Love and Peacemaking

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Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (NRSV)
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

Meditation:
            These few verses from Paul’s famous chapter on Love in First Corinthians are a key to the inner life of the peacemaker. Those who desire to be peacemakers are pushed and pulled in all the same directions as the rest of mankind. The temptation to be arrogant or rude to someone certainly does not disappear just because one desires to become a peacemaker for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel.
            In fact those who have walked that road ahead of us know that the temptations to act in ways that do not make for peace increase as we draw closer to God and seek to act in ways that bring peace and justice into the world. Paul even goes so far as to say that he does the evil he does not want to do, but he cannot do the good he desires to do. Sin gets in the way.
            This is why love is so important. If we love God with all our hearts we will realize that God forgives us no matter how bad we blow it. Love bears, believes, hopes and endures in us until the very end. If we can make the royal law of love a way of life for us then peacemaking will come. If we seek to love like Jesus Christ loves us then we will become children of God.

Prayer:
Lord, make us lovers of you and all humankind. Help us to reach out and bring love to all we meet this day. Help us keep the peace in our own minds so that we can spread the peace and justice of God wherever we go. Let us learn love from your Son and learn to be lovers by the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

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