1 Corinthians 13:1-13
“What Gives Life Meaning?:Tripping Over the Furniture”
What gives life meaning?
This is the question which has plagued humankind more than any other question.
Is it consumer goods?
Is it money?
Is it the accumulation of stuff?
Is it ease?
Is it food?
What gives life meaning and where can it be found?
This Advent Season, beginning with this morning, I will be preaching a sermon series which seeks to answer this befuddling conundrum.
This series will take us through all four Sundays in Advent all the way to our Christmas Eve Candlelight Service.
And I’ll only be using one Scripture passage for all five sermons: 1 Corinthians 13…
…If we don’t already, we’ll all know this one by heart by Christmas Eve—and that’s a good thing since it is one of the most profound and moving passages in the entire Bible.
I believe it gets to the heart of what it is all about.
My prayer is that throughout these next five sermons we will all come to a better understanding of what truly gives meaning to life!!!
A psychologist who has been counseling teenagers for over 25 years has recently begun to see a new breed of unhappy kids—smart, successful, and privileged kids who feel utterly lost and empty.
One client in particular typified this kind of unhappy teen.
Late on a Friday afternoon—the last appointment of her week—the psychologist saw a 15-year-old girl who was “bright, personable, highly pressured by her adoring, but frequently preoccupied parents.”
The girl was also very “angry.”
The psychologist quickly recognized the girl’s “cutter disguise”—a long-sleeve t-shirt pulled half-way over her hand, with an opening torn in the cuff for her thumb.
The psychologist was startled to find that the girl had used a razor to carve the following word into her forearm—“Empty.”
A well-known Christian tells the following story about his home town of Naples, Florida, which he calls “one of the garden spots of the world.”
“It’s an almost nirvana for all golfers, and they all come there.
They’re all CEO’s of major corporations, and they retire to Naples, and this is “it”—27 golf courses and miles of sparkling beach and the best country clubs.
I watch these guys; they’re powerful people.
They have this New York look on their face; they’re determined.
But now, all of a sudden, they start measuring their lives by how many golf games they can get in.”
The man continues, “I often say to them, ‘Do you really want to live your life counting up the number of times you chase that little white ball around those greens?’
And they kind of chuckle, but it’s a nervous chuckle, because in six months they’ve realized how banal their lives are, and they’ve got beautiful homes—castles—and when they get bored with that, they build a bigger castle, and they’re miserable.”
We run after all kinds of things in life.
For those of us who have children, most of us want them to go to college, do well in their studies so that they can find a good job and so forth.
And this is a good thing.
No doubt about it.
One of the things I try to impress upon the kids who come Tuesdays for East Ridge Cares is the importance of education.
If these kids are ever going to escape the cycle of poverty, addiction and abuse—they must study hard in school, do their homework, get good grades and go to college.
They can do anything they want with their lives, right now that is.
They have a lot riding against them, but if they make their minds up, and really buckle down…
…if they can get a grasp of the big picture of things…
…they can have a successful life.
But if we were to only measure success on the basis of education, jobs, and subdivisions—we would be missing THE MOST CRITICAL INGREDIENT.
We would be missing the ONE THING which makes everything else worthwhile…meaningful, if you will.
Turning to our Scripture passage from 1 Corinthians…
…the writer of this letter, the Apostle Paul, was addressing a really “spiritual” group of folks.
Here in 21st Century America, some might refer to the Church at Corinth as a “Holy Roller Church.”
They had people speaking in tongues…
…as a matter of fact, they had people competing with one another over how many different tongues they could speak.
They had people standing up during worship time and prophesying about this, that and the other thing.
Some members tried to prove how “spiritual” they were compared to the rest of the assembly by spouting out a bunch of so-called “knowledge”…
…like some Christian form of Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy.
Others got all uppity about how much “faith” they had and looked down on others who were perhaps struggling a bit more than they.
They were competing with one another alright.
Even during the Lord’s Supper they were having problems.
At that time The Lord’s Supper was more of a “community meal” or “pot-luck dinner.”
The problem was that those who brought food weren’t sharing with those who couldn’t afford to bring food.
In verse 21 of Chapter 11 Paul writes, “Each of you goes ahead and eats a private meal. One person goes hungry while another is drunk.”
So, lots of stuff was happening at 1st Christian Church Corinth.
