"And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13.13). As an experiment yesterday, I typed the word 'love' into Google. That's right, I 'googled' 'love'. I thought you might like to hear the results. In case you lay away at night wondering what the Internet thinks about love - fear not - I'm about to put your mind at ease. As might be expected, the first 'hit' was the ubiquitous Wikipedia, which initially defines love as 'any of a number of emotions related to a sense of strong affection and attachment'. After detailing the range of definitions - from 'I love pizza' to 'I love my children' - Wikipedia calls love an 'abstract concept', 'a deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for another person'. Leaving Wikipedia behind, the Internet had more to say. According to Wikihow.com, love is something that some people may not experience, but when someone does, they provide a 'general guide' for how to maintain it. And as a final example, Dictionary.com defines love with more than fourteen definitions, the first two of which are: 'a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person,' and 'a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend'. So to select a few words from this perusal of the Internet, I would suggest 'abstract concept', 'ineffable feeling', 'profoundly tender, passionate'. These descriptors all suggest a somewhat indefinable character to that thing described by those four letters L-O-V-E. There is nothing - apparently - specifiable about what 'love' is, but the Internet does suggest that 'love' often belongs within a certain context: that of a romantic relationship. It seems, according to lovecalculator.com, that I can select a person and see just how compatible we are, how long our relationship will last, all on the basis of our first and last names. Indeed, some websites even let me take tests that will determine my compatibility with a host of other people. We can then initiate contact. Love, on this definition, grows out of compatibility with another.
So, if we take the Internet as a good indication of what a great many people think, we can draw a couple of conclusions: first, people really aren't sure what to make of this word, and second, when they do try to define it, it has to be connected to a thing that occurs between two people, some kind of bond that is indescribable, though it can be seen - apparently - in a romantic relationship, where the feelings are 'tender' and 'passionate'. In fact, the Church also uses relationships to define love. Throughout the Bible, the image of God as Israel's spouse pops up again and again; in the New Testament, Jesus is described as a husband and the Church as his bride. In fact, the words from our second reading are sometimes read in marriage services. So, the question for today is whether or not the 'love' of which Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians is as nebulous a concept as the one I found on the Internet. And at the risk of spoiling the surprise twist, the answer is it is not as indefinable. When Paul talks about love being greater than faith and hope, he does not mean 'love' in the sense of Wikipedia; this is no amorphous concept. Like the people on the Internet, Paul puts a great deal of emphasis on love as a practical thing existing between people. A few examples: you shouldn't eat meat that's been sacrificed to an idol if it causes your brother or sister to stumble (1 Cor. 8); you shouldn't speak to the gathered church in a foreign language if no one is there to interpret (14.1-24); you shouldn't value eating and drinking more than you value your brother or sister (Rom. 14.13-23). So while Paul does insist on love being a practical outworking of something between people, he does not - as the Internet does - think it is something that simply exists between two people, something best viewed as analogous to romantic love. Indeed, we need to put all notions of romantic love out of our minds for a moment - I do not mean they are unimportant! - but we are right now talking about something else altogether. And we should start by teasing apart this triad of faith, hope, and love.
