Foolish Things

1 Corinthians 13:1-8a

October 9, 2016 • Mount Pleasant UMC

There's nothing you can do that can't be done

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game

It's easy

Nothing you can make that can't be made

No one you can save that can't be saved

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time

It's easy

Come on, now, everybody: “All you need is love…love is all you need!” I’m hoping that, perhaps after the service, someone can explain those lyrics to me and how they relate to the chorus, but nevertheless, most of us know that song. The Beatles reminded us and continue to remind us that “all you need is love.” On one level, that’s a very Christian statement, but on another (and probably the way most people understand it still today), it’s a very worldly viewpoint. To know which way it’s meant, I suppose, you have to know what is meant by love. And what do you need it for? We talk and sing about love without thinking much about what we mean, and many therefore equate love to a warm feeling or a Hallmark greeting card. But love is so much more than that, so much deeper than a rapidly-vanishing feeling—and in the end, as the world sees it, it really is a foolish thing.

This morning, we are continuing our journey with the Apostle Paul as we have been for several weeks now. We’re in the middle of his second missionary journey, so let me just quickly remind you where we’ve been. Paul began as an opponent of the Christian faith, approving of the death of the first Christian martyr, but as we looked at a few weeks ago, Jesus got his attention with a blinding light, knocking him to the ground, and Paul put all of his passion that he once used to oppose the faith into preaching that same faith. He spent several years learning about the faith and working out his theology, then he received a call from the Holy Spirit and was sent by the church at Antioch to go across the known world to preach about Jesus. Following the conclusion of his first journey, after some time had passed, he decided it would be good to go check on the churches he and Barnabas had started—except, as you remember from last week, they couldn’t decide on who to take with them. They had a sharp disagreement, these friends for many yeas, so much so that they separated and formed two different missions. The book of Acts follows Paul’s footsteps as he and Silas head out on a second missionary journey. Last week, we followed them as far as Philippi, but this week we’re going to complete that journey in a place called Corinth.

Corinth had a long history as a city, though by the time Paul visited, it had only been re-inhabited for about 100 years. It had been destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC and only rebuilt under the guidance of Julius Caesar in 46 BC. Paul probably visited somewhere around 50 AD. Corinth is located on the Peloponnese peninsula, at the end of an isthmus, a long narrow stretch of land that connects it to the mainland. In ancient times, boats would be put on large carts and pulled across the narrow stretch of land to avoid a long voyage around the peninsula, but today there is the Corinth canal, where boats can pass through easily. The canal was started in the year 67 under emperor Nero and then forgotten; it was only finished in 1893. So shipping and commerce were very important to this city, as were sports. Corinth was host to the every-two-year Isthmian games, similar to the Olympic games held 131 miles away. The games then were a mixture of athletic prowess and religious devotion, as well as a boost to the Corinthian economy. It was part of the culture, so in 1 Corinthians 9, Paul uses that imagery: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?” (9:24). Corinth was an active, important city when Paul arrives there (Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles: Journeys in Greece, pgs. 106-112).

Corinth apparently had also become somewhat of a refuge for Jews who had been thrown out of Rome. Paul meets two such people in the city, Aquila and Priscilla, who were tentmakers just as he was. They establish a partnership and Paul lives with this couple while he establishes his ministry in the city. During the week, he made tents. On the Sabbath, he goes to the synagogues to persuade people to follow Jesus (Acts 18:1-4). After Paul does this for a while, the Jewish leaders get oppositional, and begin to make life difficult for Paul. It’s at that point, he says he’s not going to mess with them anymore. “From now on I will go to the Gentiles,” he tells them (18:6). However, I do find it amusing that the very next convert to Jesus mentioned in the book of Acts is Crispus, the leader of the synagogue—about as Jewish as you can get (18:8)! Nevertheless, Paul’s ministry takes a decisive turn at Corinth, from preaching in the synagogue to reaching out beyond the Jewish faith—a turn we should all be thankful for, since (as far as I know), we’re all Gentiles. We are the ones who are “grafted in,” as Paul will describe it in Romans 11. There, Paul uses the image of a grapevine, and says that in God’s work with Israel, some of the branches had to be broken off so that others, wild olive shoots we calls us, can be grafted in. A careful vinedresser can do that, but it takes time and patience to make the vine accept the new branch. Paul also reminds us in Romans that if God was willing to “break off” the natural branch, he can do so to the granted-in branch as well. “Do not be arrogant,” Paul says. “Do not consider yourself superior to those other branches” (Romans 11:17-21). Paul gave himself to ministry toward the Gentiles, those once outside the faith, so that many more could be saved, could come to know Jesus as he had.

