What a Stupid Post

Text: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

It turns out that impolite comments left on blog posts substantially affect the way people judge the authenticity of the posts and how much they like the author. Maybe this does not surprise you. People’s opinions, even those of strangers, seem to matter to us. Words can cause harm. What is surprising is the way the comments affect readers’ perceptions. Comments that include cursing, insults, and angry talk for some readers diminish the value of the post. But the same comments for other readers enhance its value. In other words, rude comments polarize the audience and create or widen division within the community. This might remind you of the U.S. Congress or the nations of the world.

When Paul writes his first letter to the church at Corinth, he writes to a divided community. We have talked about this over the last few Sundays as we have read from this letter. The whole letter, and especially the verses we’ve heard, are an attempt by Paul to bring some sense and unity to the church. So we heard Paul discuss the variety of gifts in the church, none greater than another. And then discuss the variety of people in the church, none less valuable than another. In both cases, people were thinking about themselves first, and about others second, or not a all. They were trumpeting their own worth and denying the worth of others. Paul tells them to stop that. And now, in the verses for today, Paul reminds them of why they should do what he says, and why they can.

These verses talk about love. Therefore the are often used in weddings. They are not bad for that purpose, because the virtues they present are good ones to remember as you get married. But as I suspect you know, Paul is not talking about romance and kisses, or even about friendship. It is not about emotion. The word he uses is translated in the King James Version as “charity.” This is misleading for us, too, because these days it connotes something like a handout, or philanthropy. That’s not what Paul is saying, either. Perhaps a better translation would be respect, or empathy. Or a realization of the human-ness of the other person. It is what we do because we are all equally children of God. He is not asking the nose-in-the air folks at Corinth to like the other people nor to befriend them. But they must love one another.

There are two ways—at least—to read these words of Paul. You might read them as complaint or judgment—or as law, as Lutherans would say. Read them as if Paul were angry, taking the Corinthians to task. You folks are messed up, Paul says in this interpretation. There is another way to behave. A most excellent way, as it says. Love is patient: You are supposed to be patient. But you are quick to anger instead. Love is generous: You are supposed to be generous, but you are greedy instead. You are supposed to be humble, but you are arrogant instead.

You have no right to be so, and Paul reels off a list of increasing skills and powers: speaking in tongues, prophecy, understanding and knowledge, great faith, even self-sacrifice. There is nothing we are, that we have, or that we do that justifies not loving our neighbor.

Or you could read what Paul writes as invitation—or as gospel, good news, as we’d say. Read them as if Paul were encouraging the people to imagine a new way of being with one another. I can show you a most excellent way to behave, with great consequences for you and the world. And here is the way: Be patient, be kind, be humble, be truthful. Your gifts—good speech, faith, knowledge—are great, but in the end lead to nothing. They do not fulfill you. They do not profit you. They do not define you. Without love for others, they are nothing. Without love, we do not flourish.

Paul reveals an idea here, a vision of what could be. This is a poem. It describes how things are and tries to create for us an image of a future. It is specific and concrete.

It is a recipe. To make a new world, do this. There is a most excellent way. Which means more literally: there is a path that is beyond comparison. Here is the big picture: love one another as Jesus has loved you. Here are the details: be kind, generous, patient, courteous.

This seems stupidly simple until you remember that this means more than be kind to the people you like, more than be polite to your friends even when they are being jerks. It means being kind to everyone, whether you like them or not, whether they like you or not, whether they will thank you for it or not. If means being patient and generous to people who are not patient and generous back and never will be, even people who harm you. Even your enemies.

It means going beyond the Golden Rule. To not insist on your own way, as Paul says, no matter how reasonable it is. To not seek yourself, it means more exactly. To not have you be the intended destination for your actions. No matter if you are right. No matter if you think yourself to hold the morally superior position. It means to think of others before you think of yourself. To be as gracious to one another as God has been to us.

We see only dimly (through a glass darkly, the King James says more poetically). What is it that we see darkly, dimly? We see ourselves. We are an enigma. We do not see one another very clearly. From that ignorance, we conclude (as the Corinthians did) that we are better somehow than those vague others. We compare our inside knowledge of ourselves with our outside observations of others, and conclude that those others are fundamentally different from us.

But they—we—are not. Our understanding of one another is incomplete, partial, as Paul says. We do not know each other, nor are we well-known by each other. When we act in love, we begin to see each other person as God sees us. Even those we have found to be intolerable. We begin to know each other as we have been known, fully, as God knows us.

Jesus tells his disciples, as we will hear in a few weeks on Maundy Thursday: Love one another as I have loved you. But he does not tell them how. The Corinthians need—as we do—more practical advice. These verses in Paul’s letter to the people in the church of Corinth are not some treatise on the nature of love. Not: this is what love is and does. And they are not a judgment about what good lovers we are. They are techniques that show us how to do what Jesus commands. This is how to love one another.

Why should the Corinthians do what Paul tells them to? Why should we? We do it because we do not like living in a broken and broken-apart world. And because we are convinced that it is not inevitable that the world be that way. Jesus tells us: Love one another as I have loved you. By this, everyone will know you are my followers.

We try to love one another because we are convinced that Jesus is right: that this will fix the world. Or maybe we are not so convinced. In that case, we try to love one another just because we are followers of Jesus. And that’s what followers do: they listen to the teachings and commands of their leader and try to obey them.

The insulting comments on the blog posts polarize people because they enact a fiction: that we are not one community. They reinforce a myth: That we are not similar children of God.

Tossing insults—or worse—at other people across the aisle or across the world is clearly not working. We who follow Jesus have been shown a vision, and we have been issued an invitation: There is a more excellent way.