TUC Talks
Every week the Rev Richard Harris and special guests delve deeper into the reading of the week.
TUC Talks
The Love passage
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This week Rev Richard Harris chats to Rev Tammy Hollands to discuss this week's Bible reading - 1 Corinthians 12 1-13
#church #love #terrigal #corinthians #bible
Hello everyone, this is another TUC Talks. Terrible Uniting Church Talks. That's what the TUC is, an acronym. Anyway, um, today I have the Reverend Tammy Holland from Normanhurst Uniting Church. Good morning, Tammy.
SPEAKER_01Good morning. Thank you, Richard.
SPEAKER_00Normanhurst, just down the road from us. How's life in Normanhurst going?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's going pretty well. Uh, it's just just down the road, although a few K is down the road. Um, yeah, no, we we are we are doing well. We are going into a new season of uh looking at where the spirit might be taking us. So it's quite an exciting time.
SPEAKER_00Very exciting. Well, we're doing a series at the moment on the fruit, the gifts of the spirit and what that means, which is where this week's reading comes. Everyone, this week we're looking at the reading that we did on Sunday, the 7th of June, and it is 1 Corinthians 13, 1 to 13, which is the whole chapter. Can I say, have you done many weddings, Tammy?
SPEAKER_01I have not, but yeah, this is very much the wedding text, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00It's the wedding text completely. So I did start my sermon by saying basically, I reckon 50% of the weddings I've ever done have used this and are using it completely out of context when you're doing it in a wedding. However, I will do that again. Yeah, which because it for me, I've my big learning this time was that it is completely out of context when we do it about the love of a couple. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. I um I agree. I mean, I think that that when we're talking about uh love, we can consider all of the different types of of love of the the Greek different variations of of the word for love. Um but yes, the the way we romanticize love in in the wedding context, it's quite different to what Paul's talking about in this context.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So today's reading, basically, it's sort of Paul starting off by saying, and he does this in chapter 12. He says, Let me tell you the most excellent way. Um, I did say, did you like Dylan Ted's adventure when you were younger?
SPEAKER_01Um, no, I wasn't, I wasn't really a big fan, although that is my um age demographic.
SPEAKER_00You know, yeah, I I do love the way the NIV does, and let me tell you the most excellent way. It's a very Bill and Ted moment.
SPEAKER_02It is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So so 1 Corinthians 13 is basically starts off in chapter 12, I reckon, so saying, Let me tell you the most excellent way. And then Paul goes on to say, if I could speak in the language of earth and of angels, but did not have love, I would be a noisy single, simple clanging gong. And then he goes on with a whole heap of other things about, you know, if I do all these things but I don't have love at this foundation, it's useless. In fact, the what version do you guys use in your church when you do the reading?
SPEAKER_01NRSB, what's the updated edition? EU.
SPEAKER_00Ah okay. Because we've we've moved to the new living translation.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And it it goes to basically it calls it completely useless. If I if I do all these things and don't have love, it's useless. I gain nothing. So it goes through all of those different things about the behaviors of love, and if we don't actually live that out, then it's useless. So I'll tell you what I preached about, um, and then I'd love to hear your reflections on the passage. I I basically said I started off by saying because for me, the noisy symbol and the clanging gong is a really important starting point. You know, if if I do all this and it's it's basically like a noisy symbol and a clanging gong, cymbals and gongs really aren't musical instruments. I know there'll be a percussionist that will listen, who'll be very upset with me for saying it. But you know, well, they are a musical instrument, and yes, they add beautiful bits to a classical piece, but they're really they're a they're a sharp bang that is to draw your attention. They're not really to sort of lull you into the rest of it, and they're not really like if they're in a musical piece, they're on their own, you know, they're sort of the music comes up to it. This poor sucker standing down the back with a pair of symbols waiting for to be pointed out, and then all of a sudden he just goes bang, and everyone sort of stares at him, and then the music goes on again. I think Paul, when he's when he's quoting this, he's basically saying, All you are doing is drawing attention to yourself, yeah, and you're not doing things for everyone. Yeah, so I actually think that's the foundation of this whole passage. Love is not about drawing attention to yourself. That'd be my opinion. Um, yeah. Have you got any reflections on the noisy symbol Kellinging Gong stuff?