His story, in many ways, mirrors the story of Methodism’s founder, John Wesley. Wesley was an Anglican priest and a churchman who believed all true preaching should happen in the church. He had been brought up to believe that “the saving of souls [was] almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.” But something happened to Wesley on May 24, 1738 when, in the midst of questions and struggles with his faith, he went to an evening prayer meeting where he felt his heart “strangely warmed.” He was never the same from that moment, and his preaching had new passion, new energy—passion and energy that offended pastors and parishioners alike. Over and over again, as he preached across London, Wesley was asked not to come back. By the end of 1738, only five churches still welcomed him in their pulpits. Unsure what to do, Wesley accepted the invitation of a friend of his, George Whitefield, to come and observe Whitefield’s “field preaching.” Whitefield had begun taking the gospel to those who couldn't or wouldn’t come to church, and outside a mine on the afternoon of April 1, 1739, Wesley watched as Whitefield preached to some 30,000 miners and their families. Wesley had never seen such a gathering! And he could not question the results, so listen to what happened, in his own words: “At four in the afternoon I submitted to ‘be more vile,’ and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to almost three thousand people.” Wesley had never spoken to 3,000 people at once before. In the days to come, he embraced this “new way” of reaching people, even though it was not what he was comfortable with, solely because it was apparent God was using it (Hamilton, Revival, pgs. 88-90). Paul did the same thing with his ministry to the Gentiles, and that brings me to the first question presented by Paul’s time in Corinth: what opportunities do we miss, either as individuals or as a church, to reach people for the Gospel because we’re so locked into the “way we’ve always done it”? Are we willing to try new things, new methods if it means we can reach new people for Jesus Christ? Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. How important is that, and what are we willing to do to accomplish it? John Wesley was willing to “become more vile,” and Paul was willing to reach to people that his own faith leadership considered unclean. Who are we called to reach? And what are we willing to do to reach them?

Paul’s motive in all of this becomes clear in his writing back to the church he established here. Paul and Corinth, quite honestly, didn’t always get along, and there appears to be more correspondence between the two than what we have in the New Testament. Most scholars think at least one letter, perhaps two, were lost. But what we do have shows a church divided over its leaders, over who is in charge, over who has the right gifts and abilities for ministry. There were quarrels taking place in the church, and I can’t help but wonder if some of the stress came from the Jewish/Gentile dynamic, from different groups wanting different things in the church. We do know that at least some of the stress came from people “swearing allegiance” to different leaders: Apollos, Paul, and even those who said, “Well, I just follow Christ.” And so Paul, in his first letter to them, walks through some of the issues that were plaguing them, things like marriage, lawsuits among believers, sexual immorality and even a case of incest. He talks about whether or not food sacrificed to an idol should be eaten (Paul is okay with it, but he says not to do it if it will cause someone else to question their faith). He gives instructions for what we know of as communion, and then he turns to the topic of spiritual gifts, probably the centerpiece of his writing to the Corinthians.

Now, what is a spiritual gift? Spiritual gifts are supernatural enablings that are given to every believer when they trust Christ, abilities that line up with what a person needs to fulfill the ministry God has given them (cf. Kinghorn, Gifts of the Spirit, pg. 20). This is not the same as the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is given to every believer once their give their life to Jesus. These are abilities that allow us to live out our faith in our own unique way. There are several inventories out there you can take to try to determine your spiritual gifts; every time I take one, I end up with the same answers. My gifts primarily lie in teaching, shepherding and administration, so I guess I’m pretty much in the place where I should be! But, to be honest, because I know how these inventories work, there is always the temptation to answer the questions less than honestly, to try to “get” a different result. I’m sure none of you ever do that on personality quizzes or such things, right? Sometimes it’s easy to wish you had the gifts someone else has, and that’s a struggle as old as time. It certainly was present when Paul was writing to Corinth. He has to remind them that no one person has all of the gifts. Rather, God gives one person these gifts and another person these gifts and so on. Paul says the gifts are given to individuals “for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7), not to make us stand out or to seem spectacular. They are given to us so that we can engage in ministry together. Paul puts it this way: “God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be” (12:18). In other words, this church—and every church—has all the gifts we need to be able to do the ministry God has called us to do. We just have to use the gifts we have been given rather than spending our time wishing we had someone else’s gifts.

