1 Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Because Greece had created a high civilization long before Rome, it is easy to think of it as a strong independent country still in Paul’s time, but in our New Testament studying it’s important to remember that -- like the rest of Southern Europe, the Near East, and much of Northern Africa – at this time in history Greece was just another Roman vassal state. While local cultures prevailed, Rome always and everywhere called the shots.
We need to keep in the back of our reading and discussing here that every place we follow Paul on his journeys was under Roman martial law. In such a setting, any mention of another “king,” another who is “above all others,” is teetering on the edge of sedition – at least, to Roman ears. It would – of course – ultimately be the Roman Empire who executes Paul.
1st Corinthians is the second longest of the letters – second only to Romans. And while we refer to it as his “first” letter there, it appears there actually was another letter, written previously, that has been lost to us. Paul refers to such an earlier letter in this one.
Paul’s first visit to Corinth was probably in the years 50-51 CE. As befits a major trade center, it was a cosmopolitan, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic city. There was a Jewish synagogue there but the city would have been almost entirely Gentile.
When Paul wrote this letter he was writing from Ephesus across the Aegean on the Anatolian peninsula. Paul had been away from Corinth by this time for /at least two years, perhaps more. And, as usual, Paul is hearing about conflicts in the community there. While the Corinthian conflicts were not as harsh as they had been in Galatia, one in particular drew a firm, lengthy response.
Before we get to that one, though, let’s look quickly at a couple of the smaller conflicts. The church seems to be breaking down into smaller cliques within the larger whole, led by different mentors who are putting their own interpretations and twists onto the Christian story. The people in these groups claim allegiance to their leader – “I belong to Cephas” – “I belong to Apollos.” Paul quickly and firmly reminds them that they belong to Christ and to Christ alone because Christ saved them through his sacrifice, not Cephas or Apollos and even Paul himself.
The second squabble was over the spiritual gifts (which are detailed in chapters 12 and 13.) There appears to have developed a sort of hierarchical ranking of the community members based on their apparent spiritual gifts, with the possessors of the more ecstatic gifts – such as speaking in tongues and the discernment of spirits – thinking more highly of themselves than those who manifested the homelier gifts, such as knowledge or hospitality.
In the piece we heard as our reading this morning Paul makes it abundantly clear that one gift – love – stands far above the others and that without love, none of the others mean much.
We today often think of this reading in connection with romantic love because it is so often read at weddings, and it’s good to be reminded that, while it undoubtedly does relate to personal, domestic arrangements, Paul here is speaking of the relationships among members of the body of Christ – the Church.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
And this leads us to the biggest conflict: the growing chasm between the rich and the poor within the community, and especially, as it was manifested in the one act that should signify their complete unity, the Lord’s Supper.
The Lord’s Supper, or communion, as it was celebrated then was not just bread and cup as we do today. It was a complete meal where the community gathered and shared what all had brought to offer. As with any large city, there was a broad disparity among the population – some were wealthy, some were poor, and many were somewhere in-between.
Apparently, the wealthy had taken to arriving earlier, since they didn’t have to work and, being there, would begin the meal, whether the others were there or not. Not only would they begin but they would eat all the best parts themselves leaving only the leftovers for the working class when they arrived later. (This whole story is beginning to have an oddly current feel to it.) Not only did they eat the best foods but they drank so much of the wine that some of them were getting drunk.
Paul is both horrified and furious at this:
For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you! (11:21-22)
Such practices, whether in Paul’s day or our own, do great damage to the one Body of Christ. Using Paul’s metaphor, when the ears start insisting they deserve more honor than the eyes, the whole body is weakened. In the original words of institution, Jesus makes it clear that he is giving his body for ALL, not just a chosen few.
We must equally remember that the table here is not ours to guard – our task is solely to invite and to welcome others to join us because we have been blessed by being invited ourselves.
In two weeks when we meet again we will come back to this letter and look at the question of the Resurrection of Jesus and the nature of just what that may mean in Paul’s teachings.