Quinquagesima Sunday (February 27, 2022)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

Last week, our Epistle was from 2 Corinthians, and I mentioned that we can’t really romanticize the Corinthian community. The Corinthians were a pretty dysfunctional community. It was a community suffering from divisions, some claiming to be followers of Paul, others of Apollos, others of Cephas. There was sexual immorality in the community that seemed to involve a man sleeping with his father’s wife and the Corinthians were tolerating it. Rather than handling their dirty laundry in private, the Corinthians were filing lawsuits to settle disputes among themselves. it also seems like some of the congregants in Corinth were being attracted by idolatry. Further, while the Corinthians seemed to be a community well-endowed by the Holy Ghost to have spiritual gifts but they were using their gifts as a way to overshadow and stand out above others. It is to this community that St. Paul writes the magnificent chapter we read this morning on love. This lyrically beautiful passage summarizes the solution to the Corinthian’s various problems and that solution is encapsulated in love.

The first point that St. Paul makes about love is that love is what makes our actions good, or as scholar Richard Hays says, “Love is the ground of meaning.” Even if you could speak in all the tongues of men and even the heavenly languages of the angels, it wouldn’t be meritorious. Without love, these beautiful sounds are nothing better than a cacophony of noisy gongs and clashing cymbals. Or if we have the ability to prophecy and are given profound and deep theological insights, and possess a faith that can move mountains, it counts for nothing without love. And even if we commit great acts of charity or give up our bodies for a noble cause, we gain nothing without love. If love is not our underlying motive, then the outward action loses its value for us.

Paul then sketches the contours of what love should look like. And he’s very careful to emphasize things that would correct the problems of the Corinthians. Love is longsuffering: it bears with people instead of discarding them because they might be an inconvenience. It’s kind because it extends a real offer of friendship to others through generosity and being considerate. Simultaneously, it avoids all kinds of vices: envy, pride, unseemly behavior, self-seeking. It refuses to put the self above others by wanting to take from someone else, or puffing oneself up over others, making oneself the center of attention, or being selfish and opportunistic. Further, love is not easily provoked because “it covers a multitude of sins” as we’re told in 1 Peter 4:8. It doesn’t even think evil because it genuinely wants what’s best for the person that we love. It doesn’t rejoice in evil because it rejoices instead in truth. Love doesn’t need false pretenses, but it accepts people as they are. To love is to serve others and it is to sacrifice oneself for others. Our love should be modeled after Christ’s love for us. So, we can say, along with St. Paul, that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

With this sketch of love, Paul turns to compare the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love with the spiritual gifts. Love is far more valuable than prophecies, tongues, and knowledge. Prophecies fail, he says; what we have in prophecy is incomplete. Tongues will cease, he foretells a day in which they won’t be needed (most likely he’s talking about after the Gospel has spread to the world and the canon of Scripture completed). Finally, any profound knowledge we possess will vanish away and, what we do possess is incomplete anyways. Paul is looking forward to the return of Our Lord, the beautiful restoration of the world in the New Creation that will clarify our reality. when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. Prophecy, tongues, knowledge and all the other spiritual gifts are “in part” because they are shadows. If we were to look too directly at the reality to which they point, we would be blinded. So all the spiritual gifts we have in the Church are evidence of God’s grace but they aren’t permanent in that we will need them for eternity. Revelation visualizes this for us when John sees that in the new heaven and new earth, in the new Jerusalem there is no need for a Temple building because God dwells so directly with his people that “there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light.” So, Paul tells us that in this future, we have no need for these gifts. He compares where we are not to being like a child: when you’re a child, it’s perfectly reasonable that you speak, understand, and think like a child. It’s healthy for children to be childish because that’s what makes them children. However, childhood is not a permanent stage. When you mature into an adult, you have to “grow up.” You have to start speaking, understanding, and thinking like an adult. So, here on earth, we need those spiritual gifts that God gives us. We should cling to them, in fact. But, they’re not eternal nor are they ultimate; they are there to help inculcate in us a love of God. While now our vision is shrouded like in a mirror dimly lit, one day the veil will be torn and we can see things “face to face.” One day, we will see God and, when we see him, we will be perfectly happy. “Then shall I know, even as also I am known.”

So while spiritual gifts will fade away, the theological virtues will not. That means that faith, hope, and charity are of greater value than any of the gifts. However, even among the theological virtues, there is a hierarchy as Paul tells us that while faith hope, and charity abide, the greatest of the three is love. Theologian Karl Barth once said that love is “the future eternal light shining in the present. It therefore needs no change of form.” When we love, we are grounding our behavior in Christ who reveals to us that “God is love.”

On Wednesday, we begin Lent. Lent is a 40-day period of fasting that lasts from Ash Wednesday until Easter. We fast by eating one regular meal a day and two small snacks. And further, on Ash Wednesday and Fridays, we abstain from eating meat. We model this part of the Church calendar after the 40 days our Lord spent fasting in the desert. This is a penitential time for us; a time to focus on disciplines. Yesterday, we had a retreat in which we discussed some of those disciplines, like how to fast, how to do self-examination, and why it’s important for us to confess our sins. However, today’s reading is an incredibly important reminder for us to avoid conceptual errors of what Lent is. Lent is not a time for us to try and get God to love us more; we know that he loves us already and that there is no shadow of turning in him. Lent is not about empty ritualism; it’s not something we do in order to check off the boxes. Lent is a time where we train ourselves to run the race, like we talked about on Septuagesima. But why are we running in the first place? The answer is not to earn our salvation; it’s because we love God. We recognize our dependence on him, our helplessness before him. And we recognize his great love for us revealed in the tortured man hanging on the Cross. And when we look at that most beautiful image of the crucifix, we are overcome with sorrow for our own sins that put him there and a desire, from a keen sense of love toward him, that we want to be like him.

So I would encourage you to try and observe the Lenten fast this year. You can find some handouts in the back about fasting. If you need any direction, you can always come find me. But, I would encourage you even more to dedicate yourself to love: love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self. It is only from this place of love that the fast will it be beneficial for your spiritual progress.

“Though I bestow my goods to feed the poor, and though I give up my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.