1 Corinthians 13:1-13
The Greatest Gift
James Sledge February
3, 2013
I’m
guessing that many of you have heard this passage from 1 Corinthians
before. Maybe my experience is skewed by
being a pastor , but I’ve heard it a lot, mostly at weddings. I don’t keep good
enough records to say this with any certainty, but I would be surprised if I
haven’t used this passage in at least half the weddings I’ve done. And in a number of weddings that didn’t use these
words on love, the couple was making a conscious decision to do something
different from what they’d seen at all their friends’ weddings.
Paul is not talking about marriage or
romance, but his words can speak to the sort of love required to sustain a
marriage. But I doubt that many couples
who choose this passage realize its real meaning, though that may be as much
the church’s fault as anyone’s.
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If
you were having some significant difficulties with someone who was very
important to you, and this person wrote you a long, heartfelt letter trying to
resolve the situation, what would you do?
That may seem a rather odd question.
Most of us would read the letter.
And it would have to be incredibly long not to do so at one sitting. Certainly
we wouldn’t read it a few paragraphs per day, sometimes skipping around rather
than going from beginning to end.
Yet
this is precisely what we do with the letters in the Bible, which is why so
many people have heard Paul speak on love without having the foggiest notion of
why he felt the need to do so. This lack
of context leads to all sorts of interpretive mischief. Shortly before our passage,
Paul writes this about the Lord’s Supper.
For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink
judgment against themselves. People
routinely suggest that this is about mystical presence in the elements, but when
you read what comes before and after, Paul makes quite clear the “body” he is
talking about is the church, the community of faith.
So
too, the words we heard this morning address concerns outside the reading
itself. Paul is concerned about
divisions within the community of faith. In particular, he is worried about
divisions that arise from some members thinking they are better than others,
and in the Corinthian church, this seems to have happened around spiritual
gifts.
The
Corinthians were apparently very impressed with certain gifts, particularly
speaking in tongues. And they disparaged
those Christians who had no impressive gifts, leading Paul into a long
discussion about the church as the body
of Christ, with no part of the body more indispensable than another. The Spirit allots gifts for the common good
as the Spirit chooses. Each has its
critical role, says Paul.
As
Paul makes his point, he rattles off a list of gifted roles in the church, with
speaking in tongues at the very bottom, and he urges those at Corinth to aspire
to the greater gifts. But then he adds, “And I will show you a still more excellent
way.” And that is Paul’s segue,
his introduction to the verses we heard today.
Paul
begins with a list of gifts that he expects will wow the folks at Corinth:
speaking in the tongues of angels, prophecy, insights into the greatest
mysteries, faith that can move mountains, or incredible acts of self-giving and
self-sacrifice. But, Paul insists, all of these are meaningless, nothing,
without the gift of love. And I doubt
anyone in Corinth marveled at the beauty of these words on love. These words
cut many of them to the quick.
Paul
is, or course, not talking about romantic love. I’m not sure why English makes
the word “love” do so much work. Paul
knows at least three different Greek words that get translated into English as “love.” The one in our passage, “agape,” was used by early
Christians almost exclusively for the sort of love embodied in Jesus,
Christ-like love that gave itself for others.
Essentially Paul tells the Corinthians, “If you do not have Christ-like love, it does not matter
what other impressive things you say or do. They count for nothing.”
Of
course we’re not Corinthians. We share
little with them other than perhaps being somewhat cosmopolitan. They lived at a major trade intersection and knew
a great deal of cultural diversity and intellectual variety. But most of us never aspired to speak in
tongues, to offer prophecies, or brag of ecstatic mystical experiences. Which
is not to say we don’t have our own things that we are proud of, that we think
make us special.
As
a group, Presbyterians are often proud of being educated and intellectual. We value
learned scholarship, insist that our pastors have graduate degrees and
knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, and we sometimes are dismissive of other
Christians who we view as having an uneducated, simplistic, or emotional faith.
We
have our own particular things to be proud of here at FCPC. Different people would probably come up with
slightly different lists, but I would expect the music program and the
buildings themselves would make a lot of lists.
Presumably we could substitute our items for those of the Corinthians,
and Paul’s message would sound much the same.
“If we sing anthems that move people to tears, but do not have
Christ-like love, we are noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. If
people ooh and ah as they pass by our buildings or walk through them,
but we do not have Christ-like love, we are an empty shell.” You get the pattern.
Now
I don’t know that Paul sees anything wrong with having some pride in the things
we do well such as our music program. But he clearly thinks that if those
things are not motivated by Christ-like love and do not in some way share that
love with others, they are wasted effort.
And so Paul’s critique calls all people of faith, all church congregations,
to take a look at who they are and what they do with love as the primary
measuring stick.
I
doubt there are many congregations who rise to the level of the Corinthians in
terms of the excesses that divided that church.
But I also suspect that most congregations occasionally lose sight of
Christ-like love as the core of all that they do. That argues for regular, long-hard-looks in
the mirror. And it also requires an
openness to the Spirit
You see, the Christ-like love Paul
insists must be at the core of all we do is not simply about trying hard to
love. Like faith, this love is a gift, the greatest gift. When, by the Spirit, we
are joined to Christ, when we are “in Christ,” Christ-like love dwells within
us, both individually and corporately, allowing us to offer and share that love
through all that we do.
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Here
is font and table. God’s love in Christ
embraces us here in the waters, and the sign and seal of that love is marked on
us. And at the table Christ’s love and
grace nourishes and forms us for new lives animated by Christ-like love, lives
that share Christ-like love with all.
Come to the table. Receive once
more the gift of love, the greatest gift, that we may share it with all the
world.
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