1 Corinthians 13
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 31, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
I cannot tell you how many times I have read 1 Corinthians 13. I would easily reckon around a hundred. Couples chose it as a Scripture reading at the majority of the marriages I performed during my twenty-five years of ordained ministry. I preached on this beloved passage twice from this pulpit and twice in Niles, where I served before I moved here eleven years ago. I’ll admit it’s a favorite chapter of Scripture for me and it probably is for many of you as well.
Yet, as I read it again, on Tuesday, something surprised me. I noticed a footnote in the New Revised Standard Version for the first time. It comes after the word, “dimly,” in verse 12a, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.” If you look in the pew Bibles, you will find it at the bottom of the page, “Gk in a riddle.” Paul uses the Greek word from which we get, “enigma.” The Revised English Bible comes closer to a literal translation of verse 12a, “At present we only see puzzling reflections, but one day we shall see face to face.” The New Jerusalem Bible comes even closer, “Now we only see reflections in a mirror, mere riddles, but then we shall be seeing face to face.”
When confronted with a passage as familiar as 1 Corinthians 13, one hopes to find something one’s never seen before, or else, one runs the risk of saying what everyone’s heard before. This footnote reminded me of something I suspect to be true about love. While folks write songs, poems, novels, plays, books, and articles about love, it always remains just beyond our ken. Love remains, as Paul puts it, a riddle, an enigma, a puzzle, a mystery. When we read 1 Corinthians 13, we make a mistake. We imagine it describes what we need to do in order to achieve love. Yet, we cannot achieve love until we receive love.
Yet, we cannot receive love until we grasp how empty our lives are without love. We may achieve every dream we have. We may accomplish every goal we set. Yet, if we do not have love, we are nothing. Even when we look at the spiritual side of life, it’s true. Paul addressed 1 Corinthians 13 to a church, which put the “fun” in dysfunctional. The Corinthians had more problems than we have time to catalogue, but everything came out when they gathered for worship. They fought over who sat where in worship, which finally meant who got fed and who didn’t at the Lord’s table. Some felt their spiritual gifts were superior to others. Yet, after explaining how each gift relates to the others, as one part of the body relates to another in chapter 12, Paul pointed to all the gifts he possessed and all the pious things he could do, if he wanted. He told the Corinthians, without love, I’m nothing.
Even within the church today, it remains true. We may have wonderful worship and magnificent music, but if we don’t have love, we’re only making noise. We may offer programs of excellence, but if we don’t have love, they are empty. We could double in size, but if we don’t have love, it doesn’t matter. We could manage our finances so well to reverse our budget woes, but if we don’t have love, we’re bankrupt. We could reach out to those in need around us in our neighborhood, but if we don’t have love, it’s nothing. Without love, we are nothing, because love is all that really matters.
Also, we cannot receive love until we reflect on how little we already love. If we sat in First Church, Corinth and listened to Paul’s correspondence, 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 would not have made us feel warm and fuzzy. Every word in those four verses was an arrow aimed right at the heart of what was wrong with First Church, Corinth. Love might be patient, but they weren’t. Love might be kind, but kind would not be the first word to come to mind, when describing First Church, Corinth. Love might not be envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, but they were as they fought over which gifts were the best. Love might not insist on its own way or be irritable or resentful, but those behaviors appeared whenever they gathered at the Lord’s table. They rejoiced when someone stumbled and could hardly wait to tell Paul what so-and-so did or said, but they did not rejoice when they had to face the truth about their own faults.
Sometimes, we think of love as a nice, warm feeling, and it can be. Yet, whenever I meet with a couple and with stars in their eyes, they tell me they want 1 Corinthians 13 read at their wedding, I wonder whether they really get what Paul means. I comfort myself with the thought they couldn’t hear me anyway, even if I could make it clear just how great a price such passion really exacts from those who would live by these words. In his book, The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis offered fair warning:
- There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
Unless we are willing to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things, we might be better off without love, at least until we come to terms with the truth about ourselves. We cannot achieve love. It remains a riddle, an enigma, a puzzle, a mystery until we receive love. Until we grasp love as a gift, a present offered with no strings attached, we will never fully appreciate the kind of love to which Paul pointed. I say “to which Paul pointed,” because when we read the last paragraph of 1 Corinthians 13, he makes it clear how love remains as much of a mystery for him as it does for any of us.
I know you know it, but it’s worth repeating, because it really gets at the heart of what Paul says about love. Our language suffers, because we only have one word for love. We use love for everything, from how we feel about our favorite sports team or flavor of ice cream to how we feel about a parent or a child, a friend or a spouse. All of us know we use the word, “love” in different ways, and we tend to abuse the word by using it in the wrong way. Often, we suffer, because we go “looking for love in all the wrong places,” as an old Country and Western song said. We seek love from folks who are unable to give it, because they never received it. We believe we can achieve love, if we just try harder.
Yet, Paul used a very specific word for love in 1 Corinthians 13, “agape.” Agape implies seeking the best for the other. Agape challenges us to have courage that never gives up on the other. Agape calls us to compassion that always seeks the best for the other. Agape keeps communication open and never allows the sun go down on anger or lets harsh words have the last word. Agape takes a commitment that always remains fiercely and forever for us. Agape involves sacrifice. It’s the kind of love God revealed to us when Jesus took on this human flesh and dwelt among us, when Jesus suffered on the cross and God raised him from the tomb. I find another word that works for this kind of love is grace, because grace reminds us of how far God’s love goes to reach out to us. It reminds us nothing we can do to make God love us any more or any less.
It may be why Paul’s last paragraph on love borders on the mystical, because Paul grasped this side of heaven, all of our love is only an imperfect reflection of what awaits us when we see God face to face. It may be why I believe we cannot achieve love until we receive love. Some of us did not receive the love we needed as we grew up. We bear scars of wounds from those who did not know how to love. Sometimes, we try to get those needs met in ways that don’t work. When all is said and done, we can only receive the love we need from the Lover of souls, who gives us the faith we need to trust we will not be let go, who gives us the hope we need to risk love again. Love is the greatest gift God offers us. God holds it out to us with nail-scarred hands. The late Madeline L’Engle offered these instructions for how to receive so great a gift:
Unclench your fists
Hold out your hands
Take mine.
Let us hold each other.
Thus is his glory
Manifest.
© 2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
