Sermon, January 22, 2017
Rev. Sally Ann Sisk
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Paul writes to the church in Corinth during a time of deep division. Tribes have formed around particular leaders. Believers are following the one who baptized them—Cephas, Apollos, and Paul—instead of Christ, in whom they were baptized. Members of the church in Corinth have turned to their corners and divided into camps.
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Paul writes to the church in Corinth during a time of deep division. Tribes have formed around particular leaders. Believers are following the one who baptized them—Cephas, Apollos, and Paul—instead of Christ, in whom they were baptized. Members of the church in Corinth have turned to their corners and divided into camps.
In the US
this weekend, indeed this whole year and this time in history, the state
of the church in Corinth sounds
too familiar. Many are calling it the
divided states of America.We’ve
seen a new president inaugurated one
day, and millions of marginalized people protesting the next. We’ve
heard from two camps that, in some ways, both
feel they haven’t been heard in society. Even as diversity continues to increase in this nation made for immigrants, hate crimes against people of color, immigrants, and muslims are also on the rise.
And so
this text may be a fitting one for us to read this weekend, but its
message is also a difficult one to hear in a divided time. In a
diverse world, I know that many
families and communities find it difficult to talk about politics for fear
of disturbing the peace. There are
such intense feelings on both sides of a divided society that it
is far easier not to discuss it. If we’re
going to talk about our differences at all, there’s a
tendency to use Christian unity as a
band-aid, a convenient way to smooth things over and avoid
the real issues of our diversity.
But Paul
doesn’t let us avoid the issues today. He
addresses the issues head on—"what I
mean is that each of you says, 'I belong to Paul,' or 'I belong to Apollos,' or 'I belong to Cephas,' or 'I belong to Christ.' Has Christ
been divided? Was Paul crucified for you?" The
reason I’m going there today is that
Paul went there so long ago, calling
us to consider his example. To avoid
the division in our society today would be
to betray the power of Paul’s proclamation and, most importantly, as Paul
says, the power of the cross.
According
to Paul, when society is as divided as it is now, when
society is as divided as it was in Corinth, it
DOES matter that we think differently. We can't ignore it.
I’ve
spoken before about my trip to the Middle East in seminary. I’ve been
thinking about it a lot lately not because of the places I traveled but
because of the people I traveled with. It was a
bus full of tribes. There
were five or so students from five or so seminaries, 35
students preparing to be ordained in the next year, along
with a few community members to add to
the diverse collection of ideas and understandings of the world that each
of us brought. There
were students representing the Southern Baptist Church, the African
Methodist Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Methodist Church, the Unitarian
Universalist Church, and the United Church of Christ. The group even included a few agnostics and a
person of the Jewish faith, who was also a 70-year-old baton-twirler, I might
add. Among
these students and community leaders were
people of various cultural traditions, parts of
the country, sexual
orientations, and
genders.
We were a
bus full of passionate, opinionated, emotional
people, traveling
through checkpoints and across walls of hatred and conflict between religions, between peoples of God, in the
land Jesus once called home. Needless
to say, it was an intense 3 weeks. It was
not all roses and unicorns. It did
matter to all of us that we thought differently.There
were many conversations in which we were deeply hurt by the
perspectives of others, and frustrated, asking ourselves if unity in the world was possible at all.
I will
always remember a conversation with one of my Southern Baptist brothers in which
he tried to rescue me from entering ministry because he
worried I just wouldn’t be able to handle it as a woman. He also
worried aloud about the health of my marriage because of my career-minded attitude. My
African American friends faced some tough conversations as well, as did
almost everyone on the bus. There
were countless discussions about race, politics, religion, and sexuality. There was
really no way of getting around it on this bus for 3 weeks.
But
between the conversations, we shared
every meal together. Between
the conversations, we shared
our stories. I shared my call story and with my Baptist friend. I listened
as he shared his convictions about salvation. I
listened to the stories of my African American classmates about
their experiences of racism in their
daily lives and in
their preparation for ministry. Upon hearing the testimony of another, I've learned, it's hard to deny the truth and importance of another's story.
