By Pastor Lynn Sawyer Parks

1 Corinthians 13

Today, we are continuing the sermon from last week, which came from 1 Corinthians 12 and was about how we are all members in the one Body of Christ. For context to this teaching, we noticed that Paul is writing to the believers in Corinth who are Greeks who have converted from paganism to Christianity. Along with this conversion of faith has come a change of world view, with the Corinthians needing to change their way of viewing life as a series of random happenings with no ultimate purpose to one where they see life and human history as God’s story, with God actively taking part and having an ultimate purpose for the things that happen. This was a Jewish way of thinking and it continues with Christianity as we acknowledge Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords and participate in revealing Jesus to the world. We believe that one day Jesus will come again and the Kingdom of God will be on earth as it is in heaven. The way we live our lives now, our commitment to be growing spiritually, is in preparation for that and so we live now in such a way as to reveal Christ to others. As members of the Body of Christ, we have been given spiritual gifts to equip us to do works of ministry and to take care of the Body of Christ so that Christ is revealed to us and to the world.
But the problem we see in 1 Corinthians is that the believers in Corinth were divided. They seemed to be in competition with each other with some saying they followed Paul, some Apollos, some Peter, some Christ. We also saw that they were competing over who had the most important spiritual gift. Someone reminded me the other day that this year we have the summer Olympics happening in Tokyo, Japan. The Olympics started in ancient Greece and was a competition between the city states. These people had competitiveness in their DNA. Being competitive isn’t necessarily a bad thing in its place. But it’s disrupting the fellowship of this church and getting out of hand. A body whose parts are in competition with each other, isn’t able to work together well. Paul says at the end of chapter 12 that he will show them a more excellent way, a way of being the Body of Christ that is healthy and reveals Christ well.

We are familiar with 1 Corinthians 13 because it’s read a lot at weddings. Parts of it were read at mine and Vandy’s wedding. But let’s keep in mind that this was originally written to Christians who were competing against each other, pointing the finger at one another, thinking themselves superior to one another and causing harm to the Body of Christ by their divisiveness. Paul is right to call them out on this and to correct them by showing them a much better way. Paul’s highest concern is Christ. How can they reveal Christ to the world if they are divided against each other?

In reading the first few verses of the chapter, I can see a division that exists in the church today. Verses 1 and 2 we can say refer to the evangelism/discipleship camp which would be heavy on speaking to people about Jesus, and verse 3 to the social justice camp which would be heavy on doing works of justice. In The Message version verses 1 & 2 say, “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy…. And if I speak God’s Word with power revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day….” When I read this I thought, “This is what I like to think I do every Sunday.” I know it’s not, but I still like to think it. Paul says if I speak like this and if I have faith enough to move mountains, but I don’t love, I am nothing. All that speaking, all that faith means nothing without love and Paul’s going to tell us what that love should look like. Words alone don’t cut it. We can be speaking great words of truth about Jesus but in a hateful, condemning way and no good will come of it. We’ve seen this too often in church history. People are driven away when we don’t communicate from the motivation of love. Love comes from God and when we speak words of truth about Jesus, under the motivation of love, God gives power to those words to bring about new life. This is important for us as we commit to making disciples and sharing the gospel with our community. Without love, we’re just making noise.

Verse 3 says if I give all my possessions, everything I own, for the sake of feeding or providing for those who have nothing, and if I even go so far as to sacrifice my own body or my health for the sake of others, but I don’t love, there is no profit. Social justice advocates want to help those who need help in some way. Quite simply we see a lack and want to make it up, whether it’s providing food, housing, clothing, access to medical care, access to education or opportunity, whatever. But Paul says, without love, nothing comes from all our good deeds, activism and advocacy. Without love, nothing really changes. Out of a sense of guilt, I can give the homeless man with the sign on the Boulevard a dollar and he’s going to stay right there on the Boulevard with his sign. Nothing will change in his life even though I’ve given him what he lacked. But if I am motivated by love, I will take the time to talk to him, listen to his story, get to know him and find out what his deepest need is and try to meet that. That type of relationship might just get him off the Boulevard and into stable housing. And I might also have the opportunity to share the hope of the gospel with him that will really bring about transformation in his life. But without the type of love that Paul describes in this chapter, I will never invest myself that much in one person. How are we going to engage with our community without this type of love? So we see right here in the first 3 verses that this division we encounter in the modern church between those who prioritize evangelism or saving souls, and those who prioritize social justice, is nothing more than a repeat of the same divisiveness in the Corinthian church. This division takes the attention away from the most important thing, the first thing we are to be about which is revealing Christ. Love, as described in this chapter, will motivate and empower us to both speak the gospel and act it out on behalf of others so that Christ is revealed.

