“I will show you a more excellent way . . . Love suffereth long and is kind.”

(I Corinthians 12:31, 13:4)

Do you ever bungle things in your relationships with other people: unintentionally offend your friend, plunge your child into tears, alienate your customers? Do people get in your way, upset your plans, prove uncooperative and hostile? Have you ever said to yourself after some spectacular failure in human relationships: “Well, I guess I just don’t have the touch. Some people have the knack of working with others, inspiring their confidence, winning their cooperation, and others don’t. Folks misunderstand me. I don’t get through to them. I’m just one of those people who is all thumbs when it comes to human relationships.

Have you ever held conversation with yourself like that? Well, most of us have. Many of our failures are in human relationships. But we must not despair. We cannot quit, or admit defeat. Today, in this traditional season for making New Year’s resolutions, I’d like to present a few considerations for our encouragement — for all of us who fail so often in human relationships.

First, we can’t ever say we are through and quit trying, because human relationships is not one of life’s electives. We can’t say, “Since I have no aptitude in this particular department, I’ll just scratch it off my schedule.” No one but a hermit can talk like that with any degree of realism. Even if we were to leave the world to the extent of becoming a nun or entering a monastery, we would still have the problem of human relationships with others in the monastic order to which we’d fled for refuge.

We can’t get away from majoring in the department of human relationships. Family, school, business, church, community — all cluster us about with people, people, people. Someone wrote a book with the title: People Are so Prevalent, or The Prevalence of People. I don’t know what’s in the book, but there is a whale of a lot in the title. We can’t get away from the prevalence of people.

In our more judicious moments we realize that we don’t really want to get away from them, for people are our great opportunity for joy and blessedness in life. What pleasure is there in entertainment or recreation without congenial companionship? What satisfaction in work without comradeship? What victory in sports or business without competition? What opportunity for salesmanship without customers? What joy in earning if there are no loved ones for whom to bring home the bacon?

People are here to stay — at least until the way of the atoms — and it is up to every one of us to make the most of our opportunity to develop some skills in human relationships, and we can. Certainly we had better.

Then, in the second place, we should not despair over our failure in human relationships because it is easily demonstrable that there are certain universal sharp tools and certain blunt tools for human relationships. And we can be taught the difference. Use the blunt tools and we will bungle it every time. But use the sharp tools that cut clean and smoothly, and our work is done with joy, rapidity, and satisfaction. It’s all a matter of using the right tools — this business of human relationships.

Did you every try to carve a Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey when the table was ringed round with a large number of hungry, impatient relatives and friends, and find yourself holding in your hand and hacking away with a dull carving knife? Have you ever gone after the Bermuda grass in your flowerbed with a dull hoe, or tried your hand at a wood lathe using alternately sharp and dull tools to accomplish your purpose? Well, it makes the same difference in the realm of our relationships with people, whether we grab up the dull or sharp tools.

What are the proven dull tools? One is sarcasm or ridicule. If we lay hold of this tool with a view to influencing other people’s behavior, we are in for some failures. The parent, teacher, or employer who pours out sarcasm and ridicule never accomplishes desired change or improvement; he only builds up resentment, bitterness, and frustration in his charge. In the original Greek “sarcasm” means, “to tear flesh.”  That’s what we do when we use this blunt, ungainly tool in human relationships.

What are some other dull tools? There is the bat of blame and the guillotine of harsh judgment. What fools we are if we think we are going to accomplish anything constructive in human relationships, either for redemption of character, or the building of fellowship by visiting our scornful censure on others for their past mistakes or by sitting in harsh judgment upon them because we deem them less excellent than we. Yet, we keep on grabbing up these cast-off and condemned tools and try to make headway in human relationships with them.

Then there is that old favorite — the stick of superiority — which never did work toward accomplishing a blessed thing in human relationships, yet we never tire of trying — strutting, posturing, preening ourselves. To impress or influence others there is nothing so futile or amusing as to assume an air of superiority and act contemptuously toward others.

These are just some of the dull tools for human relationships — there are many more — but they never work effectively, no matter how we grind away on them or press them harder and harder into our service.

