Love is Fully Now and Fully Then - I Corinthians 13

Soon Valentine's Day will be upon us. Sappy, self-indulgent Valentine's Day. Now, before you come after me with the long knives, follow my thoughts here. A quick reference check yields no less than eleven St. Valentines. February 14th is the day for Valentine, Bishop of Terni, martyred under Claudius the Goth in 269 A.D.. The tradition of sending "Valentines" on his day is based on a medieval belief that birds began to pair on that day. OK, I will admit that I have no idea of how birds choosing mates evolved into a commercial bonanza for Hallmark, FTD and Godiva. However, I do think that this Sunday's epistle lesson is instructive for us as we approach the "holiday."
I Corinthians is perhaps the most familiar chapter in the New Testament, and it turns up at many, if not most, Christian weddings as one of the texts that is read. That is appropriate, because a wedding is a time for looking forward, a time for making promises and for thinking about what it means to say that we love someone. Paul was offering a non-sentimental excursus on the meaning of love to a church where people regularly felt superior to others due to manifestations of various gifts of the spirit. He reminded them of his own gifts, and then stated that, "without love, I am nothing." There it is in a nutshell. In the words of William Sloane Coffin, "If we fail in love, we fail in all things else"
We we perform Christian weddings, we encourage the couple to look outward to the needs of the world, so that in them, the stranger may find good and generous friends. Conversely, Valentine's Day is about "us, us and us!" The idea of agape love is nowhere evident in the bustle of finding just the right card and gift to prove one's love. But, as Paul reminds his readers, gifts do not endure, but love does. Love is eternal because the source of all love is the eternal One. Love begins with God, not with us, and reaches beyond us to others. Love never asks, "what's in it for me," but, instead asks, "what's in it for you?" THAT is what the celebration of Valentine's Day should affirm. That should be the intent of a couple as they take their vows during a service of Christian marriage. That should be the credo of all people who call themselves Christians. If we love as Paul defines love, we can do no less than build up the faith community, the larger secular community and the world.
Love believes all things are possible, because the source of love is a God of eternal history: past, present and future. That is why Paul can affirm, "Love never ends."