The Greatest

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

“How fitting,” some might think, “to use this text with Valentine’s day coming up.” Some might think that, but not you guys. You know by now that Paul is writing to a divided community whose hierarchy of spiritual gifts has caused some to stick out their chests and boast in how great they are. Paul is simply trying to deflate these puffed-up egos and regulate the life of this community in a new way. Perhaps the terms “deflate” and “regulation” are a bit too loaded to use on Super Bowl Sunday when the Patriot’s are playing...but I digress.

Paul points to love, not as a higher or better gift, not as something else to boast in or fight over, but as a way of life “within which all the gifts are to find their proper place.” The type of love Paul is talking about in this passage is not a romantic love. In the Greek language, there is actually a different word for that type of love, eros. This is not to say that patience and kindness and selflessness aren’t also good characteristics to strive for in a romantic relationship, but that’s not the aim of Paul’s passage on love. The way of love upon which Paul seeks to set the Corinthian church is a way of compassion in which the use of Spiritual gifts in worship truly benefits the common good. The way of love is a way of humble service in which the strengths of some members take care of the weaknesses of others without overlooking their own places of weakness in which they might need another’s help and strength. The way of love is both the source of inspiration for Christian activity and the rubric for evaluating these actions within the purposes of God.

In fact the purpose and character of God has everything to do with the type of love about which Paul writes. He’s not writing about eros, or erotic love, rather he is writing about agape love. This is the kind of love with which, in John 3:16, “God so agape’d the world that he gave his only son.” This is the kind of love that defines the character of God in 1 John: “Ha Theos agape estin,” “God is love.” God is agape. And, Paul writes, “Faith, hope, and agape abide; but the greatest of these is love.”

We looked last week at redefining “greatness” according to the ethics of Jesus Christ, rescuing it from the ethics of Yertle the Turtle. Agape is not the greatest because it is “above” all, but because it serves all. And it is “only when love presides over our common life in the church,” says Richard Hays, “[that] spiritual gifts [will] find their rightful place and achieve the purposes for which God has given them to us.”

There is an activity I came up with to demonstrate just how much we tend to have in common with the Corinthian community than we’d like to believe. I used it with the confirmation class a few years ago, actually. We went outside to the sidewalk and I split them up into two lines. I gave the person at the front of each line a broom and placed two cups, full of water, in front of each them on the ground. “Your goal,” I said, “is to get the cups of water from here to the end of the sidewalk as quickly as possible without spilling a drop of water...but you may only touch the cup with the broom.”

Here’s what almost always happens in this exercise: I say “Go”, and the two line leaders start using their brooms to try and sweep their cups across the sidewalk while the rest of the team moans and groans as the water sloshes over bumps and cracks. When they eventually, and almost inevitably, knock the cup over, I refill it, replace it at the front of the line, and let the next member of the line have a shot with the broom. I usually let this go on until everyone in the group has had a chance to try, and fail, with the broom...at which point I stop them and ask them if they can restate what their goal was.

“To get the cups of water from here to there without spilling a drop of water.”

Right. And what were the conditions?

“That we can only touch the cup with the broom.”

Right. Then, I pose this question:

“Did I ever tell you that you were competing against one another?”

It’s amazing how well you can cradle and carry a cup of water between the bristles of two brooms. It’s amazing how much easier it is to accomplish the goal when we get rid of the barriers and illusions that make us think we can’t work together. It’s also amazing how quick we are to assume that we are competing against one another. The way of love Paul introduces to the Corinthians is his attempt to open their eyes to the futility of their competition for greatness amongst themselves. Yes, there are many gifts, but they are to be used together for the common good. Yes, there are many members, but they are all a part of the same body. Yes, I want you to strive for greatness, but greatness is not up there, as you assume. Greatness cannot be achieved apart from the purposes of agape, of God.

Do we do this? Do we still create artificial competition? Do we still build up barriers that keep us from working together for the common good? There are many gifts, talents, and occupations, many races, religions, and creeds, many nations, governments, and political parties, many ideas, opinions, and beliefs. There are many things that provide the illusion of division. There are many brooms...and a lot more than water is being spilled. So much blood has been shed, so many wars have been fought competing for the the greatness of one over the other. The question God always plants in my heart when I meditate on the suffering and heartache and injustice that exists in this world is this: “Who told my children that they were competing against one another?” God still calls us to the one thing in which we can be united: agape. “One love,” as Bob Marley put it, “let’s get together and be alright.”