We all want someone to care about us. We want people’s words and actions to communicate their positive feelings towards us right? Our words and actions must be motivated by love. And what does love look like? Paul tells us in verses 4-8. Now I want to say that this is not a comprehensive definition of love. Paul is writing to a specific group of people in a specific place with some specific challenges that he is addressing. We can read throughout the Bible and look at the life and ministry of Jesus and come up with more attributes of love I’m sure. But there’s still plenty here for us to learn.

The first thing Paul says is that love is patient. It doesn’t give up. It perseveres and persists patiently and bravely, enduring whatever comes against it but never giving up. Love is like a rock. Things come against it and beat against it, but it doesn’t move. Love is also kind. It treats others well. It cares more for others than for self. It doesn’t seek harm but rather seeks good. Love is not jealous. It doesn’t boil with envy, hatred or anger. It doesn’t want what others have in a selfish, resentful way. We can see why Paul wants to point out these attributes of love to the Corinthians because their divisiveness was probably coming out as jealousy, anger, unkindness, resentment.

He says love doesn’t go around bragging, all puffed up and proud. It’s not arrogant, always talking about how great it is and making a display of itself. This description reminds me of the wrestlers we used to watch on Sunday afternoons when I was growing up. These men would come on TV bragging about how great they were and posing and strutting in the ring. Most of the time when we see this type of behavior we think, “that’s so fake. They aren’t nearly as great as they claim.” This behavior creates barriers between people because one person is setting themselves above others and not being real. Love doesn’t do this. If this type of mindset and behavior is left unchecked a person can come to think they really are fundamentally better than everyone else. They can come to believe that the rules that govern ordinary people don’t apply to them. If this type of person becomes a leader, and we have to watch out for this in the church, it can set the stage for all types of abuse to happen.
Paul says love doesn’t act wrongly. It’s not rude or disrespectful towards others. It isn’t greedy, seeking to get only for itself. It also doesn’t force itself on others. Love is respectful of others. It thinks of the needs of others. This doesn’t mean if we are thinking of our own needs that we don’t love. Jesus said we are to love others as we love ourselves. This should give us pause to consider how do we love ourselves and are we loving others and ourselves in healthy ways. Like I said, Paul isn’t giving a comprehensive definition of love but is pointing out the attributes of love that the Corinthians most need to hear about.
Love doesn’t think evil thoughts, it doesn’t think badly about others. It doesn’t judge others unfairly or keep score of the sins and failures of others. It doesn’t easily get angry or provoked. It doesn’t fly off the handle and lash out. I don’t know about you, but when I get really angry at someone, that’s when I can remember every negative thing they’ve ever done or said and bring those things out as a weapon. Paul says love doesn’t do this. I’ve come to realize that, when I dwell on the wrongs I’ve suffered or the things that people say or do that anger or hurt me, that I’m giving in to the Accuser who is Satan. In the book of Job, Satan is portrayed like a prosecutor before God in the heavenly courtroom, who brings cases against people. This is just how the Accuser works in our minds. We find ourselves dwelling on what this person said or did and we continue to stew in anger and build a case against them. There’s a better way to deal with injustice and wrongdoing on the part of others and that is the way of love. We may be completely in the right about everything this person has done to us, but rather than stew in anger, it’s better to present that all to God and ask for the grace to act, speak and think in love towards the other. Who knows what God will do if we remain open to His love to work in and through us? Again, I’m not saying people shouldn’t be held accountable for wrongdoing. What I’m saying is we shouldn’t let their wrongdoing bind us up in anger, resentment, unforgiveness or cause us to lash out and do harm to others.

Love doesn’t despise the other. The Message says “It doesn’t revel when others grovel.” Just the mental picture of someone taking pleasure in watching another grovel makes me feel sick. Love isn’t a bully. It doesn’t rejoice in injustice or suffering. Love isn’t out to crush others under its heel and assert its superiority. Love doesn’t put other people down. Love does not abuse, not even its enemies.

Instead love rejoices in the truth. It stays focused on the truth. Love bears up under pressure. It carries the load and endures through all hardships. This reminded me of Sam the hobbit who wouldn’t leave Frodo to carry the ring to Mt. Doom by himself. Instead, in the movie version at least, when Frodo faltered on the slope of Mt. Doom because of the burden of the ring and his weakened state, Sam picked Frodo up and carried him up the side of the mountain. Love carries the load.

