If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. --1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (NRSV)
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Corinthian congregation was beset with division.
Situated in a cosmopolitan and diverse city, the church was immersed in a pluralistic culture. People came into the community with many different beliefs, from different classes, slaves and free, Jew and Gentile, from a variety of national and ethnic groups present in the city.
So, it was only to be expected that this diversity would be present in the church and would lead to division and conflict. Some of the examples of this division and conflict, and of the problems addressed by Paul in his letter include factions within the congregation, including members who had brought lawsuits against each other. There was an abuse of Eucharistic practices where certain people, mostly of lower class, were being excluded from communion. There was even a man engaged in a very public affair with his step mother. Perhaps most troubling to Paul was that the church seemed to have accepted a spirituality that led some to deny the resurrection.
The church was a mess.
Last week I mentioned that much of the division came from a desire for status. Some of this status revolved around the issue of spiritual gifts and whether certain gifts were better than others. As our reading opened, we heard Paul mention a few of these gifts. Did you catch them? The gift of speaking in tongues. The gift of prophesy, the ability to speak the prophetic word. The gift of generosity.
These were only a few, but there were many other gifts present in the congregation - gifts poured out on them by the Holy Spirit. Gifts such as administration, hospitality, leadership, discernment, healing, knowledge, evangelism, teaching, miracles, mercy, service, and faith. Among others.
In the chapter that precedes today’s reading, Paul begins to address this dispute over certain spiritual gifts and whether some are more important than others.
To do so, he uses a comparison with the human body.
This was a metaphor that the community would have been familiar with. It was common in Greek and Roman political speeches to use this metaphor of the body to encourage social unity based on a certain hierarchy...that certain parts of the body were more important than other parts. That those that were weaker were dispensable. That those that were more important were treated with greater respect and honor.
Paul turns this cultural understanding upside down. He writes of a “more excellent way” of being the body - of being the body of Christ - urging the Corinthians to understand that every part of the body is important. That no part is unnecessary. That the weaker parts are as important as the stronger parts. That when one part of the body rejoices, all rejoice. And that one part of the body suffers, all suffer.
Paul challenges the church in Corinth to understand that, as they are reveling in their newfound gifts given to them by the Holy Spirit, they have completely missed the point. They have failed to understand that their gifts were ultimately to be used for the edification - for the building up - of others.
Because this is what love does. Because this is what love is. Love is a gift that is greater than the ability to prophesy, to fathom spiritual mysteries, to speak in other tongues. Love is a love that loves the other more than oneself.
Love is what God is.
It’s at the cross where Love is found. Where Christ is patient and kind. Not envious or boastful. Not rude or seeking advantage. Not irritable or keeping a record of his complaints. Not rejoicing in wrongdoing, but in the truth. It is at the cross where Christ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
For the Corinthian church. For you. And for me.
This love is the force that can make Corinth a community again. This love nourishes and sustains all Christian communities, including ours. This love shapes us and our love, as this passage in 1st Corinthians 13 becomes the poetry and prayer that puts us in touch with what we now are not and reminds us of who and what we were meant to be. It is the foundation of our freedom that allows us to maintain and establish relationships and that turns us outward. To live caring and compassionate lives, not only in our church, but outside our church and especially for the neighbor in need.
Each of us comes here in all our diversity and differences. With numerous gifts and abilities. We are not asked to leave this diversity and difference at the door. Unity and diversity - like the body and its parts - are not incompatible.
But what we are asked to do is to love one another in the same kind of self-sacrificing way of Christ on the cross.
Find a piece of clay or Play-Dough or make your own. Then, out of it, form a clay figure. Imagine if everyone in our community did this. Would you notice that we come in all different colors and shapes, from all different places and experiences? With all different kinds of opinions and gifts? That this is how God has created each one of us to be? But, do you also notice that, together in our diversity, we are a beautiful and unified body of Christ.
May you know that you are unique. May you know that you are an important part of this body of Christ. May you know that you have been given amazing gifts by God to be used to lift others up. And may you know that you are loved by me, by this community, and most importantly by God. And that through God’s love for you, God, you have been set free to love and serve.
Amen.
Easter 6
Readings: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Mark 12:28-31; Psalm 119:1-8
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