Lectionary Reflection for Epiphany 4C on 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

AN IMPORTANT CHOICE

There is a simple but difficult choice that we must each face every day. It is a choice that can mean the difference between being fully alive or becoming a shell of a person who merely exists. I have come to believe that this choice is, perhaps, the most important decision we could ever make and it must be made every single day: Will we live with closed hearts or hearts that remain open?

In spite of the relative comfort of my world, I have to confess that I am constantly tempted to close my heart. The people with whom I live are all too human (as, so they tell me, am I), and when they hurt me, my heart wants to close and protect itself—forgetting all that I would lose in the process. Whenever I witness the violence, injustice, and corruption that plague human societies, my heart shrinks and seeks to shut the world out. When I encounter, as I did this week, people of faith attacking a messenger of peace and love like Bishop Mariann Budde, my heart wants to grow cold and stop caring.

It would take no thought or effort to close my heart. It’s a natural reaction to the fallenness of the world. But the Christ whose heart remained always recklessly open does not allow us the luxury of closed hearts. His teaching and example of loving even in the face of persecution and evil insist that I do the same. If we claim to follow Christ, we cannot avoid doing the painful, difficult, and sacrificial work of learning to live with an open heart.

WORSHIP AS THE SCHOOL OF LOVE

One of the best places where we learn how to love, openly, vulnerably, and freely, is in worship. Perhaps this should not be surprising—after all, isn’t spirituality all about learning to be more connected, compassionate, and contributing human beings? Yet, as with the Corinthian church in the first century, our worship has become one of the most divisive human activities in the world.

Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 13 were never meant to be about marriage or romance. It’s not wrong for us to apply this wonderful poem about love to these and other aspects of our lives, but we must be careful not to miss Paul’s point.

As we have seen over the last few weeks, Paul shared a vision of Christian community as a body of many parts that all work together and care for each other. He gave instructions on the role of spiritual gifts within such a community and called the church to work together in service of God’s reign. But the context for all of this teaching, from chapter eleven through to the end of chapter fourteen, is the worship life of the church. The reason for this is that the worship service is meant to be a training ground for life. As I have often written, our worship defines our lives. It is when we gather, as a diverse group of people, that we are supposed to learn to love one another—and then for that love to flow out into the world. And that means that we need to enter worship with open hearts, and allow the Spirit to open our hearts even more so that our love becomes like that of Jesus.