Miscellaneous Love

My sense is that the way we feel about this random, miscellaneous ending to 1 Corinthians is similar to the way we feel about this random, miscellaneous thing we call church. It is a math problem that doesn’t add up, a kind of foolishness that we only choose to embrace because of Christ’s love—that is, only because Christ has foolishly chosen to love us first. To live in faith is to look at all these random, miscellaneous parts of our lives and to see in them the constant flame of God’s love.

God’s revelation comes to us in the ordinary, mundane parts of creaturely life. Paul senses God’s presence in very ordinary things like how the Corinthians spend their money, or how he plans his travel, or how they receive certain guests. For all these things to be done in love requires an imagination which knows that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, an imagination which knows that even a bush in the middle of the wilderness can become holy ground, an imagination which knows that God at times shows up not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire, but in the low whisper.

__
From a sermon on 1 Corinthians 16.