SPEAKER_01No, I I like the way you you put that, yes. I hadn't thought of it quite in that that way before. But yes, the drawing attention to yourself. Um which uh when I think of the passage, I I I think um of the humility that we need to have in when when we're being called to this type of of love. Um so yeah, yeah, I I liked I like that way you you put it and the good visual of that as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the humility, because you know, one of the things that he does say in this is that love is patient and kind, um, and that it doesn't hold a record of wrongs. I I'm intrigued by that because there's a really interesting struggle there, isn't there, that you can't you can't dismiss people's wrongs completely because they affect them and they affect others. But somehow we've got to actually have enough grace to let it slide a little bit as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I I think that's one of the things that I struggle with with this passage. Um, and I guess the the way I struggle with it within the marriage context, which you mentioned earlier, too, is the concern around um, I guess in particular as a woman, um, women needing to submit to husbands or put up with uh behavior that maybe is not appropriate and is damaging, um, but that they they should because they need to be patient and they need to be kind and they need to not keep a record of wrongs, and and so that they should just just continue in what may not be a very um functional or healthy relationship. So it is an interesting uh challenge and attention that we do need to hold as to what is loving and and are we reciprocating love? Um so if if it's not reciprocal, then then there's an issue there too, because uh we we need to be both loving one another, um, or or in a community, we we need it's not about both, it's about all of the the community and how we're we're loving each other.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it can cut both ways, can't it? Because there can be control from a female or control from a male in a relationship, and that can be damaging from either side.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. The thing that I find interesting about this passage is that we do often do that interpretation of how we relate to another person, but but this is actually the way that Paul has contexted this is in chapter 12, he has just done this whole thing about the body of Christ and the spiritual gifts. And the context of 13 basically comes out of that here are all the spiritual gifts, here are how we live them out. And now what you are to do is when you exercise your spiritual gifts, you exercise them in love. And so the holding and no record of wrong could be to an individual, but it also could be to a community, which is which is really interesting. You know, that family have really hurt me, or that cultural group have really hurt me. So I hold a wrong against you know all Greek people for something that happened so long ago, or or all Romans, you know, let's face it, let's probably put it back in the context here. The conquerors are the Romans, and therefore I can't accept any Roman, you know. That's that holding no records of wrong, I actually think it could be about as much collective, you know, we hold we shouldn't hold a record of wrong against a collection of people as it is about an individual.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I yes, I agree with that. Um and and in fact, I I like to think that when in at Normanhurst we're doing prayers of of confession, we're not just focusing on on wrongs that we individually do, but that the wrongs that uh collectively as humanity or as groups of people uh we may do too. And and yeah, the the prayer of confession as a prayer of letting go and not holding that list of of wrongs and and accepting um the forgiveness that is so freely given to us. And that as we seek forgiveness from God, we are to forgive others as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And how do we do that in love is a really interesting. How do we do that in a loving way? You know, that is it just forgiving someone, or is there an action beyond the forgiveness as well? Which yeah, and in the context of the spiritual gifts that come out of chapter 12, I suppose it means when I when I'm when I'm you when I'm exercising my gift in whatever gift it is that I have, if it's hospitality or if it's prophecy or whatever, I need to exercise that gift for my community and for that community. Yeah. Doesn't make it easy.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. It's it's most certainly not easy. Um, yes, that there's there's a whole bunch of loving that we are called to do that is not not easy. Uh loving our enemies is not easy, yet that is what we are called to do.
SPEAKER_00So Jesus does put a bit of baggage on that one for us, doesn't he? Yeah.
unknownAbsolutely.
SPEAKER_00How do we love our enemies nicely? Yeah. One of the things that I think I'm sort of been picking up as I've been going through this passage over the last couple of days is moving it from the individual to the collective. Yeah. Because because to uh I think so often when we read this passage, we read it as the relationship of love one to another. And it can be, but it's a relationship of love to a community. Yes. And and therefore, in a sense, the what Paul's saying here is not just uh, you know, my husband, my wife, my partner, I I need to show them this kind of love. It's my community I need to show this kind of love. You know, so patient, kind, not arrogant or rude, not boastful. I need to live that out in a community context.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00And that I think that ups it a lot. Like, you know, you can you can possibly curb your arrogance for one person, but to try and curb your arrogance for an entire community gets a bit harder.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's certainly a challenge for us as we've become much more individualistic as a society. Uh, I don't think that that would have been as surprising for Paul's um original audience um that he was talking about it in the context of community. Uh, and and even for Jesus, when Jesus says to love our neighbor, I think again we we tend to think of those individual relationships between individuals rather than loving our neighbor means loving our community, loving the the collective, as it were, rather than the individuals that make up the collective. Um and yeah, I think that that is something that is helpful to rediscover, um, and as we maybe try to move away from such an individualistic kind of um mentality, uh, which is the way things have gone in the West. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, because that love lie neighbor sort of line ends up with the story of the good Samaritan, doesn't it? You know, the good Palestinian, yeah. Yes, because that that's that's who the Samaritans were then.
