Tag: #30daysofPaul

1 Corinthians 13-14: The Greatest Of These is Love #30daysofPaul

I think 1 Corinthians 13 gets short shrift sometimes. Everybody knows this chapter because everybody knows a teenage girl who can quote it by heart, or wears it on a locket or whatever. And so everybody writes it off as that love passage.

Thinking of chapter 13 as a self-contained love poem strips it of all it’s context, and all it’s power to comment of the liberation we all take part in. By relegating it to t-shirts and bookmarks, it loses the subversive nature it is naturally endowed with. Paul ends chapter 12, after discussing the importance of the various spiritual gifts of the community, by telling them that he knows a spiritual gift better than all others-better than tongues, or teachings, or healing or anything. Love, in Paul’s theology is a spiritual discipline, an active practice, rather than a passive emotion brought on by the thought of another.

Love, the act of primary concern for others as for one’s self, is the center piece of the Christian tradition.  We are told that God is Love itself. We are commanded by Jesus to, above all else, love God and love each other. Every action we take a followers of Jesus should be driven by our love for others. As Paul says early in chapter 13,

“If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

But this isn’t just a feeling of compassion for others. It is to act as if the person in front of you is you. No matter who they are, no matter what they do. Love drives us on to forgiveness, to justice, to mercy, to act with grace. Love calls us to free the prisoner, feed the hungry, clothe the naked.

The result of Christian love is true liberation. We cannot be in solidarity, we cannot work for the freedom of others, to liberate them from the bonds that chain them, without the love of Christ indwelling within us. When Paul spoke of the compulsive actions of Christian service driven by our faith in Galatians, he was speaking there of the love of God embodying us.

In the context of this letter to Corinth, Paul has been urging the Corinthians to find the Christian unity evading them. By reminding them of their various gifts that make up the whole body of Christ, and working to resolve their disputes and answer their questions, Paul has built a persuasive argument that finds it culmination here. Their love for one another should compel them to make their divisions subservient to their bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood. Such is the essence of Christian unity: unity in love.

Paul ends the chapter by saying:

“And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

Amen.

Next: 1 Corinthians 13-14

For a PDF of the 30 Days of Paul reading plan, click here.

1 Corinthians 11-12: This Table is Open to All #30daysofPaul

Rob Bell and your humble blogger

I had the incredible opportunity to attend Rob Bell’s “Everything is Spiritual” show when it was here in Tulsa last week. I’ve been a Rob Bell for a while, ever since I read his paradigm-shifting book “Love Wins,” and his stage show is absolutely mind-blowing. If you get a chance, go. Cancel everything and go and take a notepad and just listen to him talk. It’s really mind-blowing.

The stuff he talked about fits right in with what we are experiencing here in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Today’s chapters move us back into Paul’s overarching theme in this letter of Christian unity.

In the talk, Rob described the fundamental progress of the universe towards greater complexity, depth and unity. He spoke of how evolutionary processes have caused all living things, including humans, to defy all expectations by becoming more complex by coming together to create something bigger. Particles combine to become atoms, atoms combine to become molecules, molecules combine to become cells, cells combine to become planets and rocks and plants and animals and us.

He asked, near the end, “what is the thing we are being invited to create together?” What is that thing in the future that humans are to come together and make, that thing that may be inconceivable and unimaginable to us now, but is nevertheless real and desirable and damn near inevitable?

One of the most moving statements he made was about racism and the way it works against the progress of nature. “Racism,” he said, “defies the essential unity of the universe.” Things like racism and bigotry and hate tear us apart, instead of building community. 13.8 billion years of history show an undeniable story of progress, one that some humans work so hard to push back against.

We Christians have a long, rich history of unity, interwoven with a tendency to build walls and tear apart communities and segregate ourselves. Paul, in chapters 11 and 12, ties the essential unity of Christianity, how it is like a body made up of many parts working towards a common goal, to the practice of communion, that brings all Christians together around one table, equally valued and equally important.

Communion is at the center of the Christian tradition. The earliest Christian believers gathered not for worship services and praise bands and prayers of the people, but to share meals, to be a community gathered around the most universal of human needs, the need to be nourished and fed. Communion is at  it’s best when all are welcome, when it reflects the example of the Jesus who ate with everyone – tax collectors, prostitutes, thieves, everyone.

Too many denominations and Christians place conditions around the common table. They have requirements to join in communion, to be a part of the community gathering together. I’ve long rejected these traditions and found my home in the denominations that practice an open, inclusive table. My church homes- the United Methodist Church and the Disciples of Christ-place no restrictions to who can join our communion tradition. This creates a beautiful practice whenever communion is had, as all identifiers and categories are left behind like one’s coat and hat as all are given the bread and the cup. No matter the struggles and sins and suffering in one’s life, everyone is welcomed in and loved in this most basic of Christian traditions.

Through the Lord’s Table, we are able to serve one another every time we are together, making a habit of the art of service. Rob described serving as “when you intentionally decide to align yourself beyond yourself.” What a beautiful way of reminding ourselves why we live with ultimate regard for the Other. he also said, “suffering is not an intellectual exercise,” meaning that suffering is one of the most intense of human experiences and only by identifying and unifying ourselves with others can we join in their suffering, understand, and then work to liberate them from it.

The last Rob Bell quote I want to share: “Line yourself up with the fundamental direction of the universe.” He repeated this mantra over and over. The universe for 13.8 billion years has been moving inevitably towards complexity, depth, and unity. In a word, it has been making constant progress. As Christians, may we always line our selves up with that progress, by practicing the unity of One Church, One Body, One faith.

Next: 1 Corinthians 13-14

For a PDF of the 30 Days of Paul reading plan, click here.

1 Corinthians 9-10: We Meet People Where They Are #30daysofPaul

“We are in the world, but not of the world.”

That’s a phrase you hear pretty often from Christians.

Usually it’s from those asserting some kind of cultural purity or holiness they posses, in opposition to the rest of the world, which is made up of a bunch of identical drones parroting the party line as given this week by some Hollywood celebrity or godless politician.

This saying is often accompanied with a life that is exemplified by “separateness,” with as little interaction with “outsiders” as possible, especially for their children’s sake. Loving neighbors is important, yes, but at a distance, with one’s purity intact and ability to recognize (vocally) the faults in others preserved.

And yet, we find in Paul today, a set of verses that seems to contradict this way of life, this “not conformed to the world” viewpoint.

“For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law, I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I become as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but an under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I become weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.”

Paul tells us we are called to anything but a life of separateness. What Paul is saying is, as Christians, we meet people where they are. We don’t hold back, we don’t cloister ourselves and win people by being separate from them. We join with them in their lives, in their struggles and their successes. In short, we are to join in solidarity with the people of the world, that we might play a part in their liberation.

Only when we identify with those we love and serve can we show them the authentic message of Jesus. That is the other point Paul makes in these chapters: through the freedom that comes we grace, we shed our fear of the world, our fear of living under the law and thus failing to achieve God’s standards. Paul says, don’t refuse those who invite you to dinner, even if they are unbelievers. Don’t shut them out. Join them, love them, serve them, identify with them, become as they are so that they might become as you are!

Yes, as Christians, we have a separateness, a discernible difference between us and the world. But it is not a separateness outside of the world, but very much in it. We can only show the love of God by being with the people we wish to love. We can only serve others by living with others. We are One Body, One Church, One Human Race. Our unity with all people is our strength and our blessing. Be in the world and of the world. Show your oneness with all other people.

Next: 1 Corinthians 11-12

For a PDF of the 30 Days of Paul reading plan, click here.