Meditation on 1 Corinthians 13
Reverend Dr. Karen Crawford
First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown
On the Occasion of the Reaffirmation of Wedding Vows for Nine Couples
June 29, 2025
From the beginning, it was a math problem.
First, it was the timing.
A busy journalist, divorced mother of three little boys, moving into our first home after the divorce, I didn’t have time for meeting men or interest in going on dates. When I met Jim, he was kind of a colleague, a new Presbyterian pastor in York, PA. He followed my newspaper stories and columns, sent me emails, asked me out to dinner, lunch, or coffee. And the answer was always no.
I didn’t have time.
One day, he sent me an email and said that he would wait till I had time for a friend in my life. He wanted to be that friend. He would wait as long as it takes.
When we finally had time to get a cup of coffee, or in my case, a cup of tea—we pulled up to the cat-themed café that Jim had been telling me about—and it was closed. Permanently. We had waited too long.
The second math problem was more difficult to solve. The numbers were not in our favor. Mom sat me down one day and did the math for me. When Jim is this old, I will only be this old.
Jim remembers the day in 1963 that JFK was shot and the day in 1965 when Malcom X was killed. I wasn’t born, yet. I wasn’t old enough for kindergarten when MLK was assassinated or when Jim was protesting the War during his seminary years.
I remember going to see Jim after this conversation with my mom—about the numbers. I remember feeling sad that if we married, it would probably mean that I would eventually be alone, again. That with our differences in age, I would probably outlive him.
I made him promise me that if we married, he would at least be my husband for 20 years.
He did the math and agreed.
I just realized the other day that in July, after we celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary and my birthday, I will be the age he was when we first met.
And there were other important differences, other than the math. He was Presbyterian and Irish. I was neither of those. More importantly, he was a big dog person and I was scared of big dogs. I was a cat person and he hated cats.
But we had some things in common. We both loved the Lord and our faith led us to live intentionally, seeking God’s will for our lives and being ready to obey when we heard God’s voice, no matter how scary God’s will is. Sometimes, God’s will is scary.
Even with the math problems and other obstacles to overcome, including some of our children not being pleased when we got married, there was love.
Chapter 13 of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians in our Bibles is often read at weddings. We interpret his instructions as rules for happy marriages, especially verses 4 through 8. “Love is patient; love is kind.” It isn’t “envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.” I have to smile at “Love doesn’t insist on its own way,” because Jim and I both have leadership gifts, and we can be stubborn. Maybe we aren’t alone in this tendency. Is anyone stubborn in your households? Maybe it’s you? It is good to be reminded that love “is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs.” In other words, love not only forgives, it practices forgetting, just as when we sin and ask for God’s forgiveness, as Hebrews 8:12 tells us, along with the prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Micah, the Psalms, Second Corinthians and Romans, the Lord “remembers our sin no more.”
These instructions that Paul—formerly a persecutor of the earliest Christians—wrote thousands of years ago to a young church struggling with divisions and egos in the city of Corinth are meant for all of Christ’s followers—and not just married couples. When he says that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” and “Love never ends,” he is lifting up the perfect example of love—the unconditional, everlasting, and sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. Friends, human beings will always fall short of perfect love. We will always fall short. But Christ is still our example for the church and all our relationships with God and neighbor. And the presence of Christ in our hearts and homes is a powerful ingredient for happy, faithful, enduring marriages in every day and age.
The nine couples renewing their vows today were married in different decades and places. Russ and Sue and Tom and Marci were married in the 1960s. Ed and Janet and Ron and Carolyn were both married in 1972. Dave and Joanna, Rob and Linda, and John and Dawn were married in the 1980s. Jon and Elizabeth were married right here in June 2008. And I had the honor of presiding over the wedding of Frances and Terrell last November—in 2024. Each of these couples have learned that love can endure math problems, family problems, financial problems, health problems—you name it; they have learned how to love. Today, some of them will make vows that they wrote for one another. Others will use the standard Presbyterian vows.
As they say their vows, may we be strengthened in our households and in our church family as we remember that 1 Corinthians 13 applies to the Church, all our brothers and sisters in the Lord. May we make their promise to love and honor one another, giving thanks for what has been and looking forward to all that will be, our prayer for our church family, especially as we celebrate our 350th anniversary this year.
And when they promise to continue to share the journey of life with one another in faith and in hope, with God’s help, may you claim that promise for yourself, your family, and church family.
As you leave this space and enjoy food and friendship at the wedding reception, may you feel the embrace of God’s love for you.
May we all be encouraged to take our joy, hope, and faith out into a hurting world and practice the forgetting of sins—our own sins and the sins of others, especially those who are close to us.
May we all be stirred to point to Christ and say, “There is love.”
Let us pray.
Loving God, thank you for your Son’s perfect example of love—unconditional, everlasting, and sacrificial, not keeping track of wrongs. Help us to love in this way– forgive and forget—and refrain from our human tendencies to be stubborn and irritable. Forgive us when we fail to imitate your perfect love. Lead us to be patient and endure, as your Spirit, dwelling within us and in our midst, helps us every day. In the name of our Triune God we pray. Amen.
Sharing God's Love and Grace 