Sermon 27th May 2012

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, preaches based on the reading from 1 Corinthians 13.

I wonder who’s possibly feeling mathematical today? Do please note how that is a rhetorical question – very rarely, but just in case the answer is “Nobody other than me”!

So here I go then, solo if need be. To make it easier to join in, we’ll use rounded-up figures. Take that 651 million that I began this series with, then. Hold the 0.15 of a second in mind too. To the first figure add 2.37 billion; and to the other 0.2 of a second. Then slap on a further 8.23 billion, in 0.17 of a second. I’ll bet that you won’t possibly have got to 52 million in 0.14 of a second! If you’re really quick, you will have totalled up 11 billion 251 million, in 0.52 of a second. However, the only number that you should be looking for is ... Infinity, of course!

That’s the only figure to remember from all of that: infinity. To confirm where the rest of them came from, they are all internet search results. That’s how many internet links there are to faith, to hope, and to love: 651 million, 2.37 billion, and 8.23 billion respectively. Put in those three as a single phrase, though, and there are ‘only’ about 52 million links to ‘faith, hope, love’ (in 0.14!). But centuries before the internet had even been dreamed of, the apostle Paul knew that faith, hope and love are eternal qualities that never end. And that’s how we get to infinity! Yes, as Paul wrote: (GNB) “These 3 remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love / (NIV) And now these 3 remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Our series does end today, though, after a truly amazing exploration of what lies at the heart of our life, individually and corporately. Talking of that exploration, this week I read through all 5 sermons in it – the 2 on faith, 2 on hope, and the 1 that we have had on love before today’s. In passing, I noted again how well served this parish is by all those who preach. Even if you have heard all of these sermons, read them again: read them as a unit, for all their variety, richness – and for their challenge too. Give them the time and attention that they will require to sink deep into your brain and your life: and, if you need any incentive, think of it as an investment in eternity.

I’d then say that it’s vital that we take today’s opportunity to note where we have each reached in this venture. As is the case with any journey, it likely started well before this series; and it certainly should carry on beyond it. But our Bishop invites us to pause at this point, to look around intentionally, to see where we are, and then to carry on. I trust that’s something many of us have already done in preparing for today. We have had the response cards from the beginning, and reminders that this isn’t about our heads so much as our hearts. It may be that for at least some it’s a case of writing down that we will ‘just’ carry on learning, growing and living as we are, in faith and hope and love. But it’s also quite possible that at Pentecost God’s Spirit is wanting to start something radically new and different in the lives of others of us.

That would be entirely fitting, for this day, and for this series alike. We began it by learning that in the Bible faith is a verb, a doing word. We heard that message even stronger when we started our second look at these 3 eternal qualities. As James put it in his letter to early Christians, “God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense”. Most people already know that love is a verb too, of course; as today’s wonderful passage has further reinforced. Hope is rather harder to define, perhaps – but what we also saw at the beginning is that faith, hope, and love are inextricably linked, in the Bible and in Christian experience. So I don’t think that it’s going too far to say that hope too is doing word, and so leads us to take action.

The specific action that we then take is, of course, up to us. What matters is that we take it – be it having faith in the existence of God, and therefore trusting Him, even when we have little or no evidence to go on; or by having that sure, eternal hope because of who Jesus is and what he did on the cross; or by loving God and our neighbours in what we do and think and say. There is plenty of scope in each and all of those general areas for most of us to grow into, I’d suggest. Christians are called to keep on doing precisely that throughout our lives with God. We are called to keep on growing in faith and hope and love; and yes, by that I do mean on into eternity as well!

