08/30/2026 - "Through a Silver Mirror" (1 Corinthians 13); Preached at Grace UMC Lake Bluff
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13 (NKJV)
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
~
I love a good story.
I love unique ways of storytelling, from poetry to songwriting to haunted houses to even theme parks and theme park rides. And I also love learning how stories and folk tales and mythologies have developed or changed over time. Because that’s one of the beautiful things about stories; as they are told and shared, they bring forth new meanings and realizations about ourselves and the world around us. And they can tell us something about beliefs and assumptions of the past, ones that were formed before we had the knowledge to fill in the gaps of what we didn’t know then.
And one of my favorite examples of this is silver, and the role that it plays in folklore.
For generations, silver was considered this mystical, pure, holy substance that could ward off evil. People realized that they could put it in water, and it would prevent the water from collecting scum and going bad. So they extrapolated from that to all of these stories about silver being pure and holy. In stories about werewolves, witches, and vampires, silver is often the only substance that can defeat them. This is where we get the idea of a “silver bullet” as a fast, easy, magical solution from. And the idea that vampires’ reflections don’t show up in mirrors comes from them being traditionally backed with silver. The thought was that such a pure substance wouldn’t be able to reflect something so impure as a vampire.
Now today we know that silver does have some anti-microbial properties, it’s even used in some medical-grade dressings to keep bacterial infections from building up in wounds. And when you put it in water, it can neutralize some of the microbes that cause scum to form on standing water. But before microbes and germs were discovered, the framework of knowledge that people had to explain what they were seeing was this framework of good and evil and mystical forces at play making the water go bad. Which can seem ridiculous today with all the scientific knowledge that we have. But even with how much more information we have about our world, there are still things we don’t know.
And that’s what Paul’s talking about in our passage today when he says “For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.” We think this letter to the church in Corinth was written only around twenty or so years after Jesus’s death and resurrection, so there were still a lot of theological details that the early Church was trying to figure out. And while the church in Corinth was doing its best, they often found themselves getting a little too focused in on the details and missing the bigger picture.
Which I think is something we all can relate to. How many times have we got so focused on making sure we’ve hung a framed photo exactly straight, only to realize it’s not in line the rest of the frames? Or spent so much time on a specific slide on a work project that we’re scrambling to throw together the ending of the presentation? Or got so fixated on a small detail in a book or movie or TV show, trying to figure out what it meant, that you missed what was happening for the next few minutes?
Sometimes we can get so caught up in the details of something that we miss the point of what we’re doing or what’s going on.
And speaking of details, you might’ve noticed that the Scripture is in a translation that you may not be as used to, or may not have heard in a while. And that’s the New King James Version. I did that because in the NKJV translation, at the beginning of verse 12, Paul says that “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.” Most other translations don’t include the word “dimly” here, they just say “reflection.” And that’s an accurate translation, but it loses some nuance and context to why Paul would call the reflection he sees in a mirror “dim” or “dark.” This was because mirrors at the time were made of heavily polished metals, like bronze, copper, or a mix of copper and tin.
And sometimes, on rare occasions, they would be silver.
When was the last time you caught your reflection in something metal, like a silver spoon or a polished copper or tin vessel? It’s not the same as looking in in a mirror - your face is warped and the colors are dull and just seem a little off. Metals don’t reflect light as well as glass, so the image they reflect is imperfect and dim. And this warped, dim image is what Paul says we can see now, the knowledge we have that is only in part. One day, Paul promises, we shall no longer have to rely on this reflection but instead will see face to face, or in person, and understand more.
But what are we trying to see in this dim mirror? What are we trying to gain more knowledge of?
I think the easiest answer here is God.
Most religions that have a concept of the Divine tend to hold the belief that God and the Divine are beyond our full comprehension in a lot of ways. And the Bible is full of stories reinforcing this, one of which is the story of Job.
You may be familiar with it; because in the span of a few verses, Job loses his oxen, donkeys, sheep, camels, the servants that were overseeing all of them, and then a mysterious wind collapses the house where all his children happen to be. In every case, only one person manages to escape in order to tell Job. Then, to add itchiness to injury, Job got painful boils.