Faith. In Greek, the word here shares its root with the word with which we begin the creed. 'I believe'. And how do we end the creed? 'I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.' What we believe - what we have faith in - culminates in this belief in the resurrection of the dead. And Paul himself connects faith with resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15: 'And if Christ has not been raised [from the dead], then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain' (v. 14, ESV). And it is this connection between faith and Jesus that leads us to our Gospel reading. A strange story, this one. Jesus reads the passage aloud; everyone gets excited. This is, after all, the local boy who has been making a stir in Capernaum, the town down the road. Surely he's going to do some miracles here. But Jesus goes on to tell them he won't do any miracles. A prophet is not accepted in his or her hometown. The people are furious and drive Jesus out to stone him. It almost feels like Jesus himself invites this rejection. Why not do a few miracles, heal a few blind people? What's missing here? .... Faith. Throughout the gospels, when Jesus heals someone, he says some variation of 'Your faith has healed you' or 'Your faith has saved you'. Jesus, throughout the Gospels, does not perform miracles to satisfy curiosity or to prove who he is. Faith is belief in Christ, belief in the Gospel; faith is, as Hebrews reminds us, the 'assurance of things hoped for' (11.1). Faith is assurance, but that doesn't mean we are positive. The saying of the creed is itself an act of faith. 'I believe in one God'; 'I have faith in one God', in one Lord Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary, who suffered and died and was raised again. And because that is the kind of God I believe in - the kind of God I have faith in - I look for - I hope for - the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
Hope. As Paul tells us, hope has to do with things not yet seen (Rom. 8.24). That is what we are saying in the creed: because the God I believe in is this kind of God, I put my hope in this kind of outcome. In other words, faith and hope are intricately connected. Faith is assurance, Hebrews says, while hope is, well, hope is hope. Hope is built on the bedrock of faith, while faith is built on what God has already done. Faith and hope are intertwined; one looks forward while the other looks backward. Because Jesus was the kind of saviour who didn't simply go to his hometown, but went out to Gentiles and sent his disciples into all the world, because this is the kind of God we have faith in, we can have faith - assurance - in the hope that this God is continuing to put the world to rights. It is hope, certainly, because the world is obviously not perfect. But because of our faith and hope, we ourselves get to play a part in making the world right. Because we have hope that our bodies will be resurrected on the basis of our faith that Jesus himself was raised from the dead, we go into the world in faith that what we do here has lasting value. Because faith and hope are nothing without love.
And here we are, back around to the word of the morning. But before I get to a definition, I should say that Paul doesn't let us dismiss faith and hope until the day we see God face-to-face. Faith and hope are part of seeing dimly in a mirror. That is, I'm afraid, where we are now, looking into the future with hope as into a misty morning. We cannot love without faith and hope because we do not yet know God fully. We only know what God has done for us, the kind of God he is. That is why faith and hope are necessary now. But it is also why they will pass away eventually. As a certain Church Father has said, 'faith will be replaced by the sight of the visible reality, and hope by the real happiness which we shall attain, whereas love will actually increase when these things pass away' (Augustine, On Christian Teaching 1.91, Oxford World's Classics). We're not there yet, so we need faith and hope to understand love.
Love. The Internet is right about one thing: love requires an object. And that is why faith and hope are important. Because ultimately, we love the God who created heaven and earth, the God who loves us. Love. It is God himself, the Holy Spirit pouring himself into our hearts (Rom. 5.5). Love is our being pulled into union with God. The God in whom we have faith, in whom we hope, this God shares himself with us. God is love. This love is not the nebulous kind we find on Wikipedia; it is not an 'abstract concept'. No. Love is intricately connected to what God has done and will do. God is a God who comes into a hurting world and gives himself for it. The Triune God is a God who is so full of love that the Father's love for the Son through the Spirit overflows, pours out in an act of loving creation. Even when that creation rebels, this God's love prevents him from letting it spiral into chaos and destruction. Instead, he comes in and begins to remake it from the inside out by destroying death and bringing resurrection. One day, he will complete this renewal by bringing a new heavens and new earth. This very specific love is given form in the person of Jesus Christ. These are matters of faith and hope, and they provide the context for us to understand love.
Love is going into a hostile world and turning the other cheek. Love is going into a dark world and shining light. Love is not selfish. It does not seek its own. Love looks at another and says, 'On the basis of my faith and hope in God, I will cast my lot with you and suffer with you, die with you if necessary.' Love looks at the people hurting in the world, and like the prophet in our first reading, love goes forth and speaks judgment on the world. Love tells the world that what it thinks love is is nothing but a sham. Love tells the world that its days of tyranny and oppression are limited, that a new heavens and a new earth are coming. Love stands with the poor, with the weak and oppressed, with the heartbroken, and says, 'As my God has treated me, thus will I treat you.'
Amen.
Sermon by: Jake Andrews