Faith, Hope, and Love (1 Corinthians 13)

     “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” From the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 13.  

     In the name, etc..

     It seems to me that there is no better, no more concise, a description of the fundamental Christian attitude, than this 13^th chapter of the First Letter to the Corinthians. When I was a student, I had attached a poster-sized copy of this chapter, in Greek, to my dorm room wall, to my closet door, actually. I got to know it very well. Alas, I can’t recite it in Greek today, but I like to think that some of it anyway, sank in and stayed with me.

     The three-fold theological virtues, as they’re called, faith, hope, and love, express and summarize the Godward orientation, the defining characteristics of Christians. They express not only the fundamental character of individual Christians, but also of the Christian community, the Church. Everything we do as Christians, one way or another, expresses this three-fold character.

     These virtues are called theological because they are directed basically toward God; they express our attitude, if that is the right word for it, to God as the source and goal of our lives. Faith is belief in God and in the truth of his revelation. Hope is the expectation that all good things are attainable with God’s help, and is also an oddly negative refraining from despair, and a refusal ever to give up. And love is the greatest of the three, as the Apostle says.

      As we know, ‘love’ translates the Greek ‘agape’, which is more than friendship, or affection, or attraction. It is the gift of God, and makes the other loves possible. And faith and hope, without agape, are disastrous. Faith without agape leads to fanaticism, as we see in religious warfare today, and hope without agape leads to mere material desire and acquisitiveness, as we see in our consumerist society, in the hope for gain in money and property and goods. And earthly love without agape can wind up as mere physical desire and ordinary gratification, a hunger for intimacy without depth or commitment or real care for others.

     The Apostle warns us in this chapter not to let ourselves be carried away by purportedly religious experiences that are not grounded in love, in agape; in other words, we are not to let religiosity take the place of agape, and imagine that we are somehow spiritually more advanced than others. That is to say, religion is not God; many people confuse the two, and the Apostle wants us to know the difference.

         Paul lists examples of experiences that can mislead us, if we are not anchored in love, in agape. To start with, speaking in the tongues of mortals and angels: this can mean the ecstatic speaking called glossolalia, or it may have some occult meaning. There may be angelic languages which humans may claim to understand. In any case, no matter how wonderful the experience, without love, without agape, it is nothing more than noise, and annoying noise at that --- gongs and cymbals, good for getting attention, and nothing more. Prophetic powers likewise, and great knowledge, are nothing without love, without agape.     

     Love is the point, the center around which all virtues revolve, and on which they depend. The First Letter of John tells us that God is love. Love here is the most important thing we know about God’s nature. It is not merely a command, an exhortation he is giving us to be more loving in a worldly sense; it is the means by which we participate in his life, which he makes available to us. It is, dare I say it, what God makes available to us from his own nature, what he makes possible for us to have in common with him, insofar as we can as creatures.

      Faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

      In the name, etc..

    

    

  

Mary and the Wedding at Cana (John 2)

       “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” From Gospel for today, the Gospel according to John, chapter 2, verse 4.

     In nomine etc..

     Today’s Gospel story, the story of the Wedding at Cana, is well known. There are paintings and icons depicting the miraculous change of water into wine. Jesus at that moment is usually portrayed as making a polite gesture in the direction of the water jars. What the paintings and icons don’t usually do, is depict how big the water jars actually were, or how big the party really was. There was a lot of wine at this event, a lot. Very likely the whole town was at the wedding. And the art portrays Mary as being demurely deferential, as though she accepted her son’s apparent dismissal of her concern about a lack of wine.

     “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” Conventionally, this remark is heard as a rebuke, a dismissal, at least by English speakers, as though Jesus would rebuke his mother. Mary has been called by the Church for centuries, Theotokos, or God-bearer, and Mother of God in the Western Church. The relationship between Mary and Jesus is theologically very deep, and these words direct us to an understanding of that relationship beyond conventional notions.  Given the setting of this remark, and its pairing with the words, ‘my hour has not yet come’, it is unlikely that Jesus meant his words as a rebuke. There is another meaning here, which we can discover by thinking carefully about the words.

     Today’s story begins, “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana.” On the third day. This numbering is not accidental or casual or irrelevant. It’s a clear reference to the Resurrection, and is paired to the calling of the first disciples. So the wedding story is being placed in context, the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and the end of his earthly ministry and the resurrection and the beginning of new life shared with God in eternity. When Jesus says, “My hour has not yet come,” he is reminding his hearers, and us, that the wedding at Cana is only the beginning of the revelation of who Jesus is, what his ministry is, and what the role of his mother is in the history of salvation. The wedding is an image of the heavenly banquet; it’s an image of the true calling of the human race: to celebrate our participation in the life of God. It is a revelation that salvation, new life in God, is not our destiny merely as individuals, but is our destiny as members of a community, the Body of Christ, united to each other and celebrating our new life together. We are not raised to new life in God on our own, but together in community, the community which is his body in the world.

      “Woman, what is that to you and to me?” This remark clearly places Jesus and Mary together, on the same level. There is no suggestion in this equality of address, of any rebuke or dismissal or subordination. People down the centuries have certainly heard it as a rebuke, most likely because they took the subordination of women for granted, and so heard what they expected to hear. But that is not what Jesus actually said. “What is that to you and to me?” is not about subordinating Mary, but is about revealing the true meaning of the event: foreshadowing the resurrection and its meaning, new life in God, symbolized by new wine at a celebration.

