8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹ For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰ but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³ And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

What I am about to say may mean that my ‘man’ card will be taken away, but I think its worth the risk. On more than a few occasions I have been known to watch the WE network on television. For those of you not in the know, this acronym stands for ‘Women’s Entertainment’.

At this point you might be saying to yourself, "why is he watching that station?" My answer comes in one word: ‘Bridezillas’. For those of you who have never heard of the show, let me say that the name fits because the brides-to-be who are depicted on this show are just like Godzilla, destroying everything and everyone who happens to be in their path. Its much like a car wreck, in that its one of those occasions where you are equally repulsed and attracted: you know that its horrible, but you’re still slowing your vehicle down, and straining your neck to see all the damage that was done.

The women (and yes, a few men) who are the subject of this show have a frightening perspective of what love is. I specifically remember one woman who, face flushed with anger, and eyes bulging to the point that you wondered if her head was going to be able to contain them, screamed at her soon to be husband, "if you loved me you would do what I want! This is my day and it needs to be perfect. You say that you love me! Show me that you do by doing what I tell you!"

Everyone else felt this sort of treatment as well: family members in the wedding party, down to people she employed for the actual wedding. And what’s frightening is that its not like its an isolated incident because they got a new ‘bridezilla’ every week, and other stations, like MTV, put out programs like ‘My Super Sweet 16’ for the younger generations. What shows like these are reinforcing to the world is the concept that love is about doing exactly what you want and what you say, without question. Through their actions you would think that love is not about a shared commitment and connection. It’s about one person and one person only: it’s about them.

As an illustration, I admit that it’s real easy to separate yourself from this example. However, just because we haven’t taken on the extreme nature of the Bridezillas, doesn’t mean that we haven’t had problems actually living in love with our spouse, our family, our friends and neighbors. Again, think about the world we live and how too many of our relationships exist. In too many of those relationships love has merely become a four-letter word that shows up on a card or in a song, rather than a way of life.

Love is hard. It’s really hard. Paul knew this and that why as he writes to the Corinthians he gives both positive and negative illustrations of what love should be because everything that was written was done so in order to counteract what was actually going on. Basically, you’re not going to write about something in a corrective fashion if there isn’t something that needs to be fixed. The Corinthians had created a community where loving one another meant that you had to live like a few of the leaders told you to do because if you didn’t, then you were wrong and subsequently ostracized, pushed out to the margins where you wouldn’t have to be dealt with. They may have been in the same room, but they were not living in love with each other.

Paul is saying, "Don’t do that! Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

For Paul, love is exemplified by people finding ways to mutually support one another. And for Paul, that support, that love is a two way street that is built on communication. Love is not a bond where one party gets everything that they want all the time. Love is a connection where both parties work together to lift each other up.

And where do we get that idea? From the way that God first loved us. Think about it, God’s ultimate example of love is sending his son to die so that we might have the opportunity to live. In that action, God is saying, "look at how far I am willing to go for you. Now please follow that urging of the Holy Spirit in you and reach out to me so that we might once again be connected." God reached out and wants us to do the same. God loved us and God hopes that we will return that love to the Almighty and to the world.

What do we say in worship every week? ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.’ How God is calling us to live in the world is not a mentality of just co-existing. We need to interact so as to provide support and take the four letters that make up the word love and turn it into something that has so much more meaning, so much more power.

The bar of how we should live together has been set. What we need to do is allow that example to become the guiding principle in how we live with each other. We need to do so much more than just say we love somebody: we need to show it as well. We need to reach out and communicate our love.

I haven’t done a lot of martial counseling. It’s not where my training is, but there still have been several times when couples have come up to me and asked if I might be able to sit down with them. Each couple was very different in terms of the problems that they talked about. In some cases it was money, in others a lack of intimacy, in still others an inability to trust their partner.

However, as each problem was boiled down to its base, the same thing ended up being at the root of the problem. Each couple was not communicating, either as well as they could be, or in some cases at all. In a lot of ways, these couples were like the bridezillas we talked about earlier because as they refused to talk with the person they said they loved, what they ended up doing was creating a scenario where the world had to placate to their wants and desires.

Simply put, to love someone means that you have to be with them. You cannot say that you love someone and then not communicate with them. Those two ideas do not mesh. They just don’t.

And the same is true in terms of loving your neighbor. You can’t say that you love your neighbor as yourself and then do nothing when a need arises. It’s at those points when you need to step out of your comfort zone and ask, "may I help?"

At the same time I also need to say that living in love does not mean that you keep giving and giving and giving until you end up feeling hurt because of how much you have given. Unfortunately, for many of us, if our partner isn’t willing to step up to the plate and communicate, then we try to do it all for them. But that isn’t love either. That’s abuse. Love is that two-way street and if you give and give and get nothing back, then maybe its time to reevaluate whether or not that relationship is worth the time and energy your pouring into it. You can be patient and kind. You can be loving. But don’t do it to the point where you feel like you’re putting yourself out there to be sacrificed. Jesus gave of himself as a sacrifice for once and for all.

The word love is said a whole lot in today’s world, said so much in fact that it has lost much of its real meaning and power. We hear it in songs, read it in cards, and watch it as it is depicted on TV. But love is so much more than a four letter word. Love is something that is shared, fostered, worked at, and cherished through a whole lot of hard work that is known as communication. We have felt in the words of scripture just how powerful love can be. Let us strive for that goal, knowing that with God’s help through communication we can live in the love that we long to have. Love can be so much more than a four letter word.

I offer this reminder of what love is (and isn’t) not as someone who has it all figured out. I don’t: ask Jen, she’ll tell you. At the same time, I am able to recognize the truth of God’s love and how God would have us live together with each other in love. We need to work at creating love and that is done by opening up to each other and communicating. Is it scary? I’m right there with you when I say, yes it is. Is communicating hard? Yup. Is the payoff worth all the work that you’ll have to put in? Absolutely. God wants us to make love part of who we are, and the only way we can do that is by working at it together. Will there be times when we fall woefully short. Yeah. But if we walk the journey together as God would have us do, then we will be able to find the way to make love so much more than a four letter word.

Holy God, love is a hard thing because it means opening ourselves up to communicating with others. Help us to remember what love is, and also what it is not. Grant us the ability to live as You would have us do, loving You and our neighbor with everything we have, and with everything that we are. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.