I Corinthians 13:13 – Part 3
For
most Christians faith is an adoption of or a reaction against two powerful
forces:
Your
Personal Story,
The
Apostle Paul.
Let’s
begin with Paul. He is the starting point for practically any theological
question that has to do with the Christian faith. All of the gospels were
written in response to Paul. Matthew,
Mark and Luke were heavily influenced by Paul’s insistence on the humanity of
Jesus. The Gospel of John celebrates the divinity of Jesus as a reaction to
Paul’s beliefs. Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin all used the Book of Romans as their starting point
for understanding God and Christ. You can love Paul or you can hate Paul but in
order to approach Christian theology seriously, you have to start with Paul.
Paul
didn’t ask the question, “What do you believe?” Paul just told us what we were
expected to believe. Paul was extremely confident in the answers he delivered.
One can successfully argue the early writings of Paul are in conflict with the later
writings of Paul. That is probably a fair assessment of everyone’s theological
development. But what Paul believed anywhere along his theological journey, he
believed fervently.
Paul
was at his systematic best, or worst, when locked away from the world. Under
confinement Paul perceived everything clearly. His thoughts weren’t complicated
by the messiness of life. The prime example of this would be his letter to the
Romans. Scholars believe it was written late in his life while confined to
house arrest. It is a powerful work professing Paul’s belief in both the
sovereignty and the righteousness of God. It is in Romans that Paul fully develops
his understanding of God’s plan for salvation. It goes like this. There is only
one God and this God is the God of all creation and all human history. Second,
salvation comes through the cross and resurrection. Christ is God’s gift for
all people. Finally, the way humanity acknowledges this claim is through faith
in Jesus Christ.
Locked in his room
away from the questions and complexities of ordinary folks, Paul had the answer
and the answer began with faith. But Paul was not always in his ivory tower.
Sometimes he found himself standing between two combatants whom he loved
dearly, trying to make heads or tails of some theological conundrum. Neither
side was willing to compromise. Paul realized a solution had to come from
beyond what each combatant claimed to believe was the answer. How ironic is
that? The iron hand of theological truth looked beyond faith for a solution.
Of all Paul’s writings
my favorite is the book of Philippians. Paul knew this church well and spoke often
of his love for this congregation. When Paul became aware that some petty
disagreements had developed between some of the members, he did not write,
“Believe in Jesus and everything will take care of itself. He wrote, Make my joy complete by humbling yourself
just like Jesus. Don’t place being right as your primary priority. Concentrate
on being honorable and gentle and pure and pleasing. How was Paul able to
jump from absolute truth to begging for a moment of decency? I think Paul remembered
everyone comes to the table with a different story.
While we, the
congregation of Rockfish Presbyterian, have a great deal of commonality, we are
not the same. Let’s start with the obvious. Some of us come from Mars and
others from Venus. Since the discovery of fire men allegedly have spoken for
everyone. That is definitely not the case anymore. If you are still holding on
to that false assumption your spouse will set you straight after the service.
We weren’t all born in
Virginia or even in the United States. We come from different places, different
cultures, and different experiences. We aren’t all Presbyterian. Some of you
have never heard of John Knox. We aren’t all Republicans. Some of you still proudly
display your Bernie bumper stickers. When classical music is mentioned, some
think of Mozart, some think of the Rolling Stones and a few of us hum a Hank
Williams tune. Some of us still embrace
our humble beginnings. Others of us are trying to change who people claim we
are suppose to be. Regardless, we all
have a story and that story goes a long way in how we not only respond to others,
but how we think theologically.
Paul certainly
encountered this when he came to Corinth. Paul had a plan. He wanted to build a
church and Corinth seemed the perfect spot. It was a city compiled of Greeks,
Romans, and Hebrews. Paul figured it was the right place to begin something
new. Everyone would give up their allegiance to their old life and become one
in Christ. Just for the record Calvin tried the same experiment in Geneva. They
kicked him out after about seven years. While Paul had great hopes, his recipe Corinth
was a disaster. The congregation loved Paul. They probably made him Pastor Emeritus
when he left, but the next day it became obvious each congregant had an
individual mind, an individual story, and an individual approach to
understanding God. Once Paul left, the church
exploded into chaos. Paul’s response was to send a series of letters he hoped
would calm the waters. First Corinthians 13 is one of those letters.
If
I speak in the tongue of mortals or angels, but do not have love I am a
clanging gong. If
I have faith to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
WOW!!! This hardly
sounds like the Paul who wrote from captivity. If I read the poem correctly,
Paul is saying faith is worthless if it doesn’t lovingly assist the way we
interact with others.
Could it be the number
one question on the theological hit parade isn’t WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE but rather
HOW DO YOU LOVE? What would happen if we entered any discussion about faith, or
politics, or who is going to win the World Series kindly, patiently, without arrogance, or resentment? Those suggestions didn’t come from a Beetles
tune but rather from Paul, the King of Dogma.
I have a theory that
sometimes what I claim to believe is based more on my story than God’s. This allows
me to easily discount every other story as heretical. So what happens when loving is more
important than believing? Could it open my ears to the stories and faith
experiences of others? Could it help me admit that God’s universe and God’s imagination
might be larger than mine? It is hard to publicly proclaim that my story limits
my understanding of God because then I would be admitting that what I believe
is limited by what I have experienced. In a weak, or perhaps a strong moment,
Paul knew this. The great dogmatic voice of Christian theology, when faced with
the practical dilemma of two people arguing about what is truth, was reduced to
this response. Faith, Hope, Love; the
greatest is Love.
Imagine if we suspicious
folk, who value independence and self-proclaimed truth above everything else, could
just for a moment imagine that God is OK with us listening to another’s story. How
dangerous is that? Then again, how liberating might that be? This is hard
stuff. Yet what good is it to believe in a God who proclaims to personify love
and defend that God by squabbling with our neighbor and fighting with our
enemies in the name of that same God?
Am I suggesting that
we just toss everything we believe overboard?
Well maybe I am because if your faith separates you from your neighbor,
or the stranger, or even an enemy, what good is it?
Listen to what the author
of First John wrote. Perhaps it is a response to the dogmatic tendencies of
Paul. God is love. Those who abide in
love, abide in God. There is no fear
in love. Fear embraces punishment and
anger. If you don’t love your brother or your sister how can you claim to love
God? We are to love each other because God first loved us.
So which is more
important, what we believe or what we do? Read Romans, but follow I Corinthians
13:13. Amen