Journal of Sacred Work

13:4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or
arrogant 13:5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or
resentful…1 Corinthians 13:4-5

   During the time I was President of Nashville’s Baptist Hospital System, i directed that the above lines be painted in script on one of the walls of the hospital. Baptist is faith-based, I reasoned, why not use the golden thread of Scripture to reinforce our message of loving care.

   Lots of people told me they liked seeing the Scripture on the walls. "It’s a nice reminder," they told me. But I often wondered whether it was of any help to anybody. And I wondered, as well, if the Scripture might offend those who grew up in a different faith tradition. What is the power of Scripture to move us? How do we explain those, like the recent subway hero who act whether inspired by Scripture of not…

   It’s an important question for people of all faiths. Can we honestly say that people of faith behave better toward others than people who proclaim themselves atheists?  What about that subway hero who jumped on the tracks to cover the body of a man who had fallen in the pathway of an oncoming train. What about this hero who risked his life to save the life of a stranger?
Do we know, or care, if he had read Corinthians or is even a Christian?
   Personally, I find great solace in the teaching of Scripture. It is meaningful to me that Paul sought to instruct the then-new church members in Corinth on the meaning of love. "Love is patient; love is kind…" It is beautiful and meaningful language.
   Yet I cannot say that atheists don’t practice this truth as well as believers. Loving behavior is, in the end, not always a function of faith, but is expressed through human intention and behavior.
   Faith is not a precondition to love. At the same time, faith may well increase the chance that loving kindness will be practiced.
   If we learn by example, then Christians have the benefit of the finest example of Love that has ever lived. And Christ taught love not so much by words as by thought and action.
   As we engage our hearts to meet the need of another, the ultimate question becomes whether we are truly living love, whether we have actually accomplished the miracle of going beyond our own need to enter the pain of another.
   i think of that man in the blue knit cap who jumped off the New York Subway platform to save the stranger. I wonder what flashed through his mind before he risked his life to save another. He is a sort of pure example of a hero (as we imagine heroes.) Was this an act of religious faith?
   The man whose life he saved on the subway certainly doesn’t care about motivation. The question is not one of faith. It is a question of the human expression of Love. Love is patient, and kind and true. Love is what it is. Paul simply gave words to an eternal truth – one which is hard to live and exquisitely beautiful every time it finds expression.
   Perhaps Christianity is not about being a hero, but more about being forgiven when we aren’t one, when we live our lives in ordinary instead of exception ways, and when we make human mistakes and want forgiveness. Perhaps that’s why I find comfort in these lines from a Maya Angelou poem:

When I say… "I am a Christian"
I’m not trying to be strong.
I’m professing that I’m weak
And need His strength to carry on.

-Erie Chapman