A Loving Church

Robert Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

January 28, 2007

Text: First Corinthians 13: 1-13

LOVE AS LAW?

It is a challenge to write a sermon on Paul’s love chapter without making love into a law!
How many times have we read this chapter and gone away thinking, “Lord, I can’t be like that! The loving Paul writes about is Mother Teresa or Saint Francis, not me.” This may explain why the love chapter is seldom heard in the church except at weddings: bride and groom, so much in love with each other that the demands of love actually sound possible. Even then, however, the vows generally shared get down to particulars, such as love, honor, cherish, in sickness and in health, for better or worse, richer or poorer, til death do us part! So that is what married love requires!. I ask the question: “Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live.” I fully expect someday to hear the reply, “Are you kiddin’ me?!”

So what good is the love chapter except for setting the bar so high that we all are certain we will fall short----and thus know that we are saved by grace alone?

LOVE AND GIFTS

Chapter 12 through 14 is on the same theme: Paul’s pastoral concern for the church which is conflicted  over the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They, as we have seen, are fractured because members with the gifts of tongues, especially, have been acting as if their gift is far superior to the more mundane gifts, such as teaching, helping, preaching or administering. Paul goes to great lengths to tell them that they are the body of Christ and individually members of the same body; that the differing gifts all come from the same Holy Spirit. “Members of Christ’s body do not vie for power in an ordinary space; they share common ground.” (Ellen Charry, “How Should We Live?”) They must use their gifts for the sake of building up the whole body for faithful service to God, not seeking their own fulfillment as individuals.

You may have noticed that Paul, in the whole twelfth chapter, does not use the word, “love.” But in this chapter, Paul launches into a hymn in which love is lifted up for all to see. It is not an essay on love but a continuation of counsel to them about gifts in the body of Christ.

 The basic idea is this: Without love, every gift is bankrupt----nothing but noise! The body of Christ requires Christ-like love to survive and thrive.

He writes of “clanging cymbals,” probably a reference to the noisy accompaniment of pagan worship. We remember that the members in Corinth have often been “led astray” to “dumb idols,” (12:2). People have been boasting of their faith and healing powers and their own self-sacrifices. (Oxford Annotated Bible, NRSV)

 Notice the use of the first person pronoun, “I.” If I speak… preach…understand mysteries and have knowledge…have mountain-moving faith…give away all I have…even become a martyr….I will have gained absolutely nothing.” Those who think  they are truly spirit-filled are, in fact, imposters, fakes, because they are missing the one essential gift: love. They are not closer to God, they are father, because “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (First John 4:8-10)

So in verses 4-7, Paul defines love in a series of 15 verbal phrases, not abstract nouns. Love, he says, will be shown by the actions to which it gives rise.

Love is patient
Love is kind
Love is not envious or boastful
Or arrogant  (does not strut)
Or rude.
It does not insist on its own way; (Isn’t always “me first”)
It is not irritable or resentful;
It does not rejoice in wrongdoing (doesn’t revel when others grovel)
But rejoices in the truth.
Love bears, believes
Hopes and endures
All things. (Parentheses are from The Message, Eugene Peterson’s Paraphrase of the Bible)

These are the reverse of the proud, contemptuous, divisive spirit shown in the behavior of some in the Corinthian church. The indispensable gift of the Spirit is love, which tempers and guides the use of the other gifts. “God’s love has been poured into our hearts (‘flooding our inmost heart’ JB) through the Holy Spirit that had been given to us.” (Romans 5:5)

What kind of love is this? “Love” is used to mean many different emotions. I love ice cream. I love your new dress. I love music. I love to dance. What does Paul mean by love here in this chapter?

AGAPE

Love is action on behalf of another (or many others) in need, that is not dependent on our getting something from the transaction. The word Paul uses is “agape.” It is sacrificial and self-giving.

It is the love displayed by God in the giving of his Son; it is the love Paul refers to by saying that “Christ died for us when we were yet sinners. That proves God’s love for us.”

“God is agape,” John writes. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, tells us that our love must reach new heights and depths. “You have heard it said that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you….for God causes the sun to rise on the bad as well as the good; rain to fall on the upright and the wicked. You must be perfect (complete) as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Love is a “we” word.

“The Lord said, ‘say we.’
But I shook my head,
Hid my hands tight behind my back and said, stubbornly, ‘I.’
The Lord said, ‘say we.’
And I, at last richer by a hoard of years and tears,
Like a shamed schoolboy,
Then mumbled low,
‘We, Lord.’”   (Earl Watson Baker)

“Whatever gift each of them receives is not to be hidden away, or selfishly enjoyed, or exhibited for show, but to be used for the good of the community.” (Robertson and Plummer, I Corinthians)
 
IS LOVE REALISTIC?

We, of course, live in a world in which such love will be seen as weakness, not strength. We also suspect that there is no way on earth we can practice such love all the time in every circumstance. The world lives by other rules. Can Paul possibly have anything to say to us about life today?

We can remember the occasion for Paul’s letter: He is not giving general advice about relationships in all aspects of life. He is speaking to a community of faith about relationships with other members. In the other arenas of our lives---neighborhoods, work place, volunteer groups, etc---there may certainly be transferable wisdom applied from Christian love. (More later, in other sermons, on this subject.)

