Build up the church in love

21/28 October                    1 Corinthians 14

This sermon begins with reading a couple of verses from the chapter in a language that I am able to read, but that I know isn't spoken by anyone present in the room - in this case, Welsh.

Did that edify you? Did you feel better for hearing those words that you didn’t understand? It made me feel good! Well, actually, it didn’t, because I wasn’t communicating with you. The words were meaningful, and as it happens I know exactly what I said, which is not the case when I normally speak in tongues – I wasn’t using the gift of tongues then, I was teasing you, speaking Welsh. And it wasn’t good for you or for me, and would only have been good had there been a Welsh speaker here to understand the words.

The reason I did it was, of course, to underline Paul’s point about speaking in tongues. Using that gift in private, to grow closer to God, is really wonderful, and I can strongly commend it to you. But in public it is no more helpful than those words of Welsh were, unless there is a way to translate it. My speaking it in this way is basically selfish. And that’s not how the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives us are to be used. Whatever gifts we have, they are of proper value when they build up the whole church. That’s not to say we should only use our gifts for the whole church – we must work at growing closer to God as individual disciples in prayer, Bible knowledge and in the way we live. But in church we must use our gifts to build up the whole church.

Paul tells us that this works by starting with the rule of life that underlies all Christian life. He calls this rule the ‘way of love’ and describes it in chapter 13.4-7: Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13.4-7 NRSV). This is the way of life that each of us should strive for. In chapter 14.1 Paul writes: ‘Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy’.

This way of life is a privileged one, but it is not a reserved one. Some people think that only those of us who are ordained need to live this way, or to have spiritual gifts, and especially to have the gift of prophecy. But Paul wasn’t writing to a group of clergy. He was writing to a whole church. All Christians, he suggests, should live according to the rule of love, and ask God to give them spiritual gifts, whether of teaching, hospitality, tongues, apostleship, healing, wise discernment – or prophecy. The point of prophecy, he reminds us, is that it builds up the church. Used properly, prophecy speaks into the present moment, speaking God’s word into what is happening right here, right now. Prophecy can bring comfort and encouragement. It strengthens and affirms. Sometimes it challenges and disturbs too, and seeks to change the status quo, but only ever for the building up of the church.

Being a prophetic voice is not easy. People don’t like prophets when they challenge or disturb. If a prophetic voice seeks to change the way that things have always been done it must of course be tested. But so often across time prophets have been shouted down or shouted at for speaking uncomfortable truths. We take some of those truths for granted now: that we should read the Bible in our own language, for example, that we should update our liturgies, or that the priest should not turn his back on the congregation – or that the priest might be turning her back. Or more locally, it can’t have been pleasant to be the person who first said ‘we’ll have to close the church in Horton’, for example. Perhaps that’s why so many people shy away from asking God for the gift, or look to the clergy to be the ones who exercise it. The clergy are so much easier to blame. But its not what Paul said. All of us are to ask for the gifts and to use them out of the basis of the way of love. Lovingly building up the church.

It’s challenging, especially when community demands clash with the needs of the church. We have to measure our actions against scripture, look at what Jesus taught and ask ourselves how community demands and the good of the church come together. Sometimes they don’t. Paul tells us that we have to think like adults in this, while acting like children when it comes to evil – in other words, to learn and apply our learning when it comes to the way of love, and to stay well away from learning about evil. Unless it is part of our working lives – as police officers or social workers, we should keep away from it. And thus we must pray extra hard for Christians who do have to deal with evil as part of their work. Jesus tells us to be ‘wise as serpents and innocent as doves’ (Matt. 10.16). In the affairs of the church, we must exercise adult wisdom. Millennials sometimes talk about ‘adulting’. Intentionally being responsible, thinking about it properly. Adulting should be loving and unselfish, looking to build up ourselves and others, not to indulge ourselves at the expense of others. So let’s do adulting when it comes to living in love and using the gifts that God gives us to make our church stronger and more encouraging. Let’s do adulting when we try to be men and women of prayer and of scriptural confidence. Let’s do adulting when supporting each other and seeking what is best for the church. Let’s do adulting when we look at the Bible to see what God actually wants us to do for the community around us, and then use our spiritual gifts – most especially the gift of love – there too.

