Maybe I’m having a tough morning. But, as it turns out, I simply cannot come up with an apt word to describe the horn on a fire truck.
Not the siren, mind you. That one’s easy. I even know the exact terms for the two standard tones that are built into the electronic siren used on US-based ambulances. (That would be wail and yelp, terms I learned when working for an ambulance service.) Having traveled a fair amount, I also know that the sounds of ambulance sirens differ drastically from nation to nation. I find the ambulance sirens in Italy to be most distinctive.
But the horn. The HORN !!!! That obnoxiously loud blaring monotonal blast that erupts like a volcano (providing an audio override even to the piercing warble of the siren) and warns you that the fire truck is heading YOUR way. That is the sound I can’t seem to find the right word to describe. The closest I’ve come to it is FWERTTTTTT. But that’s not a word. So, I’m stuck.
Our verse today tells us …
IF I SPEAK IN THE TONGUES OF MEN AND OF ANGELS, BUT HAVE NOT LOVE,
I AM A NOISY GONG OR A CLANGING CYMBAL.
As I was considering this verse and praying about it this morning, my focus was drawn to the noise element. Most of the time people doing anything at full blast are merely attracting attention to themselves. Deliberately. They are, well – Fwertttttts. Whether it’s the person with the insistent percussive music blaring from their car at a traffic light or the brassy person holding a raucous conversation that drowns out everyone else in earshot – the intent and effect is the same. Everyone around them is forced to put some aspect of whatever they were doing on hold.
It’s really just pride in action. Pride is noisy and interruptive, always focused on self and its own attempts at greatness. Pride insists, “The three most important people in the room are me, myself and I.” Noisy gongs, clanging cymbals. Fwertttttts.
But love — REAL love — is always centered on the other person. Their needs are foremost, their accomplishments focused upon. Love is not self-focused, filled with envy and boasting. It asks how it can serve, then meets the needs from the abundance of the heart. Those who love best not only refuse to magnify themselves and insist that the focus be someone else; but they look beyond the immediate target of their affections and action to see pleasing the ultimate Someone Else as the true recipient.
We love because He first loved us. We serve because He exemplified servanthood. We make pleasing Him the goal, and it impacts the very character of who and how we serve.
IF I SPEAK IN THE TONGUES OF MEN AND OF ANGELS, BUT HAVE NOT LOVE,
I AM A NOISY GONG OR A CLANGING CYMBAL.
Love converts noisy gongs into mellow words and acts of compassion. Love converts clanging cymbals into soft, pure sacrificial acts that touch the heart of the recipient instead of only the ears. Love converts.
The word “conversion” means to have its core nature changed. It pictures both abandonment and embrace. Letting go of one thing to pick up something radically different. Love converts.
When we are embraced by Christ’s love, He converts; for He is love. As we experience His love and embrace Him, He enables us to abandon the dark, clanging cymbals of pride. Dropped, cast aside. Replaced by Him, His peace, and His love.
Love converts prideful people, know-it-alls who make a show of all they do; even their “faith.” Love converts even our thoughts, and makes us realize that only love brings eternal value and without love every accomplishment and accolade is nothing. The overwhelming precious nature of love opens our eyes so we can say, “If I have not His love, I have nothing; If I have not His love, I am nothing.”
Love converts, if you invite it. Love converts, if you embrace it.
Love converts FWERTTTTTTs.
IF I SPEAK IN THE TONGUES OF MEN AND OF ANGELS, BUT HAVE NOT LOVE,
I AM A NOISY GONG OR A CLANGING CYMBAL.
