February 2

 

Sermon for Britannia United Church, February 2 2025

A story from my past, honouring the scripture reading from 1st Corinthians 13 which we have already heard.

 

I was doing a wedding for a couple – it was a second marriage for both of them. 

Not surprisingly they had chosen 1st Corinthians 13 – love is patient, love is kind… love never ends. The bride’s teenage daughter was supposed to do the scripture reading.

 

A couple of days before the wedding, after the bulletins were already printed, including

the scripture citation and the daughter’s name, of course, the bride called in a panic.

“My daughter says she won’t read the scripture.” She said. 

 

Is she too shy about reading in front of people? I wondered. Is she worried about making a mistake?

 

“No, it’s THAT scripture. She says she hates it, but she won’t tell me why. But I don’t

want to change the reading or the reader… so will you talk to her?”

 

We set up a quick meeting between the daughter and myself. When I asked the teenager

what was going on, she said – as plain as day –

 

“I just hate that reading. Everybody reads it at weddings, but then no one lives it out. My dad said over and over again that he loved my mum, but he wasn’t patient. He wasn’t kind. He was abusive and manipulative and he used love as the reason why she couldn’t leave. When she finally left, he used his love for his kids as an excuse to still make her miserable. I hate that reading and I don’t even know why it’s in the Bible.”

 

Her resistance was not unfounded, it reflected how the passage is often exploited to keep people in submissive situations.  But I explained some of the background to the scripture. I told her about the complicated relationships in the church at Corinth, and how Paul meant this passage not as an affirmation of what he was currently seeing in the church, but as a kind of a warning to the church. He was actually telling the church that they had a long way to go before they could call themselves the followers of Jesus.

 

I could see the wheels turning in her mind:

“You mean I could read this as a warning?” she asked. 

And I said yes, I guess so.

 

And so she did. Believe me, I have never heard anyone read 1st Corinthians 13 the way a teenager with an attitude can read this passage. I don’t think I could replicate it,

so I’ll just say her new stepfather was well-warned.

 

The apostle Paul loved his oxymorons. An oxymoron is a phrase that contains seemingly contradictory words but which create a certain profound understanding when you put them together. Think of the phrase “cruel to be kind” or “fragile strength” or “uneasy peace.” They capture a reality that is undescribable with a single word, but very real when you put the two opposites together, they invite you into a new understanding. 

 

Paul loved his oxymorons: he could take a well-known phrase or a common image and just completely turn it on its head. He gave it new meaning or unexpected depth or infinite mysteries to ponder afterwards. 

 

Jesus was a master at oxymorons too. God’s kindom was not Caesar’s Roman empire. Death was life and loss was gain. Love your enemies, blessed are those who mourn.

 

That’s exactly what Paul was doing again in 1st Corinthians 13. Like that teenaged daughter, this is a scripture reading that should be approached with a bit of caution, if you know its

background. I find it full of contradictions, and oxymorons – if you come to the passage expecting only flowers and candy boxes – you will leave disappointed.

 

Love and accountability, patience and purpose, forgiveness and justice, all wrapped up in beautiful oxymorons.

 

There are certain scripture readings that have powerful connections which shape our understanding of them: for example, we read Luke 2 at Christmas; Matthew 11 at a funeral; John 20 at Easter and 1 Corinthians 13 at a wedding…

 

We are so accustomed to hearing 1st Corinthians at a wedding that we usually associate the word “love” in the text with romantic love between lovers – the Greek word EROS – but that is not the kind of love that Paul intended in this passage.

 

Another word for love that is used in the Bible is “philia”, which we would translate as the love between family or friends. This is the love which we show to people who are close to us, or sometimes those who are in particular need. Philia is more

akin to a feeling of compassion, rather than passion.

 

But the word that Paul used to “provoke” the Corinthians in this letter, however, is still another translation of the word love. Paul used the love word Agape.

 

I think the best way to describe agape is when we talk about holy love. Love that is not just our emotions or our priorities alone, but the love that we know in God. 

 

This is a holy love we offer to others because we see each and every one of us as being a child of God. In the King James Bible, which is still the best known English translation of the Bible, this agape or holy love was first translated into English as charity (Faith, hope and charity remain, but the greatest of these is charity.) I think that ancient translation specifically reflected the belief that agape or holy love is always something greater than ourselves – indeed, it may require sacrificing something of ourselves, or even doing something outside of our comfort zone. It might even mean turning someone’s complacent attitude upside down to show them God’s love.

 

This is the agape love that Paul wrote about in 1st Corinthians. It is the love that overcomes boundaries – the love that transforms our everyday priorities – the love that

endures even through trial and tribulation.

 

And the city of Corinth was badly in need of some of this agape love. Corinth itself was a thriving Greek port and a true metropolis within the Roman empire. Corinth the city was growing, always changing, with people of many different backgrounds and interests and economic levels.  So the church at Corinth reflected all of that diversity. Jewiish and Gentile faith backgrounds, Greek and Roman and Middle-eastern cultures and traditions, wealthy merchants and poor peasants and labourers and slaves all together in one church.

 

Sometimes their differences led to disagreements. Differences in culture and background and resources meant that people made different assumptions about what was right – both for them and for the community.

 

The community at Corinth was on its way to a major split. They fought about who should lead the community and how? Paul might have started the community at Corinth in the past, but

he had moved on, as he did, to start new communities in other places. Then new leaders arose. People started taking sides, saying “I belong to Paul” or “I belong to Apollos” or “I belong to Peter.”

 

It happened that Paul was very close to Chloe, who wrote to him about the troubles in the fledgling church.  I sometimes wonder if Chloe was writing in the hope that Paul would return and be their leader again – if he would return to claim that first position and unite the community under his theology, his vision, his ways.

 

However, into that climate of “my way or no way”, Paul raised in its place the possibility of an even “more excellent way: the way of holy love.”

 

This love is patient, wrote Paul. This love is kind. I wish I could incorporate that teenager’s note of warning into my voice, but I’m not that great an actor. The depth of Paul’s intention, however, was profound and possibly a little scary, if you really took itseriously. It was not flowery or mild-mannered, it was not weak or fearful.

 

This love was deep: It could be Kind but not was not submissive. Patient but never turning a blind eye to abuse or prejudice. 

 

It could be hoping and believing but it was not

arrogant, it was intentional but not manipulative. That kind of love, God’s love, never ends, according to Paul. It is a resource we always have with us. It is a guide for the most difficult dilemmas we face.

 

We speak a lot in the church about eternal love – a love that is with even beyond death. And sometimes we are tempted to believe that eternal love never changes  – it does not surprise us. But eternal love itself is an oxymoron, because love is, by its nature, always changing, always growing, always transforming.

 

 When Paul talked about love never ending, he talked about love as a power that leads us onward. He used the metaphor of a life journey from childhood to adulthood even to life beyond death. He reminded us that as we grow, we have to let go of some things. We see new possibilities that we didn’t understand before. We experience what it is to be fully known within the wide perspective of God’s love for the whole world.

 

Maybe instead of saying love never ends, we should say Love is always evolving.

 

We might ask ourselves – where have we seen this holy love at work? What is it that has been shaped in the world by our love? What are the things that are deeply rooted in this holy love that we practice, whether it be with our lovers, our families, our friends, our charitable works or our faith communities.

 

Paul’s legacy was a warning, but it was also inspiration. It was heart-warming poetry, and bridge building and the end of a very destructive conflict. And so may we honour his legacy with one of our own: to practice the strong and holy love of God in Christ, wherever we are.  And to know that we never do it alone. Amen.