THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY
Quinquagesima Sunday
14 February, AD 2010
TEXT: I Corinthians 13
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
“And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13:13)
I want to begin this morning by wishing you and your loved ones a very happy St. Valentine’s Day. It was not my intent to preach about Cupid with his arrows of love or the accompanying hearts and flowers that have made Hallmark Cards one of the largest and most profitable greeting card companies in the US, but the Holy Spirit wanted to use this occasion to speak to you, through me, about a more excellent kind of love, that same love which St. Paul strove to get the Corinthians to embrace – the Love of God.
To be sure, the Corinthians were a mixed bag of Christians. They were the personification of Our Lord’s parable of the types of soils that we heard in last week’s Gospel. Among the many subjects of which St. Paul addresses to the Corinthians is their disorderly conduct in their worship services. The gift of tongues was evident in the early Church, especially in Corinth. The Corinthians thought that speaking in tongues was the greatest of all spiritual gifts because it was the first one that the Apostles received all the way back on the Day of Pentecost. However, as that gift progressed in the Corinthian Church, it seems to have degraded into something of a personal aggrandizement of its practitioners instead of for the edifying of the greater Church. At the end of Chapter 12, St. Paul exhorts the Corinthians to eagerly desire the greater spiritual gifts and says, “And now I will show unto you a more excellent way.” He then lays before them, in Chapter 13, what is the more excellent way – the Love of God.
In the three sections of Chapter 13, St. Paul reveals to the Corinthians the Law of Love, The Nature of Love, and the Future of Love. Before we delve into that, thought, we have to understand the kind of Love of which St. Paul is speaking. Of the many Greek words for love there are three primary ones. Eros, or erotic love, the kind of love St. Valentine’s Day and our society embraces so freely, was certainly known by the Corinthians. It is most closely related to lust. This is not the love St. Paul wants to hold up before the Corinthians as the more excellent way. Neither is filial, dutiful, or brotherly love that is evident in the name “Philadelphia”, the city of brotherly love. The love of which St. Paul speaks is God’s Love or Agape love – that self-sacrificing kind of love that gives itself totally to its object. Don’t misunderstand – it is not being a door-mat such that people take advantage of you, but a Love that wants the very best for the other person. Even correction, reproof, and admonishment all stem out of God’s Love for His people. Before Jesus and His message, however, this kind of Love was not known. In fact, the word “agape” was not found in the Greek language until after the New Testament began to be written. This is the kind of Love that St. Paul admonishes the Corinthian Church to embrace which is the more excellent way.
He does so by telling them in the first three verses of Chapter 13 that even if he were able to speak in the many languages of mankind and the tongues of angels, and even if he had prophetic powers with all sorts of understanding, and had faith enough to make mountains move, and even if he gave away all that he had to feed the poor, or gave his body as a martyr for the Faith, if he didn’t base all of those actions out of Love, it would mean nothing. This, he tells them, is the basis of all Christian motivation and as such, it is the greatest of all spiritual gifts. This is the Law of Love.
In the next section he explains what the nature of agape love is by showing them the manifestations of its characteristics; how true love is patient, kind, not jealous or boastful. It isn’t arrogant or rude, doesn’t insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful. It doesn’t rejoice when someone falls into trouble or does wrong, but instead, rejoices in what is right. Agape love bears all things, believes all things through faith, hopes all things, and endures all things. We learn from the writings of the Church Fathers many things in particular about Love from this section of I Corinthians. For instance, as St. Augustine said, Love is not puffed up because where puffing up precedes, envy follows, because pride is the mother of envy. St. Chrysostom tells us, Love helps us to remove vice because real agape love elicits virtue within one’s soul. Love also helps us all to rejoice in what is right and to cast off sullenness as St. Basil taught, “Cast off the sullenness of an angry man which you are evincing by your silence, and by Love regain joy in your heart, and peace towards your brothers and sisters.” Finally, and probably most importantly, as Love bears all things, it casts out fear for there is no longer any room for fear to be present. This truth is reflected most clearly in the First Epistle General of St. John, chapter 4, verse 18, which reads, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear . . .” These are some of the characteristics of Love that St. Paul exhorts the Corinthians to reflect as they live as Christians in this world. But what of the next life? To that St. Paul turns in his last section of Chapter 13.
We could call this section the Future of Love, because what will Love look like when Christ comes again or at the end-times? St. Paul begins by saying that Love never fails and is unchanging, just like God – the same yesterday, today, and forever. Tongues, on the other hand will cease, knowledge will fall away, but through it all Love endures. We exist here and see now through a mirror darkly, writes St. Paul. What we shall be has not come to fruition yet. As St. Chrysostom tells us, “Then we shall know as we are known.” Even faith and hope shall cease when the things believed in and hoped for shall appear, for then we will stand face to face with God, who is Love, Himself, and will share in His perspective and His Love most fully.
So how do St. Paul’s words influence us today? What can we learn about God’s Love, especially as we embark upon our Lenten journey? How do faith and hope also serve us during this time? It is clear that all three of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love are the tools which are at our disposal as we venture forth with Jesus. The key is to use them! As Massey Shepherd writes in his Commentary on the Prayer Book, “Every Lenten season of spiritual exercises and discipline should draw us nearer an unfeigned love toward God, motivating and sustaining all our thoughts and actions.” It is the goal of Lent that we, like the Corinthians, be led toward the more excellent way of God’s Love and that His Love permeate every crevasse of our soul and being so that we can come more fully into the image and likeness of God and be transformed into the person God created us to be in order to live with Him eternally in the Life that is to come. To do that, to begin that process, we must base every aspect of our lives, as far as we are able, on God’s Love and nothing else for Love is the essence of God. Our Faith is the foundation and content of God’s message. Hope is our attitude and focus, but Love is the action. As St. John tells us, “Herein is Love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning Sacrifice for our sins. Therefore, beloved, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another, for if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”I St. John 4:10-12 This is the more excellent way to which we are called as God’s children. So now abideth faith, hope, Love, these three; but the greatest of these and the more excellent way is Love. Let us pray.
O God, Who dost infuse the gifts of Love into the hearts of the faithful through the Grace of Thy Holy Ghost: grant unto Thy servants, both men and women, for whom we pray unto Thy mercy, health of body and soul, that they may love Thee with all their power and perform with all love the things that may be pleasing to Thee; through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
And now, unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might, majesty, power, and dominion as is most justly due Thy Holy Name both now and forevermore; world without end. Amen.
SOLI DEO GLORIA – JEU+