Epiphany 4C (1 Cor 13:1-13) – 01/31/2010

From the epistle reading this morning, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor 13:13) And from our Gospel reading this morning, “When [the people] heard this, [they] were filled with rage. They got up, drove [Jesus] out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill…so that they might hurl him off the cliff.” (Lk 4:28-29) On this joyous morning when we will celebrate a rite of passage for some of our Rite-13 young adults, we seem to have been given two very different lessons to consider: the greatest gift of love – and – hurling Jesus off the cliff. At first look, these two thoughts appear to stand sharply against each other, but if we reflect a bit deeper perhaps we find that love leads us to unexpected places.

At the end of the First World War, a young man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer celebrated his 13^th birthday in Berlin, Germany. Although he was raised in a loving family with many brothers and sisters, he was also surrounded with the concerns and hardships that the end of the war brought upon the German people. By the time he was 14, Bonhoeffer decided that he would dedicate himself to religious studies and planned to someday become a university professor. A devoted student, he finished his doctoral work by the time he was 22, but prior to accepting a teaching position he was assigned a one-year curacy at a church in Barcelona, Spain, ministering to a small community of Germans. Bonhoeffer’s experiences in Barcelona and subsequent experiences after he returned to Germany convinced him that he could not spend his entire career inside the classroom – he felt God was calling him to be a teacher in the world and a witness to Christ in the difficult days leading up to the Second World War. Bonhoeffer courageously stood firm against the rising power of Hitler’s government, even as many of the church leaders throughout Germany resigned themselves to the very un-Christian laws of the new government. When given an opportunity to leave Germany and live in the safety of the United States or England, Bonhoeffer refused, saying, “I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.”[i] Although many difficult days followed for Bonhoeffer, he remained steadfast in his commitment to the church and his teaching of young people. His commitment was testament to his love for Christ, his love for the Church, and his love for his neighbors.

This morning we hear the Apostle Paul’s passionate explanation of the power of love. Many of us may be familiar with 1 Cor 13 by attending wedding services, as this explanation of love is often selected as the epistle reading. But we can be misled about Paul’s description of love if our memory associates this lesson only with the joy and celebration of a wedding day. There is much more to Paul’s advice to the Corinthians than the joyous love of two newlyweds…and I would like to mention just a couple of points this morning.

First: We can easily confuse the meaning of Paul’s advice regarding the power of love because we lose much in the translation from the original Greek. The Greeks were precise in their description of love and defined at least 3 particular types: eros love, which is the love of things desired (I love sleeping late when school is canceled); philia love, which is the love of friendship (I love my family and friends); and finally, there is agape love, which is the love of self-sacrifice (God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son).[ii] Paul speaks to the Corinthians…and us, of the agape love of self-sacrifice. Agape love is a love that is directed outward from one’s self; a love that seeks to understand, value, and serve others, which brings us to an important second point (about Paul’s message).

Second: Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is written to a community that is in the midst of turmoil and disagreement. Last week we heard Ch 12 of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians regarding the gifts of the Spirit – Paul wrote, “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit…and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.” (1 Cor 12:4, 6) The Corinthians were engaged in an argument that is still debated by people today: who among the community had the gifts of the greatest value and who should be looked down upon for their meager contribution (in other words, “who’s in and who’s out”). Paul reminds the Corinthians that not only is each person a gift given by God for the good of the community, but through the power of agape love, we have the ability to come together for the good of each other, even in our differences. Paul tells us that “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor 12:7) If our lives are centered in the love of God, we have the depth, the strength, and the hope to know that all things come from God…God is with us…and if we follow, love will lead us to unexpected places.

Love will lead us to expect the unexpected, believe the unbelievable, and bear the unbearable. How can this be true, we might ask. Paul tells us that this can be true because love opens our minds to the understanding that we do not completely understand. Paul tells the Corinthians, “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.” (1 Cor 13:12) The now is today…the lives we lead in the world. We cannot know all that God knows or all that God has planned for us, so in love we open ourselves (our hearts, our minds, our souls) to all that God has done. In love, we open our understanding to those in our community, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “God does not [wish] that I [create] the other person according to the image that seems good to me…I can never know…how God’s image should appear in others. That image always [appears as a new and unique person] that comes solely from God’s…creation.”[iii] Bohnoeffer’s insight about God’s creation of others can be turned inward as well. All of us are on a pilgrimage through life…an amazing journey, a God-given journey, a journey that is best traveled with an open heart and mind. God’s love is calling us and if we are open in heart and mind, love will lead us to see the world in a new light, love will lead us to new understandings of our gifts, love will lead us to unexpected places.

Faith, hope, and love abide; and the greatest of these is love – and – the people led Jesus to the brow of the hill so they might hurl him off the cliff. Jesus read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and the people spoke well of Jesus and were amazed at his gracious words. But Jesus continued to teach the people and gave them examples of God’s saving work: Elijah saving a starving widow at Zarephath in Sidon and Elisha cleansing Naaman the Syrian, of his leprosy. Jesus, in his full understanding of God’s agape love gave the people examples of God’s miraculous work to Gentiles, people outside of their community. The people do not expect God to work in this way and, without the power of love to open their hearts and minds, this new understanding is unacceptable and they reject the idea, they reject Jesus, and they drive him to the edge of the hill. Dietrich Bonhoeffer remained in Germany and remained committed to the work of Christ in the world, paying sacrifice after sacrifice, but his witness to Christ was a light to brighten the German people and the rest of the world. Those who embrace God’s love, those who are led by the power of God’s love are not always in-step with the ways of the world. But with God’s love to lead us, we are able to admit that we cannot know completely what God has in store for us, we are able to expect the unexpected, and to bear the unbearable. On this joyous day when we celebrate the rite of passage of our Rite-13 young adults, let us pray for their journey and commit ourselves to open our hearts and minds to the love of God, which will lead us to unexpected and glorious places. Amen.

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[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, as noted by G. Leibholz in the introductory chapter, “Memoir,” (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959), 17-18.

[ii] Timothy Sedgwick, The Christian Moral Life, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999), 62.

[iii] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, trans. by J.W. Doberstein, (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishing, 1954), 93.