Stronger than a city wall

7/14 October                    1 Corinthians 13

I wonder what St Paul would think if he knew that the main occasion for listening to and preaching on his great hymn to love was at weddings. Perhaps he’d be happy, but I suspect that he’d be concerned at taking the passage out of context. Standing alone and treated as a reflection on the love between two people, however lovely the chapter is, it misses the point. In the letter, chapters 12 to 14 are one argument. Paul is writing about the use of spiritual gifts in the Corinthian church. He’d been told that the some people were using spiritual gifts to make themselves look and feel powerful or important within the church, and in particular the gift of tongues was being seen as a sign of superior faith, and effectively excluding others from worship and a sense of belonging. Spiritual gifts, Paul wrote are given to build up the whole church. We are given them not for our own benefit but for service to others. And the greatest gift of all is the one that enables all the other gifts to be used in service. Love.

If you love, and you use your gifts in the spirit of love, then your gifts, whatever they are, will help others and make an impact. But if your starting point is not love, then any other gift is a waste of time. Prophetic words become background noise, the gift of tongues an annoying jangle, because the gifts are not benefiting others if they are not used out of a base of love.

To make sure that the Corinthians understood the point, Paul set out a description of what love is like. Now, since we have one overused word for love in English, and Paul had a choice of words in Greek, we should understand that the great gift underlying all things is αγαπε (agape). This is a strong word. It doesn’t describe romantic love or the relationship between two people (that is ερως – a word that does not appear in the Bible), although of course two people might have a relationship defined by αγαπε. The Greek concept of αγαπε is of a powerful unconditional love, and refers to the love that God has for humanity. It would be the closest word Paul could find to parallel the Hebrew concept of אַהֲבָה  ‘Ahava’ comes from the Hebrew verb ‘hav’ – to give. It demonstrates the character of a love which is about giving, not receiving. It is not a passive love. Ahava requires action, making a choice to behave towards others in a generous way. When Jesus said: ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another’ (John 13.35 NIV), he didn’t mean that the disciples felt nice about each other, but that they actively worked for each other’s wellbeing, seeking good for each other, serving each other– using their God-given gifts for each other’s benefit. This is ahava and it is what Paul looks for as he uses the nearest Greek equivalent. We’ll see the point again in the verse that almost sums up the whole letter, 1 Corinthians 16.14: ‘Let all that you do be done in love’ (NRSV).

Paul knew that it wasn’t enough to tell the Corinthians to love. He spelled out what love looks like, and what their behaviour towards each other should therefore look like: Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13.4-7 NRSV) So the question we ask ourselves is, does this describe us? Could we replace the word αγαπε (love) with the name of our church community, and see a true description of who we are and how we behave towards one another?

The real challenge is when we look to the source of all love, to God, to see what love looks like in action. We see God’s love in action through Jesus Christ. Which means that as we look at Christ’s example we learn that love is the wisdom of the cross. ‘We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another’ (1 John 3.16 NRSV). Love, according to the wisdom of the cross, gives until it hurts, and then keeps on giving.

That’s a far cry from the behaviour of the Corinthians, showing off their gifts in front of each other, failing to share their food at the Lord’s supper and railing at Paul for pointing out their failings.

Paul calls love an ‘excellent way’ (1 Corinthians 12.31). And it should be exactly that. A way of life. 1 Corinthians 13.4-7 could be taken as a rule of life, a discipline. When we catch ourselves behaving towards others in a way that is outside that rule, we need to stop, and ask the help of the Holy Spirit to live out the gift of love in the generous and courageous way that Paul suggests. Looking at Paul’s description of love and thinking that it would be nice to be like that, or sighing and saying, ‘yes, but I’m not a naturally patient person, so…’ – well that sort of attitude isn’t good enough for Paul, and so it shouldn’t be good enough for any of us.