Love believes all things, meaning it has confidence in the goodness of people. It’s ready to give the benefit of the doubt. Love always hopes. Hope is a very powerful thing. At the MLK service event on Monday, Chaplain Ron Muse said that incarcerated people and returning citizens need hope because hope will transform their lives. The panel that spoke at the event pointed out that this hope is best given in individual relationships with people that last over time. If you have not seen the movie Just Mercy, I would encourage you to try to see it. That movie demonstrates the very truth that Ron Muse spoke on Monday. When people have someone who believes in them, who sticks with them, who speaks hope to them, amazing things can happen in their lives. Paul says this is what love looks like. We have the greatest message of hope there is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. But without love, the effective delivery of that message won’t happen.

Finally, Paul says that love endures always. It doesn’t go anywhere. And love never fails or falls away or perishes. When someone we love dies, our love for them doesn’t stop. That love continues throughout our lives. God’s love for us endures through all things. No matter the situations we find ourselves in, no matter how much we may feel like we disappoint God, no matter what sin we indulge in, God still loves us. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. Paul says this love is what energizes the Body of Christ. It’s the motivating force behind what we say and do, how we treat each other, why we come together in worship, and why we reach out to the world. This love comes from the Holy Spirit who joins together the various members of the Body of Christ. We can ask God for the gift of love when we find ourselves falling short. Love is the greatest of the spiritual gifts and it is the one that will remain even after the Kingdom of God is fully come.

Paul says in the remaining verses in this chapter that the gift of prophecy, which the Corinthians seemed to value so much, would fail or come to an end. The gift of tongues would stop, the gift of knowledge would also come to an end. The time will come when all these gifts will become obsolete because the Kingdom of God will come in all its fullness or completeness and then we won’t need these gifts. He gives us the metaphor of childhood versus adulthood to explain this. When we are children we think and act like children. But when we become adults, we are expected to think and act like adults. We are capable of a much greater level of maturity when we are adults than we are as a toddler. Adulthood signals completeness in our process of growth. So we lay aside the things of childhood. This is how it will be when Jesus comes. Completeness will come, so the things we needed in a time of incompleteness will become obsolete.

Paul says that our knowledge now is like the knowledge we gain when we look in a mirror and only see a dark reflection. We have to understand that mirrors at that time were made of metal, not reflective glass, so their mirrors didn’t give a clear reflection of themselves, but a darker and perhaps distorted reflection. But the time will come, when Jesus is fully revealed and then we will know accurately and completely. Our knowledge of Christ will be complete even as we are completely and accurately known by Christ. So for now, we have the spiritual gifts to help us grow as the Body of Christ and to effectively minister in the world. When Christ comes again and is fully revealed to the world, these gifts will not be needed. So why fight over them? Why have competition among ourselves over them and be divided against one another? This is the message of this chapter. There is a better way and that is the way of love.

It’s not hard for us to see how, in our culture today, in our government, there are deep divisions and very serious problems. We can’t exempt the Church either. We’ve experienced in our own fellowship the pain of division. There is a better way and it is the way of love. Jesus said the way to life is narrow and few find it, while the way to death and destruction is broad and many find it. Love is the way to life. Jesus demonstrated this in the sacrifice of his own life, not just on the cross, but in the sacrifice of leaving the Father and becoming a human and living life on this earth with all the brokenness and injustice, suffering and loss that that involves. We have to learn to live in that same love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. This love can only come from God. But if any change is going to happen in this world, we, the Church of Jesus Christ, have to be communicating this way of love effectively. We have to let this love transform us so that we can live it and help others to live it.

Church council is reading the book “Insider Outsider: My Journey as a Stranger in White Evangelicalism and My Hope for Us All” by Bryan Loritts. He talks about the effects of racism in the church and what we all can do about that. In the chapter entitled “An Invitation to Life Together” he’s talking about incidents like when black people have been killed by police and the response from white people. He writes, “We will never experience true Christian unity when one ethnicity demands of another that we keep silent about our pain and travails. The way forward is not an appeal to the facts as a first report, but an attempt to get inside each other’s skin as best we can to feel what they feel and to seek to understand it.” This is the way of love. Jesus demonstrated this in becoming human, in literally getting inside human skin to feel what we feel and to understand it. This is why the writer of Hebrews says we have a high priest who is able to empathize with our weaknesses and because of him, we are able to draw near to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Jesus is able to give us the ability to love and to get inside the skin of another to seek understanding, no matter what divides us, so that the life of Christ can be evident in us all.

Would the worship team come? We are coming together around the Table of the Lord today to take into our bodies, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we do so, we remember the totality of what Christ has done for us. He both lived and died in order to love us. But he didn’t stay dead. He rose from the grave and lives even now to pray for us and to give us the Holy Spirit to be with us and empower us to love others. And He will come again. We are waiting for that day. Until then, we are to love. Let us come to this table today, seeking to be empowered with the love of Christ.