A sermon based on 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13
By Charles J. Tomlin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
4th Sunday after Epiphany
February 14, 2010
Actor Matthew Mcconaughey is often type-casted in romantic comedies as a good looking, deviant male who is more often than not “unlucky in love.” In one of his most recent movies entitled “Ghosts of Grilfriends Past,” Mcconaughey stars as playboy Conner Mead, a self-centered womanizer who finds himself haunted by ghosts of the many girlfriends he has mistreated in his past. They constantly haunt him until he is finally turned into a loving, caring human being after his discovery of Mrs. Right, who is played by actress Jennifer Garner.
This plot seems to be popular and profitable for Hollywood. A man, and sometimes a woman, once “unlucky” in love, finally has their life transformed by the discovery of one who changes everything. When this happens, the long awaited “perfect” relationship normally ends in the fairy-tale fashion. Such is the dream---a dream of one day waking up and finding oneself, “lucky in love”. But in reality, this kind of luck in love is not as common the Hollywood hopes. The constant thread of rapid-fire marriage breakups in the media make you believe the opposite---that having luck in love is difficult, if not impossible to achieve. Consider the national headlines about Tiger Woods problems with love, or John Edwards, or just pickup on the constant rumors circulating about the possible breakup of Hollywood’s so called “perfect couple”, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. When you also consider the high level of divorce taking place in this country, as well as, the increasingly more skeptical attitude toward marriage around us, you’ll think that many people, not just prominent ones, are finding themselves, more often than not, “unlucky” in love.
I wonder what the scholars who divided the Bible into chapter and verses, where thinking when they gave the “love chapter” the unlucky number 13, not once but twice: 13th chapter and 13 verses. Whatever was behind the choice, if anything, the passage dares to say something even worse than being “unlucky” without love. Without love, Paul suggests, your life can become much worse than unlucky. Without love, YOU can become nothing.
Before we move ahead in this love chapter, we need clear out any misunderstanding. This text has very little to do with the romantic notion of love that possesses so much of our popular culture. In fact, if you looking for love the way the media defines and depicts it, you’ll certainly be, as the song says, “looking in all the wrong places.” That’s part of the trouble so much love-talk. Love is a big and very important topic and even a very profitable topic in our society. It is the topic closest to many hearts, but sometimes the truth about love remains far, far away from the actual conversations that are taking place.
LOVE MUST BE MORE THAN WORDS
In this “love chapter” Paul reminds us we need love more than anything. We can’t really have life or be a fully realized or actualized human person without it. Paul does not just say that without love you have nothing, or without love you gain nothing, but he puts it in the most simple, succinct and dramatic words possible: Without love YOU (AND I) ARE NOTHING.
Part of the trouble we have with love is that our feelings of love lie so close to our hearts that we don’t always see it for what it is just like we can’t see the nose on our face. Without a mirror, we don’t see ourselves fully and can be mislead about our appearance. Love can be just as hard to see or understand, or communicate. Ironically, part of what makes love so precious is also part of what makes it so difficult. It’s kind of like the air we breathe. Air gives us life, but if it gets polluted, watch out! Bad air can kill you, just like bad love can. Love comes with a risk, and it is a good risk, but still a great risk. The good thing about love is that it can make you somebody you could never be without it. But the bad thing about love is that without it, or with the wrong kind understanding of what love is, you become nothing. There’s not much wiggle room here. That’s why you need to pay attention to what Paul says about the nature of true love.
The core issue Paul elevates from the first line, is that love is more than words. Our Bible declares than life began with Words, God’s words… “Let there be light!” Words are important and it is very important that we also put our love into words. But putting love into words, as beautiful and necessary as that is, love must go beyond words. As God’s word had to become flesh, so must our words of love also. Once when I asked my Father, what is the most beautiful verse of the Bible he took me to this love chapter and to this first verse of 1 Corinthians 13: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity (that is love), I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” Perhaps you might simplfy it this way: Without deeds of love that goes beyond our words, life is just a bunch of noise.”