St John Chrysostom, writing about this chapter, said: ‘Love is stronger than a city wall; it is harder than steel. And even if you should think of some material stronger than these, love’s strength exceeds them all’. That strength of love comes from its source, God, who is love and whose love undergirds all things. If we live by a rule of active, not passive, αγαπε love, then we will be protected by that strength, and we will become sources of strength for others in our own right.

When I preach on this passage at a wedding, I want this kind of giving, active, sacrificial love to be the underlying strength that binds the two people in front of me. Perhaps it is easier to preach that message to them if what they see in the church they are standing in is a building full of people who live out God’s love for one another. A building full of people rich in the gifts of the spirit, and using them to benefit one another, because we are living out Jesus’ command: ‘Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another’ (John 13.34-35 NIV).

Rivers of living water

1 Corinthians 12

Living Brook benefice takes its name from two important ideas. It comes from a brook – or a collection of connected brooks – that are the only shared geographical feature between our parishes. It winds between the villages, finally emptying into the Nene in Hardingstone. But that inspires a more important connection. Living Brook reminds us of the living water that Jesus offers a Samaritan woman in John 4, and of the image of water representing the holy spirit which runs through the whole of scripture. Think of the water flowing from the rock in the wilderness, or the promise of water to bring life to the desert. The river Jordan, divided by God to allow Joshua to lead his people into the promised land, became the place of baptism for John, the water representing the life that comes to us when we receive the spirit: life in all its fullness (John 10.10). Jesus said that ‘out if the of believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’ (John7.38). John explains (John 7.39) that this water is a reference to the Holy Spirit, and to what would come after the day of Pentecost. Today, the waters of baptism continue to signify that life given by the spirit to the baptised, and offered, through every baptised person, to the rest of the world. That abundant life is more than we need. It flows from us to others, being shared with the rest of the church and flowing from the church to those beyond the church who are thirsty and need to drink.

We plunge into the depths of the spirit in baptism, and on other occasions when the spirit moves in power. But daily we return to the Holy Spirit as we pray, as we share in communion, as we read the bible or other spiritual books with hearts listening to God. St Paul says that we are all one body and we are all made to drink of one Spirit – and we drink daily, and receive, and share, daily.

That daily renewal is important. Recently, I led a quiet day in Piddington church. During the morning, I went for a walk in one direction from the church and passed a place where I often stop to look at the brook and to reflect on Living Brook. It is a place where usually the brook is wide, and runs fairly rapidly. It can be quite impressive there. But on that day there was no water at all. That’s hardly surprising, given the very dry summer that we’ve had. It reminded me that the same can be true in a Christian community too. The living water can stop flowing out of the mouths of believers, if the believers start to take God for granted; if the believers stop regularly asking the holy spirit to come. We each need to be praying, every day, for the Holy Spirit to be with us. If we don’t ask the spirit to come, we might find that the brook begins to dry up, and we find ourselves thirsty, and unable to properly support each other. The brook might run dry because instead of concentrating on living as God would have us live, in love and unity, we have allowed ourselves to be distracted by our own concerns. We come to church thinking about the state of the building, or whether we are personally receiving enough attention, or whether that person we don’t get on with is going to be there and spoil the morning for us. We forget that we are one body, and that as one body we are more than a group of humans, but the body of Christ. We look at ourselves, and at each other, but don’t look hard enough at Jesus, and when that happens, the brook can run dry. We were all made to drink of one Spirit, without any difference of rank or status or race or anything else. And we must do what we were made to do. So every day, pray ‘come, Holy Spirit. Come, Holy Spirit.’

