“They say the church was about five years old when he wrote to them, when he sent a letter. He was the founding pastor though a title like that probably wasn’t in play back then. Some suggest during that five year time after he had moved on that the number of Christians in the community had grown to more than a hundred, maybe even close to two hundred. They met in smaller gatherings in order to worship and to share meals. They met in people’s homes. Small groups. Cell groups. House churches. You get the picture.
            One community of faith. Several groups in worship and practice and fellowship. A variety of leaders. A diversity of people. Diversity in terms of background before coming to faith (as in Jews and Gentiles). Different when it came to status in the community (in terms of power, in terms of knowledge, in terms of slave or free). Apparently, varying amounts of wealth or lack of wealth there in the gathering of people who called themselves Christian. Divergent opinion when it came to preference for leadership (I belong to Paul or I belong to Apollos or I belong to Cephas). Diversity when it came to what it meant to live and practice the faith (in terms of worship, and what to wear and who was to lead, and the experience of the Lord’s Supper, and the use of food sacrificed to idols, and understandings of marriage, and what on earth was meant by the resurrection of the dead.) One community of faith and such variety when it came to the hundred or so he was writing to.
            The Apostle Paul writing to the Church in Corinth. A community of faith that found themselves threatened by allegiances and relationships. A community of faith that disagreed about many things, some of them really important. A gathering of God’s people trying to be faithful in their witness to Jesus, in their proclamation of the gospel, in their desire to live in the power of the resurrection. A people wrestling with their own thirst for knowledge, mistakenly thinking that the Word of the Cross, the message of Jesus was primarily a matter of intellect; mind rather than heart. People trying to hold on to the faith in an ever-challenging secular world. A community of faith, covered in all of the dust of life,  trying to be the church. Or in Paul’s own language, a community called to live as the body of Christ. Paul and his epistle. They say it was only five years later. But it sure seems timeless, even universal. Paul and his letter to the church.
            “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1:18)” “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? (3:16)” “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ (11:1)” “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said “this is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. (11:23-24)” “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (12:27)” “All things should be done decently and in order (14:40)” “Behold I tell you a mystery! We shall not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet (15:51)” And....  “Love is patient; love is kind” and.....”love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” and “faith, hope, and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is love.”
            Paul and his timeless letter to the church. Five years later. Five years, five hundred, a couple thousand. Paul’s timeless letter to the church. This overly familiar chapter on love. Quoted by song writers, poets, greeting cards, and politicians. It was intended for the church. It was sent to the church. Not to the world. Not to the bride and groom. Not to Hallmark. Not to the teddy bear industry, not to a guest list of folks in all their finery just waiting for the dancing to begin. It was intended for the church. A community of faith, called of God, united in Christ, smothered in all the dust of this life yet trying to be faithful in their witness to Jesus, in their proclamation of the gospel, in their desire to live in the power of the resurrection.
            “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” The words almost presume a particular setting. You can see it. The words are about to be read by Uncle Gerry, or cousin Sandy, or life long friend Woody, or older sister Rachel who just finished seminary. Familiar words all through the reading. “Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will cease, as for knowledge, it will come to end” At the last minute friends and family still hustle in. Excitement is in the air. Flashes going off; digital cameras, camera phones, cam corders. Grandmother made it here safely. All eyes are now on the three year old, hoping she makes it down the aisle. The music is Pachabel. Others come in now, more formally, with bouquet in hand, a stilted walk. And then after everyone is in, then comes the Wedding March. The two about to make their promises, they take their place. Just before the vows and right after the Wedding March, comes the reading, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, theses three, but the greatest of these is love.” The words presume their place; just before the vows, just after the wedding march.
            But in the letter to the church, the words don’t come after the wedding march. In the letter to the church, the “love part” comes after Paul writes about the varieties of gifts that come from God and are to be used in the church. The singable phrases about love come after Paul writes about how the church is like a body, how every part, every one in the community is important. Paul writes about God arranging every single part, just as it should be in the body, in the community, in the church. Hands. Ears. Eyes. Feet. Every single part is important. “If one member suffers, all suffer together , if one member is honored, all rejoice together,” Paul writes to the church. These so overly-borrowed verses about love, they come after Paul affirms that everyone has gifts to be used in service to the community. “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Do all work miracles? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Strive for the greater gifts.” The greater gifts.