At least some of that was going on in Corinth, and so in the middle of this discussion on spiritual gifts, which continues in chapter 14, Paul breaks out into a discussion of love. What we read this morning is very often read at weddings, but as I often remind brides and grooms, that’s not what Paul was talking about when he wrote this chapter. This is not an ode to romantic love. It’s much deeper than that, much more profound than that. Paul is getting to the heart of his motivation and what ought to be our motivation in everything we do. Why did he reach out to the Gentiles and build the church at Corinth? Why does he write to encourage them? Why should we follow his pattern of answering God’s call? It’s all because of love.

Our problem in English is that we have such a shallow understanding of the word. The Greek language, as many of you probably know, had four different words for “love,” whereas English only has one. So we use the word for so many things. We tell our spouse we love them and use the same word to describe a movie or a pizza. Is your love for that pepperoni slice the same as your love for your spouse, or your kids, or your parents? I certainly hope not! Real quick, four Greek words for love. Philos is brotherly love, friendship love, as in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. You would use that to describe a trusted confidant, someone you have deep affection for. Storge is the kind of love you have for your family; it’s also used to describe your love for your pet, which is appropriate, since they are family as well! Eros is erotic love, the love of a husband and a wife that has a sexual component. This type of love, by the way, is where Corinth had gotten rather confused and where we have as well. Corinth had a temple to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and it’s said that temple was served by a thousand temple prostitutes. In the ancient way of thinking, if you wanted good crops, for instance, you went to the temple and slept with the temple prostitute, enacting the ritual for good crops. And there were other rituals as well. It’s even said by Paul’s day, the temple prostitutes would come down from the mountain to the city to offer services (Hamilton, The Call, pg. 141). It was a confused culture, and not that much different from our own, where eros love has come to be understood as the highest value, the greatest love of all. But it’s not. The Bible—and Paul in this chapter—speaks of a greater, a higher and deeper, love. That kind of love is called agape.

In recent years, that word agape has made a comeback of sorts, thanks in large part to movements like the Walk to Emmaus, but even then, sometimes agape gets watered down to gifts or acts of kindness. Agape is far more than that. It is, first and foremost, the kind of love God has for us. That means it involves self-sacrifice, because that’s what God did for us. He came in the form of his son, Jesus, and willingly gave his life for the sake of each and every one of us. He demonstrated agape in many ways in his teaching, and even to the very end. As the Roman soldiers were nailing his hands to the cross, he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). He loved the criminals who were on the crosses next to him, offering one of them paradise. He welcomed Peter back into the fold even after his horrible betrayal, and I believe he would have done the same for Judas had Judas not chosen to take his own life. Agape is not a nice gift or a kind gesture. It’s the willingness to give whatever we have for the sake of the other because that’s the way God loves us. Paul described it this way: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own agape for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:7-8). Because of Jesus’ love for him, Paul was willing to give everything he had to reach others in his name and for his sake. Nothing Paul did was for his own glory; it was all for the sake of Jesus and the agape love that Jesus had poured out on him.

So Paul describes in vivid imagery what agape looks like, to try to spur these Corinthians on toward the real love Jesus has for them, and the kind of love they ought to be showing each other. Sometimes at weddings—and I do read this a lot at weddings—I ask the bridge and groom to put their names in the place of the word agape or love in this passage, because what Paul is really doing here is helping the Corinthians and us think about three things. First of all, how do we see this characteristic in Jesus himself? Second, how do we see it (or don’t see it) in ourselves? And third, what would the world be like if we did live this way? What if we lived out agape (Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians, pg. 174)? So, let’s do this together this morning. The words will be on the screen, and I’m going to ask you to read this passage aloud with me, inserting your own name in the blanks. It will be a little chaotic, but I want you to hear these verses as if Jesus is speaking them to you, as if this is who he wants you to become, because he does. So let’s read this together. “__________ is patient, __________ is kind. __________ does not dishonor others, __________ is not self-seeking, __________ is not easily angered, __________ keeps no record of wrongs. __________ does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. __________ always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. __________ never fails.”

