Love is our Song

This year marks the beginning of my 15th year working as a Pastor. Even still I am often amused as to how this all happened. I grew up in a small town near Taree, in a single parent family that wasn’t at all religious. As a young adult I never would have dreamed in a million years that this would be the life I would eventually find myself in. For me, learning that the God of the Universe not only knew who I was, but actually loved me, was something so compelling that I had to follow wherever He led me. 

He led me to pastoral ministry. The plan however, was to become a full-time musician. I am a drummer and I’ve been playing for 30 years now. Even though that didn’t become my career, I still love to play and I love to watch other drummers. A number of years ago American drumming legend, Terry Bozzio, built an enormous 'drum kit' of entirely cymbals. Every drum in this kit was replaced with a similar sized cymbal, creating a very impressive looking mountain of shiny bronze and chrome. He then went on to perform some of the worst sound music I have ever heard in my life. The cymbals were great cymbals. But no one wants to hear cymbals by themselves. They are not designed to be a solo instrument. They create dynamics and add expression to all the other parts of a song. 

1 Corinthains 13:1-3 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

I love that this is the analogy the Apostle Paul used when he wrote to the Church in Corinth. This was a community in conflict. Paul was reminding them that it didn’t matter how phenomenally they excelled in the various things they were doing if love was not the foundation. All of these wonderful things they wanted to do were merely the cymbals, but love needed to be the song.

This is still the core command to followers of Jesus today, to ensure that love, mercy, compassion, and kindness is what we excel in. This is our song. Everything else we do is only to make that song louder. 

Pr Michael Chapman
Head of Campus Ministries