In his letter to 1^st-Century Christians in Corinth, Paul was keen to help them develop this eternal perspective. Not to put too fine a point on it, they were rather immature – and it showed, in many areas of their Christian life. So Paul essentially wrote to tell them to grow up! As ever, Paul’s teaching here is universally applicable. All people in all ages can, and must, learn from it; but we all need to keep an eye on the context of it too. The part that’s especially relevant for us in this series is that about growing to maturity. In order to grow up, as we do all need to do, we need to ask ourselves questions, like: What is it that will last, and so matters most in our life with God? How then can we not ‘just’ prepare for eternity, but start living in it now? Paul’s clear answer here is that we do so by focusing our time, energy, and efforts on faith, and hope, and especially love.

Paul wasn’t particularly trying to rank these 3 eternal qualities. There is one possible reading of the Greek text that might mean Paul was saying that the greatest of these is God’s love. In one sense that’s true anyway – because it’s God who shows us what real love is. What all the scholars are fully agreed on, though, is that the early Christians redefined the meaning of love. They took the most rare of Greek’s four words for love, and made it their signature word for this kind of selfless, giving love. When we see the word agape – and we do so literally dozens of times in the New Testament – this is what it means. Paul expanded it most helpfully for us, who live centuries later. First, in verses 1-3 he listed all the Christian ways that it’s possible to act without love. By contrast, agape (GNB) “Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up; and its faith, hope and patience never fail. Love is eternal. / (NIV) Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails”.

The age-old test that you are bound to have come across is still the best one around. Try putting your own name, or ‘I’ where it says (or means) love in verses 4-7, and see how loving you are in this Godly meaning of it. Like me, you may well be relieved that you will have eternity to keep on trying to do it right. That’s not any excuse not to love in the here and now, of course. As Gill explained four weeks ago, it is in our present that we experience God’s kind of love. It was while we were still sinners that God died for us. This agape love stems from the one who loves; it’s not about whether the one who is loved deserves it or not. But the point is that being loved in this way has to be transformative. “Love one another as I have loved you”, Jesus told his disciples. That’s a command that applies no less today than it did in the 1^st Century.

On this Pentecost Sunday we should also note that the first fruit that Paul listed as a sign of the Spirit at work in someone is love. God is love: we can’t have Him living inside us by His Spirit and not then become more like him. It’s a process that must begin now, but there is so more to it than ‘just’ that. As usual, Tom Wright has much that’s helpful to say on this. In his commentary on these verses he invites us to picture agape love as being like God’s river. It flows on, into God’s future, across the border, and on into God’s new country, where so much is so different. We are invited to step into this river here and now – and to let God’s love take us along, to where it is going. Our aim along this way is, with the help of God’s Spirit, to become creatures of loving habit, by loving so much and often! So how does that prospect sound to you, as series ends?

I do wonder what it is in these past 6 weeks that has struck particular chords in you. Of course I am trusting that at least one of these general topics of faith, hope and love has spoken into where you have reached on your journey with God. I am clear on what I have needed to hear, and now have to act on myself – and I can tell you that doing it isn’t easy. I have shed tears in filling in this response card. I have also underlined the phrase “I will ...” on it, because faith and hope and love are doing words. But I do believe with Paul, that these 3 do, and will, remain. The ways in which we work on acting in faith and hope and/or love now will carry on into eternity. The delight of making these commitments on Pentecost is that it reminds us of how we can ask God for the help of His Spirit. We can ask for His help every day, to be God’s people of faith and hope and love – and we can particularly ask when we need help most.

That may be the very best note to end this series on, in fact: with this invitation to make an intentional choice, to work on faith, hope, and/or love. It does require action on our part to do that – as fits well with the nature of these eternal, Godly qualities. Here is how we can strive to play our full part in God’s on-going work in His world. Refusing to take failure as final, we have confidence in the ultimate triumph of God’s grace, in faith hope and love. And so let’s pray ...

“God of faith, deepen our faith

so we may bear witness to Christ in the world;

God of hope, strengthen our hope

so we may be signposts to your transforming presence;

God of love, kindle our love

so that, in a fragile and divided world,

we may be signs of the faith, hope, love

which we share in Jesus Christ. Amen.”