Now, how do you feel about that? It’s easy to read it just as some abstract description of love, but at least for me, whenever I read it this way, I’m reminded again of how far I am from God’s best for me. Which of these do you struggle with the most? As I’ve spent the last couple of weeks wrestling with this text and thinking through these verses, so many events and incidents come to mind where I know I have not fulfilled God’s best toward others or for myself. But I think the place I’m wrestling most right now is where Paul says love always hopes. It’s a difficult world. I’ve been watching the debates and listening to the political speeches, and if I didn’t know who to vote for back in June when I preached about “How Would Jesus Vote,” I’m not any further in that decision-making process now, with less than a month to go until the election. It’s hard to find hope in the process we’re engaged in. I see some things in the church that really get me excited and then I hear some other things being said, and sometimes it’s hard to have hope. I watch the United Methodist Church struggle with issues that we’ve struggled with for over forty years, and wonder if this time, there will be any conclusion. There’s talk of schism in the air, and you wonder where all of that will lead. The word for “hope” also means to have confidence, and that’s in short supply in a rapidly-changing world, which is why Paul does not call us to have hope in this world, but in the one who is Lord of the world. I’m wondering—where do you struggle in this passage? Which characteristic of love do you find the most difficult to exhibit right now in your life?

In the midst of a changing world in Corinth, to people who aren’t sure what this whole Christian thing is all about, Paul tells them the goal, the strength, the only chance they can find, is love. You say that to our world today, and you’ll either get met with some sort of nice, schmaltzy greeting-card style of response, like “love is all you need,” or you’ll be laughed at. After all, love is a foolish thing to the world. The world revolves around power, being the best, being number one. Again, watch the elections. The question is who will have the power. Power is at the heart of the riots in cities around the country—who has it and who wants it. Love can’t change the world, can it? Paul believed otherwise, but he acknowledged that it’s a crazy way to think. He put it this way, early in his letter to the Corinthians: “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27). Instead of overcoming the darkness with the love of power, Jesus won by demonstrating the power of love, to his very last breath and beyond. His followers are called to do no less. We are to be the foolish ones who shame the wise, who demonstrate that agape love, not power, will ultimately win and conquer the world.

Father Jerzy was a pale, gaunt Catholic priest in Poland during the martial law of the early 1980’s, and rather than tow the party line, Father Jerzy often spoke out against the government. He reached out to those who were on the underside of life and held regular prayer times for change in Poland. He reminded his people, “Today more than ever there is a need for our light to shine, so that through us, through our deeds, through our choices, people can see the Father who is in Heaven.” In late 1984, after he had preached a sermon entitled, “Overcome Evil With Good,” Father Jerzy disappeared and later that same month it was announced that his body had been found in a nearby river. People were on their knees, crying and shouting, and then according to the reports, something incredible happened. They began to pray, over and over again, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.” On the day of Father Jerzy’s funeral, people marched in silence past the secret police headquarters carrying banners that read, “We forgive.” Father Jerzy had taught his people well, that ultimately love will overcome power and hate and the darkness and brokenness of this world—in fact, it’s the only thing that can (Colson, God and Government, iBooks edition, pgs. 354-357). How will you live that out? In what situation today do you need to allow agape love to overcome evil, injustice, brokenness? Repeat this passage to yourselves whenever you are in the midst of a challenge, and remember always that agape never fails. Even when we fail, God’s love never will.

Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, and, as I said, wrote back to them often. This church was important to him and to God, and he wanted them most of all to learn the foolish power of love. Because of the success of his ministry, Paul is arrested and brought before the proconsul, accused of “persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law” (Acts 18:13). The actual location of Gallio’s judgment hall has been uncovered; if you go to Corinth today, you can stand in the same place Paul would have stood while he was under judgment, in the shadow of the pagan temples—especially the Temple of Apollo, much of which still stands today. Paul isn’t given the chance to make a defense, because the ruler dismisses the case. Basically, he says, if it’s about religious law, he didn’t care. Any disputes like that were up to them and not his concern. But then the strangest thing happens, which many of the commentaries don’t even mention. The crowd turns their anger and violence on, not Paul, but Sosthenes, one of the synagogue leaders. They beat him while the proconsul looks on, bored. Why do they beat this man and not Paul? I suppose it’s similar to what has been happening in our cities these days. Anger has to be directed somewhere, and perhaps it was Sosthenes who brought the charges against Paul, so they blame him for not getting a conviction. We don’t really know, but we do know Paul is set free and allowed to continue to preach his Gospel there in Corinth before he finally returns home from this journey. In the midst of his travels, he has reminded all those he has preached to—and us—in a more profound way than the Beatles ever sang of that love really is all you need. Let’s pray.