Lenten Day Twenty-one:  The Apostle Paul

March 5, 2024

“If I speak in the tongues of people or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”  The Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 1)

As I reflect on this quotation today, I think of this morning’s headlines. Wars across the world.  Clang, clang, clang.  Politics in the United States.  Clang, clang, clang.  What politicians themselves utter publicly about others.  Clang, clang, clang.  The rulings of state courts and the Supreme Court.  Clang, clang, clang.  Words spewed on social media.  Clang, clang, clang.  Fingers pointed, fists up. Clang, clang, clang. And yet so many of these clang-y people wear the label “Christian” or perhaps clang under another religious identity.  The noise can be deafening, the hypocrisy overwhelming.

In all honesty, Paul could clang a bit, too.  Yet in this well-known passage from his letter to his church in Corinth, Paul nails it. If our actions do not match our words of love, if our expressions of love do not reveal themselves in our actions, then we are simply adding to the noise because LOVE is an ACTION word.

We can shake our heads and say, “Well, there’s no one I can change and nothing I can do about the noise.”  The first part is true:  we can only change ourselves.  The second part is not true because we can do something about it: we can change ourselves.  We can be living expressions of love, in our own individual ways.

I invite you to try this exercise.  Read this part of Paul’s exhortation on love in the first person, replacing love with “I” or even your name:

I am patient, I am kind. I do not envy, I do not boast, I am not proud. I do not dishonor others, I am not self-seeking, I am not easily angered, I keep no record of wrongs. I do not delight in evil but rejoice with the truth.  I always protect, always trust, always hope, always persevere.  (1 Cor. 13: 4-7)

Doing this exercise was an I-opening experience for me, one I want to hold to my heart.  When you and I are mindful of how well we really are loving in action and make amends where needed, we can change the tenor of our world.  We can decrease the clanging.  If we, children of Love, won’t do it, who will?

Blessings ~ Rosemary