Epiphany 4 - 31 January 2016 - Love - Methodist Church Wingrave

I Corinthians 13

²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ²⁸ And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. ²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰ Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹ Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.

Love is indispensable
And yet I will show you the most excellent way.

13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Sermon

Last week — Slapton. Cold. Breath. Epiphany 3 — body parts I Cor. 12.

This week — Epiphany 4 — Presentation of Christ — I Cor. 13. Most widely used and quoted part of any of letters of Paul — used at weddings — incorrectly applied to romantic love.

Marriage prep — love is patient, kind, long suffering, does not dishonour others, is not easily angered, always perseveres. Oh yeah?

Love — different kinds of love — Eros (romantic, passionate) Storge (family, parent-child) Phileo (affection, warm friendship, Platonic) Agape (unconditional, Christian, sacrificial, expecting nothing in return, love of God)

Dysfunctional Church — Paul writing to Corinth — threatening to pull apart. As such, can be helpful read at weddings!

Sheer familiarity and depth of meaning — a reading to avoid as preacher — our churches pulling apart — our relationships constantly under threat — what better text that this well-known one to tackle?

Love described by Paul — agape — costly, sacrificial, unselfish. Follows on from chapter 12 — church as body of Christ — all have different gifts of the Spirit — one not more or less important than another.

Gifts of Spirit — Paul returns to this theme in chapter 14. Chapter 13 seems an interlude — but is crucial to what Paul wants to say to Corinthian church. Love is a still more excellent way — 12:31b added at start of reading. Love is the key — beyond measuring — beyond comparison — (Gk).

Corinthian church — what was wrong? Competitive — measured status, worth, abilities, gifts one against another. Obsessed with knowing ‘mysteries’ — speaking in tongues. Rich treated as special in Communion — served first with choicest food — poor back of line.

Corinthians putting these before love for sisters and brothers. Paul wants people of God to move on from competition and resentment and inequality to love “beyond measuring.”

In today’s church we are tied up and arguing about all sorts of issues. Sexuality, liturgy, types of worship, status of bishops, doctrine, authority of scripture, and who can do what. If in the process people forget about loving their brothers and sisters, such things end up being worthless. Resounding gongs or clanging cymbals.

Without love, it does not matter what budgets, buildings, or mission strategies we have. Such things do not give the church the shape that God desires. We may pursue various forms of spirituality, or proper doctrine, or activism in the name of justice. However, in our pursuit of these otherwise fine things, we must not forget that the church is called to be a community that practises love. For “Love is patient love is kind” — sounds rather static — try love causes people to act with patience — love shows kindness — love never cases to work — there is no end to loving.

Paul uses love as the subject to 16 verbs in a row — count them from vv 4-8. Love is that important. He concentrates on what love does — not what love is. There’s much love in our churches —but we can do with a lot more.

Sins that beset us include division, schism, refusal to take communion with other Christians, attitudes toward women clergy, my way is only way, and so on.

Locally we can love each other more. Nationally and internationally we can pray for the ability for our leaders to disagree yet remain in full communion and love with each other. Capacity for tension and disagreement that does not lead to division.

Love never ends — Paul finishes. Faith, hope, love. Paul names these — central values of church.

Faith will one day become sight, proof. Hope will one day be fulfilled, reality. But love is different. Never ends. Will remain — God’s love never fails, never falters.

Cannot apply to romantic love. Nor can we be rescued by saying the chapter refers only to God’s love, and we are too failing and selfish to aspire to what God asks of us — real love for each other that never fails.

Paul certainly expects that this love will be lived out by the church; that’s the whole purpose of this chapter. There is good news here, though. Verse 12 affirms that we have already been fully known, by God. We are not simply left to our own capacity for love. We can love because God has already fully known us and loved us. This is the model — now all we have to do is follow him.

Here lies hope for the future — regardless of the mess we seem to make of it in our churches everywhere. Now we see only dimly. In the end, we will see clearly. However childish we are in our dealings with each other, one day this will all be behind us.

¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Amen