Lectionary Thoughts: 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 A Reading for the 21st Century

If your church follows the lectionary, there is a good chance you will hear this passage during your Sunday morning service. I find it fascinating that these words are read on the same Sunday where the Gospel reading is one where Jesus is threatened with death by his hometown. Lot’s of love in the Gospel passage this week. 

Most often, this passage has been devoted to being read in weddings, where we have cast these words as some kind of descriptor of romantic love. However, Paul just concluded a long section on spiritual gifts and roles in the church. We know that 12th chapter pretty well, too. You know… “If the foot would say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,…” It’s a great statement about he important of every member of Christ’s Church. Paul concludes the 12th chapter using rhetorical questions to show that there are many gifts, but the last verse says there is a more excellent way.

To remember the 12th chapter while reading this week’s passage, helps me to remember that Paul is not working for Hallmark or Mardel’s. I see the Apostle to the Gentiles telling us that all of these gifts we just read about are superseded by Love. Paul then tells us how to recognize this “more excellent” love before reminding us of something very important.

Love is outside of us.

By the time we get to verse 8, Paul is bringing us back to something that grounds us. He is remind us of the gifts of tongues, our knowledge, and our prophecies are all internal and temporary. There will come a time when they will be no more, but the love described in verses 4-7 will continue on. Love is complete and whole, though we are not. It’s a powerful message. Much more so than just when it has been used as a platitude for a wedding.

Is there a way we can read these words anew? Can we bring them into our context, so far removed from Paul’s 1st century world? I think we should. I believe the preacher is doing that they take to the pulpit. Jesus did that in last week’s Gospel passage when reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah. 

What if when we put 1 Corinthians 13: 8 into our context it looked something like this:

Our preaching will pass away.

Our theologies will cease being productive.

Our cooperative programs will dry up.

Our church buildings will crumble.

The Pew Research Study where the “nones” were brought into the fore of church conversations has everyone terrified over the future of the church. I understand that. My wife and I have a vocational connection to the church. Without that connection, I must confess that we don’t really know what to do. We love our churches, and find fulfillment in serving the local congregation. But it’s hard to deny the facts. These local havens that we have devoted our lives to are changing. While there are still megachurches, the majority of Christian communities are much smaller, and shrinking with each successive generation. 

It’s not the first time the Church has changed.

And it will not be the last.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is telling us that Love will continue. That through all of the past changes, Love has carried on. It’s wholeness is not contained inside of our institutions, and so when they pass away, Love will remain. It’s a scary place to be, watching something you love die. Personally, I feel myself to be in the early stages of grieving. I’m scared of a world where the church is resurrected different from what I’ve known, and so I consciously deny what I know to be true. I feel left out, and afraid.

But Love endures all things.

Love never ends.

Reflections on MLK Day

I am one who needs to hear the message of Dr. King. When I was younger, I would have been a member of the groups that picketed the marches, or at least been apathetic to the cause of equality. Granted, I was born a few decades after MLK’s death. But I remember the formative years of elementary through high school, and I lament that I spoke very much like those who were opponents to Civil Rights. My friends and I would talk about how there were two kinds of people within ethnic minorities. There were the good ones (i.e. the people who spoke/dressed/acted like myself) and there were the bad ones (i.e. people who were different). Of course, we would never say these things in mixed ethnic company; that would have been unChristian of us. Instead, we held our statements as inside remarks against those we saw as a threat to our stable, privileged way of life. 

It took a long time for me to realize that. In college and seminary, I would have moments of inspiration, but on the whole, remained ignorant to my subversive racism. Instead, it shifted to that form of exclusion reserved for those who don’t hate the other, but instead condescend towards the other. I saw myself as one of the educated. I was part of a group that new best and therefore should shoulder the responsibility of bringing those different from me into the light of such knowledge. Instead of hating others because of their inherent differences, I pitied them for not being like me. The ignorance of my position allowed me an arrogance that may have been even more dangerous. I was eager to jettison signs of overt racial hatred, but vehemently objected to any insinuation that I was truly part of the problem. 

In truth, I am still one who is struggling. I struggle with dismissing anyone who is now not as willing to admit privilege as I am. My arrogance has moved toward anger, not with people who provoke painful conversations around race, but instead towards people who think just as I once did. I hear words that I used to say coming from the mouths of people I used to talk to and I want to weep. It’s difficult for me to explain just how much I don’t like the person I used to be, and that is because the only way I know to see that younger me is through the lens of the things I now despise. 

Through all of this long process MLK day meant very little to me. I often worked in fields were it was not a day off, once I was not in school anymore. There were many years that I forgot it even was MLK day until the sun was set. I should little honor or respect to this Baptist minister who laid his entire existence on the line for his vocation. I admired his speeches, for sure. As one who longed to preach, I could not help admiring such a powerful preacher. However, the courage, faith and righteousness of the man was far from something I contemplated. 

