Love Builds Community: I Corinthians 13

If you drive by the corner of Quince/Mt. Moriah during the morning or evening rush hour, on most days, who do you see? You see the minister of that church. He's usually standing out there with a big smile, waving at every car as they drive by, talking to passengers when the light is red. When the weather is hot, he hands bottles of cold water to passing cars from a cooler on the sidewalk. When the weather is cold, he's still out there with his smile. More often than not, he's wearing some type of silly hat, and if he gets the chance, he will invite you to his church that Sunday. To me and probably to most people, he is a fixture of our morning commute. He's been doing this for so long now and so consistently that I notice when he's NOT there. You might think that this guy standing there holding up traffic everyday would be annoying to the drivers, but I think that most drivers are like me and don't mind, or they actually enjoy seeing the smiling face. The other day I ran into the host of FOX 13's morning show, Valerie Calhoun. And when I say I ran into her... I literally ran into her... I hit her car with my car. While we were waiting on the police to show up, we had the chance to talk for a while and get to know each other. She was very nice. And if that situation isn't embarrassing enough, every third car was yelling at us, “Valerie, I love your show!” As we talked, she found out that I lived in the neighborhood, she asked me about the minister who stands on the corner every morning. She said that she had heard about him and they had talked about doing a segment on him at some point. He's getting a reputation. That guy stands out there every day at that intersection waiting on the chance to invite someone to church.

Compare that story with this story...

The other day, I was going through the intersection of Park/Getwell. As I pulled up to the red light, I noticed a woman standing on the corner. She was elderly, African-American, and small. Her clothes were old and worn, and she looked like she might have been homeless. She wore a very long denim shirt that was filled with carefully printed block letters written with a magic marker. But what really got my attention and what made me notice her was that she was carrying a megaphone and singing a song to whoever was listening in the passing cars. I rolled down my window (just a little) in curiosity and I could hear her singing about how Jesus can save. She was definitely not a professional singer but she had a nice enough voice, sort of joyful and sad at the same time. I was in no hurry and her singing was just as good as what was on K-love anyway, so I pulled over to sit in my car to listen to her. When I could read her shirt, the top line across her shoulders said “I know Jesus.” The rest of her shirt was covered, front and back, top to bottom, with lines about the power of God to save. At first glance, you'd probably think she was a nut. I did. Some crazy old lady out there on the corner singing with the megaphone. Still, I watched her and listened. But the longer I sat there in my car listening, maybe five or ten minutes, the more I didn't think she was crazy anymore. She wasn't acting crazy, she was just singing to the cars driving by. I began to wonder if my initial judgement of her was wrong. Maybe she has been through enough struggles in her life that she actually knows Jesus better than I could ever hope to. As I sat in my car listening and watching, I began to think that maybe it was true. Maybe she was spreading the good news in her own way, just like the preacher does during the morning drive time.

The moral of this story is that just because the preacher seems more normal that the elderly lady, doesn't mean that she's crazy and he's not. My point is that you can't always judge things by the way they look on the surface.

This concern for the way things look comes into play as we begin to look at I Corinthians 13. Up to this point, Paul has been telling the Corinthians that each spiritual gift plays just as important a role as the others. Just because one gift seems more important doesn't mean that it is. The spiritual gifts that seems on the surface to be most important are no more important than the gifts that go unseen and unnoticed. All gifts have their part to play. It seems that the Corinthian church had been placing more value on some gifts, with some members being elevated over others. Or elevating themselves over others. So its in this context of spiritual gifted people competing with each other that Paul begins this famous chapter of the Bible on love.

The Love Chapter

When we read this chapter what is the first thing we think of? Weddings? Paul writes an almost poetic section about the nature of true love here. It meets four important tests for wedding ceremonies: it’s from the Bible, it’s memorable, it’s about love, and, perhaps most important, it’s brief . We romanticize the chapter and apply it primarily to newly wed couples.