Later in the day I went for another walk in a different direction, and came across another branch of the stream. I heard it before I saw it – indeed I didn’t see it at all, because the water I could hear was running too far below the level of the path, and was shielded from sight by many lovely waterside plants. Although I couldn’t see the water, the signs of its presence were many and lovely. After the experience of the morning, I thanked God gratefully for showing me another picture of Living Brook – not just quietly sitting, but flowing noisily and bringing life and colour, through the power of the holy spirit.

And when we are full of the life of the spirit, that life flowing from us to others can be seen, not in colourful plant life – unless your spiritual gift is flower arranging or plantsmanship – but through the spiritual gifts. What we need to remember about those gifts is that they are not for us as individuals. The gifts of the spirit are given for all to share – for service to the church and to those who are thirsty. This means that I can benefit from the gift of hospitality, or of helping, or of organising events, even though I may not have those gifts myself. Because those people who do have them use them for the benefit of all. And I should use the gifts I have for the benefit of all.

Paul went to some trouble to emphasise this through the way he took a popular analogy of people coming together as a body, and changed it to remind people that the body is not about a hierarchy or status (which was how the image was used in classical teaching) but that everyone is valued and important. He had heard reports that in Corinth gifts were being used to benefit people personally, sometimes at the detriment of the whole church. The fashionable gift was speaking in tongues, and that was especially problematic, because unless there is someone to interpret, the only beneficiary of tongues is the speaker. Everyone else is left wondering what is going on. There’s nothing wrong with the gift of tongues, but like any gift it is only valuable in so far as it benefits everyone, the whole church. So Paul wanted the Corinthians to think more widely about what gifts they asked God for, and to value more gifts. And he wanted the Corinthians to always use their gifts in the context of prioritising love for one another. Having a gift is all very well, but if you don’t love one another, and you don’t use your gifts to benefit one another, then you my as well not have them. Our gifts must be used to build up the church, to benefit the whole.

Paul gave lists of gifts, and never gave the same list twice. He didn’t want people to think that his lists were definitive. We sometimes behave as though they are – that unless something is on one of Paul’s lists, it isn’t a gift. I don’t think Paul saw it that way. He gave examples, trying to be relevant to those receiving his letters, but he wasn’t seeking to limit the holy spirit. There are gifts that are obviously and always gifts of the spirit – prophecy is the obvious example, and is the only example that always appeared in Paul’s lists. Paul did think some gifts more important than others – again, he valued prophecy above all other gifts. But that should not devalue the other gifts. The risk of thinking some gifts greater than others is that a church community can assume that if you have a ‘greater gift’ you are more important than the other members, or that you must be in a position of status in order to have that gift. ‘I never went to Oxford or Cambridge, I’m not a senior cleric’; ‘I’m not the vicar, I didn’t go to university’… ‘so I can’t have a gift like prophecy’. That’s not true, and Paul wants us to get away from that idea. Every one of us, Jew or Greek, slave or free, drinks of the Holy Spirit, he says. Every one of us can be equally blessed by any gift of the spirit. We just have to ask. Come Holy Spirit. Please give me the gift of… whatever gift you would like the Spirit to bless you with. Please bless me with the gift of prophecy. Why not? Whoever I am, whatever my role in church, Paul tells us to ask for the greater gifts. We need the lesser ones too.

The greatest gift of all, the one we must ask for, every single one of us, no matter what else we ask of God, is love. Without love, the church ceases to be one, united body. Without love we stop reflecting God, who is one, spirit, Lord and God. Without love, anything else we do stops reflecting God and only reflects ourselves. Without love, the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit, the brook dries up and becomes as unpleasant and full of rubbish as the stream bed that saddened me on my morning walk. So let us ask the Holy Spirit to pour into us life and love, and whatever other gifts that we need. Let us ask the holy spirit to unite us as one church. And when we do, listen out for the living water that flows from our hearts to bring that life and love to all.