1 Corinthians 13:1-13
“What Gives Life Meaning?: These Things Shall Fade Away”
In his book “Soul Grafiti: Making A Life In The Way of Jesus” author Mark Scandrette tells about a person he met who lived in an abandoned school bus.
The man was bitter; he hated God; he hated life.
And so Mark and some of his friends decided that this was a guy they needed to “love,” if they were going to live like Jesus.
They began visiting the man several times a week, bringing groceries, helping to cut his hair or clip his toe nails, and clean up around his camp.
Gradually, he began to trust their friendship and revealed more about himself.
His name was Robert, and he had been estranged from his family after years in mental institutions.
Over time, Robert’s health started to deteriorate, and by December he could hardly walk.
Scandrette writes that Robert told him, “I am going to kill myself on New Year’s Eve.”
“I would be really sad if you choose to kill yourself,” Scandrette told him.
“Why should you care if I live or die?” Robert asked.
“Robert,” Scandrette told him, “you are valuable to God and to the people who love you. We would miss you.”
“Nobody ever cared about me,” Robert protested.
Scandrette writes, “At Christmas we decided to throw a party for Robert, including his favorite foods and a birthday cake.”
“There was a full moon on that December evening when I knocked on the door to Robert’s bus.”
“He came out…with a young woman, who we knew worked as a prostitute, along with one of her ‘clients.’”
Scandrette continues, “We ate by candlelight serenaded by music from a transistor radio.
Robert declared that the food—a collection of favorite dishes he requested—was delicious.
After dinner my wife Lisa put candles on a cake.
‘Let’s sing Happy Birthday to someone who hasn’t celebrated their birthday in a while,’” Scandrette suggested.
“Who could we sing Happy Birthday to?”
“Just then, beaming, our 3-year-old son Noah blurted out, ‘It’s Christmas, let’s sing Happy birthday to Jesus!’”
Scandrette writes, “I panicked, The name ‘Jesus’ was the worst thing I could imagine mentioning in front of Robert, and I waited to see how he would react.
Slowly, with a big toothless grin, he said, ‘Yes, let’s sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.’”
Scandrette continues, “Under a clear and starry night the eight of us sang together—Lisa and me, a streetwalker and her john, a sixty-three year old transvestite, and three small blond children with red cheeks.”
Scandrette finishes, “As I helped Robert back into his bus, he turned to me and said, ‘This was the best night of my life. Thank you!’”
What gives life meaning?
Those to whom Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 were searching for meaning in their own accomplishments…
…accomplishments which were meant to bring glory to themselves, and prove their superiority over the other members of their church.
Some spoke in tongues, others prophesied, some had a strong faith, still others played the martyr.
And to the outsider looking in, these people might have appeared to be the most dedicated group of Christians around.
But one thing they lacked; they lacked love!!!
And love is the one thing which brings meaning to this life…
…to all we do, really.
Without it, all of our works, all of our religious practices, all of our “showing off” is worthless, nothing.
Love is the one thing which never fails!!!!
It is the one thing which gives our lives meaning.
Without it, we are nothing.
And without it, all our strivings are simply dust in the wind.
In 1 John Chapter 4 the Apostle John writes, “Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God.
The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love.”
There is no better news than this!!!
God is LOVE!!!
And so the very definition of God is the same as the definition of love as Paul has written it out in our Scripture passage from 1 Corinthians 13.
And we could very easily exchange the word “love” for “God” in verses 4-8.
“God is patient, God is kind, God isn’t jealous, God doesn’t brag, God isn’t arrogant, God isn’t rude, God doesn’t seek God’s own advantage, God isn’t irritable, God doesn’t keep a record of complaints, God isn’t happy with injustice, but God is happy with the truth.
God puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things.
God never fails.”
Again, the church in Corinth was working hard to find meaning in life through their own accomplishments; they were doing a lot of stuff but it was all inwardly focused busy-ness.
And we are often guilty of the same thing.
In the 1950s, US government experts were predicting that because of increases in technology, the average American would work only 23 hours a week.
So, how’s that working out for you?
Most of us feel rushed all the time.
We get the kids to school, meet a deadline, buy the groceries, pick the kids up from school, and make sure they are home in time for lessons and homework.
Before we know it, dinner is consumed, “Jeopardy” has been viewed, and the day is gone.
