Excel in Love
We often wonder what genuine love is, how we show it, or how we feel it. We say it all the time. “I love you.” Just because we say it doesn’t mean it is genuine. Most of the time the love we express and the love we feel is not genuine, but worldly and shallow. Self-love is not love.
Brethren, as you excel in everything — in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in your love for us — see that you excel in this gracious work also. I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. And in this matter I give my advice: it is best for you now to complete what a year ago you began not only to do but to desire, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have. For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a man has, not according to what he has not. I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want, so that their abundance may supply your want, that there may be equality. As it is written, “He who gathered much has nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack.”
2nd Corinthians 8.7-15
Today’s reading from Saint Paul is both a challenge for us to love, but also a warning to those who demand love from us. Let me begin with the challenge for us to love. Saint Paul makes it clear that we should help those who have less by using our abundance. There is no doubt here.
We are invited to be like Christ who became poor for our sake, “though He was rich.” Christ had everything but gave up everything so for us to have something. He left His throne and became one of us His creation, for us.
The challenge for us is that we should love as Christ loves. The context of today’s reading is a monetary collection. Saint Paul expected all Churches to ‘chip in’ for each other. He expects the same from us. If we love, then we will be willing to become poor, like Christ did for us.
Then Saint Paul says, “so that their abundance may supply your want.” There was a constant mutual support system of the ancient Church. “Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.” (Acts 4.32)
As modern Christians we do not live as the ancients did. We live as if what we own is our own. We do not love with the same sacrificial love of the ancient Christians. We are generous to the needs of others, but we are not willing to become poor. We do not live in common.
Now, here is the warning part of today’s reading. Saint Paul also taught that people should work hard, not just for themselves but for each other. “I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened.” It is not Christian to support a ‘free loader’ but that all should work in common.
In our society today, there is a trend to guilt Christians into giving to others based upon readings like today’s. It is not Christian to use other people’s money to do what we have been called to do. Forcing others to give is not love. We are the ones asked to give from our abundance.
Instead of thinking of ourselves first, genuine love thinks of others first. In the ancient Church that love was mutual and flowed between Churches. Genuine love is willing to become poor so the ones you love can become rich, but it doesn’t stop with money.
There are many ways to be poor, not the least of which is to be poor in spirit. There are many who do not feel genuine love in their lives. When we show them genuine love it will make them rich in spirit. Their abundance of spirit will supply our want too. Then their love will be genuine.
We love because God first loved us. Others will love when we first love them, but only with genuine love. Take the challenge to love and beware of the warning to force others to love. Take the challenge to excel in love.