LOVE ETHIC FOR THE BODY OF CHRIST

I believe that Paul is telling us that we in the church should WELCOME God’s agape love into our lives; that we should practice this agape love, and that we are called to grow in our love of others, with the same love which God has for them: self-giving, sacrificial, not dependent on our need but their’s. Since God has given us all gifts, we are admonished to grow by holding to God’s love which can temper our self-needy love and guide our use of gifts for the sake of our fellow members in the church---and for the sake of the church’s mission.

Loving sacrificially is something we grow into, over time, with effort and trust in God’s power. “Love…grows into a form of life that does which does not insist on its own way, is not egocentric….This is the way of Christ, and the expected norm of Christian behavior.” (Fred Craddock, italics added!)

Lewis Smedes wrote: “How can selfless love take root in the crevices of real life…, within the tissues of my self-interested life?” He answers his own question: “Agape love slips into my life through the crevices of my ego, chinks left open between solid blocks of self-interest….To eros (love which desires another because I would be at a loss without it), it adds a transforming dimension….it adds an unselfish desire for the good of the loved one…..it makes eros more restless for my loved one’s unfulfilled needs,” more than my own. (Love Within Limits, adapted)

The body of Christ is counter cultural. In a world which rewards self-seeking, autonomy, private bliss, and competition for first place, the church is called to march to the beat of a different drummer. We celebrate self-giving, community wholeness, common blessedness, a place where all members can contribute. In a world in which “faith has become an instrument of our own self-gratification,” we believe that we were made for community. In a world where spirituality is purchased as a commodity, we trust in a Spirit which been poured out on us and offers us priceless mercies. (Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn, Mars Hill Audio, Journal 82)

Love has been distinguished through the years because there are different Hebrew and Greek which get translated as love.

Eros is desire. We love another because we need them, we cannot live without them. Eros is usually associated with romance or sexual attraction. It may be, but it can also be love within a family, parent for child, child for parent. Our love for God has elements of eros in it. We love God because of our need for God.  “Eros moves us out beyond the lonely self because aloneness hurts. Eros can fill the void we feel; it can be frustrated, betrayed, burned out. Eros can lead to great joy and satisfaction, or to suffering and heartache. Eros is a good love, built into our creaturely incompleteness, driving us to seek what is good, true, beautiful….It brings color, vigor, and explosive power to life.”( Smedes)

Philia love (as in Philadelphia) is brotherly or sisterly love, comradeship, team spirit. We love our co-workers, our team mates. We offer ourselves to the group effort or the community of which we are a part. Many friendships would fall into this category.

Truth is, we are always people with mixed motives. Though we may grow in grace over a life time, our loving will also be mixtures of eros, philia and agape---or whatever names we can use to describe ourselves.  But Paul and Jesus are on the same wave length. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this--- that she lay down her life for another brother or sister.” Agape love is the indispensable element in any close community, especially in the church, the body of Christ. Without the restraining and renewing influence of the Holy Spirit, the church will simply come un-glued.

In our life within the body of Christ, or any small version of it, we certainly do love one another out of our own need to be loved in return. Nothing is wrong with that. But what if a brother or sister in Christ does not love us back? Does not show us the same respect? Agape love may move us to do what is right by them anyway, even when they are unresponsive.  We won’t do so perfectly or completely, but we can grow in doing better with God’s help, in the hope that we will someday know as we have been known.

Agape love can also give us the power to forgive ourselves when we fail to show agape love to another: doing what is right for ourselves, even when it might feel better to use the excuse of guilt to stop trying at all.

FREEDOM TO LOVE

It takes great grace to practice agape love-- reliance on God’s never-ending supply of patience, forbearance, courage. In Paul’s last words, there is a note of mercy and power. Paul writes, “Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

It in believing that we are known and loved by the God who is agape love, that we can, in the words of one theologian, “relax into our being discovered” by God. God is not in rivalry with us. For example, “a really first-rate impresario spots a talented future actor or singer long before the actor or singer knows they are really talented. They were ‘known’ before they knew it….” In some such way, God’s knowing of us as imperfect but growing “becomers” can free us from competing with others for recognition and affirmation, and in the process, run down or run over those who would be our friends or our fellow faith pilgrims. (James Alison, On Being Liked, Herder and Herder, 2004)

If eros is desire driven by our lack, “agape is desire flowing from divine plenitude that fulfills our lack.” (“Eros and Agape: A Different Angle on the Same Triangle,” in Sacred Violence, by Robert Hamerton-Kelly)

God empowers us to be the body of Jesus Christ. Christ loves us for the persons (and churches) we are, and draws us ever closer to God and one another.

 The surprise is this: the closer we draw to God, who is at the center of our circle, the closer we get to the others who are also being drawn to God. Living closely, as we are called to do in the church, requires not only our time, talents, gifts and service: it requires the self-giving, sacrificial love which we find in our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.

 (We love our children. We take pleasure in them, in their accomplishments. But such love can become not so helpful if we exercise our role as parent out of our need for the child to succeed; or out of our need for the child’s affection, acceptance, approval. Agape love can temper our love, nudge us to be wiser in our practice of love, seeking the best we can what the child needs, even if there is no return.)