Superpowers - April 1
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. –1 Corinthians 13: 1-2
In our Scripture readings for today, we hear the beginning of a well-loved, oft-quoted passage from 1 Corinthians 13. We hear about extraordinary things—superpowers if you will: “speaking in the tongues of mortals and of angels,” “having prophetic powers,” “understanding all mysteries and all knowledge,” and “faith that can move mountains.” But we also hear that none of these extraordinary abilities, these superpowers, makes any difference if they are not done with love. In truth, it is the ordinariness of love that has the potential to make what is seemingly most ordinary in our lives—breaking bread, sharing stories, spending time together—into something that is truly extraordinary.
There’s a collaboration between Coldplay and the Chainsmokers from 2017 called “Something Just Like This.” The premise of the song is there’s this guy who doesn’t see himself as having much in common with ancient, mythic superheroes let alone modern-day, blockbuster superheroes: “I’ve been reading books of old, the legends and the myths, Achilles and his gold, Hercules and his gifts, Spider-Man’s control, and Batman with his fists—and clearly, I don’t see myself upon that list.” The song is kind of an imagined dialogue between this guy, who doesn’t see himself as a superhero, with a girl who replies that that’s OK because “I’m not looking for somebody with superhuman gifts, some superhero, some fairytale bliss.” In the song, she is reassuring him that she’s not looking for someone with superpowers—she’s “just looking for someone she can turn to.” In other words, someone who’s going to be there in the day to day—someone reliable, someone who shows up with the kinds of things we hear in 1 Corinthians 13, the ordinary traits that set the standard for extraordinary love: someone who has real superhuman gifts like patience, kindness, humility, and truthfulness.
Stan Lee, the creative powerhouse who has so influenced the Marvel Universe, wrote this about what he traits he takes into account when creating a superhero: “A superhero is a person who does heroic deeds and has the ability to do them in a way that a normal person couldn’t. So in order to be a superhero, you need a power that is more exceptional than any power a normal human being could possess, and you need to use that power to accomplish good deeds. … I try to make the characters seem as believable and realistic as possible. In order to do that, I have to place them in the real world, or, if the story is set in an imaginary world, I have to try to make that imaginary world as realistic-seeming as possible, so the character doesn’t exist in a vacuum. He has to have friends, enemies, people he’s in love with, people he doesn’t love—just like any human being. I try to take the superhero and put him in as normal a world as possible, and the contrast between him and his power and the normal world is one of the things that make the stories colorful and believable and interesting.”
We’re kind of like these characters Stan Lee is talking about—we have friends, and maybe even some enemies, we have people we love and then some people we really don’t. We’re just like any other human being. And yet, as Christians, we’re called to follow Jesus—who was most definitely not like any other human being. We’re supposed to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, who was a superhero who could turn water into wine, restore sight to the blind, help the lame walk, make the sick well, and even cast out some demons for good measure! But, of course, Jesus could do all those things—because Jesus is the ultimate superhero, fully human and fully divine.
It can seem very unattainable to be able to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, who had all these divine superpowers even as he walked the earth in human form. How are we supposed to live a life that puts us, to follow Stan Lee’s philosophy of superheroes, in clear contrast with the normal world? Well, there is one superpower that we can choose to fully exercise—we have the ability to love. Love is the superpower that allows us to set aside our own wants and not always insist on our own way. Love is the superpower that allows us to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. Paul declares that the spiritual gifts of prophesying, speaking in tongues, and possessing all knowledge will all pass away—but love… love is the spiritual superpower that we can keep living into for ever and ever.
To return to that Coldplay song I mentioned earlier, “Something Just Like This,” the woman in the imagined dialogue begins by asking “Where do you want to go? How much do you want to risk?” before she reveals that she’s “not looking for someone with superhuman gifts.” And this lyric points us toward an important point to remember when we decide to pursue Christ’s way of love: choosing to love always requires taking a risk. Anytime we are choosing to put someone else’s needs ahead of our own, by choosing to act toward them with patience and kindness and humility—anytime we are choosing to bear all things, hope all things, believe all things, we are choosing to take some pretty massive risks: We risk our love being rejected. We risk being our love being taken advantage of. We risk our love not being returned. Anytime we take the risk of loving, there’s always the chance that we will not be loved in return.
But here is the truth we need to stubbornly cling to in all of the risk-taking we do for the sake of loving each other as Christ loves us: “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.”
Becky+
Questions for Reflection
What are some risks you have taken for the sake of loving someone? What are some risks someone else has taken for the sake of loving you?
Daily Challenge
Today’s reflection is an adaptation of my January 30 sermon, “Ordinary, Extraordinary Love,” which you can listen to here.
And you can listen to the song “Something Just Like This” here.