Epiphany 4C

4th Sunday of Epiphany, Year C

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Has there ever been a time in our society that had more conflict in it? I ask that with genuine curiosity. I’ve heard lots of comparisons between the last 2 years and the civil unrest in the 1960s…but I wasn’t there. Was it as bad then as it is now? Of course, I don’t mean here in Hickory. We’re fairly isolated from the worst of it…but there were hints of the riots of 2020 on our streets and in neighboring towns.

But we have a new community where we experience conflict, don’t we? The generic term, of course, is social media, but most of us probably only use one platform: Facebook. It’s certainly not the only one out there, but it’s probably most responsible for the growth of that industry and for creating such a thing as a “virtual community”.

I don’t think any social media platform is - on its own merits - either good or bad. They are merely tools, and like all tools, they have no innate morality. It’s all in how they’re used. We’ve tried to make use of it to help spread the Gospel in our church family and beyond, and other churches have done the same. But social media has become a place for raw conflict.

As politics have become the dominant topic of conversation in the last few years, social media has become a place where everything is political. You can post a picture of a nice hamburger you’ve just enjoyed, and you’ll get attacked by a vegan for daring to consume animal flesh. You can post a song by your favorite 1970s band, and someone will criticize you because the lead singer once had a DUI and by supporting this song, you’re not being critical enough of driving under the influence. I could go on and on with examples, but I’m sure you’ve encountered this. It’s as though people are just looking for a fight.

Of course, in the words of boxing champion Mike Tyson: “Social media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.” [https://dangerousintersection.org/2020/11/20/mike-tyson-on-social-media-discord/] I’m not advocating violence at all here…but I agree with Iron Mike - a lot of the nasty things people say on social media when they get into arguments, they’d never say in person, for the exact reason he stated.

In the last 5 or 6 years, have any of you lost friends because of something said on social media? Or have you, like me, just clicked “unfriend” or “unfollow” so you don’t have to hear that person ever again? Yeah, those 2 buttons are a passive-aggressive’s dream come true. The other people don’t ever know that you’ve cut them out of your social media life, unless you tell them. And yes, I’ve squelched a few people in the last few years. I’m not exactly proud of it, but I’ve done it.

For some I know, they haven’t lost friends, but they stop saying anything on social media. Or, they just give it up altogether. I’ve had friends just leave Facebook after more than 10 years, and they were regular users. It was how we kept in touch. Gone.

So what does all this have to do with today’s lessons? Well, Paul’s letter, frankly. When most of us read “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast...” I’m willing to bet that immediately our minds go to a wedding ceremony, right? And why not? St. Paul’s description of what love is - and what love is not - is certainly instructional for two people who want to spend the rest of their lives together. It’s a good text for that.

Unfortunately, that’s not why Paul wrote it. It really didn’t have anything to do with couples or with marriage. Paul was talking about conflict in community. Specifically, he was addressing conflict within the church - the church he started in Corinth. You see, certain people in the church were enjoying a spiritual gift that others didn’t have (speaking in tongues), and because of that, they believed they were better than those who didn’t have that gift. And it was taking that group of new Christians pretty far off the path that Christ (through Paul) had set them on.

So, in the chapters before this, Paul was explaining spiritual gifts, and how none are superior to the others, except for the gift of Apostleship - which Paul was the last to receive. After that, all the other gifts are not only equal to each other in importance, but they are designed to complement each other within the community. They are MEANT to work together for the good of the community.

And that’s where today’s reading picks up. They’re looking at their gifts all wrong, and Paul is going to show them “a still more excellent way.” Here now he proceeds to demonstrate how these gifts are all basically worthless if they are not motivated by love. Recall that while in English we have the word “love”, the Greek language has multiple words for it. Here, Paul is describing agape - which is the Christ-like, self-emptying, perfect love. THAT is the kind of love that must motivate and drive the use of spiritual gifts among Christians.

As he moves into verse 4, Paul starts to give us something other than a definition. Instead, he gives us a description of how love behaves…and also how it does not behave. We all know what these words mean individually. The vocabulary is not difficult. But think of this as the bar on a high-jump pit. With every adjective, the bar moves up a notch. By the time we get to the end - do you think you can still clear that bar? Because if you miss just one, you knock the bar down. Read it again with me:

Love is patient and kind;

Love does not envy or boast;

it is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

So…how far down the list did you make it before you hit the bar? In other words, as you’ve been conducting yourself in Christian love in the last week or so, have you been motivated by love in this way? Have you been both patient AND kind? Or have you been envious or boastful? Have you been arrogant or rude to anyone? Have you insisted on your own way rather than seeking compromise? Have you been irritable? Have you been resentful? Have you rejoiced at wrongdoing? Have you rejoiced with the truth?

Paul has given us a picture of love in simple terms so that we can hold it up to ourselves, compare our own love and see if ours measures up. In Lutheran theology, this is the 2nd use of God’s Law - the mirror. How do we do?

