Loading...Ok, folks. Its 1 Corinthians 13 day. The love chapter day. So, it makes sense that we begin with a scene from the movie Wedding Crashers. In this movie from a decade ago, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play best friends who crash wedding parties as a way to pick up women. They show up at weddings with elaborate cover stories to charm the crowd and then become the life of the party.
In one scene, the two are at a wedding ceremony; and when the celebrant announces that the bride's sister will now read scripture, Owen says to Vince, "Twenty dollars, First Corinthians." To which Vince replies, "Double or nothing, Colossians 3:12." (As God’s chosen ones, clothe yourselves with meekness, etc.) The bride's sister takes the podium and begins, "And now a reading from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians."
Ok, true enough. But we all know that the original target of these words was not marriage life, but church life. And even though the passage is quite appropriate at weddings, since marriages, like churches, are also prone to lose sight of love, its original application was to a church that had priority problems. And the original setting for these words was a Sunday morning worship service, not a Saturday night wedding service. So, this morning, we are in the right place for this now, aren’t we?
Steven Covey has an expression that has become quite popular in business circles, and is excellent advice for churches: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” This is at the heart of his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Highly effective people manage to keep their priorities clear and actualized.
And if ever there was an institution that has challenges about following that advice, it is the church. How many of us have experienced a church somewhere, as group of people caught up in majoring in minors and fighting over small and petty things? How many friends and family do you know that consider the church to be primarily a gathering of self-righteousness hypocrites, consumed with things that just don’t matter? How many churches stagnate and languish because they have lost touch with their central mission and with the community around them?
Corinth
Well, Corinth was a church (or a collection of house churches). It was a young, gentile (non-Jewish) church, made up of folks formerly steeped in the religions and rituals of their Greek and Roman society, and operating in the midst of a large, wealthy cosmopolitan city. And probably because of those very things, they were susceptible to letting themselves become divided by various forms of wealth and status and opinions. If you read through the chapters of 1 Corinthians, they reveal a congregation caught up in a number of things that was making their common life difficult.
They would have potlucks (love feasts) – but the church members would tend to segregate and sit by social classes. And if someone did not bring enough food for themselves and their family – then they did not eat at all.
Or the church would meet for a service of Eucharist – but some among them could not arrive on time (perhaps they had to work?), yet groups of them would go ahead and have Eucharist without them. Some would drink so much wine to get drunk, while for others there would be none left.
And then there were the opinion clubs – groups of members who claimed a particular loyalty to Peter, groups of members claiming a loyalty to Paul, and groups of members loyal to Apollos.
And there was the “holier than thou” guild – those who were very strict about renouncing their former pagan way of life, and were busy judging other Christians who perhaps felt free to be more casual about their former way of life.
And then, there was the competition of the spiritual sports – those gifted at words discounting those who were gifted at works of service. And those devoted to works of service discounting those who chose rather to spend their time in study and teaching. And on and on it went – a church full of people focused on their own personal molehill and trying to make it to be the king of the hills. It is the failure of keeping the main thing the main thing that caused so much trouble for the church in Corinth.
The Main Thing
So, in Chapter 13, the love chapter as it is commonly known, Paul begins to describe for them the main thing. Paul presents it as sort of a compass to a church that was struggling to discern the difference between the root and the fruit; between that which was foundational and that which was simply window dressing in their Christian life. He wrote to them:
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. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Paul was saying that being really articulate and great at preaching are window dressing if not grounded in love. Great insight and knowledge is window dressing – if not built upon love. Dramatic lives of transformation, or great program leadership and social service projects are but window dressing – if not founded on love. Even generosity and philanthropy are but window dressing – if they do not grow out of love.
This is a hard lesson, because we, like Corinth and every other church, are naturally attracted to those more visible, measurable window dressings. We have a hard time trusting this more amorphous and unpredictable thing called love. But is love really so squishy? Paul describes for us what it looks like:
Love shows patience; acts with kindness; cannot be tempted to envy and has no interest in boasting, is free from arrogance and avoids rudeness. It does not go about insisting on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but finds joy in the truth.
This is about the main thing. This points us toward the mountain and away from the molehills. And particularly for this church at this time, as a church at the threshold of a clergy search, when we will be discerning the best fit for leadership in nurturing the Spirit of God in this place – what criterion are we going to use? How will we distinguish the mountains from the molehills in a candidate’s life and the leadership they offer? How can we tell whether they can keep the main thing the main thing?
Let us insure that among the true markers of St. James is patience and kindness. Let’s watch so that there cannot long abide among us here envy or arrogance or rude and ill treatment of others. Let us be watch dogs indeed, but not over the budget as the main thing, but rather that in all things the voice of everyone is given a careful hearing and that there are not some who prevail in insisting on getting their own way, or who control others by being irritable or resentful. And may love so abide among us here that any gossip and loose talk that feeds upon the mistakes or weakness of others will have no opportunity to thrive.
And yet, even for all that, there is more. Paul lists qualities of spirit even beyond these behaviors, as he says in verse 7:
7Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Of all things people need from a place like ours that wears the name of God, is to encounter a people who’s living faith is indeed empowering them to bear, believe, hope and endure. Perhaps the main thing of the main thing, is to nurture our capacity to continually bear with people’s lives and what they need, to continually believe in the goodness and beauty of life and in the people around us, to continuously have hope in what God is yet to do with each of us and among our lives together, and to endure whatever sorrow or suffering or loss that the work of love brings us.
Bearing all things is not being a doormat for every sick and selfish thing that comes our way. Rather, it is the strength to continue to do whatever love says needs to be done. Believing all things is not a naïve acceptance of whatever opinions come our way. It is the courage to continue to remain open to possibility and goodness and to believe that seeking the truth is worth the effort. Hoping all things is not a blind eye toward all that is wrong and dark in the world. It is the will to look for the good, expect the good, and nurture it when you find it. Enduring all things is not a passive tolerance of every ugly and sinful thing that is foisted upon us. It is the ongoing capacity to forgive and forget and start anew every morning.
It is cynicism and despair, boredom and brittleness that are the opposites of love. It is shutting down and shrinking away that is the death of love. It is saying “I can’t” and “you can’t” and “God can’t”. It is giving up on people and ideals and all that God is doing in the world.
Love will keep us on track
Love is what will keep us on track and doing the right things as a church. This is what will keep each one of us on track and doing the right things in our life. And all that is done in this way will succeed. All that is done in this way will remain. Paul concludes:
13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
And as we, as a church look to a future of life together, what is it we will place at our center? Will it be style or substance? Window dressing or the actual window that lets in the light of God? To the degree we give ourselves to love, to that degree we will abide. And if we can, as a church, keep at our center this main thing, and use it to measure all other things we attend to and give ourselves to – then what we do will abide. If we will give ourselves to love, we can know this – that love will abide and anything we do in love will also abide.
Let’s give ourselves to that.
Thanks be to God.
