Loving God, you have taught us the way of love through your Son, Jesus, and yet our selfishness continues to get in the way.  Open our hearts to you this day, that your love would reign in our minds and in our hearts, through Jesus Christ our Saviour.  Amen.

    Imagine a community that includes many different types of people.  Some are rich and some are poor.  Some are married and some are unmarried.  Some are Jews and some are Gentiles.  Some are widows and some are children.  Some are slaves and some are free.  All of these people have been gathered together into the same community because of Jesus.  They have all received the same love from Jesus and the same salvation.  But then they start to find ways to focus on their differences.

    Some start saying that it’s better not to be married, while others insist that it’s better to be married (1 Cor. 7).  Some ignore the needs of those in their community who don’t have enough to eat, and just go ahead with their own food and drink at the Lord’s Supper, leaving others to go hungry (1 Cor. 11).  Some receive the gift of speaking in tongues from the Holy Spirit and are so impressed with themselves that they start speaking louder than anybody else during their worship time - even if somebody else is already speaking (1 Cor. 14).

    What I have just described to you is the community of believers who lived in a place called Corinth in the first century A.D.  These are the people that Paul was writing to when he wrote this whole chapter about the gift of love.  He did not write it for a wedding, but for a community of people who were lacking in love above anything else.

    Perhaps the most surprising thing is that these were people who believed in Jesus.  These were people who had become part of the community of faith and who had received the gift of the Holy Spirit.  These were people who knew how Jesus had given himself in love for the life of the world.  And yet, their own sinfulness was still getting in the way.

    One of the ways to understand sin is as love that is turned in on itself.  In other words, somebody who is under the power of sin does not think about others or make space for others.  Instead, they act as if they are the centre of the universe, and only think in terms of what is good for them.  The opposite of love is selfishness (Bishop Michael Curry).

    In the Christian community at Corinth, sin and selfishness showed up in some pretty surprising ways.  The Lord’s Supper, which is supposed to be a reflection and a reminder of God’s love, became a time when some would get drunk and some would go away hungry.  Everybody brought their own food, and they would sit down for a meal together and then celebrate the Lord’s Supper at the end.  However, those who had lots ate and drank way more than they needed and didn’t share any with those who were hungry.  And so Paul writes almost a whole chapter about the Lord’s Supper, trying to get them to understand that unless they are showing love for everybody in their community, they are eating and drinking judgement upon themselves (1 Cor. 11:17-34).

    In the same way, it seems that some in the community were taking the gifts of the Holy Spirit and turning them into causes for selfishness and pride.  It is almost like it turned into a contest to see who had the best gifts.  Some of the gifts that are mentioned in the reading that we heard today from 1 Corinthians are things like prophecy, and knowledge, and faith.  Paul also mentions generosity, and even self-sacrifice.  Yet, the gift that seemed to be prized above everything else was speaking in tongues.

    I have often had people ask me what this means.  It seems that when the gift was first given (which we read about in Acts 2), people who received the gift of tongues were able to tell others the good news about Jesus in their own languages.  And so they were able to speak languages that they never knew before.  As time went on it seems that some people were also able to pray in tongues.  In other words, they were able to speak to God in a language that they didn’t previously know.

    However, people in the community at Corinth began to believe that unless you could speak in tongues, you were nothing.  And so it became a source of pride, rather than a means of communicating God’s love to others.  This is what Paul is talking about when he writes, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1).

    Now, how many of you have ever had a conversation with one another about who speaks in tongues the most?... [That’s about what I thought] However, maybe you have had some conversations about other things.  Like about who volunteers the most.  Or maybe about who gives the most.  Or maybe about why others can’t just be on the ball like you are.  Why can’t people just pay attention, right?  Why does everybody just leave me to do everything? (Sigh...)

    We find all kinds of sources of pride, even in the community of faith, and Paul’s words continue to speak to us.  “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful” (1 Cor. 13:4-5).  How hard this is to live out!  Yet, it is the best gift that God’s Spirit gives to us, or that we could give to any other person.  May “all that [we] do be done in love,” through Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor. 16:14).  Amen.

Easter 6 (NL 2)                            1 Corinthians 13:1-13
May 1, 2016
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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