Before St. Paul begins his best-known chapter – the one about love, 1 Corinthians 13 – he finishes the 12th chapter with this, “I will show you a more excellent way.” Given all of the division and vitriol that has become a normalized part of life, we might need to pause and ask ourselves a couple of questions, do I really believe that love is the more excellent way? And if we really do, what is love’s cost for me right now? The people many of us venerate from Jesus to Martin Luther King Jr. to Hank Aaron, each had their reckoning. Each stood at an intersection. Each was faced with a choice – either the holy books they read were just ideals never meant to govern real-world relationships or those words were reliable mile markers on the way to a better expression of community and civilization. In their lives and in the lives of too many to name, men and women convinced that love of neighbor no matter how difficult, no matter the ridicule, no matter how impractical has always made the difference. Their certainty that “love never fails” is actually the hope that the world and the church are still borrowing. Thank God for those among us who are convinced that love is “…the more excellent way.”
For People with Bishop Rob Wright
The new podcast expands on Bishop’s For Faith devotional, drawing inspiration from the life of Jesus to answer 21st-century questions.