This year may have been very similar to others had I not seen something that filled me with sorrow. I was perusing social media when a friend posted a link. The story was about how a person of color was dressed down by a judge about their culture before being sentenced harshly for a crime. I couldn’t even bear to read the article because of the comment my friend put as their status. They chose a racially stereotypical name for this person they did not know, followed by the phrase, “…if that’s your name.” Then, they concluded the post with a rhetorical, “as if it matters,” in reference to the fact that the now convicted person would be removed from society for decades. And all of this just 24 hours after praising how God has been so active in the writer’s personal experience.

It is difficult for me to express my emotions about what I read. It was a mixture of anger, sadness, outrage, and sorrow. As the day has progressed, I’ve thought about never speaking with my friend again. That would be easy, and I feel I could justify it. I don’t live near them and so it would be easy to say that I will never have an opportunity to discuss this in a meaningful way. I want to scream things like “Of course it matters! This is a human being we are talking about! They are created in the image of God! If Christ died for us, then Christ died for them as well!” But another social media rant isn’t helpful, and throwing around the word “racism” is counter-productive. 

In the end, I’ve left with these thoughts, and the pain of knowing that of all days, today would be the time that I encountered such a sentiment. It’s what has driven me to reflect on that person that I was, and the person I am. In the pain, I see how far I’ve come, but also how far I still have to go. I think of the way I viewed the world as a black and white vista of easily identifiable categories, and rejoice/mourn the colorful beauty of nuance. To hold rejoicing and mourning so close together is not difficult, I believe. I mourn the by-gone days of comfort from the simplicity of the past, and with anxiety, rejoice at the beauty of today’s nuance. Through it all I see my past self with more empathy than I did when I awoke. And for this, I think Dr. King for it is today that all of these struggles have taken place.

"I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."

-Martin Luther King Jr. 

Do We Love Violence More Than We Love God?

       This week, after making the last post, I wanted to write about something that has been on my mind a lot over the last few months. I have talked about this issue with friends on many occasions, and all of those conversations have been interesting as well as insightful. However, when I sat down to actually write the thing, it turned out to be much harder than I had originally intended or imagined. I am having a difficult time grasping exactly why that is. There are all of these intelligent things I want to say, but exactly how to put them seems difficult to nail down with precision.

That being the case, I am going to try the direct approach. I’ve become astonishingly aware, of late, how much we truly worship violence, myself included. As a society, we have talked about/scoffed about the violence of video games and movies over the years. Today, violence is actually a relatively rare occurrence in the typical American’s daily experience. I know for some it is a part of their everyday existence, but for the majority of us, we are safer now than we have ever been. The murder-rate, though higher here than other developed countries, is the lowest it has ever been in any historic period that we can truly record. Yet, we seem to have found ways to make sure violence itself is a part of everything we do.

Look at the most popular movies of the last year. Both the second Avengers movie, and the new Star Wars film, are full of violence. Though they are not the bloody affairs like Saving Private Ryan, they still have a great deal of violence. I saw them both, and wanted to see them badly. I, along with everyone else in the theater, cheered more for the big fight scenes of the Avengers than…say the scene where Black Widow tells the heartbreaking story of her forced sterilization. It wasn’t the scene where Rey had the vision that make everyone cheer; it was seeing the Millennium Falcon dogfight against TIE fighters over a desert planet. Its war and punching and brute strength and winners and losers, and those are the parts that we want to devour. They are narratives that appeal to the part of us that wants there to be stark contrasts between good/evil, winners/losers.

It’s why American Football is the most popular sport. It’s the only one where you have a very high probability of coming away with serious brain injury, and yet those hits that probably cause said injuries are why we watch. For years, my favorite team was not the one with the flashy offense, but the one that had a defense that could hurt you. Even in an era where there are rules to regulate hitting to try and lessen the effects of brain injuries, it’s those exact moments where two Adonis(es?) collide headlong at full speed that thrill us. We love it so much that we spend millions of dollars for teenagers to have the best stadium from which we can witness this event.

Unlike anything else, violence captures our attention.

Today, even Christians advocate for violence. During the time of Advent, there were several high-profile Christians advocating for violence in one form or another. Whether it be violence against personal bodily attack, or US response to international terrorism, some Christians who have big platforms advocated for violence. It’s not the first time this has happened to be sure, and it most likely will not be the last. (Anyone remember the Crusades? No?) 

When I heard about or read about some of the vehemence expressed by these leaders who so fervently trumpet the name of Jesus, I became felt uncomfortable. As a person of the Christian faith, I don’t really feel it was appropriate. Should we, as representatives of a homeless prophet put to death by the State, advocate for state sponsored violence against others? Should we, who were told to “turn the other cheek,” and that, “they who live by the sword will die by the sword” really be so quick to boast of our own willingness to dispense violence? Should the followers of the one who healed the ear of one of the people come to arrest him be so quick threaten the lives of others in order to defend their ideologies? 