Personally, I didn’t do very well. I think I made it to envious…but I know my patience has been tested, and even my kindness was a bit questionable. And the farther I go down the list, the more I realize how poorly I lived up to this standard Paul has described here. But as I looked more closely at what Paul says here, I began to understand why I fell so short. Dr. Lenski was very helpful here:

RCH Lenski: The Interpretation of St. Paul’s First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians (II. The Better Way—Love. Chapter 13)

Paul does not describe love to us in the role of performing great, wonderful, and astounding deeds; he prefers to show us how the inner heart of love looks when it is placed among sinful men and weak and needy brethren. He does not picture love in ideal surroundings of friendship and affection where each individual embraces and kisses the other but in the hard surroundings of a bad world and a faulty church where distressing influences bring out the positive power and value of love.

This agape love that we are to walk our live of faith in is easy to show when we’re among friends. But we’re not called to love only the people we like. We’re called to love our enemies, too. Love “is not embittered or enraged by abuse, wrong, insult, injury...” [Lenski, p 558.] Even when it receives those very same things. How about this: "Love keeps no account book for the entry of wrongs on the debit side which are eventually to be balanced on the credit side with payments received when satisfaction is obtained for these wrongs. Love forgets to charge any wrong done to itself. It is neither enraged at the moment, nor does it hold a grudge in vindictiveness afterward.” [Lenski, p 558.] Yeah, I didn’t do very well at this one.

And then Paul give us this:

Love bears all things, “Love never complains that it is made to endure and to suffer too much; its capacity for suffering is very great. Remember all that the Lord’s love suffered.” [Lenski, 560.]

[Love] believes all things, “[it] refuses to yield to suspicions of doubt. The flesh is ready to believe all things about a brother and a fellow man in an evil sense. Love does the opposite, it is confident to the last.” [Lenski, 560.]

[Love] hopes all things, “This is...not the hope which is directed to God in expectation of all good gifts from him but the hope that is directed toward our brethren and our fellow men, which expects what is best from them... Hope knows no pessimism. Yet the basis for this hope of love is not mere natural optimism but the effective grace of Jesus Christ. Love always expects that grace to conquer and to win its way.” [Lenski, 561.]

[Love] endures all things... “in the sense of brave perseverance...We hold out under pain, injury, and the like.” [Lenski, 561.]

If we were to rewrite these to put this more clearly, we might say: “Love bears all that is worst, believes all that is best, hopes for all that is best, and endures all that is worst.”

Paul is not only talking about the perfect example of agape love displayed by Christ on the cross that saved the entire human race. Agape love doesn’t demand such grand and far-reaching results. Usually, truth be told, it won’t be like that. Paul is talking here about the “ordinary circumstances of life as we meet them day by day” and he is showing us how this love has to be in those circumstances. (Ibid.) Paul is instructing his church - and us - to be a true Christian every single day as we exercise this love, and if we can do that, then the great triumphs of love will naturally take care of themselves. The opposite is also true: if we don’t display this kind of love in the little episodes of life that don’t have far-reaching effect, how can we possibly hope to act in love in moments of extraordinary circumstance and exceedingly high pressure? This agape love is, Paul is teaching us, a muscle that must be exercised.

All of us are given gifts from God, and it is this love that gives value to those gifts. When we use those gifts for God’s purposes, that use is called “works” in the Bible. Those works are also given value by this agape love. So it is not only the great motivator, it is also the measure by which we can see value in gifts and works.

And just like our Heavenly Father, love is eternal. Not so for other things. Prophecies and those who bring them will come to an end. Speaking in tongues and those who speak - even long sermons - will come to an end. Everything else will have an end, but love will not.

Where Paul speaks of knowledge, he’s aware that we don’t know or understand everything. We only have a partial awareness of all there is to know. We simply can’t know all of it…at least not yet. But when everything else is ended, THEN we’ll get that heavenly knowledge. When everything is made “perfect” (a.k.a. “complete”), then we will gain that knowledge. Most importantly we will know God and Christ. As St. John tells us: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) This is the moment when God’s goal for everything will be fulfilled. “Then this entire state of imperfection which is now evident upon the earth will be abolished, for it will have served its purpose. An entirely new way of apprehending, of seeing, and of knowing shall take its place… In heaven we shall know in a heavenly manner.” [Lenski, 566.]

And Paul compares our adulthood now vs at the end as being as different as comparing adult understanding to childish understanding. On that day, we will put away our immature ways of understanding to make way for the heavenly understanding. Things we don’t see clearly now, then will be perfectly clear for us…because God will make it clear.

He closes with a reminder that while we have 3 great gifts of God - faith, hope, and love - the one that is superior of the 3 is love. It’s not superior because it outlasts the others - they are not going away. Love is superior because it has been declared more important. Maybe the best reason is from 1 John 4:16 “...God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

While we look at Paul’s list and realize how short we fall of the standard he described, it’s not Paul’s standard but Christ’s. Christ is always a standard we will find impossible to meet. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try! But that we can even make the attempt is a gift from God. We are able to show love because God loved us first. That is the message we should see every time we look at the cross, every time we hear the Gospel, every time we come to the Lord’s Supper. God loves us and made it so we are able to love anything other than ourselves.

“It is faith’s nature to receive, but love gives; and giving is greater than receiving. God’s fullest purpose is attained in us when we are filled with love. Hope also looks forward to receiving, but love is full possession and completed joy. And for every new joy which hope receives in heaven, love will be the response on our part. When we come to rest on the bosom of God, it will be by love.” [Lenski, 574.]

How will you walk in love this week? Watch closely for the little ways to love your neighbor, your family, even your enemy, and exercise it. Build it up. Make it stronger.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.