MORE EXCELLENT

When eloquence and strong reasoning would assert itself over rivals, we are called to something more persuasive.

When Scripture is wielded and traditions of faith are aimed as threats, the Spirit equips us with something more effective.

When faith itself would be exhorted as the foundation for rightness and victory, God grants us something more righteous.

When beautifully pious behavior would outshine and thus tear down opponents, Jesus grants us something more powerful.  

Paul himself calls this the "still more excellent way," and it is love.  

Now I know, at this point I also instinctively want to pull a John Lennon and criticize such naive simplicity of such "silly" love.  But Paul (the apostle and, interestingly, McCartney as well) doesn't.  And this is SAUL/PAUL!  The man who left his dominant religion to join a minority sect, did additional study for decades, rebuked Peter "The Rock" in front of the Jerusalem Church, presented before the Athenian acropolis, and solicited the hearts of Greek, Roman, and Jewish governmental leaders alike.  I often DO think that "people would have had enough of silly love songs," but Jesus doesn't.  Jesus and Paul (both the apostle & McCartney again) gently but emphatically remind us that "it isn't so, oh no."

He plants his flag on the hill of love, and refuses to budge.  Anything less is as messy as middle school band recital warm-up and as empty as the air.

Rather, "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends" (1 Cor. 13:4-8).

In the "Grannies Can't Floss" episode of Bluey (one of the best shows) the big sister (Bluey) is fighting with her younger sister (Bingo) over whether grannies can dance the floss or not, and wins.  Bingo leaves dejected, and Bluey finds her victory hollow.  Her mom asks her, "Bluey, do you want to be right, or do you want Bingo to keep playing?"  Now the thing is, their grannie can't dance the floss.  So Bluey feels stuck:  

• Should she compromise the truth?  
• Should she expect Bingo to admit defeat and come play happily?  
• Should she pretend nothing happened and try to just keep playing? 

Feels familiar right?  

Bluey does something else instead: she teaches her grannie to floss.    

This is the way of love.  

Love subverts power; love lays down victory; love re-writes rightness; love jumps in the way; love will never fail.

- Drew

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Lord Jesus, 

When we are choosing between

• eloquence or love,
• knowledge or love,
• faith or love,
• piety or love,

let us live and die on the hill of love, recognizing that it is always a false choice, and that any of those good things without love are not good things at all, but are worthless nothings.  Convict our own hearts that "As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ...but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:8).

Please show me, my wife, and my children who around us needs this love today, and teach us to stand with them in your love.  Protect us from even the "good" things that would compromise it.  Let your love be our song.  

Amen.

REFERENCES:

• I Love You, by Paul McCartney (Wings)
• Grannies, season 1: episode 28 of Bluey