Love or Nothing

“But strive for the greater gifts.  And I will show you a still more excellent way.

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.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but no not have love, I am nothing.

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.” I Corinthians 12:31-13:3

There are few passages that I think have power in and of themselves to transform the way we think about church and community…this is one of them.  The full passage from the Daily Office today is I Corinthians 12:27-13:3.  Before the quoted passage above, we hear how different gifts are given to different people; some apostles, some teachers, some healing, some signs of power, but Paul breaks this up with a reminder that we are all interdependent, and in the church, if you don’t have love, it doesn’t matter what gift you have; it is nothing without love. 

In the Daily Office we have been reading about a broken church in Corinth. It seems that concerns of status have begun to fracture the church.  The world’s markers of status have bled into the Corinthian Church, and poisoned it.  The observance of the Lord’s Supper is in disarray, the poor leave empty-handed, the rich go off and get drunk.  And if that were not enough, there seems to an implicit fracturing over who has the greater spiritual gifts (and thereby further the game of who has power and status).  Paul answers these problems beautifully, and I feel in this passage we read the beginning of the climax of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  This passage is the lead in, of course, to the infamous passage “Love is patient, love is kind…” It should be noted Paul is not talking about marriage in those lines, but about community. 

One of the most difficult parts about being a postulant to ordination in an institutional church is seeing the institution for what it is sometimes (not all the time): seeing the politics, seeing the power plays, the gossip, and aggression that comes when egos in any institution go wild.  And of course, in any form of politics, there is always the inherent fear and domination that comes with being sinful human creatures.  In conventions it is easy to see that poison of “world-status” bleed into the Church.  And in such circumstances, you quickly learn your “place," and that “place” has nothing to do with love.

This passage encourages me.  It reminds me that if one is a bishop, a priest, a deacon, a teacher, a delegate, a large donor, a homeless parishioner, or a simple caregiver of widows and orphans ALL are given certain gifts and value in accordance with the Holy Spirit, and ALL are nothing without love.  In the institution, just as in the world, my main spiritual goal should be to love others; to be kind, patient, and compassionate, to seek their good.  I wish I could have the entire institution (well the entire world really) meditate on love, and be reminded of the folly of the cross, but I cannot.  So, I will love them.  And, I know, when I do, I will see just how many love too.