Because God is love, we tell the truth

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

     4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

     8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.

Luke 4:21-30

21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” 23 He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ ” 24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and there was a severe famine over all the land, 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Perhaps this is the first time you’ve heard 1 Corinthians 13 read outside of a wedding ceremony.  It’s no mystery why this passage is often chosen to provide context for marriage, but that close association might narrow our field of vision about what’s being said here.  The chapter can stand alone fairly effectively, but it follows directly from what Paul said immediately prior in his description of the Body of Christ and the gifts of its members.  It seems safe to infer from what Paul says there that he was addressing a church in which a kind of spiritual hierarchy had developed, where those who possessed the “greater” gifts gloated in their higher status within community, while those with “lesser” gifts were marginalized.   Whereas the Spirit had given gifts for the upbuilding of the Body, it seems some were exploiting their gifts for their own personal self-exaltation.  And its in this light that Paul emphasizes that in the Body those parts that seem indispensable not only have a role but are in fact essential, that the Body is not the Body without them, and that all gifts find their meaning and purpose only in relation to the whole.  

Often the world Scripture portrays seems entirely foreign to our own, and indeed few of us have known churches where people were speaking in tongues, prophesying, and healing the sick (in fact, we’d probably steer clear of such communities).  But it does seem very true to life that these various blessings resulted in people becoming preoccupied with status games.  There is nothing that comes more naturally to humans than defining themselves in relation to others and seeking to climb some invisible ladder to the top.   Paul thus seeks to redefine what they take the greatest gifts to be - their whole conception of what gifts are and what they’re for - but even more he seeks to demonstrate that the greatest gift of all is accessible to anyone and everyone, is available in infinite supply.  He shows them a “still more excellent way”.  

The chapter begins with Paul declaring that, even if you’ve been blessed with the most amazing gifts - even if you can speak in tongues of angels, even if you understand all mysteries, even if you have faith that can move mountains, even if you give all your possessions to the poor - all this is meaningless if you do these things for your own self-aggrandizement, if you do it without love.  You could argue that Paul overstates the point a bit; the theoretical poor who received the proceeds from the unloving man who sold his possessions still benefit, it still makes a difference.   But Paul is addressing the giver here, not the receiver, and his point to them is that seeking to exalt yourself by means of your gift will get you nowhere.  

It’s worth noting that there is indeed no such a thing as a perfect gift, that all gifts are given with mixed motives.  None of us ever give purely for the sake of the other; we always give to some extent because we wish to feel good about ourselves, to be able to regard ourselves as generous people, to be regarded by others as selfless people.  This is simply part of the human condition.   The only one exempt from this, of course, is Christ himself, and one aspect of why his gifts, rather than gaining nothing, gains everything, is that he alone was able and willing to give the gift of himself without reservation, without ulterior motive, but purely, in perfect love.  

Paul never mentions Christ in this passage, but Christ isn’t just in the background, he is the ground upon Paul makes his claim.  When Paul describes the character of love he is, in the first place, describing Christ himself.  We know what love truly looks like because it has been revealed in Christ; love has no independent character or criteria apart from him.   We don’t have a prior category of love that Christ fulfills; we only know what love is in light of Christ. 

To those inclined to boast about their own gifts - be it tongues, or prophecy, or knowledge, or whatever - Paul declares that these, however useful in this prolonged interim period, will come to an end.  They are not eternal, and it’s the things of eternity that we should fix ourselves upon.  For now we are like children waiting to grow up, we are like those who see in a mirror dimly waiting to behold directly face to face, but there will come a day when we shall know fully even as we have already been fully known.   In this current dispensation faith and hope remain essential, oriented as they are toward a promised future, but they too will pass away when faith becomes as sight, when hope is realized.  But love is the greatest because love is eternal.  

And here we encounter the most fundamental, most essential mystery, something ineffably sublime exactly because it is simple, and yet elusive for mere mortals like us.  This is the mystery we declare every Sunday upon the children and upon us all: God is love.  The God who is without beginning and without end has always been and will always be love.   Because God is love God creates us in God’s image that we too might love and be loved, and though we rejected that love, God comes to us as his beloved Son, that he might love us unto death, that we might know the love of our Father, that we might know, in Christ, what love is, that we might see the very character of the God who is love, even that through him we might become partakers of the divine nature, that we might become children of God who are loved like Christ, who love like Christ.  It is this for which we were made, and it is this, Paul is telling the Corinthians, for which the Spirit has given you gifts, that you might be the body of Christ.  The goal of humanity both now and for eternity is to be like Jesus.  

But then we also read this passage from Luke where Jesus, in his hometown synagogue, reads a passage from the prophet Isaiah and declares himself its fulfillment.  Initially everyone has a positive reaction, amazed by his “gracious words”.   They said to themselves, “Isn’t this Jospeh’s boy?”  He grew up amongst them; they remember him.  Far from rejecting Jesus’ pronouncement, at this point everyone seems quite pleased.  But Jesus, for reasons unknown, is not content to leave the situation as is.  Instead he deliberately provokes his audience, telling them that, It seems he was accepted in his hometown until he foretold their rejection, which thus seems to be self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.   He then invokes of couple of stories from Scripture in which the scope of God’s action is limited to select people, the implication being that his hearers are not in the group of people for whom Jesus will work, and the further implication is that this is because they do not really believe.  At this they are outraged and attempt to throw him off a early cliff, but somehow he manages to slip away unharmed.  

If Jesus is indeed the perfect revelation of the God who is love, how does this episode fit?  Well, presumably Jesus was speaking the truth, but not only that, a truth which he was convinced needed to be spoken, something the people in Nazareth needed to hear.  We have to assume, even if we cannot see how, that Jesus was speaking the truth in love.  Naming an unpleasant reality is a precondition for change.  Ignoring it doesn’t help.  Jesus was willing to risk rejection, even being hurled from a cliff in order to say what folks needed to hear.  

I’ve observed over the years that many Christians are reluctant to speak to one another words we take to be true, words we’re convinced people need to hear, because we are afraid of offending them or of seeming judgmental.  And these fears are not baseless; we live in a world in which people are indeed easily offended, and you might be considered judgmental even when you speak in love.  But we also live in a world in which many professing Christians think that speaking truth - to the extent they grasp it - is all the matters, whatever the consequences, who seem to enjoy passing judgment and giving offense.  Much like using your gifts without love amounts to nothing, speaking the truth without love for those who hear gains nothing.  And, as I noted earlier, we are people who always operate with mixed motives; we may enjoy being an authority, one who can provide help, or placing ourselves in a superior position.  We are right to be wary; these things are always fraught.  And yet, on balance, for the vast majority of us, growing in Christlike love for our neighbors almost certainly means increasing our willingness to speak what is unwelcome and a willingness to suffer the consequences in the confidence that this might make an eternal difference.  If we desire to be Christlike, if we desire to love, then we must speak truthfully, we must speak the truth.