Sermon notes from 1/30
Saint Paul first visited the city of Corinth around the years 49 or 50 AD. The Acts of the Apostles, chapter 18 tells us that he remained there for about a year and a half, establishing a church and nourishing its leadership. There was a reason that Paul traveled far across the Mediterranean Sea to this particular place: Corinth was a vital port city. Even in these early years, the population included over one hundred thousand people, and the travelers, merchants, traders, and soldiers who passed through it animated the city with the vibrance of an urban diversity that would not be unfamiliar to those of us living in cities today. Corinth was a place where people came to get things done. And in Paul’s case, his work was to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Of course, human beings have always been human beings. When the worshiping community has been established and leaders have taken up their mantles of service, Paul departs to continue his missionary journeys. It isn’t long before he begins to receive reports about the welfare of the church he left in Corinth. And the reports are disconcerting. After Paul’s departure, the Corinthians experience what we might call a crisis of leadership and a crisis of culture. On the one hand, in Paul’s absence, different teachers have stepped into positions of authority, and the Corinthians find that their loyalties to these teachers have superseded their loyalties to Christ. They like one priest better than the other priests, and these divisions are drawing their gifts and attentiveness away from the work of the Gospel. On the other hand, the Corinthians are being challenged by their diversity. This was a community of followers of Jesus who arrived at their faith by way of distinctly divergent paths. Many were Gentiles who had adopted the faith by Paul’s preaching. Others were Jews, still very much invested in their Jewish families, neighborhoods, and traditions. A great many in the Corinthian church were poor, relying on manual labor or even the charity of others to survive, but there were some who were wealthy, powerful, even elected to positions of political influence. There were already signs that the wealthy and powerful were receiving special treatment. It had also - unsurprisingly - become difficult for the Corinthian church to resist the pressures of the culture of commerce and self-interest that surrounded them. Theirs was a city where pagan worship, gladiatorial competition, and financial corruption were rampant, and it was easy - maybe, they thought, even necessary to participate. How could Paul expect them to escape the overwhelming pressure of the city around them? How could a person possibly be expected to escape reality?
It doesn’t take too much of a leap here to see the Corinthians to whom Paul writes and to see a conspicuous portrait of ourselves. Diverse. Divided. Longing to believe in the promises of the Gospel but still so mightily tied to the mechanisms of commerce and culture.
Paul’s first Epistle to the Corinthians is Paul at his finest as pastor. The entirety of the letter unfolds with urgency and yes, correction, but it also brims with compassion. He is writing to people he loves, and with methodical care, he reminds them of what they are meant for.
The text of the 13th chapter that we encounter today is often read at wedding Masses and ceremonies, sometimes by people who aren’t even Christians. “Love is patient, love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful, arrogant or rude.” It can be easy for us to forget that Paul is not talking about romantic or even familial love here. He is talking about a greater, broader, more numinous and extraordinary love – a love that is meant to thrive among all of us as members of Christ’s holy church. This is no exercise in affectionate feelings or passionate sentiment, but instead a living reality that God invites us into and helps us choose to see. This is the love of Jesus Christ. The love that is God, incarnate in the world. This is the love that walked among us as brother and friend, the love that healed the sick, ennobled the poor, and blessed the oppressed of this world with radiant dignity. This is the love of the Cross, the love of a Savior who died - brutally - for the forgiveness of the world. This is the love of Resurrection and the enduring promise of eternal life. This is the love of the Church, and this is the love - patient, kind, bearing all things - that each one of us is meant for, together.
There are articles upon articles these days that lament the decline of Christ’s church. And you know, we are in need of a Saint Paul these days, perhaps more than ever, because it doesn’t take astounding powers of observation to look around and see where we’ve gone wrong. We hear the stories of the people the church has persecuted or deliberately injured, excluded, or abused - perhaps we even have those stories ourselves - and it is understandable to think that if the Church is nothing but a place of division, corruption, and unbreakable ties to a culture of death, then let, you know what? Let it go. Let it die. Someone please - for the love of God - write us an epistle
Well, we have an epistle. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
The Church is meant to be a community gathered upon the foundation of the love of Jesus and united in our hope to share that love among one another and with the rest of this marvelous created world. This is a different, altogether broader and deeper sort of love, rooted in no human skill or emotion but in the pierced heart of the living and eternal God.
Sometimes we do it right. Now we see as in a mirror dimly, but sometimes, we really do see. I remember when I moved to Los Angeles and I was looking for a church, I walked through the doors of a parish on Hollywood Boulevard and was greeted by an older gentleman who has attended that parish for over forty years. He took me around the nave and the side chapels, and in an unassuming, dignified sort of way, told me about how that church - during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s that devastated that city in ways that are still being grieved - that church was the only church that would offer funerals for those who died from AIDS and HIV. The columbarium was in the walls, and they are filled with the memories of Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Evangelicals, agnostics, and countless others whose bodies could not find a resting place until that place - that church - welcomed them home.
I know that this place can tell similar stories. Sometimes, we get love right.
A few weeks ago, at one of our simple suppers for folks in their 20s and 30s, someone came into the building looking for some assistance with food and warm clothes. A few of the attendees let this person inside with generosity and grace. “I saw your light on.” The person said.
If nothing else is ever said about us in the church, let this be said: “I saw your light on.” In the dark and frigid night of a world turned inward upon itself, someone saw a light on. Someone saw that there was a place that was different from the other places on this block, in this city, on this earth - there was a place that was different from the doors that had closed and the faces that had turned away. There was something else, here, and there was a light on.
That light is the love of Jesus Christ. It is the light by which all else is seen and known and cherished. It is the light that reminds us that there is no division too great to be healed by the promise of the Resurrection, and no person who is not deserving of wholeness, welcome, and care. Sometimes we get it right. If there is any hope for this church of ours, it is only in this love of Jesus: a love so patient, kind, and without end.
Preached by Mother Brit Frazier
January 30, 2022
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia