A Bad Map and the Perfect Golf Swing
Blog / Produced by The High Calling
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stood before an edgy bride and perspiring groom to recite what nearly every woman asks me to read at her wedding:
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels,
but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body
so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
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. Love never ends.
I Corinthians 13:1-8 (NRSV)
Frankly, reading I Corinthians at weddings is like sending two people on a journey with an impossible road map. The beginning is fine; but I get to Love is patient and think of my driving last week on I-35.
Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant flies in the face of decking my office wall with awards, degrees, academic honors, and diplomas.
Love does not insist on its own way, but it’s entirely possible that I mostly want my own way.
Love is not envious, but some colleague always seems to have a job better than mine.
Where is my hope? Why does God give us direction to a place that other people make impossible for me to reach? Three possibilities:
First, in the context of the whole letter to the Corinthians, Paul is saying that fine gifts, no matter how fine, are worthless without love. You can drive the finest Porsche, look and dress like a runway model, live in an exclusive neighborhood, hang with famous friends, be CEO of e-something or other . . . but if you lack love, big deal.
This leads me to a second thought: God understands that we are feeble golfers.
Years ago, I had the good fortune to meet the now-late great Harvey Penick, then the golf pro at Austin Country Club in Austin and author of several books on golf. Harvey believed that a new golfer must have a clear mental picture of the perfect golf swing. He wrote, “Along with the grip, the first thing I try to give my pupils is the mind picture that will produce a good golf swing. . . .”
1 Corinthians 13 is God’s mind picture to us of divine love, the very nature of God modeled in the life of Jesus. And though many of us have lousy swings, we are more likely to improve if we keep the perfect swing in mind.
This leads to my third and final thought. Perhaps God not only wants to fix in our minds the picture of perfect love—perhaps he also wants to tell us that a loving life is grace-filled. This is especially relevant for dealing with the people around us. For God’s greatest demonstration of 1 Corinthians love was His loving us when we were not fully lovable (as if we are now). The paradox of this passage is that one way we live it is by loving those who don’t entirely live it . . . ourselves . . . and those closest to us. The passage leads us to humility and the need for grace: to receive it and to give it.
As Shakespeare’s Portia recited in The Merchant of Venice,
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes . . .
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels,
but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body
so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
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. Love never ends.
I Corinthians 13:1-8 (NRSV)
Frankly, reading I Corinthians at weddings is like sending two people on a journey with an impossible road map. The beginning is fine; but I get to Love is patient and think of my driving last week on I-35.
Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant flies in the face of decking my office wall with awards, degrees, academic honors, and diplomas.
Love does not insist on its own way, but it’s entirely possible that I mostly want my own way.
Love is not envious, but some colleague always seems to have a job better than mine.
Where is my hope? Why does God give us direction to a place that other people make impossible for me to reach? Three possibilities:
First, in the context of the whole letter to the Corinthians, Paul is saying that fine gifts, no matter how fine, are worthless without love. You can drive the finest Porsche, look and dress like a runway model, live in an exclusive neighborhood, hang with famous friends, be CEO of e-something or other . . . but if you lack love, big deal.
This leads me to a second thought: God understands that we are feeble golfers.
Years ago, I had the good fortune to meet the now-late great Harvey Penick, then the golf pro at Austin Country Club in Austin and author of several books on golf. Harvey believed that a new golfer must have a clear mental picture of the perfect golf swing. He wrote, “Along with the grip, the first thing I try to give my pupils is the mind picture that will produce a good golf swing. . . .”
1 Corinthians 13 is God’s mind picture to us of divine love, the very nature of God modeled in the life of Jesus. And though many of us have lousy swings, we are more likely to improve if we keep the perfect swing in mind.
This leads to my third and final thought. Perhaps God not only wants to fix in our minds the picture of perfect love—perhaps he also wants to tell us that a loving life is grace-filled. This is especially relevant for dealing with the people around us. For God’s greatest demonstration of 1 Corinthians love was His loving us when we were not fully lovable (as if we are now). The paradox of this passage is that one way we live it is by loving those who don’t entirely live it . . . ourselves . . . and those closest to us. The passage leads us to humility and the need for grace: to receive it and to give it.
As Shakespeare’s Portia recited in The Merchant of Venice,
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes . . .
The demands, pressures and stress of work can put a huge strain on relationships with our coworkers. This 4-day plan from Theology of Work Project and Workmatters provides simple steps you can take to be more loving to your coworkers that will transform those relationships and increase both joy and productivity at work.