“Through a Screen Dimly”

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. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now, we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

This passage invokes images of rented tuxedos, tulle skirts, and wedding cake, doesn’t it? It’s so famously used at weddings that some people don’t even know it’s from the Bible! Fewer still realize that Paul has to spend so much time explaining what love is because the community he is writing to has been doing just the opposite. You see, this chapter is not a letter written to a couple in love, on the happiest day of their life. It's written to a church that was filled with infighting, gossiping, cliques, and posturing. It is written to a church filled with conflict. We wouldn’t know anything about that, would we?

Alas, Southminster, like all churches, knows how painful church conflict can be. Like the church in Corinth, Southminster has struggled to stay united. Southminster has fought and argued and seen painful divisions. That doesn’t make us a bad church, it makes us a very ordinary one. Like the Corinthians, community life has not always been easy. But our problems have not always been the same as the Corinthians. They were experiencing conflict over spiritual gifts. Paul spent all of chapter 12 explaining to them that certain spiritual gifts are not more valuable than others. The Corinthians had started to believe that flashy gifts of prophecy, speaking in tongues, and knowledge were the “real” and most important spiritual gifts. They believed that if they had those gifts, they would know that they were truly filled with Spirit. They had the right desire—to be filled with God’s Spirit, but they turned it into a competition and focused on how they looked in the eyes of others, rather than what was happening on the inside.

So Paul makes it clear that the essential ingredient for a life of faith is not speaking in tongues or flashy spiritual gifts. As Jack and Ellie said, “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.” 

What matters is not how we look, but how we love. If we do great things without having great love, then nothing we have accomplished really matters. 

Paul wants the Corinthians to know what love truly looks like because desperately loves them. Out of his love for them, he challenges them to consider if their behavior matches that of love. He doesn't beat around the bush—he clearly describes the opposite of how the Corinthians have been behaving. Love does not envy (13:4), but envy and strife characterize the Corinthians behavior in chapter 3 (3:3). Love does not boast (13:4), but the Corinthians do in chapters 4 and 5 (4:7; 5:6). Love is not arrogant (13:4), but the Corinthians repeatedly are (4:6, 18–19; 5:2; 8:1). Love does not delight in injustice (13:6), but some Corinthians are manipulating unjust courts (6:7–8). As the community read this letter aloud, I imagine their faces flushing as they realize that Paul is calling them out for their behavior that is the opposite of what love is. Paul shows them that love is an antidote to many of the problems that plague the community. It is hard work to be patient and kind. To keep no record of wrongs or insist on your own way. But Paul has radical hope in the power of love. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But those shiny, exciting gifts of the Spirit like prophecies, speaking in tongues, and knowledge, those will end someday. Paul says, “we know only in part, and prophesy only in part. But when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.” 

Paul is speaking about the end of times. The fancy, theological word we use is “eschaton.” Paul is describing the ways that gifts like learning or prophesying reveal truths about God, but that truth is not yet complete. We don’t see the full picture—just glimpses. And we know we can’t see the full picture of who God is, of what Heaven will be like, of what this world was meant to be. We know we only see in part. 

The author of Ecclesiastes describes it as, “God has put the knowledge of eternity in our minds, but our minds cannot contain it.” It’s the existential problem of being human. We know the word “forever” but we can’t truly comprehend it. Dogs and cats know good from bad, love and pain, but they don’t wonder about the concept of eternity. They don’t lie awake at night, wondering if their lives have meaning. No, these are uniquely human problems.

We have this glimpse of eternity, but we can’t fully grasp it. We have seen glimpses of God’s Kingdom, but as Paul describes it, “we see through a mirror, dimly.” I never used to understand what Paul meant by that because we don't see through mirrors exactly, but now, in 2020, I wonder if Paul would write, “though we see through a screen dimly.” Ah. That kind of seeing. The kind of seeing where you see all the right parts, but it is not the real thing.

