As 1 Corinthians 13 emphasizes, we are nothing without love. Peter Haresnape beautifully puts it this way:
“If I speak about courage and justice, and siding with the oppressed, and speaking truth to power no matter the cost, but do not speak about love, I am just a loudmouth orator, a white savior, a shameless self-promoter. If I am excellent at nonviolent communication and I take great pictures, and I know all the latest anti-oppresive lingo, and I can analyze racist systems so as to dismantle them entirely, but I have not love, I am nothing. If I fully embrace the work of prophet and activist and martyr, and get dragged away by the riot police or bombed by the military of my own country, but have not love, that is no use to anyone.
Love is patient, Love survives evil, war, oppression. It remains when the teargas clears and the children go back to school. It is still there when the water is protected. Love is kind, not arrogant, not insisting on its own way, but making space for joy and truth even in the hardest circumstance.
Whether it is love between two people, or love of a person for their community, or love of a community for its land, or love of justice and peace and equity, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
“I can give without loving but I cannot love without giving.”
Our motivation should be that of Matthew 5:16, “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Haresnape continued: "What remains when all is stripped away is three things: faith that the flawed world as we see it is not all that there is; Hope that the next generation will live in a better world; and Love to give us the strength and motivation to build it. The greatest of these is love." In our effort to love, first we must practice spiritual disciplines such as prayer to truly hear, believe, and know the abundant love of Christ so that we genuinely love others as He first loved us.
X,
Tam