1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Epiphany 4- Year C
Left over from yesterday's comment: Even as I think of refuge as a location of safety it’s origin is as an action - a fleeing, as in fugitive. There used to be cities of refuge, but the real trick was an ability to arrive at them. Once there the possibility of being made new was a possibility. Without this newness the only expectation was that of imminent death, being wanted: dead or dead.
If you are interested in a song about refuge you might try this one from Abigail Washburn, the first of three songs on this tiny concert.
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To the point today is a question of what stands behind every gift. Paul indicates that our renewal, our city of refuge, the journey of flight from being trapped by our gifts is found in a mystery of “love”. Charles Wesley later described G*D as, “thy nature and thy name is love”. In today’s commercialized world, love is a most transient and misused state of being. We love everything so much that the word becomes but a puff of breeze, a vanity.
Our very gifts cloud our vision. We see through them as a hammer can only see nails. And so the recognition of gifts not our own become lesser gifts. This, in turn, lessens our gift. A function of love, here, is to see through a larger lens how all gifts, all part of the body, play together. It is not that love stands head and shoulders above faith, hope, or a specific gift we have, but it becomes a ground against which present connections are revealed. This is not faith based on past experience or hope of years to come. This is simple connection with on-going creation as revealed in calling each part by name and that name be claimed - light, dark, earth, sea, creatures, clay. This is beyond desire (no gain), beyond force (patient), beyond advantage (kind), beyond success (truthful). When we finally flee the partial, we settle deep into an embrace where there is no I and Thou. And, black hole-like, we emerge as refugee love with new trust/faith and new expectation/hope.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/01/1-corinthians-131-13.html
Prophets come to an end. Prophecies come to an end. Social Religion comes to an end.
Tongues come to an end. Knowledge comes to an end. Personal Piety comes to an end.
So we might as well live by the best part of each of these and more. Prophets without love might as well have stayed home. Prophecies without love might as well have stayed hidden. Tongues without love might as will have been bit. Knowledge without love might as well have been kept in the dark.
As you think about the use of your spiritual gifts consider the passion with which you live it. Does your passion overwhelm love? Does your passion cool love?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/february2004.html
As long as the very next thing said after these wonderful words is not part of the lectionary process, it is interesting to note that love is not the singular winner and still champion in the run-off for the greatest virtue or gift.
Just as there are two greatest commandments, G*D and Neighbor, Love has purpose as well as simple being and is twinned with Prophecy. Let's hear a continuation of the story.
14:1 - Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy.
14:25 - [Prophecy] discloses the secrets of an unbeliever's heart and brings them to worship/love.
By turning these around we can see the connection between love and prophecy.
Pursue the spiritual gift of prophecy and strive for love.
[Love] discloses the secrets of our hearts and leads us to GOD.
Friends, we don't love without being prophetic. We are not prophetic without loving. Now, let's be about the interplay between these two qualities of a full life.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/february2004.html
As a paean to love, this is hard to beat. As a poetic definition of love, we find much to be admired here. And yet there is a distancing that sets up love standards without helping anyone approach them. With this distance all manner of ill has been done in the name of love. High among the painful interpretations are justifications of patience requiring an abused person to express their love by returning for another beating.
There is another hymn out of the United Methodist tradition that is not sung very much, much less in its entirety. It is Wrestling Jacob (often referred to as "Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown".
The mystery here is found between stanzas 8 and 9 where a question hangs in the air,
"Speak, or Thou never hence shalt move,
And tell me if Thy Name is Love."
Pause (or not)
"'Tis love! 'tis love!"
We are better served not to posit definitions, but to wrestle with ourselves and creation regarding the bedrock relationships that continue in halcyon days and brokenness.
This leads us to love being qualitatively set apart from faith and hope which both can find themselves so distanced when things fall apart.
Question: given G*D's failure of faith, e.g. flood; and G*D's failure of hope, e.g. Babel; where would you find G*D expressing a failure of love?
- - -
we find our power
exemplified in
charisma tongued persuasion
sheer torturous techniques
self-fulfilling prophecies
bait-and-switch slights of hand
enough knowledge to be dangerous
delusions of grandeur
log cabin-birthed humilityso we hide behind
explanations and shoulds
to appear what we are not
we claim our present is
superior to our past
as will be
our future to our presentin every day, in every way
we are more loving
dare you question that?
if so you are not very lovinglet us forgive such love
and reclaim a wrestling love
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html
"When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good." [The Message]
Isn't it good to be able to know we recapitulated the development of all people. We are not divinity wrapped in flesh. We are both at each stage along the way. Sometimes it is more evident and sometimes less, but is never one or the other.
In acknowledgement of our past we can glory in our poopy pants (Merriam-Webster online reminds us that "poop" can refer to a ship's stern/rear, defecation, exhaustion, or information - sort of like the mystery of G*D's backside) and rejoice in those who cared for us when we couldn't do so for ourselves. We will leave our past behind, in terms of not repeating it, as we incorporate it into our present approach to life (caring) and our goals (seeing more and more clearly who we are in relationship to others). Our past is not embarrassment, but instructive and encouraging.
Can you see faith/trust, hope, and love at work in your infancy? Your present? Your time to come? In your friends/congregation/context as well as yourself? To see these qualities over time helps us become more comfortable with the ambiguity of partiality and to appreciate our latest developmental plateau, even as we consolidate and prepare to move on.
- - -
NCpastor (Reader) said...
the ambiguity of partiality! perfect! exactly where I am as I request a change of appointment. Consolidating and preparing to move on. Thanks so much.
Wesley (Blogger) said...
Blessings on your transition. I trust you will be able to name and honor the good that surfaced and will continue to do so in your present circumstance. Likewise, I hope you will be able to appreciate and grow from those times the more-helpful was obscured.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html
"When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good." [The Message]
Isn't it good to be able to know we recapitulated the development of all people. We are not divinity wrapped in flesh. We are both at each stage along the way. Sometimes it is more evident and sometimes less, but is never one or the other.
In acknowledgement of our past we can glory in our poopy pants (Merriam-Webster online reminds us that "poop" can refer to a ship's stern/rear, defecation, exhaustion, or information - sort of like the mystery of G*D's backside) and rejoice in those who cared for us when we couldn't do so for ourselves. We will leave our past behind, in terms of not repeating it, as we incorporate it into our present approach to life (caring) and our goals (seeing more and more clearly who we are in relationship to others). Our past is not embarrassment, but instructive and encouraging.
Can you see faith/trust, hope, and love at work in your infancy? Your present? Your time to come? In your friends/congregation/context as well as yourself? To see these qualities over time helps us become more comfortable with the ambiguity of partiality and to appreciate our latest developmental plateau, even as we consolidate and prepare to move on.
- - -
NCpastor (Reader) said...
the ambiguity of partiality! perfect! exactly where I am as I request a change of appointment. Consolidating and preparing to move on. Thanks so much.
Wesley (Blogger) said...
Blessings on your transition. I trust you will be able to name and honor the good that surfaced and will continue to do so in your present circumstance. Likewise, I hope you will be able to appreciate and grow from those times the more-helpful was obscured.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/01/1-corinthians-131-13.html