But to only think of it as a romantic love essay is to rip it from its context in I Corinthians. We should understand this chapter in the context of chapters 12-14. There was an intense church fight going on that was brought about by the arrogance of some members and it resulted in divisions in the congregation. So after Paul addresses the problem of spiritual gifts in chapter twelve, he gives an answer to the problems about the importance of gifts: the gifts must be used for the common good of the body. Then Paul brings the answer home in chapter 13: Gifts are absolutely no good if not accompanied by love.

Paul does not use the word “love” a lot in this letter outside of this chapter. He implies it on many occasions. And Paul does conclude the letter with the admonition to “Let all that you do be done in love” (16:14). But he focuses intensely on it in this chapter. He sets out some pretty strong guides for what love means and what real love looks like.

In our culture, love can mean a lot of different things. In the Bible there are different words that we translate 'love'. There may be some debate on the exact meaning of the words, but there are different ways to verbally express love. It unfortunate but we have one word that covers a broad spectrum. Love can mean anything from loving your mom to loving your dog to loving your neighbor to loving spicy food. So when someone today reads this chapter, they read it with their own definition of love.

What does love mean in our culture? How does our culture define love? As a sentimental romantic feeling. As unconditionally accepting and making no demands. As tolerant of all lifestyles and beliefs. As an emotion. How would you define the love as described by Paul?

The gifts that God provides are not an end. They are a means to loving the community of God. Of uplifting the church. There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of these gifts. They are all ways to encourage and build up the community. This is Paul's point. There's nothing wrong with speaking in tongues or prophesying. These are God-given gifts to help the community of faith. The only issue is with how the gifts are being used.

Fear and Faith

Author Robert Wilson wrote an article in Psychology Today called The Main Ingredient. In the article, Wilson discusses the idea that there's a relationship between power and fear. The correlation that he proposes is this: the more people are afraid, the more they try to gain power. The motivation for power is a desire to control our environment, so when we try to gain power or exert power, we are trying to control a situation ourselves.

Mr. Wilson's article was not written from a Christian perspective. It was written from a more sociological perspective, but I think there is some truth for believers in his statements.

For believers, God has all the power and control. Being a Christian is about submitting ourselves to God, giving up our own lives, and living under the power of God. Any of our attempts to control things ourselves are futile and pointless. As the psalmist said, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers build in vain.” Unless God is behind what we are doing, then we have no control or chance to succeed. The opposite of us giving up that power is fear. Just as Wilson discusses in his article, the fear that drives the desire for power and control is a lack of faith on our part. If we are afraid, we don't have faith in God's control. If our fear drives us to want power to control, then we are putting more faith in our selves than in God.

Nobel prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi (san sue key) wrote “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” Those who follow Jesus give up their desires for the power and control and fear that corrupt. Instead, they submit their own power to God.

In chapter 4, Mark tells a story that develops this connection between fear and faith.  The event occurs as Jesus and his disciples are going across the sea.

Jesus tells his disciples that its time for them to cross the sea, so they get Jesus into the boat and they are followed by several other boats.  Then the storm comes up. And this was a powerful storm.  Mark gives us details to reinforce that we know how powerful this storm was: “Great windstorm... beat the boat... boat was swamped.” The repetition of the description of the storm by mark is meant to emphasize its strength.  This was not a small storm, it was very strong.  The storm was so great that experienced sailors and fishermen thought they were going to die.

This was not the disciples first time in a boat, and most likely not their first time in a storm. Some of these men were experienced fishermen.  These men had probably spent a lot of time on boats, but this storm had them worried for their lives.  Yet Jesus slept through such a powerful storm. He had no fear.  How was Jesus able to sleep through a storm? I know that if a storm comes up during the night at my house, the rain or the lightning is probably going to wake me up.  But Jesus sleeps right in the middle of it. How was he not afraid? I'm not sure but maybe its because...

-Jesus knew that his time had not come, so he was not afraid of death.

-Jesus knew that he had power over nature.

What we know is that Jesus had enough faith that he was not afraid of the storms power to harm him.  Jesus then gets up and stills the storm.

One command from Jesus and everything immediately gets calm.  Jesus goes on to point out to the disciples that the reason they were afraid is that they have no faith.

