Though I May Speak

1 Cor. 12:27-13:1-13

1 Corinthians 13 is one of the most beloved passages in the whole Bible, perhaps the text most often read at weddings, and familiar to us from any number of other settings as well.  It’s ironic that conflict in the church is what prompted the Apostle Paul to write this beautiful passage that’s now in the Bible.  As John Calvin observed, “I have no doubt that Paul intended 1 Cor. 13 to reprimand the Corinthians in an indirect way, by confronting them with a situation quite the reverse of their own, so that they might recognize their own faults by what they saw.”  (quoted by Richard Hays, First Corinthians, Interpretation, 222)

Why does this text resonate with us so deeply?  I believe it’s because when we hear these words of Paul, we realize that what he says is true and healthy.  They make sense to us spiritually and psychologically, as well as theologically.

We should actually read chapters 12 & 13 together.  As we saw last week, C. 12 begins with Paul affirming the centrality of Jesus Christ as Lord, because Paul realizes that the Corinthians are beginning to drift away from Christ as their center and put their focus on other things, such as charismatic leaders and spiritual gifts.  Paul’s concern is to center them again around Jesus Christ, who is the source of all faith, hope, and love.

And so he creates this marvelous parable of the body of Christ, with all of us individually members of it.  Remember, Paul’s approach throughout this whole letter has been to put everything into a larger theological framework; to put separate parts of our life into the larger whole – so we certainly want to keep in mind the larger context of what he’s saying here.

That’s a good lesson for all of us.  Are we able to keep the important things in our life in the context of a larger framework?  For example, work can be wonderful, it can be fulfilling and rewarding to move up the career ladder, but if our work is not viewed in the context of a larger whole, it can cause you trouble.  Many of us know workaholics who’ve lost their families because they’ve lost sight of proper perspective. 

I could go on - money is a marvelous thing, it can really help a family, but money can also hurt a family if not placed in a larger framework – that’s a good reason to tithe, because tithing helps us keep money in proper perspective.  The family is wonderful, but you shouldn’t worship your family.  It works much better when Christ is Lord, not when your family is Lord.  The church is a wonderful institution, except when it’s the center of your life, and then it can grind you up.  There are many pastors and lay leaders who get burned out because they forget that the church is not the center; the church is the ministry that serves Christ, who is the living center.

What other examples can you think of?  What lies close to your heart, so close that there’s a danger of it causing you to lose perspective?  For you younger people, is it sports?  Or getting into the college of your choice?  These are all good things, but they shouldn’t be the first priority in our lives.  Paul wants everything put into the larger whole.  He continues this thought in 1 Cor. 13.

Notice how Paul starts this passage:  Paul’s very wise - he starts this passage by saying, “If I…”, not “If you…”  That makes readers less defensive; we don’t automatically tune the passage out, like we do when an argument begins: “if you had only read the map, we wouldn’t be lost,” “if you had only listened to me, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”  Paul doesn’t do that here.  He says, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”  Paul’s intention is not to put down tongues and other gifts of the Spirit; instead, he merely wants to place them within the proper framework.

There’s an interesting play on words in v. 1:  Greek word for Tongues – glossia.  Greek word for Clanging – allosia.  So you have “glossia allosia.”  It’s a play on sounds – in other words, speaking in the tongues of mortals and of angels sounds great, but it doesn’t mean anything without love.  Love that derives from Jesus Christ as Lord is now the larger context.  And if the speaking of tongues doesn’t fit in that context, it’s meaningless. 

Starting in v. 4, Paul then gives a list to show what love is – “Love is patient; love is kind; love 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.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” – 4 verbs in a row.

v. 7 stego – Love bears all things; literally, love covers all things.  [cover, pass over in silence, keep confidential; bear, stand, endure] - The noun stegos means roof.  So the love of God is like a roof that covers all things.  John Chyrsothem said the love of God is like a roof over the top of your house, and it’s a roof that doesn’t leak (quoting Earl Palmer). 

endure - hupomenei – (under - stay) stay/abide underneath, hang in there underneath.  God’s love also provides a strong foundation. 

Paul is making a metaphor:  God’s love builds a solid house that is able to hold our lives together: this house has a foundation which endures and undergirds all things, a structure which believes and hopes all things, and a roof which covers all things.  Love never falls. 

That’s a context that’s big enough to hold our lives together.  Could you substitute money for this kind of love?  Or a charismatic leader?  Or a church?  No.  Only the love of God can cover all things, can believe and be faithful in the middle, can undergird all things, and never collapse.

In v. 11, Paul goes on to say, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.”  Notice the difference between child-like and childish.  When you’re a child, you think in part, but when you get older, you think in whole.  Most of us get wiser as we gain more experience and get older.  I remember when I was a teenager thinking how much I knew.  Now, I’m in my forties, and I realize just how much I don’t know. 

v. 12 “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see fact to face.”  Notice there’s a footnote (footnote e) by the word “dimly.”  Remember – pay attention to footnotes!  The footnote says, “Gk in a riddle.”  The Greek word used is enigma:  literally, I see in a mirror a riddle, or a puzzle.  That’s the way life is – full of questions.  But Paul says that all the pieces of the puzzle will come together when we see Christ; then, we’ll get the answers to the riddle.  The time will come, Paul affirms audaciously, when God will speak to us face to face.

v. 13 So faith, hope, and love remain.  But the greatest of these is the love that covers all things, undergirds all things, and is the source of faith and hope.

Love is not just a matter of feelings.  Feelings come and go, but love endures.  Love is an event, shown in concrete actions.  One commentator (Hays) notes: Paul’s description of the attributes of love in verses 4-7 offers a picture of habitual actions and dispositions.  In other words, love is a matter of habit, of putting into practice.  We can’t suddenly decide in a day’s time to start doing these things.  They are learned patterns of behavior that must be cultivated over time in the context of a community that models and supports such behavior. It’s like teaching kids: whether it’s training children to say ‘thank you’ or to pray or to worship, it takes a great deal of time and effort and practice.  It’s hard work, but it’s worth it.

It’s appropriate that 1 Cor. 13 is so often read at weddings, but not because it’s flowery or romantic.  Rather, it’s precisely because the type of love Paul talks about here is so very concrete and down to earth.  In terms of our feelings, we can fall in and out of love over time, depending on whether we may happen to have indigestion, the flu, or just because we’ve been up all night with a cranky infant.  But no matter how we may be feeling at the moment, we can still love someone by remaining faithful and showing mutual support.

As it is with the kind of love that upholds a strong marriage, so it is with the type of love that makes for a strong church.  We’re not called to pretend we don’t have any disagreements; we’re called to endure, to hang in there with one another when we do, so that individually and as a body we can pull together when we face difficulties.  That kind of love takes hard work; it takes discipleship and accountability within the body of Christ, but Paul makes the case that it’s worth the effort. 

So faith, hope, and love remain.  And the greatest of these is love.  Amen.