The More Excellent Way

Turns out the more excellent way the Apostle is talking about always leads to The Church. This is the true definition of "love".

“Your worldview has to have the same shape that reality does.” This quote by American philosopher J. Budziszewski seems to be common sense. But anyone looking at society today will have to conclude that common sense isn’t really all that common. It seems to make sense that how I see the world should include the reality of that world. Of course, humans, blinded by selfish narcissism and short-sighted self-interest, can’t embrace reality since they have already rejected reality because of their wounded “nous.” We are gripped by inner blindness and that slavery wars against reality.

So, you might ask. how do we discover what is really real? And there are literally whole ideologies and religions created to answer that question. Is it all about “power?” Does the person who dies with the most toys win? Is it all about comfort or the elevation of suffering? Without a clear answer, we humans have tried it all.

But there is a clear answer, and it isn’t a philosophy or an ideology but A Person! By becoming like Him, I am made part of that New Community, that New Man, called the Church, the Body of Christ. This Body heals me as a person and creates a new society that extends His healing to the whole world until we have a new creation!

Look at our lesson today in 1 Corinthians 12:27-31; 13:1-8:

Brethren, you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not 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 have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

No wonder St. Paul calls this creation of the Body of Christ the “more excellent way.” No wonder St. Paul tells these Corinthians that this more excellent way has everything to do with love. And no wonder St. Paul defines this love by the character of Jesus Christ! And by making us the Body of Christ, the Lord continues His very visible and real Presence over the whole world!

First, this “more excellent way” of being the Body of Christ avoids the weakness of comparing ourselves to others. Not everyone has the same gift, and that’s OK. A Body needs all kinds of “abilities” to function well. When we avoid comparing ourselves and our abilities to others, we are free from arrogance and despondency over our perceived strengths and weaknesses. We need each other to be complete and whole as the Body of Christ.

Next, St. Paul reveals why this “more excellent way” of being the Body of Christ is so “excellent.” He declares that love is the key to making all this unity and cooperation possible. But not some syrupy, sentimental view of Love. No, a love that is robust, serious, overwhelming to circumstances, and enduring. This love is “patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-8). This isn’t a love that pretends to be love by “affirming” people in their escape from reality. No. This is a love that loves people by taking them from illusion to the reality of a new life in Jesus Christ. And even when it’s uncomfortable or upsetting or even hated, we keep on loving people to reality! That’s what the Body of Christ does!

No better example of this “more excellent way” can be found than in the lives of the Holy Unmercinaries we remember today. Sts. Cosmas and Damian were Christian physicians near the middle of the 3rd century AD. These saints are different from the saints we also remember on November 1. But they share the same spirit of the Church motivated by love and community. These holy hero doctors ministered to the ill, both man and beast, to display the power of the new community of the Church to those who suffered. They were martyred for their faithfulness in 284 AD.

Today, as we see the epitome of being the Body of Christ in the lives of Sts. Cyril and John, The Unmercinaries, we experience these saints disregarding worldly comforts by using their medical gifts to heal without charging anything for their work. These great saints embody what it means to follow the more excellent Way of Christ by ministering to others and expecting nothing in return. What created such a change in these educated and gifted men? Nothing less than the reality of being the Body of Christ and embracing that Normal Orthodoxy that transforms the world through a love much bigger than affection and sentiment! When you know who you are as the Body of Christ, you are finally free to BE the very presence of Jesus in your world. Go BE that today! That’s Normal Orthodoxy.

P.S. Having received the grace of healing, you extend health to those in need, O glorious and wonderworking physicians. Hence, by your visitation, cast down the audacity of our enemies, and by your miracles, heal the world.

Please pray for Fr. Barnabas and his family as we attend the National Clergy/Laity for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in San Diego this week.

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