Monthly Archives: January 2021

Love Builds Up

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Looking ahead to this coming Sunday’s lectionary texts, I’m struck by the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 8.

It’s a fairly well known text, but a strange one. Paul is dealing with the issue of meat that has been sacrificed to a god or goddess in one of Corinth’s many temples. Corinthian Christians could get this meat at a discount in the local market. Should they buy it? Should they eat it? Should they eat it if someone offers it to them in their home? Should they attend a feast in one of these temples, and eat this meat there? (Should I eat it in a house? Should I eat it with a mouse?)

We all know what it’s like to live and worship together with others who have different religious sensibilities than ours. The thing that really matters to that person might not matter at all to me. But then there’s that thing which I think is really important—why can’t this person see how important it is? So much of church life is navigating these diverse sensibilities, around liturgy, mission, theology, and whether Henry should really be the one leading the singing over Zoom since God knows he can never hit those high E-flats.

The words that struck me this time are the words Paul opens with: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by God.”

How often does my knowledge, my certainty that I am right, puff me up in arrogant condescension of others? How often, then, do I miss the knowledge which is really most necessary—the knowledge of God through love? When we act in love for God—devotion to God through compassion for others—then we find we not only know God truly, we are truly and fully known by God.

God’s Reign Come Near

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The Gospel text for this coming Sunday is Mark 1:14-20. It’s the well-known description of the beginning of Jesus’ Galilean ministry, including the call of the first disciples of Jesus. Jesus comes into Galilee “proclaiming the good news of God.” And what is this good news? That “the time is fulfilled, and the reign of God has come near.”

The Greek word for “come near” (engizō) is an interesting one. It can mean “near” either in terms of space or in terms of time—or possibly both. Does Jesus mean that it is almost time for God’s reign of true justice and lasting peace and flourishing life to be revealed on earth? (“The end is near!”) Or does he mean that this reign of God is already now but it’s just beyond our reach?

I tend to think Jesus meant both of these. Like God’s very self, the kingdom of God is both imminent—near in time—and immanent—near in space. If we have eyes to see it, we can see this reign of God already among us—heaven invading earth in acts of justice and peace and life-giving love. However, this reign of God is not fully here—and so we wait for its fullness to come, always tantalizingly just around the corner.

This week, as we do the necessary tasks before us, both the mundane and the sublime, may we glimpse the reign of God breaking into our world and among us as God’s people. And may we be filled with the ever-fresh hope that the fullness of God’s reign is just around the next bend.