For months, we have seen church through a screen. We have watched and participated in worship, but we know it is not quite what it is supposed to be. We see the familiar setting, say the familiar words, and hear the familiar songs… and yet we know we still only see through a screen. We cannot turn our eyes to the right or the left without the camera’s lens leading us there. We cannot hear the cries or comments of the child sitting in the pew behind us. We cannot feel the touch of a friend’s embrace. We cannot taste the same bread and juice as our neighbors. We cannot laugh or cry together in the Narthex.

We see the truth, but only dimly through a screen.

Church in the pandemic has been lonely and hard for many of us. It drags on and on. We keep hoping Montgomery County will get better, but it stays in the red and our doors stay closed. So still we watch. Of course, we have worked so hard to make it what it is. We are so fortunate for modern technology and we know that none of this would have been possible even a few decades ago. We are fortunate to have dedicated, gifted volunteers. We are fortunate to have a budget to allow us to livestream well. We are fortunate… and yet we cannot replicate what we know the church is supposed to be.

We have that sense, deep in our bones, of what church is supposed to be because we have experienced it before. Maybe it was the feeling of walking into Southminster and realizing that you were known here by name. Maybe it was when you were asked to use your gifts and talents that you didn’t know anyone saw in you. Maybe it was a mission trip or retreat where you felt so close to God and to those around you. Maybe it was the taste of communion, the cool waters of baptism, the sounds of the Christmas cantata, or a million other moments in which you thought, “ah yes, God is in this place.”

I believe that the longing we have for true church community stems from the same longing that we have for the Kingdom of God. We have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and so we know that all is not right in this world. We know that this is not how things how God made things to be and we have a longing, deep in our souls, to see the world made right. 

We know what the world made right can look like because we have seen glimpses of the Kingdom of God. We have experienced undeserved grace and we have known real love. We have seen the Kingdom of God that Jesus speaks of in the gospels. This mysterious “already and not-yet” Kingdom of God. For that is the great paradox—The Kingdom of God is anywhere where Christ is Lord—for Christ has died once and for all for the forgiveness of sins, and yet, our world is not made whole. Christ is not Lord of all places. We are not yet made perfect as our Savior is perfect. Already and Not Yet. Still—we see through a screen dimly.

Author C.S. Lewis portrayed this dimmed vision of what is to come in The Last Battle, the final book of his series, The Chronicles of Narnia. After the great battle, the heroes of the previous books—Edmund, Peter, Lucy, Eustace, Jill, and Polly are gathered to Narnia to witness the end of Narnian world. And so, they enter into Aslan’s country, which they recognize as Narnia. But it is somehow more Narnia than Narnia itself. It’s the true Narnia. They realize the Narnia they had known, was like seeing through a glass dimly. They didn’t know much truer the true Narnia would be. 

            That, I believe, is where we find ourselves today. We see God’s kingdom in part, but hold on to the hope that someday, we will experience it in full. Like watching a worship service an iPhone, for now, we see God’s kingdom only in part. But someday, we will see in full. Someday, we will worship all together in this sanctuary without masks or safety precautions. Better yet, someday we will worship with all God’s creation in Heaven. Someday, we will live in a world where we are not defined by our worst moments, our deepest regrets, or our worst fears. Someday, we will live in peace and safety and harmony with others. Someday, all will be well.

            In the meantime, we can be a part of making God’s kingdom come, on Earth as it is Heaven. We can live out those words we pray together each week. How do we do that? Through love, of course. Although it sounds like a cheesy wedding toast, it's true. The world is in desperate need of love. Not the kind of love summed up in red hearts and chocolates. The kind of love that is not irritable and resentful when it gets hurt. The kind of that rejoices in the truth, even when the truth is painful to hear. The kind of love that is not arrogant or rude, even when has ample opportunities to be so. The kind of love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. That is the calling of followers of Christ. 

As that famous song goes, “they will know we Christians by our love.” Not by moral platitudes. Not by our decent and orderly meetings. Not by our stewardship campaigns or stained glasses windows. They will know we are Christians because we do the hard work of loving one another when it would be easier to just walk away. When they see our love, may they see a glimpse, even as through a screen dimly, of the kind of love that God has for them too.

Friends, these hard times. But we can do hard things. So although for now, you see only through a screen dimly, may you hold on to hope, that someday, we will see in full. Amen.