The More Excellent Way -- A Sermon for Epiphany 4C (1 Corinthians 13)
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| William Wilson, Caritas, Glasgow Cathedral |
As we continue our journey through the season of Epiphany, we’re looking for manifestations of God’s presence in the world. We began with the Magi following a star to Bethlehem, and that led to hearing God call out to Jesus at his baptism. We’ve heard Paul say that “to each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7) and that the church is a manifestation of the presence of Jesus’s body in the world.
Although the gifts of the Spirit are important to the health of the body of Christ, there is one more thing needed. That is what Paul calls the “more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31). What is this “more excellent way?” It’s as that 1960s song proclaimed: “What the World needs now is love, sweet love.” That is the message of 1 Corinthians 13.
Paul places this hymn to love right in the middle of his discussion of spiritual gifts. Since the Corinthians are arguing about which gift is most important, Paul shows them the way of love.
If love is the “more excellent way,” then what is love? After all, love comes in many shapes and sizes. The Greek language has several words we translate as love. The word used here is agape. Tom Oord defines this kind of love as “acting intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote overall well-being when responding to acts, persons, or structures of existence that promote ill-being” [Defining Love, p. 43]. This is the kind of love, according to Paul, that will unite us as the one body of Christ even though we are very different in our gifts and identities. You can understand why Paul might turn to this kind of love when he is dealing with division in the body of Christ.
So, when it comes to finding our unity in diversity, the goal is not to eliminate our cultural, gender, or ethnic identities. Instead, it is a recognition that love, which is rooted in the love of God, transcends these differences. Paul envisions a diverse community united in love through its common confession that Jesus is Lord.
Here in 1 Corinthians 13 Paul talks about the coming of the “complete” or the “perfect.” The Greek word he uses is revealing. That word is telios, which speaks of completeness and maturity. It points us toward the new creation Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians 5. While this new creation is already present in the world today, it has not yet come in its fullness. As Paul puts it: "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."
As we contemplate Paul’s word about the manifestations of the Spirit for the common good that enable us to participate in building up the body of Christ, Paul wants us to know that the perfect, the end to which we are moving, is love. And as we read in 1 John 4, God is love. We know that “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him” (1 Jn 4:8-9). While we experience the love of God only imperfectly in the present, to be in Christ is to move toward union with God who is love.
Paul closes the chapter by telling us that faith and hope abide, but love alone will endure. Or, as John Wesley put it: “Faith, hope, and love are the sum of perfection on earth; love alone is the sum of perfection in heaven.”
As we move toward the perfect, we do so by living a life marked by faith, hope, and love. If we do this, then we will experience a life marked by flourishing. Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun speak of three components to a life that flourishes. First of all, it is a “life led well,” it is a “life going well,” and a “life feeling as it should.” Standing at the heart of the “life led well” is obedience to the law of love, which is the prerequisite for a life filled with peace and joy. Volf and Croasmun write that “love is what is held in common between this age and the age to come” [For the Life of the World, pp. 166-167]. This is why love is the more excellent way.
When I use 1 Corinthians 13 in a wedding ceremony, I generally focus on verses 4-7. This is where Paul describes the kind of love that binds parties together. According to Paul agape love is patient and kind, it’s not envious and doesn’t boast. It’s not arrogant or rude. It doesn’t insist on its own way. It’s not irritable or resentful. “It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.” Finally, it “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” As you can see there isn’t much in this definition that’s romantic in nature, but it is what makes for a lasting and maturing relationship. It’s also the foundation for life in the diverse body of Christ.
Tongues, prophecy, understanding of mysteries, and knowledge, as well as faith and giving away all our possessions, aren’t bad things, but they lack value unless they’re accompanied by the kind of love Paul describes here. While we sometimes speak of love as a spiritual gift, it is more than that. In fact, love is the context in which we live out our calling to be manifestations of the Spirit for the common good.
While St. Augustine wasn’t talking about spiritual gifts when he wrote his book On Christian Doctrine, he said something that I think fits with what Paul is saying here:
Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought. [On Christian Doctrine, Kindle Edition, loc. 808].
If our reading of Scripture or our use of our spiritual gifts, doesn’t reflect the love of God and neighbor, then we’ve missed the point of the Christian life.
When Paul introduced the Corinthians to the “more excellent way” of love, he wanted to help them move along the pathway to spiritual maturity. That is, he wanted to help them move toward the perfect, even though we can only see the perfect dimly as through a mirror. This more excellent way of love is the pathway on which we are also called to tread. It is a path that unites us in our diversity. It enables us to flourish in life. As Karl Barth writes concerning the message of 1 Corinthians 13:
[O]ne thing is certain and that is that love will never cease, that even then the love which is self-giving to God and the brother, the same love for which the Christian is free already, will be the source of the future eternal life, its form unaltered. Already, then, love is the eternal activity of the Christian. This is the reason why love abides. [Church Dogmatics 4.2 p. 840].
Therefore, love ultimately leads to union with God who is love. That is our eternal destiny.
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Pulpit Supply
First Presbyterian Church
Troy, Michigan
January 30, 2022
Epiphany 4C
Image attribution - Wilson, William, 1905-1972. Caritas, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57837 [retrieved January 29, 2022]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/8539356086/.
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