Please Click Here For Sermon Video
Have you ever sat around and talked about nothing? Actually, it’s a pretty hot topic these days. You know nothing, what is it? It’s a big one in the world of theoretical physics as there is a pretty strong movement among physicists who will say that this big, big, big, enormously big universe we live in came into existence out of nothing. Before the Big bang there was nothing and then “Bang!”, there was everything. Before knowledge of the Big Bang, most physicists would have said everything has always been. Original theories about the Big Bang said there have been many Big Bangs. The stuff of the universe has always been here. Gravity causes it to collapse in on itself until it can’t collapse anymore then it explodes again and then collapses again. That theory worked until they discovered that everything in the universe is accelerating away from each other. That force of acceleration is stronger than the force of gravity and that means this universe will never collapse. And thus and such, they do the math and the only way things add up is to say that there was a time before time when this universe didn’t exist.
Well, that seems to be a lot of talk about nothing and definitely a chicken-or the-egg kind of debate. But if we look at this conversation about nothing out of the world of physics and look at it from a philosophical/religious perspective, it seems that neither side is saying anything new. One side sounds a lot like Western/Christian ideas of Creation ex nihilo, creation out of nothing, and the other like Eastern ideas of the eternal all in which everything is connected and has always existed. On the Christian side, the more Christiany you get with your ideas of how things came into being the more things seem to have a purpose that needs to be developed. God has a purpose for this Creation. The more Eastern you get; the more things lack a purpose and just are. You know, the goal or non-goal of Buddhism is to empty one’s self of self and become nothing and if you progress far enough along this route you will reach the center of the perfect state of nothingness, known as Nirvana. Practising meditation and compassion will help you along this route.
One crucial difference between Christian faith and Buddhism is that we Christians say we are not “nothing” and should not seek to be nothing. We are something. God created us with a purpose in mind and we should therefore strive to be what God created us to be. God created us, humanity, in his image and with a purpose that the Westminster Catechism so wonderfully states as glorifying God and fully enjoying him forever. Each of us is uniquely and wonderfully made and beloved by God and gifted towards that endeavour. We are not nothing nor should we strive to be nothing. Our problem and one that we must strive to rid ourselves of is not self but rather a self that is bent in on itself, self that seeks only itself. The self that is sick with the disease of mind called Sin.
Looking here at 1 Corinthians, I don’t know how philosophical Paul was trying to be, but he was certainly being poetic when he said if he had all those spiritual gifts for ministry but not love, he is nothing. Love is how we express the something that God has created us to be, it is how we glorify and enjoy God. Love requires we set aside the self that is bent back in on itself and humbly serve on another.
Paul said what he said because in Corinth they had a little problem, a leadership dispute that was affecting their unity in Christ. A little background, Paul spent about a year and a half in Corinth planting what developed into several house churches. When he left, he left no one in charge. I suspect he was hoping that they would through prayer discern by the working and leading of the Holy Spirit who Jesus was calling to be their leaders. Instead, several groups and personalities began to compete for control. There were the rich patrons who owned the houses in which they met. There were the philosophical types who thought the churches should be run more like philosopher clubs. There were the name-droppers who said “I follow Paul” or “I follow Cephas” or “I follow Jesus” and since they were the “most sincere disciples” of the “great teachers” they should be the leaders. There was also what appears to be a group consisting primarily of women who spoke in tongues and prophesied a lot and who gave words of knowledge. They likely thought that since they were so “spiritual” they should be in charge of the churches. Unfortunately, these women looked just like the priestesses in the pagan temples.
This leadership conflict in the congregations severely affected their unity in Christ. They were failing to love one another, to be a community where the love of Christ showed through as the distinctive character of their relationships as congregations. Instead, there was infighting in which congregants took each other to court before pagan judges. There was sexual immorality. One man had taken his stepmother to be his wife. When they celebrated the Lord’s Supper, it turned into a party for the rich while the poor had to stand back and watch. And those spiritual women looking like pagan priestesses simply had these Christian churches looking like just another organization, trade guild, or religion like any other instead of a community which embodied the Kingdom of God/New Creation community that reflects the character of the One True God, and existed as a foretaste of what things will be like when Jesus returns and sets the world to right. They were becoming nothing.
Here in chapter 13, the Love Chapter, the most read passage of any kind at weddings, Paul isn’t giving marriage advice. He’s telling these churches what the heart of being the church is – love. The Greeks had four words we translate as love. One is the love of family. Another is the love between friends and another is romantic love. The word for love Paul uses here is for sacrificially and unconditionally looking to the needs of others as if they were your own. In the church’s Paul planted this love was evident in a kind of fellowship that was not known in any other social grouping in the ancient world. Women were leaders. Slaves worshipped with the families who owned them. Rich and poor regarded one another as equals. They suffered together, celebrated together, prayed together, worshipped together. Christian community was something new.
As this community in Christ was new and had vastly different values than other kinds of communities back then, Christians often found themselves in conflict with their surrounding communities. The result was that fellowship in this new Gathering in Christ filled with the living presence of the Holy Spirit became the primary relationship network for those who came and believed. Each one of them all got a new identity as a beloved child of God in a new family-like fellowship that was known by its love. In this Christian fellowship every one of them no matter who they were could say, “I used to be nothing but now I am something. The Spirit of God is in me. I am a child of God the Father, a sister or brother to Jesus Christ the Son of God who is Lord of all Creation. And we are all family, a new humanity that loves. Without this love, I am nothing.”
This love embodied in Christian community is the heart of the gathering. This love by which we are something rather than nothing is not a matter of private religion where good people just come to hear good talks on how to be a good person and then go on trying to live a good life. Being something requires that we gather together and listen to each other as we share our lives, our struggles, joys and pains. It requires that we learn hospitality and respect for everyone and not build boundaries to people whom we think are not like us. It requires that we do together that most crucial of all activities – prayer – even if it means we must pray out loud for one another. It requires that we make our Christian fellowship the primary fellowship of our lives. It requires that we study the Bible together and struggle with it together and do our best to live by it.
Being a community that embodies love in the image of God is why this congregation is here. This love is what makes us each “something”. We can have every kind of ministry under the sun that we think churches ought to do but if we have not love, we have nothing…we gain nothing…we are nothing. Love one another. Be something. Amen.