Most of the book of Job is a dialogue between Job and his friends as they try to explain why Job has suffered so much. At the end of it, God’s voice from the heavens interrupts with a multi-chapter monologue. God asks if any of them were at the creation of the world, and asks them to explain every aspect of nature. None of them can. God points out that if they can’t even fully comprehend what God has created, then why would they expect to be able to fully comprehend God? This finally gets Job’s friends to back off from their line of interrogation, trying to figure out where Job went wrong so they can reassure themselves that they won’t end up with the same fate.
But even as God remains incomprehensible in Job, we also have stories like 1 Kings 19, where Elijah is hiding in a cave and feeling incredibly sorry for himself. He’s also lost everything, although he should count himself lucky that he didn’t end up with boils too. But when God shows up for him, God does so tangibly, telling Elijah that God is going to pass by as a reminder that Elijah is not alone. At first there is a powerful wind, but God was not in the wind. Then there was an earthquake, and fire, but God wasn’t in either of those. Not that God couldn’t have been - in fact, Elijah probably expected God to be in those displays of power. God had already shown up in those ways before; in winds that settled on the Tabernacle, in an earthquake that brought down the walls of Jericho, and as a pillar of fire guiding the Hebrew people out of Egypt.
But this time, God shows up in a way Elijah probably didn’t expect. A gentle whisper. And after everything Elijah had been through, I bet it was exactly the way Elijah needed God to show up in that moment.
The God who showed up for Elijah was the same God who showed up for Job. But God showed up in very different ways. So why would we expect God to show up in the same way for all of us?
Just like God told Job, we still don’t even understand the vastness of humanity and creation, let alone God. We all have different life experiences and personalities and so much more that leads us to different beliefs and opinions.
It’s one of the reasons why people are attracted to one religion over another, one denomination over another, because they find beliefs and words that resonate with their experience, and people who understand and affirm it. But our experiences are limited, and even all the life experiences in our congregation together are limited. And that’s not even to mention the ways in which those beliefs and experiences can conflict with each other!
So what do we do with our imperfect knowledge and our conflicting experiences? Well, thankfully, Paul gave us the answer in the majority of our passage today.
We love through it.
Now that may seem almost trite, a silver bullet that smooths over all conflict. But that’s not the reality. Being able to love each other through differences and disagreements takes work, holy work. And it starts with getting comfortable with the fact that we don’t understand and know everything about God and each other.
This is often easier said than done, because we like to scramble for reasons to explain what’s going on to ease our discomfort of not knowing. We come up with stories to explain why something is the way it is, extrapolating our limited knowledge and life experience and applying it to situations they have no business being in.
And we’ve been doing this for generations. For example, when niacin deficiencies began to show up in people in Eastern Europe, characterized by pale skin that easily burned in the sun, people thought that meant their neighbors were turning into vampires. They had stories that told them that vampires burned in the sun, so then their fear took over and used those stories to explain what was happening. Even though they were completely wrong, because they were missing critical information.
And we can do the same when we meet someone who is homeless, who’s addicted to substances, who’s getting divorced, or has ended up in really poor health. We have stories that tell us that it must’ve been something they did or didn’t do that caused it in an attempt to reassure ourselves that it could never happen to us.
We tell ourselves that bad financial management caused him to lose the house, bad decisions caused her to get addicted, even when we know that homelessness and poverty and addiction are complex and caused by a variety of factors that are often outside of someone’s control. We invite ourselves into relationships and medical offices and people’s histories when we don’t know the full story. So we try to fill in the gaps, create this image in our minds of what’s going on, and we can fill those gaps in with fear.
And fear often warps the image of others - and us - even more than any polished metal mirror could.
Friends, we have to resist the urge to come up with myths and folk tales that strictly define who people are, and who God is, and what the world is and how it should be. We have to resist the instinct to fill in the gaps of a story with fear, because instead we’re called to fill them in with love.
We are called to listen to God’s story of love for every person, every creature on this earth.
And we join in telling the story of God’s love through our words and our actions.
We treat everybody with respect and dignity, no matter who they are or where they’re from or what languages they speak or what religion they follow or don’t follow.
We find the places where we can work together, feeding people, making sure they have clothing and shelter and clean water and medical care and education and everything they need to live and thrive.
Because even if we have different experiences in how God’s love and grace has shown up on Sunday, we can come together on Monday to share that love and grace with the rest of the world.
Because even if we have different beliefs, even if we disagree on theology, there is still so much we can do together.
For there is still so much we have left to add to the story of God’s love together.