The church at Corinth must have been a very noisy church. Corinth was located on a canal where all kinds of ships came from around the world to load and unload their cargo. The people getting off those ships came from many different cultures and spoke many different languages. This provided a great opportunity for the young church at Corinth to share the gospel, but it also presented many challenges.
Of all the New Testament churches, Corinth was one of the churches with the most potential, but also the one that was the most problematic. The clash of cultures made establishing a loving community almost impossible. If you read 1 and 2 Corinthians, you’ll read about all kinds of divisions and differences. They were divided over the meaning of the gospel, over who was the best preacher, Apollos, Peter or Paul? There were divided over spiritual wisdom, sexuality purity, church discipline, lawsuits among Christians, marriage, and they even divided over what should or shouldn’t eat, drink or shouldn’t drink. They also had differences between each other, about how much to pay the preacher, or, God forbid, to pay him at all. Of all things, they were even divided on how to observe communion---the Lord’s Supper. Their biggest division arose out of their differing opinions about Spiritual gifts, especially, over the spiritual gift of “speaking in tongues”.
In the Corinthian context, one can exactly why “gift of tongues” developed here, as this church constantly struggled to share the gospel of God’s love in many languages. Of all places, the church in this multilingual town, needed to find some way to communicate God’s love so that they could transcend words. A kind of special “prayer” language became part of the answer. Still today, in places where languages are very limited and cultures clash, the Pentecostal hunger to share love, still creates its own spiritual speech. I remember in particular, how I went to a meeting with a Lutheran Pastor in Germany and my Deacon Chairman went with me. We were discussing having an ecumenical prayer service together and the Lutheran pastor, wondered out loud, “Who are Baptists?” Immediately, my deacon chairman answered, “We are charismatics!” I looked straight into the Lutheran pastor’s eyes and, as pastor to pastor, quickly contradicted, “…But I’m not.” Some Baptists, many Baptists especially in Europe are charismatic, but I wanted to make it clear this was not me.
Speaking in tongues can be just controversial and confusing now as it was in Corinth. Still, this rare spiritual “gift” specifically reflects part of our great human need to share love in ways that transcend all cultural and language barriers. Paul writes directly to this need to transcend all languages and cultures, whether they are earthly, spiritual, human or angelic. The one language that can do this is the language that goes beyond words---the language of love.
It is most interesting that the word the King James Version uses for Love is the word “Charity.” The translators of the 1611 Bible had the word love at their disposal, but they felt the need to choose a different word to express the nature of it. By choosing the word “charity”, they choose a word that was more action than talk. Charity is more than words, and it is more than preaching, and even more than dying for good cause. If love speaks, if love gives or if love dies, it does this for someone. Just as you and I are nothing, without love, love is nothing unless it goes beyond words.
LOVE IS SOMETHING YOU DO
Going beyond words to find love, means that the most critical part of love is not in finding it, as much as it is in practicing it.
One of the major surprises, for people who become lost amid the many myths and mysteries of love, is to discover that true love is something you do. At the very center of this text, Paul says one thing over and over. He gives us this unforgettable phrase, “Love is….. You hear him fill that blank in with some very obvious loving, and relational activity. He says things like: Love is…. “patient, kind, not envious, not puffed up… and so on. Then he goes on to say things like, “Love does this…. And love does not do this….. Interestingly, his list of things to do for love, contain more things we shouldn’t do than we should. You can sort of think of it like the listing of “thou shall nots” and the ten commandments. It’s not that God is stuck on the negative, but that in all of life there are just a few things we shouldn’t do, and only a couple of things we have to do, and if we will let love grow, it will take care of itself. More than anything else, what Paul describes as love is a verb. Love is something we do.
