Day 22 -Assume Murder! Or Don’t…

Scripture Passage: 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Focal Verses: If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (CSB)

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One of the first lessons they teach a budding young forensic death investigator just starting out is “treat every death you investigate as a homicide.” It’s drilled into our heads. It’s poured into our ear-holes and left to congeal around our brains so often, it becomes second nature.

Makes sense though, right? Every death we investigate does have the potential to be a murder. Staged crime scenes like you see in the movies or read in murder mysteries do happen from time to time. Just because that 97-year old grandpa looks like he died peacefully in his sleep—a perfectly natural thing to happen for someone that age—doesn’t mean someone didn’t lean in on his face with a pillow and kill him, right?

Problem is, when someone is being trained in the field, the second part of the rule of thumb is often left out. The full statement should be “treat every death you investigate as a homicide until your investigation proves otherwise.”

Why is that last bit important? Because beginning death investigators tend to be full of big Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple dreams of solving a classic whodunnit. Of breaking the big case! After all, that’s why most got into the field to begin with. They take hold of the idea that a death might be a murder and they refuse to let go. They dig and dig and dig, determined to prove they’re criminological geniuses, while the entire purpose of their job (i.e. to objectively identify the most likely cause and manner of death) flies out the window. That 97-year-old grandpa might have had terminal cancer and a malfunctioning pacemaker, but the newbie investigator just can’t accept it as a natural death. Their aspirations and egos demand it be murder.

I should point out the polar opposite is just as true for old hands in the field like me. We’ve seen so many dead people…so many cases and staged crime scenes and natural deaths…that we tend to coast on instinct. This, naturally, leads to mistakes caused by hubris and complacency. The veteran investigator becomes blinded to the possibility that their ‘instincts’ might have missed something crucial and a murderer might go free because of it.

You might be wondering: What does any of this have to do with today’s passage? Well, even though Paul’s focus is love and my focus is death, the arguments are the exact same thing.

1 Corinthians 13 continues Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts. Before the Congregation of Corinth gets a little too big for their britches when discovering each of their unique gifts God had bestowed on them, he wants to warn them.

“Sure, you might have the gift of speaking in other languages…or even more impressive, the languages of angels…but if you don’t have love in your heart and if you’re snooty about it, you’re just making noise. And sure, you might be gifted with discernment to understand things like some kind of guru, however, if you don’t have love in your heart, that knowledge and understanding might win you a free dinner on Tuesday night Trivia at your local restaurant, but not much else.”

It’s all about purpose. It’s all about keeping our hearts and minds focused on what we’ve been placed on earth to do. Whether it’s help objectively determine someone’s cause and manner of death or sharing the love of Christ with a lost and dying world, we can’t get bogged down and blinded by our own ambitions. Our own preferred focus. Our own pride.

God has gifted us in unique ways for a single purpose: to show people God’s love. To carry out His ministry and to bring glory to Him, not ourselves. The moment we revel more in our gifts than the purpose of those gifts…love…that’s the moment we turn those gifts into idols we choose to worship instead of God. Stay focused, my friends. Stay true to the task God sets for you and don’t get distracted by hubris.

Father God, keep us focused. Don’t allow our own pride and ambition to tamp down our love. Help us to exude your love in all we do and while we might be called to prophesy your truth in a way that might hurt people’s feelings, help us to always do so out of love and never out of spite or haughtiness. Keep us humble, Lord, in our gifts and our ministries. Help us to always focus on You

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