People were jumping on pews, running down the aisles, speaking in tongues—you name it!!!
But nobody was really happy.
Paul said that there were “divisions” or “cliques.”
From the outsider looking in, they may have appeared to be very “spiritual” or “alive.”
But if you dug beneath the surface, you would find they were quite empty.
I think that is the way it is with a lot of us, even and maybe even especially here in the buckle of the Bible Belt.
We sure have an appearance of godliness, but do we have the power?
What good is our “spirituality” doing?
And could all these churches and noses in the pews be harnessed to do much, much more?
Are we more concerned with outward appearances than we are with loving God and neighbor?
A friend once told me that “down here” the first thing a person often asks a stranger is, “What church do you go to?”
But when you visit our churches on Sunday, there aren’t all that many people in them.
Is belonging to a “religious body” more of a rite of passage than a lifestyle?
And what about all the expensive buildings, digital signs, building projects and programs for the members?
What is our focus?
Where is our focus?
What do we care about?
Are we simply too self-absorbed?
Are we in competition with one another?
Are we a social club?
Do we allow some, and exclude others?
Are there people who are considered “in” and others who are considered “out”?
Do we get so caught up in the hot-button political/slash social fights that these things become our gods?
Do we spend tons of money telling other people that what they are doing is wrong, while we ourselves are walking around with huge planks in our own eyes?
Imagine if all the self-professed Christians in Chattanooga and North Georgia would come together under the ONE THING which, according to Jesus and according to Paul—trumps all?
What could we accomplish?
Would there even be anymore homeless people?
Would there be any more children without proper clothes, a permanent roof over their heads, and food in their bellies?
If we were to live according to the principles Paul sets forth in 1 Corinthians 13 there may not be any more people to convert and Christ’s Kingdom may well have already come on earth as it is in heaven.
But are we just a bunch of blind-folded Christians too busy tripping over the furniture to accomplish much of anything for God’s Kingdom?
That’s the problem Paul was addressing in 1 Corinthians 13.
The people were narcissistic.
They were self-absorbed.
They had missed what was truly important.
They were majoring in the minors.
So Paul said to them, “If I speak in the tongues of human beings and of angels but I don’t have love, I’m a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal.”
In other words, “Without love, my ecstatic speech is just a bunch of good for nothing, annoying racket.”
“If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all the mysteries and everything else, and if I have such complete faith that I can move mountains but I don’t have love, I’m nothing.”
Talk about deflating someone’s balloon!!!
“If I give away everything that I have and hand over my own body to feel good about what I’ve done…”
…notice how many times the word “I” is used?...
… “If I…hand over my own body to feel good about what I’ve done but I don’t have love, I receive no benefit whatsoever.”
And then he gets into the meat of it…
Beginning at verse 4 Paul begins talking and describing the ONE THING that defines the Christian life and gives life meaning.
And that is LOVE!!!
But what does Paul mean by love?
Verses 4-7 describe it.
Line by line it becomes clear in itself.
And perhaps the best thing to do with a passage like this is to take it slowly, a line at a time, and to reflect on at least three things:
• First, ways in which we see these qualities in Jesus Himself
• Second, ways in which we see or don’t see these qualities in ourselves
• And third, ways in which, if we were to embody these qualities, how would they work and transform our daily lives?
And that is what we will be talking about next week.
What does it mean to love?
The very word for love causes all kinds of problems in our English language.
Is what Paul is talking about the same thing as what we mean when we say, “I love tennis,” or “I love bacon”?
Try and imagine what it would feel like to live the way of life that is patient, kind, isn’t jealous, doesn’t brag, isn’t arrogant, isn’t rude, doesn’t seek its own advantage, isn’t irritable, doesn’t keep a record of complaints, isn’t happy with injustice, but is [only] happy with the truth.
“puts up with all things, hopes for all things, endures all things…”
And, “never fails.”
What steps would we have to take to make this happen, to avoid lapsing back into our normal behavior?
Let’s face it.
Love is God’s river, flowing on into the future, across the border into the country where there is no pride, no jostling for position, no contention.
This is very important.
We are invited to step into that river here and now, and let it take us where its going.
This is the ONE THING that gives life meaning.
Will we embrace it, as it has embraced us?
Without it, nothing else matters.
Amen.
