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| Path to the West Lomond, Kingdom of Fife, Scotland Photo: K. Kovacs |
1 Corinthians 13
16th
Sunday after Pentecost/ 8th September 2013/ Sacrament of Holy
Communion
“For now we see in mirror, dimly,
but then we will see face to face” (1 Cor.
13:12).
Now
and then.
We
are here, now; then, we shall be there.
Now, we know in part; then, our knowledge will be
complete.
There
are things we know now; but don’t get
too comfortable, for there are things we’ll soon need to know; then something new will be required of
us. Now and then.
The apostle Paul’s famous “love
chapter” in 1 Corinthians is not the lectionary reading for today. I chose it
for our Kickoff Sunday as we start a new program year, as we recognize our
church school teachers, as church school resumes, as we ordain and install new
officers, as we gather for Communion, as we proceed outdoors for lunch and sit
at tables that are extensions of the Lord’s Table. I chose it for two, related
reasons, which I’ll explain.
The chapter is all about love, of
course; it’s often read at weddings. But it was never written to stand on its
own and it’s not a wedding text. Chapter
13 flows out of chapter 12 and in chapter 12 Paul makes the important point
that we have been endowed by the Spirit with certain gifts, gifts that are to
be exercised for the common good. It is
your responsibility, and mine, to discover what they are; and then it’s your
obligation, and mine, to use them. We
use our gifts—or more correctly, our gifts use us—in, through, and for one
thing, and that is: love. Indeed, love is the greatest gift and it
shapes how we exercise all of the others.
If you don’t have love, if you’re
not being governed by love, if you’re not motivated by love, driven by love,
then someone or something else is governing you, motivating you, driving your
life that has little to do with God’s grace.
What is love? It’s patient and kind. It’s non-possessive.[1] It doesn’t insist on its own way. It’s not envious, boastful, arrogant, or
rude. It isn’t selfish. It’s other-directed. It’s not irritable (or irritating!)
or resentful; it rejoices in the truth. It bears all things. Believes all things.
Hopes all things. Endures all things. Love suffers with and for the other. Love, like God, never ends.
So the first reason for lifting up this text today is that as the body of
Christ we need to be reminded, weekly, that it’s love that governs, motivates,
and drives us. Without love, all that we do as a church becomes a lot of noise,
noisy gongs and clanging symbols, endless committee meetings and busyness, but
lacking in depth and soul. Without love,
we’re nothing. Without God’s love alive
within us and in the way we live in community, we’re just an institution or a social
club with membership dues or an ethical society. Love has to be at the center.
And when love is at the center, when
it’s the generative force at the heart of all we do, something remarkable happens. When God shows up among us and within us—for
God is love (1 John 4:8)—then be
prepared for action, for something to happen.
Be prepared, then, for growth and change and development, for movement,
transformation. Because, you see, when
we know God loves us—loves us through and through to the core of our being—when
God’s love flows through us and we have the courage to really love another, we
are changed. Love changes us.
This leads to the second reason for turning to this text
today. It might be trite, you have heard
it a thousand times before, but it needs to be said because we all have
terrible memories: a Christian is always a pilgrim, we’re always on a journey.
We’re followers of the Way (Acts 24:14), and we’re on the way toward becoming the people God already knows us to
be. We’re not there yet; no one is. But
we’re on the way. The Christian life is never static, but always dynamic.
My hunch, however, is that a lot
people assume that Christianity is static, very static. I would argue that the West’s fascination
with facts and data and information has turned a living, dynamic faith into a static
(stagnant?) religion of ideas and beliefs that leave so many feeling empty or
hollow or indifferent.
And this point is particularity
relevant today, because it speaks directly to the way we approach Christian
education. We can teach our children about God and about Jesus, we can tell
them all about the stories of the Bible, have them recite Bible verses, teach
them facts and data and stuff them with information, but if we don’t introduce
them to the Christian life, if we don’t lead them into a lifelong relationship
with the God who loves them, if we don’t invite them on the journey, and if we
don’t convey to them that it’s a journey worth taking, then what good is
it? What good is any of it? Why are we here? Indeed, we can teach our children, force them
to attend church school (and I know it’s a struggle for many families getting
here on Sunday mornings), but if we as adults and parents don’t have that
relationship with God, if our commitment is lacking, if we’re not growing in
grace—all of us, whether we have children in church school or not, this applies
to all of us; when they were baptized, the church stood up and promised to help
nurture them in the faith—if our faith isn’t being nurtured, if we’re not on
the journey, if we don’t think the journey is worth taking, then what good is
it? What good is any of it? Why are we here?
Growth is implicit in the New
Testament. It’s assumed. Growth in our
capacity to give and to receive love. Growing
in grace. When the focus is on growing in love and grace, we will really discover
what Paul is talking about here in the “love chapter.” And do you know what will happen? Instead of just reading about love, seeing
this text at a distance, we will be transported inside the logic of the text.
We will resonate with Paul’s words because they have become our words too.
The Spirit calls us forth on a
journey: we are here, now; then, we shall be there. That’s what love does.
We know in part, but there’s more
for us to know and discover. Love is always the best teacher.
The growth toward Christian maturity
is assumed. We might begin as children
in the faith, but we’re not to stay there.
The goal is to grow up, to mature, to have an adult faith, which doesn’t
mean having as adults the same faith we had as children, but an understanding
of Christian commitment and discipleship that is analogous with being an adult,
a faith forged in the crucible of human experience, through joy and suffering. As contemporary poet Christian Wiman says in
his enthralling new memoir on religious faith, “It follows that if
you believe at fifty what you believed at fifteen, then you have not lived—or
denied the reality of your life.”[2]
The goal is to move from seeing
Christ dimly to seeing him face-to-face.
And can you hear the relational aspect of claim? It’s a journey of
encounter and discovery. It’s all about
relationships.[3]
The truth is, we’re on this journey
together, trying to figure out this life of faith and service, discovering the
love of God, learning to love ourselves, and one another, trying to be
faithful. We’re each at different stages
on the journey, but we’re on the road together.
We can’t do this alone. We need
one another because the challenges facing us today are immense, for the Church,
for Christianity. For example, how we
respond to what’s going on in Syria is a case in point. There are no easy answers. What is required of us as Christians? By “us” I don’t mean the
United States, I mean the Church, the Christian
witness of peace and love, those who have been baptized in Christ. What about our responsibility toward fellow
Christians in Syria? What does Love ask of us?
As we begin this new program year, as
we approach the Table, maybe that’s the question the Spirit is placing before
us - What does Love ask of us? - both individually, personally, and collectively as a community of
struggling saints: What is Love asking of us?
[1] James E. Loder
(1931-2001) defined love as “the non-possessive delight in the particularity of
the other.”
[3] Cf. the work of
James Loder, who was tireless in making this claim. See Kenneth E. Kovacs, The Relational Theology of James E. Loder: Encounter and Conviction (NewYork: Peter Lang, 2011).
1 comment:
Thanks, Ken. It is good to read your sermons when I cannot attend.
Lydia
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