There is this great scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indiana Jones has a glorious epiphany. He is trying to find the lost Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis find it and use it as a talisman, a thing of power. The key to finding it is inscribed on a long-lost medallion. One of the Nazi agents grabs the medallion and, because it is white hot, has the inscriptions burned into his hand. Thinking they have the cipher to unlock the location of the ark, they send their teams to Egypt to dig.

When Indiana Jones takes the medallion to see an old friend, they find someone who can read it. Suddenly they realize that they have only one-half of the cipher and exclaim together, “They are digging in the wrong place!” That might be a good descriptor of what Paul is teaching us in I Corinthians. It seems, then and now, most of our best energy and investments are in the showy, flashy, even spectacular, rather than investing in the virtue of love. Of course, it is easy to see why. Compared to Jesus' kind of love—love that ends on a cross—the more visible gifts of the spirit are easy and they also draw attention to ourselves.

This week, Paul connects love to what our future destination is and basically says, “Heaven is a world of love.” All the flashy stuff we thought was the real thing was just like scaffolding, or training wheels, to get us to the heart of the dance—love. If that is true, then, as N.T. Wright says, “the point of [I Corinthians 13:8-13] is that the church must be working in the present on the things that will last into God’s future. Faith, hope and love will do this; prophecy, tongues and knowledge, so highly prized in Corinth, will not.” (N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God.)

Our problem is not that we have found love wanting, but that we have found love hard. It’s a burden that, without God’s grace, we cannot bear. And yet bear it we must, if the world will see and sense that there is a better story to be had than the loneliness where our cultural emphasis on expressive individualism has left us.

That, or something like that, is what we will talk about Sunday. I hope to see you here. Come early if you are new to St. Patrick; we have a class for people interested in knowing more about our vision and values. We also have adult classes on Genesis and Parenting, as well. Just drop your children off at the nursery or Sunday School, grab a cup of delicious coffee or tea, and find a place at the table. We have set it just for you!