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A sermon preached in Salisbury Cathedral by Canon Mark Bonney, Treasurer on Sunday 31 January 2010
"LOVE IS....."
“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.”
I want for a moment to describe a society to you: it is thrusting, ambitious and competitive – success in trade, social status and economic power is hugely important; self-sufficiency, local autonomy and freedom are highly valued along with a knowledge of how to exist in the rough and tumble of trade and business. Along with a concern for status and recognition goes a high regard for the gift of public speaking that gets plaudits from the public for its style before its content.
I could be describing quite a number of places in the First World today, but actually this description came from a commentary I read on the letter 1st letter to the Corinthians, part of which we heard in our first reading this morning. In some ways the basic drives in some societies have not changed much in 2000 years and so what St Paul has to say is as important as it ever was.
If there’s ever a purple passage in the New testament our first reading is it – read at more weddings I expect than any other; read by Tony Blair at the funeral of Princess Diana – “love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful” it makes the toughest prospective mother-in-law go weak at the knees.
And it is indeed a most beautiful passages – however, it’s very definitely NOT a Biblical version of the nauseating cartoons that begin “Love is…” “love is cooking him a dessert when you are on a diet”, or “love is saying that her new dish is really delicious even when it’s not.” This great passage is no anodyne “ode to love”, but rather it’s the sharpest of criticisms of the values current among the Corinthians – and since not much has changed in 2000 years, perhaps of ourselves too.
Over the past few weeks we’ve had some of the earlier chapters of Corinthians as our first reading, and habitués of Evensong will have heard even more: in those early chapters we read of a Christian community that is highly conflicted – bickering about status, disagreeing over who one can and can’t eat with; they are caught up in a distorted spirituality that’s getting its emphases in all the wrong places and arguing about the relative importance of various gifts; they are involved in bitter power struggles that completely fail to see the value of every member to the whole.
Last week we heard the end of ch 12 which finished with a list of the appointment of apostles, prophets and teachers and the gifts of healing, leadership and speaking in tongues – and it concluded “Bit strive for the greater gifts – and I will show you a still more excellent way” – and then we get today’s passage – which to paraphrase says “I might be the most wonderful prophet, teacher, leader, I might speak all sorts of tongues, I might heal everyone going but if do so without LOVE then it does me no good whatsoever”. Without love they count for nothing at all.
Paul isn’t saying that all these wonderful gifts aren’t needed, he’s not saying that spiritual gifts are useless, or that sacrifice should be disdained – but rather the exercise of these things does nothing for the doer – it’s love that makes them meaningful. The troubles of the Corinthians – the overflow of the bad side of contemporary values into their congregational life are caused by a loveless spirituality.
Paul uses a very specific word for this love - agape this distinguishes it from sexual love or familial love for which Greek has other words; this love isn’t something abstract but something that does some things and not others. It functions in situations of stress and conflict and refuses petty retaliation; it shuns competitiveness, it keeps no score cards, if things don’t go its own way it doesn’t pick up its toys and refuse to play – there’s nothing romantic about it at all – it’s pretty tough.
Tough it may be – but the most important things is that it’s GIFT it’s all a gift from God and not a fruit of our own endeavours - which I find a great relief. As St John puts it –“In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us” – we love, not because we strive superhumanly to do so but because we’re loved – and because we know ourselves to be loved we go and share that love.
Paul has been talking about a massive range of gifts – but this gift of love is the greatest gift of all. It’s also something that’s grown into “I will know fully even as I have been fully known” St Paul said. Earlier in the letter he has spoken of a childish spirituality that showed its childishness by self-absorption and jealousy and arguing – now at the end of this morning’s reading he speaks of putting an end to these childish things – such putting away is a long journey,- we tend to have an attachment to a spirituality that is over-concerned with how I feel, and what I like. But put it away we must if we are to “see face to face”.
The competitiveness, self-promotion, self-achievement and all the other self-driven aspects of this life will wear out; our arguments within the church about sexuality at all sorts of levels will, thank God come to an end; – these and many, many other things even now count as nothing compared with this great gift of love that “does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth”.–
But we live in the here and now, in the mess of the present and the tensions that all of that involves, and the conflictedness of so much of what we do and who we are.
