Epiphany 4, Year C

Jeremiah 1:4–10; Psalm 71:1–6; I Corinthians 13:1–13; Luke 4:21–30

A homily by Fr. Gene  Tucker; given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, February 3, 2013.

“LOVE:  THE SURE AND LASTING FOUNDATION”

(Homily text:  I Corinthians 13: 1 – 13)

Let’s continue our in-depth look at St. Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth, continuing a work we began with last Sunday…..

Recall with me that the last verse in chapter twelve says this:  “….but I will show you a still more excellent way.”[1]

Paul’s statement seems to suggest that he is about to show the Corinthian believers just what that “still more excellent way” is….it is the way of love.

And so begins Paul’s treatise on love.  It occupies all of chapter thirteen of his letter. 

Since I Corinthians 13 is often read at weddings, and because our contemporary society has some pretty clearly conceived notions about the meaning of the word love, it would be well for us to define the word as the Bible uses it, capturing the three basic meanings of it as we find it in Holy Scripture.  Using the Greek words for love,  we find three definitions:

Romantic love:  This is the love of a man and a woman.  The Greek word for this type of love is eros  (yes, the same word that has come into English as “erotic”).

Brotherly/sisterly love:   The love between siblings, or between friends, is this sort of love.  The Greek word phileo has come down to us in English in some limited ways….for example, the City of Philadelphia is the “City of Brotherly Love.”

Self-giving love:  The sort of love that loves and sacrifices for the sake of the one(s) who is/are loved is called agape in Greek. 

Of course, it is this last sort of love, this self-giving, self-emptying love, that Paul has in mind.  It is the word agape that Paul uses ten times in the course of his treatise (all of chapter thirteen).

Now, let’s turn to the text itself.

As we do so, we that Paul contrasts the things that are temporary/imperfect, with the thing that is permanent.  That enduring reality is love.

 A definite pattern emerges from the chapter.  Here is my analysis of it:

Gifts that are worthless without love as a foundation:  Paul begins by picking up on some of the most egregious problems that had manifested themselves within the Corinthian congregation….Two of those that he tackles head-on are:  The gift of speaking in tongues and the gift of prophecy.  To these two, he adds two other, praiseworthy traits in any believer:  The gift of faith and a generosity of spirit.

In each case, he identifies the trait or gift, then says that they have no foundation if they do not have love as their basis.  The phrases he uses to knock the props out from under the Corinthian believers are blunt, and to-the-point:  “I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal,”  “I am nothing,”  and “I gain nothing.”

 A basic definition of love:  Paul affirms that love is the basis for everything we as Christians do, and of every gift we exercise for the glory of the Lord and for the benefit of His Church.  Now, it is time to define love’s basis characteristics.  Here is Paul’s list:

Love is:   Patient and kind

 

                 Not jealous or boastful,

                 Not arrogant or rude

                 Does not insist on its own way

                 Is not irritable or resentful

                 Does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right

                 Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things

It is worth noting that, just as he had done in his opening statements, Paul is, again, specifically targeting some of the bad behavior of the Corinthian Christians:  Jealousy, boasting, arrogance, rudeness, insistence on their own way, irritable, resentful, rejoicing in the wrong.

Love’s enduring qualities, versus those that will pass away:  Here, Paul begins by saying that “love never ends,” and then appends to that statement a list of those things that will end.  Here is his list:

                        Prophecy

                        Tongues

                        Knowledge

It is worth noting that this list, like much of what Paul has said up until now, is specifically targeted toward some of those gifts and qualities that the Corinthian Church was most proud of:  Their ability to speak in tongues, first of all, but also their perceived gifts of prophecy and their knowledge of things relating to the faith.

But Paul reminds these early believers that all of these things will pass away.  Why?  The reason is given in the verses that follow….There, Paul states that there will come a time when we will see the Lord face-to-face, a time when there will be no need at all for an ability to speak in tongues, no need to be able to utter prophetic wisdom, nor to gain knowledge. For in the Lord’s presence, all will be revealed, all will be known.

A call for wisdom:  In verse eleven, Paul issues a call for wisdom….He puts his appeal this way:  “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;  when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”

Essentially, Paul seems to be asking the Corinthians to “grow up.”

His appeal seems to target – indirectly – some of the childish behavior of the Corinthian believers:  arrogance and boastful, boorish behavior, which was filled with party-spirit and pride.

The three theological virtues:  Paul closes his treatise by listing what have come to be known as the “Three Theological Virtues”:  Faith, Hope and Love.

All three of these essential virtues are indispensible ingredients in any successful Christian life. 

But God only shares one of the three with us:  He is love perfect love, the sort of love whose qualities Paul has listed earlier in the chapter.

God has no need for faith, nor for hope.  Being perfect and all-knowing, God has no need of these qualities.  But we do.  When the time comes for us to be in God’s presence, seeing Him for who He is, we will have no further need for faith, and no further need for faith.  We will know Him, and we will know Him fully, even – as Paul says – He has known us.

It is always important for us to ask ourselves, “How does this relate to my life in Christ today?”

As I reflect on that question, I think the important aspects of our answers will:

Take into account the secular world’s one-sided view of love:  In our society today, love is almost always romantic love.  This sort of love, which is the subject of much of our movies, television shows, popular music and advertisements, is often portrayed in a way that seeks to get something from this sort of love, rather than to seek the other person’s welfare and wellbeing, to give of ourselves for the sake of the loved one.  Succinctly put, our society’s notions of romantic love are very self-centered.  Often, our society encourages us to ask ourselves, “What’s in this (love relationship) for me?”

Christian witness to the wider world is at stake:  I believe that much of what St. Paul has to say to the Corinthian Christians was predicated on his conviction that, because of their awful, un-loving behavior toward each other, their Christian witness to the community in which they found themselves was compromised.

 In due time, as Christians became, more and more, a persecuted minority within the Roman Empire, pagans would notice in those difficult and trying times the enduring bonds of love that these early believers had for one another.  The pagan testimony that comes down to us from those early centuries of the Christian Church was this:  “See how those Christians love one another.”

The need for genuine, self-giving (agape) love is just as critical today as it was in Paul’s time.  Only when this sort of Christ-like love is evident in the things we say, the things we do, and the way we treat one another can our witness to the world be effective in winning others to Christ.

 May we, by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, be enabled to follow our Lord’s example of self-giving, self-emptying love, to His glory, for the good of the Church, and for the world’s benefit.

AMEN.

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[1]   The Greek word which is usually translated “a still more excellent way” is hyperbolen.  The professor who led the class I took last summer at Nashotah House seminary suggested that the literal meaning of this word, as it was often used in the first century, is a “mountain pass”.  If this is correct, then Paul might be suggesting to the Corinthians that he is about to show them the “high road”.