In times of division and misunderstanding, the only
way around is through. I learned
that unity in Christ does not give us permission us to stop listening to one another about
what really matters in our lives. When we
do take time to see things from an alternate perspective, I believe that in that
mess, through the Holy Spirit, we
recognize the fact of our unity—we are
bound to one another. We cannot
retreat into our corners, because
the story of one of us matters to the stories of all of us.
It is
relationship, story, conversation, and
sharing that we
can experience the true meaning of our unity in Christ. Otherwise,
our unity is false unity and our
peace false peace.
Martin
Luther King, Jr, whose birthday we celebrated this week, said in 1968,
“We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.”
“We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.”
Paul
refers to his hearers as brothers and sisters, over and
over and over again. Brother can sound like an innocent enough word and idea—we’re
family in Christ, and this is a lovely image. But no
matter what family we’re in, we can
likely all recognize that family
relationships are not always lovely and easy. Our
family relationships can be the most contentious in our lives. Family
members can abuse one another in word or deed, betray
one another, and abandon one another. Civil
wars are often spoken of as battles, brother against brother.
We have a
blood bond with our families. We love
them with everything we are. But when
we disagree, we have to reconcile the deep love we have for one another and the
pain we can cause one another. It’s easy
for brothers to assume they know one another while failing to truly listen.
And so
Paul’s claim that in Christ we are brothers and sisters is not as
easy to live out as it sounds. The fact
that we are brothers and sisters does not
mean we can ignore our differences as we
seek God’s justice in the world. It does not mean that we are all the same, but that
we are by nature connected…connected
in the life of the one who died
for us. The cross
of Christ is serious business, Paul
says, because
of the radical unity to which it calls us.
Christ is
undivided, and so, since
Christ died for all of us, we are
inextricably bound together. The sister behind a wall in Palestine, the brother trying desperately to feed their family in Mexico,
the brother who just lost their job in Michigan, the sister who waits on
death row, the sister trying to find a safe place to escape the violence in
their land—we
are brothers and sisters.
We are
bound together, like it or not. What
impacts the life of one impacts the lives of all of us.
This good
news should change our living. With this
good news in mind, we have
the responsibility as disciples to listen
to our brothers and sisters, to listen
when one is hurting or
hungry, marginalized or oppressed, imprisoned
or ignored. We have a
responsibility to get
into one another’s shoes and to get
into the shoes of Jesus, to love
who he loves, and
proclaim this to the world. We, like
Paul, are not called to live in a false peace, but to
proclaim the power of the cross in the midst of division. We are called not to speak pretty words that will make everyone happy but
profound ones that reflect the depth of our faith.
Unity in
Christ means that we have to get out of our corners, listen,
and share. This
is no small task—this is
hard work in such a divided society. But Jesus' ministry and his death were no small
matters either.
On the
last week of our trip around the Middle East, our group
arrived at Jerusalem’s city gates
and
stopped at the Church of St. Anne. The
church is an ancient landmark, built in
the 1100s over the supposed birthplace of Mary. The
church is known for its acoustics, but as we
entered we were not in the mood for talking, too tired of debate. After
several minutes of silence, though, three of
our group members got up calmly and stood at the front of the church, facing
the chancel with their backs to us.
They were
the three singers in the group, but also
three who had hurt one another time and again on the trip, so many times,
I guess, that they seemed to know what the others where thinking as they
got up and started singing together. They sang
in perfect harmony. Their
voices were different, but they sang in perfect
unity, looking up to the high ceilings of the old stone church. For over
30 minutes we listened. Travelers
from all over the world who stopped into the church while we were there sat in
silence too and
listened to this unlikely singing group from three different corners of our
bus.
The fact
that Christ is undivided means that we are brothers and sisters. It means
that we are responsible for being in relationship with one other, especially with those who are different from us, even at
the expense of our own comfort. We follow
a God who did this in life and in death, Showing us the radical nature of
our unity.
Amen.