Through all of that may we always remember that this love is pure gift – pure gift. We approach this altar with empty hands outstretched to receive him who above all showed us what this love is all about – we are given the gift of love – the fragile gift of love that comes beneath the forms of broken bread and wine outpoured, and which is the love of the one and only living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
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I want for a moment to describe a society to you: it is thrusting, ambitious and competitive – success in trade, social status and economic power is hugely important; self-sufficiency, local autonomy and freedom are highly valued along with a knowledge of how to exist in the rough and tumble of trade and business. Along with a concern for status and recognition goes a high regard for the gift of public speaking that gets plaudits from the public for its style before its content.
I could be describing quite a number of places in the First World today, but actually this description came from a commentary I read on the letter 1st letter to the Corinthians, part of which we heard in our first reading this morning. In some ways the basic drives in some societies have not changed much in 2000 years and so what St Paul has to say is as important as it ever was.
If there’s ever a purple passage in the New testament our first reading is it – read at more weddings I expect than any other; read by Tony Blair at the funeral of Princess Diana – “love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful” it makes the toughest prospective mother-in-law go weak at the knees.
And it is indeed a most beautiful passages – however, it’s very definitely NOT a Biblical version of the nauseating cartoons that begin “Love is…” “love is cooking him a dessert when you are on a diet”, or “love is saying that her new dish is really delicious even when it’s not.” This great passage is no anodyne “ode to love”, but rather it’s the sharpest of criticisms of the values current among the Corinthians – and since not much has changed in 2000 years, perhaps of ourselves too.
Over the past few weeks we’ve had some of the earlier chapters of Corinthians as our first reading, and habitués of Evensong will have heard even more: in those early chapters we read of a Christian community that is highly conflicted – bickering about status, disagreeing over who one can and can’t eat with; they are caught up in a distorted spirituality that’s getting its emphases in all the wrong places and arguing about the relative importance of various gifts; they are involved in bitter power struggles that completely fail to see the value of every member to the whole.
Last week we heard the end of ch 12 which finished with a list of the appointment of apostles, prophets and teachers and the gifts of healing, leadership and speaking in tongues – and it concluded “Bit strive for the greater gifts – and I will show you a still more excellent way” – and then we get today’s passage – which to paraphrase says “I might be the most wonderful prophet, teacher, leader, I might speak all sorts of tongues, I might heal everyone going but if do so without LOVE then it does me no good whatsoever”. Without love they count for nothing at all.
Paul isn’t saying that all these wonderful gifts aren’t needed, he’s not saying that spiritual gifts are useless, or that sacrifice should be disdained – but rather the exercise of these things does nothing for the doer – it’s love that makes them meaningful. The troubles of the Corinthians – the overflow of the bad side of contemporary values into their congregational life are caused by a loveless spirituality.
Paul uses a very specific word for this love - agape this distinguishes it from sexual love or familial love for which Greek has other words; this love isn’t something abstract but something that does some things and not others. It functions in situations of stress and conflict and refuses petty retaliation; it shuns competitiveness, it keeps no score cards, if things don’t go its own way it doesn’t pick up its toys and refuse to play – there’s nothing romantic about it at all – it’s pretty tough.
Tough it may be – but the most important things is that it’s GIFT it’s all a gift from God and not a fruit of our own endeavours - which I find a great relief. As St John puts it –“In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us” – we love, not because we strive superhumanly to do so but because we’re loved – and because we know ourselves to be loved we go and share that love.
Paul has been talking about a massive range of gifts – but this gift of love is the greatest gift of all. It’s also something that’s grown into “I will know fully even as I have been fully known” St Paul said. Earlier in the letter he has spoken of a childish spirituality that showed its childishness by self-absorption and jealousy and arguing – now at the end of this morning’s reading he speaks of putting an end to these childish things – such putting away is a long journey,- we tend to have an attachment to a spirituality that is over-concerned with how I feel, and what I like. But put it away we must if we are to “see face to face”.
The competitiveness, self-promotion, self-achievement and all the other self-driven aspects of this life will wear out; our arguments within the church about sexuality at all sorts of levels will, thank God come to an end; – these and many, many other things even now count as nothing compared with this great gift of love that “does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth”.–
But we live in the here and now, in the mess of the present and the tensions that all of that involves, and the conflictedness of so much of what we do and who we are.
Through all of that may we always remember that this love is pure gift – pure gift. We approach this altar with empty hands outstretched to receive him who above all showed us what this love is all about – we are given the gift of love – the fragile gift of love that comes beneath the forms of broken bread and wine outpoured, and which is the love of the one and only living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.