In his questions, Jesus makes the connection between fear and faith. If the disciples had more faith, they would not have been afraid. Their fear is what reveals their lack of faith.

The shocking part of the story to me is that Jesus saves them and they are still afraid. They were afraid before when the storm was going on, but Mark says they were afraid after Jesus saves them. They've just come through this terrible, life-threatening storm, but they have someone on the boat who was capable to save them. You might think that it would be a cause for celebrating, the disciple would begin hugging and singing. Or that Jesus stopping the storm would be a cause for worship. But the gospel doesn't record them doing any of these things. They were afraid.

And this is not the first time that the disciples have witnessed Jesus do something miraculous. Just in the Gospel of Mark, since he called the disciples, Jesus has cast out a demon, healed Peter's mother-in-law, healed a whole town, healed a leper, healed a paralytic, and healed a withered hand. Something miraculous from Jesus should not be shocking.

But what we read is that the disciples are still afraid.

Not only are they afraid, they are no longer sure who Jesus is. They wonder “who is this man?” The identity of Jesus is a mystery to them.

Fear has no place in the life of a person of faith. Jesus makes this clear when he asks the disciples “Why are you afraid? Do you have no faith?” Rodney Plunkett has said many times in his sermons, “The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is fear.”

The more we believe that God is absolutely capable and qualified to manage his creation and to act in the best interest of His people, then the less we will have fear. The greater our faith, the less our fear. In his commentary on Mark, Alan Cole emphasizes this idea when he says: “Faith and fear are mutually exclusive in the Bible... No command is more often reiterated in the Bible than 'Do not fear.'” Fear keeps us from acting in faith and believing that we serve a God who takes care of us for his own glory.

There is a connection between understanding who Jesus is and faith. Its no coincidence that the disciple are lacking in faith AND they don't understand who Jesus is. If they had understood more, they would have trusted more and feared less. A correct understanding of God gives us a sense of the holy, a sense of reverence, but not a sense of fear. The disciples seem to have no idea about the identity of Jesus. They don't recognize the nature of God in the one they are following. If they had recognized the presence of God with them, they would have trusted in the goodness of God to care for them. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (I John 4:18)

Apsu and Tiamat are fresh water and ocean water gods of Babylon. In the Enuma Elish story, their actions are full of conflict and chaos. One of the lesser gods is given wind to play with, so he creates storms and tornados. Contrast that with the one true God, who rules over creation, who reigns the power of nature in, all to protect his people.

As powerful as this storm was, the power of Jesus was much more powerful. The power of Mt St. Helens is no match for the power of God. As we trust in that power to act in goodness, we have less fear and more faith.

Mother Antonia

Here's a link to an article by Richard Beck about Mother Antonia who passed away this year.

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-little-way-of-mother-antonia.html

When God Doesn't Answer...

I love hearing stories of answered prayers.  Its the combination of faith and God acting on behalf of His people that we find encouraging and faith building.  I once asked my friend Tony about a time when God answered a prayer and this is the story he told me.

Tony was a teenager and his grandfather was very sick.  It was late November and his grandfather was in the hospital dying.  Tony told me that Christmas was and is a very special time for his family.  Its when everyone came into town and celebrated together.  Tony loved this get-together and so did his grandfather.  So Tony prayed everyday that they could have just one more Christmas together with his grandfather and that his grandfather could enjoy his family just one more time.  He prayed for this like nothing he'd ever prayed before.  The day before Christmas his grandfather passed away.  Tony said that the answer to the prayer made no sense to him.  How could this be the best thing?  A good thing for anyone?  But Tony said that although he didn't understand, he still believed that God must have had a purpose for not answering his prayer.

We've all experienced something like this.  You want something so bad that you pray for it with your whole heart.  You see the good in it.  You pray for it so often that its always running through your mind.  But when it comes down to it, God doesn't answer.

And people tell you all the cliches:
"Sometimes His answer is just no"
"God operates on a different time schedule than we do"
"God sees the bigger picture"

There's truth in all these things, but in spite of the intellectual understanding, we still wonder  why God acts the way He does.  Why does He sometimes not respond the way that it seems like He should?