Right now, I cannot help but think of the disappointment many people feel in our state and across the country concerning former Senator John Edwards. We certainly don’t know all the complications of that situation and we also know that broken love is often a two-way-street. Still, you can’t help but reflect upon how empty and sad a situation becomes when a person only lives for power, or for money, or for prestige, and only for themselves. There is so much pain and emptiness unfolding in the most public places these days. Tiger Woods is another example. Again, we shouldn’t judge Tiger, but we must pray for him and learn from him. If experts are right, and Tiger is a troubled, addicted, and desperate person who is so stuck on himself it is destroying him, we ought to see how little and weak even the biggest and most powerful person can become when they don’t know how to give or receive love. If you can’t do love; you become nothing. Isn’t it most interesting that Elian, Tiger’s Swedish wife, has now visited Tiger in Therapy, and she still has some hope of salvaging some part of her marriage. Why would she do such a thing? She is reported to have said that the pain of having divorced parents remains so hurtful in her mind that she wants to do whatever she can keep her children from the same emptiness she has felt. Elian knows you can have everything, but if you don’t have love, you feel like you have nothing.
Paul’s understanding of love runs counter to so much of people’s thinking. While most think they can become whatever they want to become and achieve in life, Paul says, without love, no matter what you have, accomplish or achieve---you are nothing. And the second lesson from Paul is just as important: Love is more than words. It is only as you give love that you receive it. Even if you don’t receive directly back from the person you are loving, you become the love you give.
NBC’s Doctor Nancy Snyderman, who just came back from working in Hati as both a medical reporter and as a doctor, said she had a tremendous spiritual experience in that terrible tragedy. She said she learned again, what we humans need most. When she returned to the US., she was amazed at what all we have, but don’t need. She said, that all our stuff really gets in the way of what we need most. When you live simply and when you have love, it’s amazing what you have, even when you don’t have much of anything else. That’s what she brought home from Haiti. It wasn’t what they didn’t have, that she brought home with her, but what they did. And when she saw what those poor people did have, and she saw again what all we do have, but still don’t. She saw not just how much need there was in Haiti, but how much need there is here in the U.S., even with all we have. That is just part of what she brought home with her from Haiti (As remembered from the Today Show segment, Thursday January 28th, 2010).
You don’t have to go through an earthquake to learn the importance of love. It might take an earthquake, or you might have another kind of “shake up” in your life and to come to the same conclusion. The most important things we do in life are, as the songs says, “the things we do for love.” By engaging in the practice of love, you become love and you become someone.
LOVE IS THE GREATEST TRUTH
There is a final great lesson about love. Love is the greatest truth we can ever know in this world.
We humans are always in danger of becoming Gnostics and half truths are always the most dangerous truths of all. Knowledge and belief is certainly important, but knowing something is not all there is to truth. In fact, Paul wants us to know that in this world our knowledge is always limited; even our deepest beliefs can be reinterpreted and redefined. “For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.” 1 Corinthians 13:9-10.
To fully accept what Paul means when he says that “The perfect has not yet come” is to learn the true language of faith. Elsewhere Paul even says about Scripture, that ‘we have this treasure, in earthen vessels, or clay pots, and he means that clay pots have a bad habit of breaking up. This shouldn’t worry us, though, because we don’t carry the greatest truths with us through life, but the greatest truths are what carry us. This kind of talk may be hard for some to swallow, but Paul challenges us to grow up beyond our immature views: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” And what is the mature way to hold truth?: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”
Why is it so important that we look at truth this way? Why is it so important, even when we think we are right, to be open to the possibility we could be wrong? Why is it so important that we always remain humble, even when truth we hold on to is right at center of our faith or knowledge? Paul wants us to look at truth this way because we have to trust God. Our vision of truth is only our own version of truth until that day when we come face to face with God. He is the only one who is the whole truth. This kind of humility doesn’t make us stupid, it’s the kind of humility and maturity that makes us very smart. It makes us smart enough to know how to love more than anything else.
I don’t think we always keep this vision of love as the greatest knowledge, the greatest truth or the greatest deed, close enough to our hearts. We still get so bent out of shape by what we think is right or wrong at a particular time, that instead of having a positive impact, we become negative. That’s part of the reason some people, who are so smart is most everything else can end up so unlucky in love. You can be right about everything, but if you don’t have love, and you don’t show love, you don’t have anything. For you see, Paul reminds us that the greatest truth is not the knowledge we have in our heads, but it’s the love we have in our hearts. When we realize this, we are on our way to finding the greatest knowledge of all.