     “My hour has not yet come.” In other words, this wedding party is only the beginning. The event is a preparation, a beginning of a ministry whose character is revealed in it. The first thing that Jesus does after calling his disciples is go to a party! And he takes his mother with him. That action reveals her place in his ministry, and in the history of salvation. Jesus is about to reveal what the wine, that is, new life, is to him and Mary. The wedding party is the beginning of his earthly ministry, and Mary is important to it right from the start.

     And how does Mary respond to Jesus’s remarks? She says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Far from being rebuked, Mary is shown to have authority in the community, an authority not restricted in any way, and sharing in the authority of Jesus. She furthers his ministry and shows that it is not limited in any way. “Whatever he tells you” is a very open-ended command, indicating possibility, something new, something unexpected, without limitation. And that is what happens. New wine, that is, new life, comes into the world, and Mary, the God-Bearer, makes it possible in the Incarnation, and in this very revealing beginning to Jesus’s ministry.

     “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour is not yet come.”

     In nomine, etc…

    

    

  

The Flight into Egypt (Matthew 2)

     “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you.” From the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 2, verse 13.

      In nomine, etc..

      Happy New Year!! I’ll keep my talk tonight very short, since we are all recovering from Christmas and New Year celebrations, and we’ll soon be celebrating Epiphany, Twelfth Night, and I know that on that occasion Fr J. will preach a rousing sermon as a fitting conclusion to the twelve days. So I’ll be brief.

       As we know, today’s Gospel story is usually titled The Flight into Egypt. We’ve all seen icons and paintings depicting this, with the Mother of God holding her baby and riding on a donkey, and Joseph leading them on their way. The reading is very pertinent in this time of mass migration and flight from violence and war and poverty. Today’s reading is put together from two sections separated by the story of the Slaughter of the Innocents. I would prefer the Innocents story to be included in the reading, since, as we know all too well these days, many innocents are being slaughtered in the Middle East and elsewhere, and hundreds of thousands, millions even, are on the move in efforts to escape.

     We realize, of course, that these migrations are not pretty, not elegant or refined like the best religious art depicting the Flight into Egypt. They are dangerous, desperate, unhealthy ventures, prone to hunger, thirst, disease, attacks from bandits, exploitation, and more. We can all think of variations and additions to this theme. Forced migration is a catastrophe for everyone involved, for the migrants and often also for people at the migrants’ destination.

      Forced migration has occurred in American history as well. The nineteenth century expulsions of Indians from their lands in the southeast, and their resettlement in the west, are well known. Large-scale voluntary migration has occurred as well, notably from the southern states to the cities of the north. We may think of the steady influx of millions of people into California, basically since the 1930s, as a mass migration, from other states and from countries to the south. Migration is a constant theme in history, and the story of the Flight into Egypt is an archetypal tale whose pattern can be applied to much of it.

     What is different in the Gospel story, is that the Holy Family has the option to return to their country of origin. Most modern migrants can’t return, or don’t want to; some are forced to return, as we know, but their number is very small compared to the total number of migrants. In any case, migration is usually a one-way trip, whose final destination is uncertain.

     The Gospel story doesn’t say anything about how the Holy Family were treated when they arrived in Egypt. Since there is no suggestion to the contrary, we may imagine that they were accepted, perhaps even welcomed. We don’t know that, of course, but it’s a reasonable supposition.

     At the time of the Nativity, the Holy Family were homeless, and they were homeless again in Egypt. How well this resonates with the contemporary situation! I think of the video clips on television, of people stranded at borders, camping out in the open, waiting for a chance to move on to something better. The Holy Family may have had experiences like this, or worse, since they had to cross the Sinai desert to reach Egypt.

     What can we learn from the story of the Flight into Egypt? And how can we apply what we learn to today’s situation?

     The Holy Family is God-protected, and led by God to safety, where His will for them can be fulfilled. But his will for them is being fulfilled, even in danger. There is no moment when God is absent. There is danger at both ends of the journey, at their point of origin and on their return to Israel. There probably is danger as they cross the Sinai, into an unknown situation. But in all situations, God is present. There are clear statements that prophecies are being fulfilled, that, no matter what the danger, ultimately there is no getting in the way of what God intends for the Holy Family.

     Every family on the move today in the migrations from the war-torn Middle East and elsewhere, is a holy family. They deserve to be seen as God–protected and God-led, as much as the Holy Family of the Gospel. It is our plain duty to do what we can to ease their situation, to welcome them and care for them. It is clear from the Judgment of the Nations in the 25^th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, that when we welcome the stranger, we welcome Jesus himself. And if we don’t welcome them, we place ourselves under judgment. It is startling to see the uneasiness, even the outright hostility, in purportedly Christian lands, including our own, to migrants from Syria and so on. We Christians must not let ourselves be overtaken by this uneasiness, this hostility, and instead look at the situation with God’s eyes, so to speak, and act as He would act, and as our Lord would expect us to act.

     “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you.”

     In nomine, etc..