We both know all of those questions are rhetorical…but I hope you will want to talk about it in the comments section anyway. 

Baptists Rediscovering Baptism

        In the not to distant past, my wife and I had the wonderful opportunity to serve an international church in Bali, Indonesia. We had only been married a few months and so we looked at this amazing opportunity as a wonderful working honeymoon. I mean, why not? We were living in a tropical paradise while getting the opportunity to work with an amazingly diverse group of Christians. One opportunity sticks out as we sit in the shadow of last Sunday’s worship around the Lukan narrative of Jesus’ baptism.

We were invited to visit a Hindu temple up in the mountains. Part of the trip was to sit down at a family home near the temple and participate in some informal interfaith dialogue. There was an American woman living with this Balinese family who acted as an interpreter for us. As we sat to have tea, she told us about her conversation with the family before we came. We had told her while planning this visit that we were Christians who ministered from the Baptist perspective, and she recounted to us her experience of trying to explain that to the Balinese Hindu family she was living with. The only way she knew to describe our faith practices to the family's elders was to tell them that we were Christians with a special relationship to water.

At the time, I didn’t know what to think about it. I’ve always wondered about the name Baptist and what it means. Often, the Walter Shurden book, The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms, comes to mind. It’s a great book, if you haven’t read it. Regularly, I reflect on Shurden’s work around religious freedom, soul freedom, bible freedom, and congregational freedom. In terms of what I truly think of Baptist distictives, in a formal sense, the book captures my position well.

However, if you ask me what the word “Baptist” means, I have a harder time answering that question. I can recite my old seminary answers about baptizing members of the church and not children, or why we immerse as the official mode of baptism, but there isn’t one way for me to really capture what baptism means in full-throated way. There could be all kinds of reasons. Baptism does not save a soul, as the Campbellite Churches of Christ put it, and it is not a sacrament as my Episcopalian or Catholic friends would think of it. So, what does it do? Why is baptism important?

This last Sunday, I listened to a pastor give a great sermon, more a dramatic presentation really, of someone standing in line behind Jesus as if they were there in the reading from Luke. As I listened, I was carried away by the story and felt myself responding to the dramatic cues, and following the along, just as the pastor has planned it, I’m sure. Then, I remembered another scene. We were in the chapel of the Episcopal seminary where my wife earned her masters. It was the Saturday before Easter, and we were participating in The Great Easter Vigil.

For this Baptist boy, it was a long service. At the end, the dean of the seminary baptized the children who had been born in the seminary community that year. Though I prefer the practice Baptists have clung to, I appreciated the moment of families and god-parents gathered around the priest as they watched the ceremony with a packed chapel. It was quite beautiful after just singing of the resurrection. Then, something happened that I had never known before. The priest took a branch of rosemary and dipped it into the bowl . Turning to the crowd she said, “Remember your baptism,” before shaking the water over the heads of the gathered worshipers. We were sitting too far back to have the water hit us, and so after the service had fully concluded, my wife went to one of the professors with whom she had grown close. She told her, “We didn’t get any of the water during the remembrance of baptism.” The professor, still in her vestments, said, “Oh, I can handle that.” She gathered her alb and ran to the font. There, she took the rosemary and plunged it into the bowl before turning to my wife, whose arms were outstretched and gave her a good dousing. It was joyful, and beautiful. The perfect mixture of reverence and irreverence, levity and depth, beautiful and fun. It is an image I will remember.

I remember it mainly because it caused me to remember my baptism. I remember the night when I stood on a milk carton in the baptistry of my local church as a 4th grader. I remember my pastor in his white baptismal robe, and I remember the nervousness of that moment in front of the entire congregation. As I put all of those stories together, I even begin to see what it means. 

It took me experiencing a Baptist ritual, then seeing my Baptist ritual through the Episcopal remembrance for me to think my Baptism all that important. It’s the first time that I really remember having any discussion or ritual that was called as a memorial for baptism. In a way, I find it a touch shameful, being that I am a Baptist. Baptism is one of the big things we SHOULD be known for, it is in our name. 

I know that today there are all manner of conversations around how we attract new people to our churches, and how we through the doors open in such a way that all feel that our faith is accessible. Last Sunday, as I listened to the pastor tell the story as if they were there, I realized, we need to make the things we do mean something. It doesn’t matter if we keep practicing full immersion baptism or the Lord’s Supper/Communion if we do not take it seriously. When I am asked to remember my baptism, in whatever ritual or form that could be used, I want to relive it. In the moments, I want to be baptized again. It is re-born in me. and I feel as I did when I was a new member to the body of Christ.

Maybe, there is a new way for us to remember our baptism.

Hopefully, it is something worth remembering.

Eventually, it may lead us to realizing how connected we are as a body.