A friend challenged me recently to write and focus a little more on the second scripture readings — usually from Paul’s letters. He’s right, I should. I also feel challenged as a preacher to ask myself, “When was the last time you preached from Paul?” Notice I didn’t say, “Preach on Paul,” because that makes a scriptural passage sound like subject matter which a preacher needs to “discuss or explain” to hearers. Instead, we preach from the Scriptures: we pray, reflect and study the passage and the congregation to whom we will be preaching. We preach from what we have heard and adapt it to our hearers. I’m sure I’ve left something out here, but this is not a preaching course, is it?
If we are not preachers, the above still holds true for us. Studying the Scriptures is important. But we want to provide space for something from the passage to speak to us and transform our lives. So, we also pray and reflect in order to hear what the passage has to say to our lives. Then, as people who have fallen in love with the Word, we turn study it to learn still more, so we can be “doers of the Word” and also help others grow in their love for God through the Word.
Introduction is over. Let’s go to the task at hand: today’s selection from 1 Corinthians. Even those who are not familiar with Paul’s letter will recognize today’s passage, if we have gone to a wedding recently. Couples almost always choose it to be read at their nuptials. When we hear this part of Paul’s letter at a wedding ceremony we are usually with people who are in a happy mood and have warm feelings — as we should at a wedding.
But Paul has not written for us so we can be cozy and warm inside. For him love is a challenge to us Christians for our everyday lives. It’s not about talking, it’s about doing. While this reading will touch the hearts of those who hear it at a wedding, it should also be a reminder that Christian love is costly and always involves sacrifice.
I would choose the long form of this reading. It begins appropriately at the end of chapter 12 (verse 31) with a promise: “but I shall show you a still more excellent way.” The problems in the Corinthian church were about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the “charismata.” The community was divided, with some putting excessive emphasis on the charismatic gifts Paul names.
It helps to understand a passage if we can learn something about when and why it was written. We may be modern people and think we have little in common with the Corinthians Paul is addressing. After all, we have cell phones, satellites circling the globe, CAT scans, the Internet etc. What could we possibly have in common with the Corinthians? Human nature, that’s what! We don’t seem to have changed much from the time of the biblical writers. In addition, the divisions and troubles in our church now are not so very different from those the Corinthian Christians faced.
Paul reminds us that being a learned member of the community, a natural-born leader, a persuasive preacher, a gifted choir director, an organizational genius etc. are insufficient if we do not act out of love. I may be a gifted and prestigious member of the congregation or hierarchy, but without love, “I am nothing.”
We do throw the word “love” around a lot, don’t we? I love pistachio ice cream, swimming, cowboy movies, roller coasters, etc. That’s fine, but using love in these ways is not what Paul has in mind. In the Greek Paul could have chosen one of several terms for love. He chose “agape,” which expresses a freely-given love for others; whether or not they can reciprocate, are attractive or deserve our love. It is not the love of friendship or mutual attraction. Agape is the unselfish love Christ showed us by his death on the cross; it is a costly love demanding investment of our whole selves.
The Gospels were written after Paul wrote his letters. The evangelists put flesh and blood on the love Paul wrote about. In the gospel love took flesh in everything Jesus said and did: he forgave his persecutors; welcomed the stranger and sinner to eat with him; gave hope to the discouraged; the light of his teachings to those in the darkness of ignorance; a reason to rejoice to the downcast, etc.
Paul’s enumeration of love’s virtuous acts seems to have come from an early Christian hymn. The language and sentiments are lovely, no wonder we hear this reading so often at weddings. But acting from love, in the way Paul describes it, will require more than we can do on our own. The kind of love (agape) Paul extols is only possible for us because of the power of the Holy Spirit. There are, he says, many special gifts of the Spirit, but love is the most important for the individual Christian and for the whole Christian community.
We ask for a refreshing gift of the Spirit today so that we can live the “more excellent way” Paul announces. Sometimes that way of love takes a most extraordinary nature, For example when: a fire-fighter risks his/her life to pull a victim out of a burning home; a wife or husband stays years in loving care for a spouse with Alzheimer’s; a doctor gives up a lucrative practice to serve the sick in a poor country; parents decide to have and nurture a child with Down’s syndrome; a nun in her 70s starts a homeless shelter, etc.
We also ask for a refreshing gift of the Spirit so we can live the “more excellent way” in the ordinary events of life which ask sacrificial love from us each day to: respect and treat fairly those who are different from us; have eyes and ears to address the needs of society’s neglected; forgive someone who has lied to us; faithfully perform time and energy-consuming tasks for our family; practice honesty in words and deeds, etc.