SPEAKER_01That's it, yeah. Yeah, so and and it's not about the individual so much as that person representing that community, as you say, you know, like it's it's um that person is representing all of the people of Samaria, so it is that, although it's an individual being cared for and being loved, it is also representative of of loving that that whole group of people.
SPEAKER_00Like, and and coming back to the exercising of the gifts, you know, exercising hospitality, exercising um, you know, all the gifts that we are given, the gifts that build others up, how do we build those people up that are other groups? Like it's it it really does come to international politics in the end, doesn't it? How do I how do we build up our Pacific brothers and sisters? Yeah you know, not just Australia, but how do we nurture Papua New Guinea to be its best? In a sense, we have to do that politically as a nation. We know yes.
SPEAKER_01The people that that say keep politics out of religion or or out of you know these these teachings, it's like, well, you you can't. Like if if if Christianity, if following Jesus uh is where our primary allegiance is, then all of life, including our politics, is going to be impacted by by yeah, what we believe and our being followers of of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and love your neighbour means we probably shouldn't, you know, bug the East Timorese offices so that we can get a better oil deal like we did in the in the 90s or 2000s, whenever it was that we you know invaded their personal space in that kind of way to try and get the best deal we could with oil.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00In the Timorese straight. So here's the list. I'll give it to you. Love is patient and kind, love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude, it does not demand its own way, it is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. I interestingly, it's not it doesn't keep no it keeps no record of wrong, it it keeps no record of being wronged. Yes, I find that interesting. So, in a sense, we acknowledge that wrong things happen and we keep a record of the wrong things that happened, but we don't take that personally.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, which I actually think is important when it comes to uh stuff like stuff in um in the court system, you know. We can't we can't we can't deny the wrong that someone has done and the implication of that in the courts, but we don't need to keep a record of it against us. I don't know how I'd do that, but I'd give it my best shot. Um it does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, it never loses faith, it always hopes, it always endures through every circumstance. Um love never gives up. Any thoughts, Tammy?
SPEAKER_01Um So I think that connects with the the three of of love, hope and faith going together. Um I think that uh while we continue to maintain hope, we're not giving up. So yeah, I think that it's it's a a case of I guess rolling with the punches of not expecting necessarily life uh to be easy and for it always to go well or to go well quickly, um but to know that it's worth persevering.
SPEAKER_00Um it endures through every circumstance, like in a sense, well, I think one of the things Paul is saying here, isn't he, is that you shouldn't say, okay, I've reached the edge of my love here. You know, I've tried my best, they've just annoyed me way too much. My love falls off right now. Um I think we can actually change the way that we care or love for a person. Yes, you know, there are some people that you need to love at a distance, yeah. Or one of the best ways for me to demonstrate my love is to actually not get into uh into an argument with them.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yep, yep.
SPEAKER_00And that and that might actually mean avoiding is possibly the wrong term, but well, not a might be the right term, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but not not putting myself into a circumstance where I'm going to just Yeah, having good boundaries whereby you're not necessarily avoiding avoiding them, but you're just not going to engage in that argumentative discourse, or you know, or whatever it is that that is not ultimately going to be helpful for them or for yourself. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It does change the way we view love when we think of it like that, doesn't it? Because we often think of love as a very soft or passionate or emotive kind of thing. The intentional love is sometimes quite a clear calculated thing.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00It it changes, it changes what love, what the way we view love. If we view love, you know, love sometimes needs to be quite. Calculated and planned in my head, this is what I do because I love this person.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Which is very different.
SPEAKER_01It is because we've we've made love into a yes, a very emotional thing. And and when it's quite emotional, we can give ourselves permission to be very reactive rather than being more more. I don't love the word calculated because it implies some sort of manipulation to make it.
SPEAKER_02Intentional.