            Then Paul writes, “And I will show you a still more excellent way.” That’s what it follows, the chapter on love, the words that sort of create their own atmosphere, their own wrong atmosphere of romance. The Apostle Paul on love. It doesn’t come after the wedding march. It comes after this; “I will show you a still more excellent way.” A still more excellent way when it comes to life together in community. The more excellent way. The Apostle Paul on love in the church. “Let me show you”, he says.
            But then he writes some more. “Let me show you” The church looks around. But Paul just writes some more. Members of that timeless church strain to see, but all he does is write more. Some want to see where Paul’s pointing. What’s he pointing at. Whose he looking at. What’s he doing. “Let me show you.” Let’s see what it looks like. A picture. A parable. A drawing in the dirt. Anything!  But he just kept writing. “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love....” Paul “showing” the church about love. Would an example have been too much to ask?
            One of the saints in my life died last week. Mark was 88 years old. He was a member of the Pulpit Nominating Committee that called me to the be the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Blackwood. He joined the church right after he came home from the war. Mark was a veteran of World War II, landing on the beach the second day. He sold caskets for twenty years and then worked as janitor in the local schools. He was retired long before I arrived as pastor. He wore wool pants in July. He collected arrow heads from endless walks in creek beds and woods in south jersey. The more he gave to the kids in the church, the more he seemed to have. He and his wife Mary were married for fifty eight years. After he proposed, she said “yes’ as long as he understood her mother came with her and she would always tithe to the church. On more than once occasion Mark brought home someone who had no place to live. One year when the church hosted the Interfaith Hospitality Network, it was Mark who arrive every morning to take one man to work who had just landed a job driving a truck. Without knowing, Mark mentored generation after generation of young men in that church when it came to faith, and being a father, and a husband. Last Sunday morning Mary stood up to thank the congregation in Blackwood for their thoughts and prayers. She told them she and Mark had one fight in their life together. And everyone (including me) believes her.
            When I arrived as a 24 year old pastor, it was Mark who took care of me. Every Tuesday morning for ten years or so, he took me to breakfast. We talked about everything, my first years of marriage. When I became a father. When my own father died. I learned all the history of the community and the people in that church from Mark. We talked about how to care for difficult people. We talked about current events. We didn’t always agree. I could never convince him why capital punishment was wrong. He taught me more about World War II. “Was it as bad as it looked in “Saving Private Ryan” Mark? No, David, it was much worse.”
            One day we shared our breakfast with a mission worker  who was visiting the church. The mission worker expressed his disappointed that we didn’t say grace before the meal. “After all” he said, “I’m eating with the pastor and an elder.” Mark didn’t miss a beat and without a hint of judgment said “I pray long enough at dinner for all three meals” I believed him.
            Mark taught me more about the gospel, more theology, more about the church than I ever learned in a classroom. Never an unkind word. Always open arms for those he disagreed with. Unfailing in his care for others. Visiting a sick friend. Laughing with a lonely widower. Constant in prayer for those on his heart. Mark taught me about being a pastor. Mark’s life was a witness to the gospel; yes, the courage of a  wartime hero, yes in the unwavering faithfulness to his wife and children; but also in the love he shared in the church; love in a particular community of faith, love made very real. Love made very real to me.
            Like many seminary graduates and new pastors and folks overflowing with information, ideas, opinions, and critiques of what was wrong with all things presbyterian,  I hit the ground back then ready to make my mark on the church. In the power of the Holy Spirit, and by grace, I was shown a more excellent way. God was pointing at Mark’s life.
            “Let me show you” Paul wrote to the church. And yes, then he kept on writing with words that you and I will not soon forget; and neither will the world, or the romantics, or Hallmark. But the letter is to the church. Examples aren’t too much to ask!

            Because in the timelessness, almost universal nature of the church, God still points to the still more excellent way.

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