And the sharp tools for human relationships, what are they? There is just one. That’s all. That one is love. It cuts clean and true and beautifully in every relationship. In the home: “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.” In the church: “Brethren be kindly affectioned one toward another with brotherly love in honor preferring one another.” With your enemies: “Love your enemies and pray for those who despitefully use you.”

Love is the one sharp tool for every human relationship. “Love never fails,” says St. Paul. This is the more excellent way in human relationships Paul urged on the Corinthian congregation in the long ago, and it hovers as the ideal in inter-personal relations over every Christian congregation since.

What is this supreme tool for getting along with other people like and how does it work? “It suffers long and is kind.” Patience with people and kindness to them in the stress and strain of life is the cutting edge that love holds unwaveringly, and ultimately this tool turns out the best products. Nothing can match it.

“When Henry James was asked by his nephew what he ought to do in life, James replied: ‘There are 3 things in human life that are important. The 1st is to be Kind. The 2nd is to be Kind. And the 3rd is to be Kind.’” Time — 1-20-97 — Review of Robert Coles book, The Moral Intelligence of Children or How to Raise Moral Children.

“Love envies not, vaunts not itself, is not puffed up, seeks not its own.” The self-centered spirit doesn’t accomplish very much in the realm of human relations. It usually builds up resentment and isolates other people from itself. But by the same token, the unselfish, self-giving spirit of love automatically gathers a crowd of glad supporters and marches off to victory. Jesus said that the way to save your life is to lose it, to give yourself utterly away in love for Him or others. Oh, blessed paradox of the Lord of Life, we now and then but dimly glimpse!

Then love is never glad when others go wrong — “It rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.” How keen is this cutting edge in all connections with people. It wins friends and influences people deeply, permanently, blessedly. “Jesus was always alert to any good quality in the life of others. His eye alone saw the greater possibilities in the fishermen of Galilee whom he chose to be his disciples. He marveled at a Roman centurion’s faith. He could see the queen in a harlot. Whenever He saw the beginnings of better things He was uplifted in spirit and encouraged them. Now, every human heart hungers for such treatment. Children bloom in the sunshine of the spirit that encourages them and helps them whenever they do well. When an old Scottish minister died it was beautifully said of him, “There is no one left in our village now to appreciate the triumphs of ordinary folk.” That tells us all we need to know about the old minister, doesn’t it?” (Interpreters Bible). He had hold of the tool that works wonders in human society.

Glenn Clark asks:

            Who made me?

            Those who love me!

            God, first, because He loves me most:

            My parents next, because they loved me next –

            And their love brought me into being.

            But when I was ‘born’, was I created?

            Not wholly; my creation had just begun.

            For I am created anew every day, every hour that I live,

            Since each one who loves me recreates me in his heart.

            Yes, he carries me in the womb of his thoughts, in his love – my embryo soul –

And sends me forth anew with every breath he breathes.

            As long as I have friends to love me, the process of my creation continues.

How sharp, how keen, how creative in human life is love.

Then love, the more excellent way in human relationships, has a staying, lasting quality which out-endures any other tool that can be used. “Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails.” Love is like an army that is threatened with overwhelming defeat by superior numbers of the enemy, but steadfastly refuses to give ground. Love in the darkest midnight looks to the dawn. “Love hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”

Finally, my friends, let us not despair if failure has dogged our tracks in our relationships with other people, because the skillful use of the one sharp tool is not so much an acquired skill, as it is a bestowed gift.

Someone might say, “I haven’t the sharp tools to use. I always use the dull because that seems to be all that I have.” Yes, certainly, that’s true. If we don’t have love in our heart we can’t use it in dealing with other people. We will always use the poor, blunt, dull tools until we have better.

But that is just the reason we are talking about this important matter in church. There is one who can give us what we need, and only one. Jesus Christ can give us this love, and He will, if we’ll only accept it. Listen to His words for us: “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you . . I have loved you as the Father loved me . . Abide in my love. . By this shall all people know that you are my disciples, because you love one another.”

Let us accept the love of God in Christ, for ourselves and that love as it redeems, reshapes, and recreates us anew will work wonders in every department of our relationships with others.