The average American works about 2,050 hours a year.
This puts us slightly ahead of the time worked by a miner in the 14th Century, and it puts us way ahead of a peasant in the 13th Century.
It’s been said that, “We work too hard, and what do we have to show for it?
Stuff.”
But does “stuff” bring us meaning?
A friend of mine once complained, “I work hard to make a nice home, and I’m never home to enjoy it.”
It seems as if we Americans do all we can to feel busy.
In fact, the prevailing answer to the question, “How are you?” is no longer, “Fine and you?” but “Busy!”
And I suppose all this activity, all this running around keeps us from thinking about the bigger issues in life.
And before we know it—life is gone.
In his book, “Don’t Waste Your Life,” John Piper tells a story about a man who gave his life to Christ near the end of his earthly existence.
Piper writes, “The church had prayed for this man for decades.
He was hard and resistant.
But this time, for some reason, he showed up, and at the end of the service, during a hymn, to everyone’s amazement he came forward and [took the preacher’s hand.]
They sat down together on the front pew of the church as the people were [leaving].
God opened his heart to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and he was saved from his sins and given eternal life.
But that didn’t stop him from sobbing and saying, as the tears ran down his wrinkled face, ‘I’ve wasted my life! I’ve wasted it!’”
But by the grace of God, even a life that appears to have been almost totally wasted can still be redeemed!!!
As one theologian once said, “our present existence is only a short preface to a long eternity.”
And so the man’s life wasn’t wasted after-all; he was only just beginning an eternal life of endless praise.
But why wait even a moment longer before starting to serve Jesus?
We only have a short time on this earth.
Let’s not ruin this precious time by living for ourselves when we can use it, instead, for the glory of God.
I was having a conversation with our district secretary, Ethel Starnes, a couple weeks ago.
Ethel attends Brainerd United Methodist Church and she told me that there is a woman in her congregation who recently turned 103.
This woman has been contributing to the ministry of Jesus Christ through her church for years and years and years.
And she hasn’t allowed her advanced age to stop her.
She still attends worship every Sunday, and her ministry during the week is to call and check on people in the congregation who are either shut-in, sick or who have been absent.
There’s almost no ministry more important than this!!!
Ethel and I got a laugh out of the fact that this woman had said last year that she would stop attending worship and stop her phone ministry when she turned 103.
But she hasn’t stopped.
How can she?
These acts of love are what give her life meaning, and they very well have probably contributed to the longevity of her life.
Are there persons who are members of this congregation who have stopped attending for one reason or another?
Is God nudging you to make a difference in their life and your life by giving them a call, dropping them a note or stopping by their house in order to let them know that they are missed and we need them back, that they need to be back?
As human beings, we can’t live without consciously or unconsciously having to choose some reality to which we will give our ultimate devotion.
To refuse to choose is itself a choice.
We may offer our devotion to God, the devil, the world, money, beauty, lust…whatever.
But life demands a decision.
God calls us to follow in the footsteps of His Son, Jesus Christ, Love Incarnate.
Are we obedient to that call or are our lives consumed with things that will soon fade away?
In our Scripture Passage Paul is imploring the Corinthians to learn to think in terms of God’s future and it’s relation to the present.
It’s a matter of getting them to place Jesus’ Resurrection at the center of their view of the world, time, history and themselves.
In 1 John we are told, “This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him.
This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins…
…if God loved us this way, we ought to also love each other.”
In Mark Scandrette’s book, he describes a circumstance that changed lives which came about from a decision by he and a friend of his that they needed to love if they were going to live like Jesus.
And that is what Paul is telling us as well.
Everything else is child’s play.
Tongues, prophecy, clever-sounding words of knowledge: “child’s play,” says Paul.
“Give me grown-up stuff.”
“Give me the humanness that will last, all the way through to God’s new world.”
In other words, “Give me love…
…the love described here, the love which is the highest form of knowing and being that we humans can attain in this world and the world to come.”
“Love never fails.
As for prophecies, they will be brought to an end.
As for tongues, they will stop.
As for knowledge, it will be brought to an end.
We know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, what is partial will be brought to an end…
…Now we see a reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face-to-face.
Now I know partially, but then I will know completely in the same way that I have been completely known.
Now faith, hope, and love remain—these three things—and the greatest of these is love.”
Praise God!!!
Amen.
