There’s a passage in the middle of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians that is never read in context. Instead it’s read at just about every wedding, in large part because it’s pretty and talks about love. But really, it has absolutely nothing to do with weddings, because no one actually reads the Bible anymore, they just skim the bits they like (or don’t like).
Luke 4:21-30; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Psalm 71:1-6; Jeremiah 1:4-10
When one looks at the interactions between Jews and Gentiles in Jesus’ time and before, it’s safe to say that Gentiles were tolerated as a sort of necessary evil. The Romans and Greeks were around, and there wasn’t much that could be done about it, so the Jews had to grudgingly accept it and get on with their own lives. Even before then, the presence of “outsiders” within the Israelite community was never quite welcomed, and in many cases actively discouraged.
Some of this is understandable, as God did tell the Israelites to keep separate from other peoples, in large part so that they would have fewer temptations to stray from their worship of God. Yet there’s also a sense that the Israelites were meant to still interact with them, in the hope of these Gentile nations also becoming followers of God. Indeed in Jeremiah’s call, which we read today, God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah wasn’t just sent to say God’s word to the people of Israel, but to all people.
God also has a habit of interacting with people who aren’t in the “in-crowd”, which Jesus references in our gospel: “I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a sever famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
This kind of thinking continues today. We like to think that God is only “for” Christians; it makes us feel special if God is for us and against others. But God is “for” all people – he loved all of humanity enough to die in our place, after all. So even today, we don’t always like to talk about God working in and through all people. We react like the people of Nazareth, wanting to chastise God for not meeting our own expectations. But when we do that, we forget who God is and what he’s all about.
That brings us to 1 Corinthians 13, one of the most beautiful, and most misunderstood, texts in the whole Bible. I mean, how many of us have ever been to a wedding, and how many times is this verse used at a wedding? But 1 Corinthians 13 has absolutely nothing to do with marriage, but everything to do with the way God deals with people.
Let’s look at the context. 1 Corinthians 12, which we’ve spent some time in the past few weeks, talks about how, as believers, we are all part of the body of Christ, and everyone is gifted to fill a role within the body, some glamorous and important-looking, and some not. 1 Corinthians 14 is all about how gifts of tongues and prophecy are best used in the context of worship. Then 1 Corinthians 13 shows up in the middle and talks about love.
This is because love is the thing that binds everyone together. Remember the football verse: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son…” and so on. Paul tells us that, without love, the most beautiful language in heaven and on earth will sound like a banging gong or clanging cymbal. Even all the knowledge in the world, and a faith that can command a mountain to move is nothing without love. Even giving away everything you have, including your life, means nothing without love.
Paul goes on to describe what a “right” love looks like, not the love we experience on earth as corrupted by sin, but a perfect love. It’s this kind of love, which can only come from God, that teaches us how to interact with each other. It helps us realize that everyone is loved by God in spite of their sin, and that even when God acts in a way we don’t expect, it’s something worth praising. It’s a love that teaches us that no matter what gifts and talents people have, they are given by God, and intended to bring glory to him.
This is something the people of Nazareth forgot. Because Jesus didn’t fit what they expected of God, they wanted to get rid of him. This is even something we do today. (Reference Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s parable “The Grand Inquisitor” found in his novel, The Brothers Karamazov); if God doesn’t fit our expectations, we don’t change our expectations, we try to change God.
Without Love – God’s love – within us, we act just like the people of Nazareth. Instead of being guided by God, we become guided by ourselves. Without Love, the gifts that God gives us become corrupted by our own pride. Instead of loving God and loving neighbor, we reject God and categorize people into those who are “in” and those who are “out”.
But with Love, things are different. There’s no room for envy, boasting, selfishness, quickness to anger, or delight in evil; instead there is patience, kindness, protection, trust, hope, perseverance, and a rejoicing in truth. That’s why love is the key to everything, specifically God’s perfect love for us – everything else, our love for God and our love for neighbor, comes from that.