A Fourth Church Sermon by Jocelyn C. Cadwallader

January 31, 2010 | 4:00 p.m.

“All You Need Is Love”

Jocelyn C. Cadwallader
Pastoral Resident, Fourth Presbyterian Church

1 Corinthians 13

This past Friday, I went to a coffee shop in my neighborhood to sit down and write this sermon. I sat down at this low table, fluffed up the pillows in the corner by the window to sit on and settle in with a cup of tea, and words of love surrounded me. I had the Bible open, of course, and commentaries, poetry books, and several other books by theologians and pastors commenting on their experiences of love and what they have learned from scripture and life on the meaning of love. As this passage rolled about my mind and heart for the last week, I sat down with images ranging from movie scenes, such as in a recent comedic film where Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are crashing yet another wedding (they were making bets as to which scripture passage will be used in the ceremony; of course, the passage we just listened to today was one their short list). My mind reeled from scenes such as this to beautiful images of God’s love expressed through poetry or music or life. And, of course, the classic Beatles song encouraging us that, honestly, to get through life, to become who it is you are to be, all you need is love!

So, 1 Corinthians 13—the marriage passage, the passage on love, the passage that praises love, the passage that puts to language these beautiful and mystical emotions that couples feel for one another, that people can feel for one another, what God feels for us. These are the words floating through my head—“love is patient, love is kind”—while, sitting across from me, at another table in the coffee shop, there were two women chatting—rather loudly, I might add. I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation. These two women have both been married within the last year or two, and they seem to be steadily moving towards taking next steps in their respective relationships, such as buying a house. They discussed what homes they grew up in and how that informs what they want to move in to. They talked about their husbands and the hope they have for children in the future. They want to purchase homes where there is space enough for children, but they’re not quite sure if they will have children themselves or if they’ll adopt children. The conversation floats through the layers of relationship, the layers of love, layers of wishing their husbands would take out the garbage to layers of desiring a home to open up to foster children as a loving place. And as beautiful as the pictures these women paint, as beautiful as a healthy relationship can be, I couldn’t help but begin to believe this passage is about more than that; though it might include relationships, it has to be more than simply a description of a love between two people. So I’d like to spend a little time taking a closer look at this passage to further understand the meaning of this love.

Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians during a time when the local church was torn apart. In fact, it is understood that his letter to the Corinthians was a response to a letter the church of Corinth sent him sharing with him the woes of their experience and seeking advice. This was not a church that was happy and standing hand-in-hand with a promising future ahead of them. He was writing to a young, virtually newborn Christian congregation that had tragically split into feuds and factions for several reasons. His letter responds to, among other things, serious disorders within the church, which included rival groups competing for control, indifference to flagrant immorality, and disregard for those who are not “fully enlightened” about Christian conduct. And this chapter is not a happy aside, just thrown into the letter. We see him addressing this church, and all that they encompass, in this chapter. In his reference to “speaking in the tongues of mortals and angels,” having prophetic powers, understanding all mysteries and knowledge, and giving away with the guise of charity, Paul is reaching out to each and every portion of the community within the church of Corinth. He is including them specifically, intentionally, and he is imploring them to understand that there is a common thread among them, and in this chapter’s case, that thread is love.

Now I should mention one thing: Paul is not putting down the various gifts he describes. It is not his intention to say that communication, knowledge, faith, and charity or self-sacrifice are intrinsically worthless. He is simply reaching out to as many experiences as possible throughout the community, and he offers a common experience through these blessings of God. He is claiming that without love, these experiences become of no value whatsoever.

Barrie Shepherd, a Presbyterian pastor and author of the book Aspects of Love: An Exploration of 1 Corinthians 13, reminds us that for Paul, knowledge is a great potential blessing. Paul learned in his own life how swiftly knowledge without love can turn from blessing to curse. In fact, back in the day, Paul’s own expertise in the Law permitted him to stand by and hold the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen, the first Christian martyr, to death. Paul first-handedly knows this burden of knowledge without love and seeks to warn the church of Corinth against the seductive wiles of knowledge sans love.

Perhaps we might lend an ear as well, as we have experienced the quest for knowledge without love to also prove as a damaging experience. For example, it has led to a school system of such inequality that many children are condemned the moment they step through that school’s doors. Or how many patients are condemned to worse care, if any at all, in our healthcare system in America? Knowledge without love, as Paul saw long ago, is what sets people apart rather than draws them together; knowledge without love divides into classes or cliques rather than helping folks to understand, to have compassion for, and live at peace with one another. Such knowledge, as Paul reminds us, is worth nothing.

Debbie Blue, a pastor in St. Paul, Minnesota, has written a book of sermons entitled Sensual Orthodoxy in which she describes the love of God, the love of Christ, in ways that are not necessarily described as “nice and safe.” In fact, author David James Duncan describes her work as that which “reminds us how much living by mercy and grace throws our plans to the wind and requires that we continually rethink what it means to follow Jesus.” For example, in the preface of her book, Blue claims, “I [meaning Blue, herself] might be wrong, but what guides my exegesis is the belief that if I hear the Word of God in the struggle, it will be the word of a lover. A lover who wants the world to believe in that love and live in that love, not the Supreme Being who wants his subjects lined up properly with their buttons all buttoned right and their shirts clean, their bodies bent in just the right position of supplication.” It seems to me that Paul had the same belief.

Paul did not refer to a God that gets lost in the details of life, in the knowledge, in the tangles of tongues or interpretations, in the prophecy, or in the ways in which we justify our actions or experiences. God recognizes there are beautiful aspects of life, such as knowledge, such as faith and hope. Yet that is not the whole story. In fact, those aspects of life that individuals live out, fight over, and divide themselves among are pointless unless they are infused with love. It is love that concerns the God whom Paul describes. When love enters into the picture, there is possibility for no more divisions, possibility for no more disparities among peoples. For love is patient and kind, not boastful or arrogant, love is not selfish or irritable or resentful, and if we were to only allow our senses, our own egos, our own arrogance to be infused with this love, perhaps we might open our ears to one another and learn new experiences of God together, rather than staking claim to the God we know, believing all others to believe wrongly.

Poet Mary Oliver reminds us that our work is loving the world. In all of our knowledge gained, experiences had, relationships shared, whether we’re a community divided or a couple arguing about who takes the garbage out, our work is loving the world. For as faith, hope, and love abide, the greatest of these is love. May we approach the world and our lives intertwined within it with this rule of love.

Amen.