And the greatest of these?

Sermon by Jamie Howison on 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 and Luke 4:21-30

As I begin, just a quick comment on the reading from the Gospel according to Luke. Tonight, it began, “Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,’” which might have led some of you to wonder, “which scripture is he talking about?” This is actually a continuation of last week’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus had been at the local synagogue, and had read from the prophet Isaiah:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

That was all fine until he looked up and made that statement about this scripture now being fulfilled. What? By you? For heaven’s sake, we know your parents, we remember you as a kid, what are you talking about! To which Jesus replies, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in their own hometown,” and then goes on to give a couple of biblical examples that bear that out. Hmmm… well, that just gets the people even more riled up, even to the point of trying to push him off the cliff, which Jesus rather handily escapes. Part of what that is illustrating is that while Jesus will draw many, many people to him, he will also be a figure who really challenges and even divides folks. And isn’t that so often the way with figures who come with a challenging or important or even prophetic message? Human nature is a funny thing, as it is just true that we like things kept fairly predictable, or at least we do until we find ourselves in real need or trouble. At that point—like the blind and lame and leprous folks who seek him out—we tend to find a very different opinion, and find it rather fast! Luke here is simply taking human nature—in all of its foibles—fully into account.

And with that, on to the reading from 1st Corinthians we go. This is of course a continuation of our readings from the past two Sundays, in which we watched as Paul tried to sort out the Corinthian church’s rather distorted view of spiritual gifts, and to begin to call them back to what he called “a still more excellent way.”

This reading tonight is that “more excellent way,” offered to them in a kind of poetic form, and calling them to the thing Paul believes is meant to be their life-blood. Love.

If I speak in human language or with the gift of tongues; if I am filled with wisdom, faith, and even prophetic gifts; if I give away all I have and even give up my very life for the sake of others but do not have love? It is worth nothing. Nothing. And in he goes from there, singing a powerful song on the nature of love.

Now, as you may well know, the Greek word he uses here is agape, which is one of four Greek words that all get translated into English as love. Eros, which is erotic or romantic love; storge, which is the love between parent and child; philia which is friendship love, and agape, which is chosen love. In the New Testament context, that chosen love is God’s love for us and our love for God, but also the love we are called to have, one for another. Centuries later, Thomas Aquinas would identify agape as “to will the good of another,” which catches the spirit of the word, and particularly as Paul is using it here.

Now many times over the past thirty years I have had couples opt to have this text read at their weddings, most recently just earlier this month in a small private wedding at which I was honoured to officiate. Yes Paul is talking here not about eros, but about agape, yet I think that this is still an apt text for a wedding. As N.T. Wright has it, romantic love can be a “signpost” to what Paul is talking about here. He writes,

[W]hen two people are in love, they often make promises which sound like verses 4-7 (the ones about patience, kindness and so forth), but the emotional and physical energy which gets them that far won’t get them all the way to fulfilling the promises. It takes a commitment of mind and will – which often, then, to its own surprise, brings erotic love along with it.

You see, I think Bishop Wright is fundamentally correct here, in calling romantic love a “signpost” pointing toward agape and suggesting that the relationships that will last are the ones in which both partners choose to commit to each other in mind and will, and to keep making that choice through thick and thin. I think he’s also fundamentally right in saying that such a commitment will often bring romantic love right along with it, which is something that might well have delighted single, celibate St Paul!

Of course, a couple who has this read at their wedding is generally coming together in a space of harmony, whereas Paul is writing to a church community that is badly fragmented. In the opening chapter of this letter, he has already identified this when he says that various people claim “‘I belong to Paul’, or ‘I belong to Apollos’, or ‘I belong to Cephas’, or ‘I belong to Christ,’” which is his way of identifying the existence of dividing lines. So when he writes, that agape “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,” he’s essentially identifying the fact that such problems do exist in the Corinthian church. He’s saying, in short, that he’s aware that the varying factions are insisting on their own way, and it simply won’t hold.

And then he winds right up in the closing section of this passage, which begins agape never ends. Agape never ends, but guess what? Prophecies, speaking in tongues, and even knowledge itself will come to an end. Even now these things are only partial, like looking in an ancient mirror and seeing our reflection only dimly. Our mirrors are pretty darned good at giving us a reflection of ourselves… sometimes a bit too good, if we’re not wanting to see the wrinkles and scars on our faces… but in Paul’s context a mirror provided a much less clear reflection of your face, and so he says that here, now, in this time, that’s about all we can really glimpse of what God is giving to us. “Now I know only in part,” he writes, just as when he looks into a mirror and sees only in part. But then, in the fullness of time, “I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” That’s a stunning admission of his own partial knowing and understanding of our God and our faith, but oh so important for that divided church community to hear.

You’ve got your established hierarchies of who is important and who gets the best seats or the highest honour, he’s saying to them, but none of it matters, and none of it will last.

So what will last? What outstrips even the best orator, the most compelling teacher, and that downright cosmic gift that some people seem to have for speaking in tongues? That’s simple, he is saying. “And now faith, hope, and love—agape—abide, these three; and the greatest of these is agape. It is faith and hope and agape/love that will last right into God’s promised future for us and for a re-created world, so set aside all the wranglings you’re having over these other issues, and set yourselves now and already in God’s agapeic future.

Ultimately, for them and for us, that’s what matters. If we locate ourselves within the horizon of that kind of love, which wills the good of another, to borrow from Aquinas, we are well on our way to being able to see and live and be rightly. And for Paul, that’s the greatest good news on offer.