Today, we’re back in the First Epistle to the Corinthians with a very well-known passage, Chapter 13, a text dedicated to love. Most of us probably have an emotional connection with this passage, whether good or bad – maybe we love this passage because it’s so beautiful, or maybe we don’t like it because we’re not sure we can live up to its expectations, or maybe we are bothered with it because we have heard it so many times! In any case, it does not leave us indifferent, and certainly it’s one of the highlights of this Epistle and even of the whole New Testament. But whatever the state of mind we find ourselves in, how is it that we can hear this passage afresh today and understand its lessons for our lives?
Well, I think it’s interesting we have spent time with the preceding chapters in this Epistle these past weeks, because it helps a lot to put this famous passage back into context. It may free us from some of our immediate reactions (love it/ hate it/ “oh no not again”) and it can help us gain a better understanding of what it’s really about – beyond the obvious.
So what about the obvious? Evidently, Paul speaks about the value, the superiority and the endurance of love. Yet he is not preaching at a wedding, reminding people already in love how beautiful it is to love. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: Paul is talking to the church in Corinth which is a divided community, where members are in conflict with one another and with Paul himself. The Corinthian church is a community that struggles to love – a community that has probably lost sight of the value, of the superiority and of the endurance on love. If you remember what we have already talked about, the Corinthians are very narrowly focused on what it means to be spiritual. They believe that spiritual people are gifted people, especially people able to speak in tongues or people who demonstrate some kind of superior knowledge, and everybody in the church thinks that their way is the right way. And so the passage we have just heard isn’t Paul writing a lyrical piece of literature out of the blue for our reading pleasure, rather this passage is Paul responding to a specific issue, Paul responding to the issue of the conflicts in Corinth and the misunderstandings about what spiritual life is really about.
So let’s dive in with a few remarks:
1 – In the first three sentences, although speaking in the first person, Paul reminds the church in Corinth that no spiritual gift is worth anything without love: The gift of “speaking in tongues”, the gift of “prophetic powers and understanding” and even the gift of faith that leads to miracles (to “remove mountains”), or even the gift of asceticism or martyrdom. Indeed, we know that for the people in Corinth, speaking in tongues was very important, the proof that you were very special and so no wonder this is where Paul starts. But in a more general way, Paul enumerates all the spiritual gifts that are a bit impressive and spectacular. The spectacular, that’s what the Corinthians loved and that’s how they thought they knew someone had a special connection with God’s Spirit. And yet, not only Paul has just reminded them that all spiritual gifts are important (not just the impressive ones!) in the same way that all members are important to the body (see last week), Paul insists that the value of the spiritual gifts are not to be found in themselves – which is a bold thing to say! The value of the gifts is to be found in the way they are used and in the purpose for which they are used: used in love and in order to love. If not then it’s just a religious performance, it might get you noticed but it accomplishes nothing of value. Today we also live in a society looking for excitement and we like to be amazed and see extraordinary things, and we have all kinds of spirituality, Christian or not, claiming the life-changing miracles they can do for us – yet to Paul this is not how the Spirit of God is manifested. The Spirit of God is present when love is present and Paul goes on describing how this love looks like.
2 – Indeed, if to be spiritual is to be loving, we still need to know what love is about. Like spirituality, anybody can have a claim on love. But Paul does not present love in a general way, assuming everybody knows what love is about. Quite the opposite, Paul presents love is a very specific way: Love, at least love as it should be practiced by Christians, is not self centered, it goes against all the ways in which we try to prove ourselves superiors to the others. Actually, the way Paul presents love to the Corinthians is a love that goes against all the ways in which we are in competition with one another, how we compare ourselves to others and judge each other – and we know that’s what the church was struggling with. And so to explain what love is, Paul actually reminds the Corinthians of all the things that love is not: Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way, it’s not irritable or resentful and does not rejoice when something bad happen to someone else – everything we do when we think we are better, or holier than thou.
Now in contrast, the way Paul describes love is that instead of being self centered and self promoting and self defending, love is turned towards “all things”: bears all things, believing all things, hopes all things and endures all things. It does not mean that “love conquers all” in the sense that we have to go with whatever comes our way and accept any kind of behavior, it means that love affirms others instead of criticizing them and putting them down. Love rejoices in the truth, says Paul, instead of clinging to our own reality, or more accurately instead of clinging to our own fantasies of being the center of the world. Because it’s always “other seeking” rather than self seeking, this love is always practiced in community, whether the church community, or the community of family and marriage. It’s a love that builds each other up instead of “puffing ourselves up” as Paul likes to say.
3 – And so in the end, because it builds up, love lasts over everything else. When we practice love, however imperfectly, we have a sense of eternity and so it helps us to assign its true value to all the rest. For now, we are “like children”, we see only “dimly”, we know only “in part” says Paul. No reason for boasting indeed! What signals true spirituality is our ability to love and to become more loving because the Spirit is this bond of love between the Father and the Son, and the Spirit binds us with God and with one another. True spirituality is not about having impressive words or doing extraordinary things that people will notice, true spirituality is this love that frees us from self preoccupation. It is as simple as about treating others with kindness and seeking their own interest, nothing more…and nothing less! Yes, Paul agrees, spiritual gifts are important. Prophecies are important, knowledge is important, religion, without doubt, is important, but they aren’t their own end – and so they will end! They are only a means to something greater. Even faith and hope won’t last forever, in the sense that when we will reach our new life with Christ we won’t need faith or hope anymore since we will possess what we long for, but love will always be here….And this is on this new reality that Paul is going to move on in the rest of the letter – especially in Chapter 15 we’ll talk about in the coming weeks.
As for today, instead of assuming that we already know about this passage, let us think about the ways in which Paul’s words invite us to reexamine our spiritual lives: Do we choose love over everything else, even in our religious practices so our religious practices really make sense? In the Gospel we have just heard, the people in the synagogue of Nazareth are not happy with Jesus because he doesn’t seem to bring them any miracle, he doesn’t “perform” for them. Jesus has to remind them that, like in the old times with the prophets, they cannot do or receive anything of value if they don’t welcome him first and open their hearts. In this, some outsiders and even foreigners show themselves more “spiritual” than God’s own people.