Epiphany 4
February 2, 2025
William G. Carter
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. And 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. If 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.
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.
Love never
ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they
will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in
part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the
partial will come to an end. 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. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will
see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I
have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;
and the greatest of these is love.
I have some sermons on this very famous passage. A handful have been preached on Sunday mornings. Others have been offered on Saturday afternoons, including my daughter’s wedding last May. It seems that people want to hear about love, it seems. So, it’s only a slight surprise that the text has been invited to a half-dozen funerals. Love seems to be an appropriate topic then, as well.
This is a famous text. It travels well, even when it is recited in the presence of those for whom it was not intended. Paul sent it to a church he founded, a church he had left, a church that he still loved. Clearly, some of the people in that church were not loving one another. So, he sends this poem: “Love is patient, love is kind, love does not insist in its own way.” He wanted to lift their eyes and open their hearts. We don’t know how well it worked.
The chapter is a remarkable text. It comes in three parts. In the opening section, he punctures whatever conflict exists in that church by holding his own well=known abilities against the greater virtue of love:
If I speak in
heavenly tongues
If I have prophetic
powers
If I have knowledge and
understanding
If I have faith to
move mountains
If I generously give away everything – including myself…
All that sounds virtuous. But none of it matters if it is not offered in love. He speaks of himself, so the Corinthians might think about themselves. What good does goodness matter, if done only for our benefit, our ego, or our pretensions of advancement? Goodness only matters when it is good for other people.
Then Paul moved to the middle part, the famous part. He describes love, mostly by telling us what love is not: not envious, not boastful, not arrogant, not rude, not insistent, not irritable, not resentful, not rejoicing in wrongdoing. That’s quite a list. Notice he never tells us what love is. It’s never defined, at least in the English language.
However, in the Greek language, the definition is clear. The word is agape. This is love that flows down from above. It is love that benefits other people. It is love without conditions or restrictions. It’s greater than the love of affection. It’s deeper than the love of passion. It’s more satisfying than the love of companionship. Agape love with a mission – and the mission is to benefit everybody else. This is love that comes from God. Agape love can come to us, but it must pass through us.
Agape is the love that bears the pain of those around us. This is the love that trusts God is working, even in our own pain. This love hopes – it sees beyond the present circumstances to the possibility of God making all thing right. This is the love that sticks around. As the apostle puts it, “Love never ends.” He’s talking about the love of God.
That brings us to the third piece of this chapter, the piece that almost everybody jumps over. Several young couples want to skip over the final verses when the text is read at their weddings. They want the preacher to say on their behalf, “Don’t be envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude.” That’s like a referee blowing a whistle. Yet sooner or later, everybody I know insists on their own way. Everybody. Welcome to the human dilemma.
The fact is sometimes human love does come to an end. Hate to say it, but this is church, and we must tell the truth. I’ve heard people confess their failures. Or they tried to make it work and it fizzled out. Or they dragged the other to a marriage counselor and said, “Fix this!” The wise counselor says, “I can’t fix a thing. Best I can do is listen and see if we can figure out what’s going on.” It’s then up to the couple to find the courage to take the next steps.
Paul does not give anybody this text as a good luck charm. He never says, “Recite my beautiful poem and you will be happy forever after.” But he does say love is a revelation of God. Elsewhere in the New Testament, someone says God is love. Just run that through Paul’s list of negative attributes: God is not boastful, God is not arrogant, God never insists on getting the divine way. All of that is true. Then run it through the positive descriptions: God is patient, God is kind, God rejoices, not in wrongdoing, but in the truth. That works.
As for the rest of us, how are we doing? Is it fair to say we’re not there? Or better put, we’re not there yet?
Remember what I said last Sunday ago? Paul speaks of the Corinthians as saints who are becoming saints. They are in the process of transformation. God has been working on them, just as God continues to work on you and me. This is the key that unlocks that elusive third part of this chapter: “We know only in part.” Know what? “We know God only in part.” “We know love only in part.” We have received enough, experienced enough, learned enough that we know love is real. But we have not perfected it.
It's like children. Children see the sun come up over here, go down over there, and watch the sun return over here – naturally, they sense the sun revolves around them. I know a lot of people who have blown up their lives because they thought the sun revolved around them. The grown-up truth is that we are all part of something bigger. We must keep growing up. That’s how love increases.
Or think of it this way, he says. “It’s like looking a mirror, dimly.” Now, Corinth is a cosmopolitan city. People were always trying to primp in front of mirrors. But the mirrors of that time were not made of reflectorized glass. A first-century mirror was made from polished metal. No doubt, the Corinthians had the best first-century mirrors money could buy – but the image was still blurred. As somebody notes, “To see a friend’s face in a cheap mirror would be very different from looking at the friend.”[1] We don’t see clearly; not yet. We see, but not completely. Only in part.
But here is the Good News: God sees us. God gave us life out of love. God continues to instruct us to love. God has conclusively shown us love in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God remains with us in love, even when we are captive to our incompleteness. Even when we are still childish. Even when we know about love “only in part.”
The Good News is that God knows us – completely – and God still loves us – completely. And the day is coming as heaven moves toward us when all things will be caught up and filled with the love of God. This is where life is going. This is the hope that Jesus has pulled back the curtain to show us.
Love is eternal. What that means is love is where the past, present, and future come together. That’s how we can love people even after we’ve lost them. That’s how somebody can pledge life to another, even before the two of them have any idea of what’s coming in that life together. That’s how we trust, hope, and believe, even if we live alone, even if love has bruised us along the way, even if we don’t always believe we are lovable. God sees otherwise. And love never ends because God “never ends.”
Think of it this way. For God, love is identity. It is the truth that God is for us, no matter what, through thick and thin. For us, however, love is a muscle. It is strength expressed through activity, and it improves through exercise. The more we love, the greater our capacity for love. It is the most excellent way.
If we listen carefully, we might hear God say, “This is what
I intended from the beginning, and this is how everything is going to end." In
love, with love, for love – forever.
[1] William Orr and James Walther, The
Anchor Bible: First Corinthians (New York: Doubleday, 1976) 297.
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