yournNobody else will ever dornYa baby it’s you – that I stick tornYa we stick like glue Hang on a second while I tie up my shoe” (Sorry, I added that last line myself but I suspect it would have been a good one had the author needed one more) It’s Bryan Adams from “The only thing that looks good on me is you”. Let me offer you one more: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. rn3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And I suspect that you’re at least as familiar with that last piece as you are with the other two, and you’ve no doubt heard it read at many a wedding (even though preachers are always lamenting that it’s an inappropriate reading for weddings because it’s part of a discussion about spiritual gifts and not marriage). It is, at any rate, the classic ‘ode to love’ of St Paul as found in 1 Corinthians 13. Even so, of these three offerings, I must tell you that ‘one of these things is not like the other. One of these three just doesn’t belong!’ I guess if we were talking about pieces of verse that will still be remembered in years to come, it would be Bryan Adams’ piece that is the odd one out, but I’m really thinking about what counts as a love song, and in that regard 1 Corinthians 13 is the odd one out because, in truth, it’s not really a love song at all! This passage from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is all about love of course – “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful or rude” – but it’s obviously not about the sort of love that Donne and Adams are singing about. How do we know that? Because St Paul says “Love is not jealous” and the love that Donne and Adams are singing about is a love that gets very jealous! Love does get jealous – at least romantic love does – and it gets boastful and rude pretty quickly too, and this is a clear indication that, whatever sort of love St Paul is talking about, he is not talking about romance! Is there another kind of love? St Paul thought there was, and indeed the ancient Greeks as a race thought there was too as they had four different words for love!