The psalmist struggled with these same thoughts.  There's a reason that believers through the centuries have used the psalms to learn how to pray.  The psalm writers often struggled with God's responses to their prayers.

Psalm 43:2 - Here's a guy whose being put down by some bad people.
I counted on you, God. Why did you walk out on me?  Why am I pacing the floor, wringing my hands over these outrageous people??

Psalm 60:1 - Here is one where God did not give a victory?
God! You walked off and left us kicked our defenses to bits and stalked off angry.
Come back, O please, come back!

Psalm 74:20-22 - Here's one who doesn't understand why God would let evil get so strong.
Remember Your promises, the city is in darkness, the countryside violent.
Don't leave the victims to rot in the street,
Make them a chorus to sing your praises.
On Your feet, O God. Stand up for Yourself!

And Psalm 77 - Here the writer is suffering and feels completely abandoned by God.
Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good?
Will He never smile on us again?
Is His love worn threadbare?
Has His salvation promise burned out?
Has God forgotten His manners?
Has He stalked off and left us?
"Just my luck," I said. "The God Most High goes out of business just the moment I need Him."

The psalmists are writing honestly about their experience of God.  They aren't writing their systematic theology about the nature of God. They are asking, "Where are You?"  Their situation has them wondering why God isn't helping.  They had every expectation that God would come to pick them up, but its not happening.  

And you can almost feel the suffering in their writing.  You can sense the begging, the attempts to manipulate God, the sarcasm.  These psalms of lament are not written to be pretty.  But  they are truthful expressions of faith.  Expressing the same faith that we have.

In Elie Wiesel's Night, he tells the story of him and his father living through the Nazi Holocaust. Wiesel was about 15 to 16 years old when the Nazi's came to his town and started separating out the Jews and carrying them away to concentration camps.  Wiesel and his father both spent time in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, two of the most notorious and deadly places during the Holocaust.  When he first saw the bodies being burned at Auschwitz, he heard someone praying and he thought, "Why should I sanctify His name?  The Almighty has chosen to be silent.  What was there to thank Him for?"

After weeks of being barely fed, worked to death, watching executions, and suffering beatings, Wiesel heard a man say, "God is not with us.  I know.  No one has a right to say things like that.  But what can I do?  I suffer hell in my flesh and bones.  I have eyes and I see what's being done. How can anyone believe in this God of Mercy?"

Back to the Psalmists, these psalms of lament, of crying out for God to respond, end in different ways.  Sometimes they end with no resolution.  Sometimes they decide to just wait on God.  Sometimes they say, "God, please give me story of your greatness that I can tell other people."  Sometimes they end with the story of how God finally responded.

And sometimes they end like Psalm 77.  He has begged for God to help him and has started to wonder if God has just left him completely.  Then the psalm turns.  The psalmist decides to think about what God has done.

I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord.
I will remember Your wonders of old.
I will meditate on all Your work
And muse on Your mighty deeds.

With Your strong arm You redeemed Your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

You led Your people like a flock
By the hand of Moses and Aaron.

What the psalmist does is this: he remembers that God has saved him before.  God has done great things before, and He can do it again. God has been faithful to Israel before and He will again.  God chose Israel and God saved them from Egypt.

Here's a couple of things I think we can take from the psalmists.  One is be honest with God.  Don't pretend or try to fake it with Him. Give God a chance to change you.
Two is remember what God has done before.  Remember all the times that He has responded to you in the past.  The times when He has been there for you.  And mostly, remember what He did for us on the cross.  At the cross, God proved Himself to us for all time.  We know that God was there for us when we needed Him most.  Jesus took care of our greatest need, even if we didn't know it.   Because of that moment when God was there 2000 years ago, we are confident that God is on our side even when we don't feel it.  When I look back over my life, God has always been faithful to me.  On any given day, we may not experience the presence of God.  But because God has been with us before, we know that He will again.

