Don Draper, the symbolic ad man from the TV series Mad Men, professionally hated using love. Across seven seasons his various underlings would pitch him an ad based on love and he would crinkle up his nose and dismiss the idea. His reasoning would alternate between “nobody knows what that word means” and “the product is SPAM, are you sure you want to use love.” The character Don Draper was an unreliable narrator making his story up on the fly. But the Ad Man Don Draper was a genius.
Don’s first complaint was that the word “love” was too vague. The character, a charming womanizing drunk with flashes of deep humanity, was pulling from his life experience of a variety of things people called love, none of those things meaningful. Maybe the one thing Don loved was the work. In the end he would give up everything for the work. Which when the work is advertising is a commentary in itself, but that might have been his epiphany – “Do the work.” Which at the time included being demoted and reporting to his protégé. But in the Apostle Paul’s list it was an interesting picture of “love is not arrogant (1 Corinthians 13:4).” For as rich as the English language is in almost every area. We have words for everything, English being this great sink of the world collecting peoples and words from millennia. We only have one word called love. The biblical languages have a spectrum. You might be familiar with C.S.Lewis’ “The Four Loves.” That is based on the Greek words (roughly transliterated): eros, philia, storge, and agape. Each of those Greek words gets translated as love in English. But you would not mistake eros – sexual desire – for philia – how you love your brother or a friend. It’s not an original insight, but maybe our problems with friendship today are because it always gets coded homoerotically. Even Hebrew, a word poor language, has at least two words: Ahavah and Chesed. Ahavah is used first when Abraham gives Isaac as an offering. Love rooted in giving. Chesed is often translated “steadfast love.” It is rooted in enduring faithfulness. All of these concepts – sexuality, friendship, faithfulness, giving, graciousness, desire – in English get dumped into “love.” No wonder Don held “nobody knows what that word means.”
Don’s second complaint was about the object we attached “love” to. What are we doing attaching such a word meaning all those deep things to objects like SPAM. Can you really love donuts? Or cheap flights to New York? When we are profligate with our words, over time it is not the products or common things that get elevated. We lose the ability to label and recognize the true thing.
Paul’s song to Love – 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 our Epistle Reading – addresses both of Don’s complaints. Paul makes clear what “love” is in his poetic way. He also would make clear the appropriate objects of love. But the first thing I think Paul addresses is the non-performative nature of love. In our day and age it seems that everything we do ends up on YouTube. There is always a reflexive nature of our actions or emotions. We think we are doing something for someone else, but we secretly hope that it also rebounds for our fame, wealth, or other good. “If I speak in the tongues of men and angels” – things which would quickly get you millions of views – “but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Paul even addresses virtuous things. “If I give away all that I have.” Today we do all kinds of such virtuous acts, to record them and be known as being such a person. The phrase used to be doing well by doing good. If I do this, “but have not love, I gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:3).” Love is not performative. It is not reflexive. You can’t do it and expect payback. And if that is what you are doing, you have already received the reward, but it is not love.
Instead “love is patient and kind…”. And you should know the rest. If you don’t go read it. Meditate on it. Write those words on your heart. Memorize them. For what the Apostle is really talking about is you as the object of God’s love. “Love never ends (1 Corithians 13:8).” Love has a worthy object. And you are a worthy object of God’s love. Today we only know that dimly, but tomorrow, face to face. And because we have been the object of the true love of Christ, we likewise are able to know love and to give love. Give that love back to the Father as worship and adoration. And give that love to our neighbor. Because those are the only worthy objects of such a transcendent thing as love.