I’ll never forget a discussion I had during with another Baptist during the early days of Baptist battles over the Bible. It was 1990 and I was in the Swimming pool with a very rigid fundamentalist who wanted to argue his point with me. We were discussing whether a person could be a pastor or deacon in a church, once they’d been divorced. What I felt then is much more important than what I said. I remember getting the feeling that our real difference was not just what we were talking about, but it was in how we saw everything in the world. I got this sense that he believed with all his heart that the most important thing in the Bible was the truth God expects us to live by and if we can’t, we’re disqualified from certain things. On the other hand, I remember thinking the opposite: that we are all disqualified already and that none of us are able to meet God’s perfect standard. The perfect has not yet come. Even though I agreed that we should try to live by God’s truth standards, I felt that the greatest standard is faith, hope and love…..and since the greatest is love, we must forgive anyone anything and we must and give people second changes. The only standard, rule or absolute that could be held onto after what Jesus did on the cross, is the rule of love.
Of course the tricky part is how do we interpret love? To be fair to that preacher in the pool, he felt he was showing love by demanding that people live the truth only as he read it. I didn’t see the truth much different than he did, but I didn’t share his conclusion of exclusion. The message of good news is not who will God keep out, but it is about all wants to let in. If you miss this small difference, you miss everything the gospel is about.
What are your conclusions? Is love in it? Paul’s conclusion is that, in the end, the only thing that will last are the things we do for love. Only three things will make it through this world, says Paul: Faith, Hope and Love. And the greatest is love! You don’t have take Paul’s word for it, though. Look at Jesus. How did Jesus get through that cross and all that that was done to him? And how did Jesus get through to you even after all you’ve done to him? Didn’t he get through to you with that same love?
If you are here today, you are a testimony to the eternal nature of God’s love: love got through to you. But of course, the question that still remains is this: will your love get back through to him? If it is love, it will. Love that is more than words will turn you into somebody rather than a nobody. Love will make you look smart, even when you haven’t a clue what you are talking about. Love will get you through this world and it will last beyond anything else that will last. And if you and I get through this world and still have love in our hearts, we are more than lucky. We are saved. We are saved by love because God is love. If you have love you have God, and if you have God you have love. I didn’t dream this up. 1 John 4:16 says: 6 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” Whatever you else get right or wrong in this world won’t matter much at all, if you get love right. And even if you’ve been wrong in love or been wrong by someone, there is still a love you can cling to that never fails. Sermons fail. Words fail. Knowledge fails. People fail. We all have failed, even at love. But there is one, whose love never fails.
Back in 1971 in London, Brian Bryars was working with a friend, Alan Power, on a film about people living rough in the area around some very difficult areas around Elephant, Castle and Waterloo Station. In the course of being filmed, some vagrants and tramps broke into drunken song - sometimes bits of opera, sometimes sentimental ballads - and one, who in fact did not drink, sang a religious song "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet". It went something like this: “Jesus blood never failed me yet… never failed me yet. This was thing I know, for his love tells me so, Jesus’ blood never failed me yet.”
This clip was not ultimately used in the film, so Brian took the unused tape of this home with him and started playing with it. He soon discovered that this guy’s singing was in tune his piano, and so he improvised a simple accompaniment. He also noticed it formed a nice loop which was catchy and repeated itself through out. He took the tape to the Fine Arts Department in a nearby town and was recording it, when he went to get a cup of coffee and forgot and left the door opened to the other room which was a large painting studio. When he returned, he found the large room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about more slowly, a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping.
Fortunately, for him and for us, because Jesus’ love never fails, we can live and we can die with this song on our lips and in our hearts. When we do, we are much more than lucky. Amen.
© 2010 All rights reserved Charles J. Tomlin, B.A., M.Div. D.Min.
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