How Is God Different

My daughter asked me how Christianity is different from the god of Islam.  They've been studying Islam in school, and according to her textbook, the god of Islam isn't that much different than the God of Christianity.  She said that Islam believes in doing good, that they believe in only one God, and that they don't believe in idols.

The difference is obviously Jesus.  But more than that, its what each religion believes that God is like.  Most religions have a god that is all-knowing, all-powerful, and even loving toward mankind.  Christianity believes in a God who is not only powerful and knowing, but also willing to die for His people.  God exemplifies the same humility that He expects from humankind. (Phil. 2)  The cross is more than an action. The death of Jesus reveals the true nature of God, a God who is willing to undergo humiliation and suffering for the sake of reconciliation.  

In the same spirit, God aligns Himself with the humble among us.  He has a special attachment to the weakest of us.  The poor, the widow, the orphan... the powerless by human standards.  The humility of our God is what makes Him different.

Psalm 113

Who is like the Lord our God,
    the One who sits enthroned on high,
⁶ who stoops down to look
    on the heavens and the earth?

⁷ He raises the poor from the dust
    and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
⁸ he seats them with princes,
    with the princes of his people.
⁹ He settles the childless woman in her home
    as a happy mother of children.

Free the Prisoners

Psalm 146
He is the Maker of heaven and earth,
    the sea, and everything in them—
    he remains faithful forever.
⁷ He upholds the cause of the oppressed
    and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free,
⁸     the Lord gives sight to the blind,
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
    the Lord loves the righteous.
⁹ The Lord watches over the foreigner
    and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
    but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

I've been thinking about this passage and those with similar sentiments since the passing of Nelson Mandela.  When many people consider prisoners being freed, Mandela is the archetype.  The murderers, drug dealers, or violent criminals that fill our prisons here in the U.S. do not get our consideration for God's salvation and with good reason.  These criminals who prey on the weak haven't earned any sympathy or good will from God or His people.  However, there are convicted criminals serving sentences who may be seen as victims: victims of abusive families, victims of a system that excessively punishes those without resources, victims of laws that offer more protection for the powerful than the weak.  I know that this is a somewhat political issue but I'm not interested in the politics of the discussion.   I'm only concerned with the theological implications of the passages.  What does this passage and others say about God and His concerns?  Psalm 146 reminds us that God frees prisoners.  Is it really only the Mandela's that God frees?  Is God concerned only with those who have been treated unjustly?

Consider Psalm 107:

¹⁰ Some sat in darkness, in utter darkness,
    prisoners suffering in iron chains,
¹¹ because they rebelled against God’s commands
    and despised the plans of the Most High.
¹² So he subjected them to bitter labor;
    they stumbled, and there was no one to help.
¹³ Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he saved them from their distress.
¹⁴ He brought them out of darkness, the utter darkness,
    and broke away their chains.
¹⁵ Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
    and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
¹⁶ for he breaks down gates of bronze
    and cuts through bars of iron.

The prisoners are broken out by God.  But these people are clearly incarcerated because of their own doings.  They don't merit any sympathy from us because they have rightfully earned their prison sentences.  Yet God still frees them because of His faithfulness.  They call on Him for rescue, and He delivers.

If God shows concern for the prisoners whether they are justified or not, what does that mean for us?

Should we work to free prisoners who are remorseful over their guilt?

Should we show concern for the poor even if their poverty is by their own doing?

Too often we don't but clearly there at least some instances where followers of Jesus should be doing these very things.

God Will Provide

Idolatry is about having areas of your life in which you don't trust God.  If you don't trust God for your financial security, then money is your idol.  If you don't trust God with your relationship, then you make the relationship an idol. Career, family, health... endless places in our lives where we believe that we need something besides God.  

Psalm 103 reminds the reader of what God is capable of doing for His people:

^1 2 Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—
³ who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
⁴ who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
⁵ who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Forgiveness, health, life, love... These are things we all want.  And they are all areas of life that we have resist the urge to attempt control.  We can't control them though.  Pray for God to lead and for us to follow. Don't trust in your yourself, but believe that God can provide. Jehovah Jireh.