SPEAKER_01But intentional, yeah. We need to be intentional about it and um thoughtful about it rather than just reactive uh and letting the emotions fly. Um yeah, I actually think that, well, as you are reading the list, what struck me is that it's very much about laying ego aside.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. To be loving to a child sometimes means putting a boundary in place. That doesn't mean that you're not loving them because you're putting a boundary in place. It actually means that you are loving them because you want them to live within those boundaries for their own safety and for society's safety.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You're right. And you're right. It's very much about putting your ego aside. This whole passage, like that the clanging gom and the clutching cymbal at the start. Yep. Don't get your don't let your ego get in in the way of your ministries.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Um, last week's podcast, I was chatting with Dennis Towner, and I don't know if you know Dennis. Dennis is one of my retired ministers. Um, and he was saying that the Corinthian church, there was a very clear battle of egos going on there. You know, if you look at the instructions that they have around communion in 1 Corinthians, it's a m it's very much, you know, don't try and sit at the best spot on the table. Yep. Don't try and lift yourself above everyone else, don't don't get the slaves to serve you. You know, everyone's equal. It it seems like he is talking to a community here that egos were really getting out of control. Yep. Which is fascinating that Paul is saying this. Because, you know, like he's he's not a shy character, is he, the old Paul.
SPEAKER_01No, no, he he is not. He's definitely a very, very passionate person.
SPEAKER_00He is a passionate, yes.
SPEAKER_01He always was. Um he he he had his his eyes opened and he he saw he saw Christ, but uh it didn't really change him, it just changed the direction he was going.
SPEAKER_00He was exactly the same human being, he was just a Christian. Uh he was he was just as determined.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_00I found it interesting. I was reading, I have a Bible study group that meets on a Tuesday night, and we just finished Romans off this week. Have you ever read the last chapter of Romans?
SPEAKER_01Um, probably have. I thought I had.
SPEAKER_00It was fascinating because Paul was sort of going through the list of these people, he sort of, you know, sends a whole heap of greetings. And one of the greetings that he sends is to a whole heap of his cousins that are in the church in Rome. And the and he's saying, and they're my cousins, and they were converted before me, like they became followers before me. So it sounds like Paul almost sounds like God was circling in on Paul with all of his relations coming to faith, and I don't know. I I might need to read it again, so I might be misquoting it. I'm gonna read the next bit, Tammy. It says this prophecy and speaking in unlawn languages and special knowledge will become useless, but love will last forever. Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gifts of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture. But when the time of perfection comes, the partial things will become useless. I I I might be misinterpreting this, but I do wonder if he's saying that even the way that we have our gifts now, they are imperfect. You know, so we're saying spiritual gifts that come to us, and so as soon as we say the word spiritual gifts, we automatically assume that that means that they've come from God, therefore they're perfect. But even our spiritual gifts are imperfect at this point in time until until Christ re comes and and restores all things, even the gifts we have are imperfect.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I I would agree although I think that I would say that it's the it's not the gift itself, it's it's the fact that we are imperfect and we can't fully grasp God's way, and we always we keep getting that wrong, and and we have an inability to fully lay aside our our ego. We can can do it for moments and we can do it for periods, and then we we always pick it back up. Um and so to me it's it's kind of true of like any tool that you give a human. It can be used for good or it can be used for bad. Um and and so I think that's true of the spiritual gifts as well. We we can use them well, um we can not use them well, and quite often we don't even know whether we're we're we can have all the good intentions of the world, believe that we are using it as God intended us to be, using it and using it well, and we can be just completely wrong about that.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I do like that image. So basically, the gift itself is a pure gift, but but we're imperfect humans and therefore we we shabby it up a little bit.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_00I do like that, yeah. I I think you're right, because which I think is really important because we often I I think when we talk about spiritual gifts in the church, the church can sometimes over-emphasize the godliness of the spiritual gift. You know, this gift has been given to me from God, therefore, what what I do with it has to be right. Yep. You know, and you know, I've been given this spiritual gift, so therefore, if I use it like this, I am right and I am doing God's work.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Um, well we can be we can be using it without the love that that Paul's talking about, in which case it it does become useless. Um and and worse than useless, it it can actually be destructive rather than being something that builds up.
SPEAKER_00You and I are preachers. Like if we we give we deliver sermons, and that is a gift, you know. Well, well, you probably should ask our congregations, whether whether it's a gift or an annoyance for them, but you know, that that God-given gift of doing that, we can definitely use that to bump up our own ego or to try and manipulate a community of people, to try and guide them on a path that we want to do, not what we think, you know. That is us abusing a gift that God has given us if we do that.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And we've got to be really careful.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I might, yeah.
