1 Corinthians13:1-13 Luke 4:21-30
If you are like me, these words from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians make you feel warm and cozy and sweet; Valentine hearts and weddings and celebrations of love. But I don’t think either Paul or the Corinthians felt that way.
Let me tell you a little bit about the Corinthians. Paul made his way to Corinth during his traveling evangelist years, by way of Athens, which was apparently the original ivory tower city.
In Athens, Paul discovered how much the people there enjoyed an intellectual discussion of ideas. He offered them a very creative and compelling case for Christ, they sparred back and forth with him for a while. And at the end of the day, they said, “Good argument, Paul. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Maybe we’ll come back and do it again tomorrow.” An outcome that might very well have left Paul feeling a little burned.
He went on to Corinth determined to not have a repeat of that experience. He was determined, he says in this letter to the Corinthians, to come to them knowing nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. The experience couldn’t have been the same, though, because Corinth and Athens were night and day.
While Athens was a city of ideas, Corinth was a city of action. It was a vibrant seaport city, bustling with commerce, full of diversity. It was the kind of place that no one was actually from; everyone had arrived from somewhere else, from various places throughout the empire. Many of these people were former slaves. Some of them were important government officials or business leaders. It was racially, economically, and culturally diverse. And all this diversity became a part of the church in Corinth.
It presented a real challenge: they all came together by the power of the gospel, but they each brought a motley assortment of baggage with them. Some were very poor, others were wealthy. Some were accustomed to being powerless, and others were accustomed to ordering slaves around to meet their every need. Some were Jews – in fact, some had even been synagogue leaders. Others were converted Gentiles, knowing nothing of the Jewish traditions or culture.
In no other situation would these people have chosen to join together. They were too different. And it appears they weren’t overjoyed about being thrust together in community. We can hardly blame them, though, for we are the same way.
In our friends, in our spouse, in our church, we look for compatibility, shared values and interests. We get along well with people who have the same background as us, because we grew up learning the same values and having the same experiences. We like to be with people who are like us. It’s just easier.
There are many reasons why it is hard to live in diverse community. Language is one, cultural norms another. When I am with people like me, I don’t have to explain myself, and they don’t have to explain themselves – we get each other. The way we socialize, the way we spend money, the way we raise our children and treat our elders – all these things are challenged in diverse community.
The way we vote, the news we consume, the causes we donate to – all these things are challenged in diverse community.
Diversity is hard now and it was hard then. In the Corinthian church, they tended to group together with the ones whose lives were most similar to theirs, the working stiffs versus the leisure class.
And when discord arose, they took sides. Their attitudes hardened. They huddled with like-minded people and encouraged each other’s biases and contempt for the others who were different from them.
They began to say things like, “I cannot believe the hypocrisy of those people,” and “those people are just evil,” and “you can’t expect anything good from those people. They don’t care about the church, our country, our city, the same way we do.”
That is to say, they probably sounded a lot like us.
And so they wrote a letter to Paul telling him he must intervene. He would have to either straighten out this other group of people or else he would have to help them find a different church home, because they simply could not work together.
Paul refused to care that they were incompatible. He said, I will show you a more excellent way, and he wrote them a letter about love.
I can guarantee you that the Corinthians did not feel all warm and cozy when they heard it. Paul’s words to them about the character of love are not gentle strokes against their psyches; he is not affirming what they already know. Paul is telling them things that they do not believe.
Just think about someone you do not like, and hear what these words say to you:
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. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
How does that sound now?
It is truly our misfortune that we have heard these words so many times because we think we know them too well. Somehow, we need to know that these words are not just sweet; they are deeply and startlingly uncomfortable. Paul is not telling us to love the ones we already love. Paul is challenging us to love the ones we hate, the ones we hold in contempt. Because this is who the church is.
The church is not a gathering of like-minded individuals. The church is not a self-improvement program or a social club. Christ did not die so I can sip coffee with people who like the same books and movies I like. Christ died because the world so desperately needs the kind of love he brought to it – love that turns our hearts outward and enlarges them. Love that will tear down the walls we build to protect our way of life. Love that will lay down its weapons.
This kind of love will not be domesticated. It is bigger than we are, and, in some ways, it is terrifying.
In the words of the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “I am sorry I can say nothing more to console you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” The love of our dreams is selfish, but love in action is not selfish. In the love of our dreams, we are adored and admired, but love in action is not boastful or arrogant. In the love of our dreams, we get what we want, but love in action does not insist on its own way.
Love in action erases the lines that separate us into tribes or nations or political parties. Love in action insists that my personal interests are not any more precious than the personal interests of others.
And so we feel threatened by this kind of love. And the one who comes into town preaching this kind of love, as Jesus did, risks being tossed off the edge of a cliff, as Jesus did.
And yet, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, love in action is the work of the church, and it begins with our baptism.
The people of Corinth were so different in so many ways, but they shared one thing in common. Each of them was baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. Each of them was given new life, and now was called and equipped to live for something greater than they had before.
In baptism, God brings us together as one body, and so our lives are now larger than they were before. We know that we are all in this together with Jesus.
Rowan, who is baptized this day, doesn’t know that yet. For all he knows, the entire world is his oyster, and his desires are everything that matter. But, with the help of his parents and the members of the church, he will be raised to understand the life that he has been given, and the love to which he is called.
Beloved, remember you are baptized and that makes you a part of the body of Christ.
By your baptism, you are equipped for the work to which we are all called.
Let us, together, seek to live this more excellent way.
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Photo: Churchart.com
