If I
speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong
or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic abilities, and understand all
mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If
I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not
love, I gain nothing.
Love
is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does
not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
and endures all things.
Love
never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease;
as for knowledge, it will pass away. For
we know in part and we prophesy in part, but
when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 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. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face
to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully
known.
So
now faith, hope, and love (remain), these three; but the greatest of these is
love.
(I Cor. 13:1-13)
Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today’s Epistle reading is all about
love. This is a very beautiful passage,
and one that has been used in many weddings, and hangs in many houses. However, St. Paul wasn’t writing it to very
beautiful people. In fact, he was
writing to a church that was trying to destroy itself. In last week’s epistle reading, we heard
about how the Corinthian church had fragmented itself, with each member seeking
their own satisfaction through their own gifts, without any regard for their
fellow Christians. But this week, Paul
gives them a most excellent way—one that is much better than their self-serving
gifts which set them against one another in the church. This much better way is the way of Love; and
it’s not just any love—it’s the Love of God.
This Love of God is a very special love. While we have one word for Love in English, there
are at least four that are used in the New Testament. One type of Love is STORGAY. This is the love of something familiar, such
as chocolate, or your own bed in your own home.
Another type of Love is PHILIA. This is the type of love that comes from
having respect for each other, and having things in common.
And still another type of Love is EROS, or
the mutual love between a man and a woman.
Remember, though, that with EROS, this is a mutual love, and cannot
exist unless both the man and the woman have it for each other.
The interesting thing about each of these
types of Love is that each one of them is based on our feelings, needs and
desires. However, none of these is the
Love that Paul was talking about in this passage. The love that Paul writes about is
AGAPE. What, you may ask, makes AGAPE
special? It’s not based on our
feelings. It’s not a Love that is traded
for well-being or gain. You cannot have
AGAPE if you are going to receive something back for loving. All too many times we tell each other “I Love
You,” either after we get something that we want, or because we hope if we say
it, we will be rewarded. AGAPE is the
Love that Jesus talked about when he told the lawyer “You shall Love the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And…you shall love
your neighbor as yourself.” (Mt. 22:27,29)
This AGAPE, it ALWAYS serves the other
person. St. John actually wrote that God
is AGAPE, that is, He is Love (1 John 4:8).
We can see this all through the Bible…from the time of creation when God
created all good things and gave them to Adam and Eve, His creation, through
the Exodus of His people from Egypt, through the prophets that He sent to
preach repentance, all the way to the coming of Jesus as a baby, a human, so
that He could pay for our sins through His death and resurrection, something
that none of us could ever do on our own!
AGAPE Love is foreign to you. It is not what you were born with, and it is
no easier to find than Jesus, without the Holy Spirit bringing Him to you
through the proclamation of the Word and Baptism. But, in the same way that the Holy Spirit
grants you the faith to believe, He grants you the ability, the power to show
AGAPE love to your fellow man. The
Corinthians had this same ability, the leading by the Holy Spirit to
forgiveness and hope for eternal life, and the ability to show love to each
other as God had shown it to them.
The Corinthians did not show this Love to
each other. While they were Christians,
they certainly were not showing love for each other. Instead, they were caught up in the gifts
that each one of them had. From our
reading, it is obvious that every one of them was certain that his gift was the
very best gift, far superior to anyone else’s gift. And those that had the same gift, well they
were grouping together, forming groups that lorded their abilities over the
others. Those who could prophesy were
better than those who had faith, and they were both better than some other
gifts.
They forgot the Love of God, and became full
of love of themselves and what they could do.
Although they had been taught that all of the good gifts of God were
from him and existed because of His Love, His AGAPE for them, they fell down
and could only see themselves.
Beginning with verse 4, Paul explains to the
Corinthians exactly what the love of God looks like, and how it is not like the
self-serving love that they felt for each other and themselves.
Love is not jealous of what others have or
do. It does not allow you to envy
another person.
Love does not brag. It doesn’t puff you up because you can do
something that someone else cannot do.
Love does not insist on its own way, or
serving itself. It doesn’t cause you to
get irritable with other people, or to resent them for who they are or how they
act.
Love certainly does not rejoice at wrongdoing
(that’s sin, by the way).
Love is actually the exact opposite of all of
those.
Love is patient, some would call it
longsuffering. This means that Love is
willing to wait, and to forgive while waiting.
Love is kind.
It isn’t harsh with others when they don’t look or act in just the
“right way.”
Love rejoices in the truth. Remember Jesus said “I am the way the truth
and the life.” Love realizes that this Truth is the better way.
Love bears all things. This includes the shortcomings of our
families, our friends, our teachers, and our employers.
Love believes all things. Love is not gullible, but it is
trusting. This is putting the best
possible construction on the actions of others, and taking them at their word.
Love hopes all things. This hope comes from faith, believing that
the other person will do the right thing, regardless of how they have acted
before.
Love endures all things. This love does not die, and it does not give
up. AGAPE cannot die. It is the Love of
God, and it is God Himself, providing for us, not for His benefit, but only for
our benefit.
The Love of God never fails.
The love of the Corinthians did fail, though.
They spoke in tongues, prophesied, and were given all the great Christian
doctrine of their day. And they strutted
around pointing to themselves and others like them saying look at what I can
do. They pointed out the ones that could
not do those things and made fun of them.
They were so caught up in doing the Good Christian works, showing off
their abilities, that they forgot that they were given these things because of
the Love, the AGAPE, of God. They
enjoyed their gifts so much that they did not use them for the church, only for
themselves.
Today, we are not gifted in the same ways
that the Corinthians were. We still have
gifts and talents that God provides us, and He even shows us the best way to
use them for each other, both to strengthen our faith and to grow His church in
the ways that He wants to grow it. But
to look at these gifts, and how we misuse them, we are nothing more than 21st
century Corinthians.
What are we to do then? Repent, seek His forgiveness, given through
His AGAPE for us, and seek His will, that we will Love and serve Him just as He
has loved us and served us. This
morning, even before the service began, we confessed our sins, and our
inability to have AGAPE toward God and our fellow man, before his altar. And as
He promises in His Word, He forgave us.
We remember our baptism, when He first showed His great Love for us, by
instilling faith in us through water and His Word, by the Holy Spirit.
As we prepare to come to His table, where we will
consume the body and blood of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, we know that our
faith will be strengthened, and we rejoice in the hope of our salvation,
granted to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. And through these gifts, we can Love anew,
because He first loved us.
Amen.