SPEAKER_01We do.
SPEAKER_00And if anyone hears me doing a sermon that thing is wrong, please correct me. Um, yeah, that yes, I do like this next little section, and I do wonder whether. And so it says here, when I was a child, I spoke and thought and um reasoned like as a child, but when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now I see things impartially, like a puzzling reflection in a mirror. Um, but then I will see everything in perfect clarity. All that I know is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me completely. I do wonder when like it's a strange little insert, the childlike behavior here. And I do wonder if he's saying that we're like children learning to use our gifts. Um like I'm trying to work out what he's trying to say there. Is he trying to say we're we're childlike with our gifts? We're like we're like young people or children trying to learn to understand how to be humans. Are we imperfect young people trying to learn how to be the Christians we're meant to be, the gift, the gift users we're meant to be?
SPEAKER_01Yep. I I I think that he probably is. And I like the image because I think it's quite gracious in that you don't expect a child to just know and and to be able to do everything. And so we can forgive ourselves, forgive one another when we as children act as children, but there's also the challenge of continuing to grow and mature into the the Christians that we're meant to be, the people that God created us to be.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Because the the mirror thing, one of the things I always say when I come to this is that there was no glass, and therefore there was no glass with that sort of silvery backing that makes a mirror. It was just a it was a bit of copper that was polished.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and that's never going to be a perfect reflection. No, yeah, and so in a sense, we see we see a distorted image of ourselves.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. The climactic end of chapter 13. These will last forever. Faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. I do like that. It's a really powerful image of saying, look, can we make can we let's embrace love because it's the thing that lasts. Yeah, it's the thing that lasts. You know how I um jumped into the start of the end of chapter 12, because it sort of puts the context of let me tell you the thing the most excellent way. In my sermon, I also said that we needed to actually go into chapter 14 as well. Because the chart start of chapter 14 says, Let love be your highest goal. So basically sort of says, you know, therefore, with all this, let love be your highest goal. But then the next line is, but you should also despise desire the special abilities the spirit gives. He goes on, especially the bit the the ability to prophesy, for they have the ability to speak in tongues. Like he goes on, but basically, love is your highest goal, but don't just pack up at love.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_00Because the gifts are there to actually lift the community.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, they have been given to be used, uh, but we just need to be putting it in the right order and and using them with with love as the primary.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I I think the context of whatever you do as a Christian, whatever you're however you're exercising your gifts, but also just whatever you do in general, you do it in love.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And to me, that's actually we do it in God. God is love. Yes. And and what and the call is to lay aside the ego so that we may be more fully in the love that is God, and that our our actions, that the use of our gifts, um, you know, all that we we do may then be an outflowing of of God and us truly being uh Christ in the world because we are in God.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Any other reflections on 1 Corinthians 13 that you want to throw out there as we draw up, draw to an end?
SPEAKER_01Um No, I think I think that I've had everything that that came to my mind as we've think thinking and pondering this passage. Uh I mean, there's I'm sure much more that could be said. Heaps more. There are heaps more.
SPEAKER_00For me, it's been really interesting to look at this passage in this way because it has changed the way that I look at this passage. Doing this sermon series, putting this in context of the gifts of the spirit, and that that's what it sits in the middle of, has actually changed the way I look at this passage. Because I think before I still, even though I knew that it was probably out of context, I would have just gone to the love, the wedding.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, I would have gone to the relationship love.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now, tell me, uh I normally just give a bit of a highlight of some of the things happening in the life of our church, just notices. Um there's not a huge amount that's happening at Terragore Uniting. Well, there is actually. One, we've got to remember that Kids' Holiday Cup's coming the first Wednesday of the school holidays. If you haven't already said that you're going to help, um maybe that's your spiritual gift. Or maybe it's not, and you just feel guilty. I'll accept either way. We'd love your help in the Holiday Kids Club, anyone that can. And the other stuff that's happening, the end of July, we have coffee and cars. So we've got a few people bringing along some special cars, some you know, antique cars or some really classy vehicles to have a look at after church, and we're going to have some coffee and pizza and look at the cars after worship. So that's the end of July. I don't think there's any other major things. So there. Um, Tammy, thank you so much for being our guest on TUC Talks today.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00I'll come back to you another time. Okay. Thanks everyone. I'll talk to you next week.