Too High a Calling?

Psalm 27 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Paul wrote this letter to the Church in Corinth from his apartment in Ephesus. Then he gave it to friends to hand deliver (16:17). When they arrived in Corinth they gave the letter to the pastor of the church or to other church leaders, so that it could be read to the congregation at its next gathering. This was the regular practice of the early church: to read aloud both Jewish and Christian writings as part of worship.

Word might have spread through the congregation that a letter from the great Apostle had arrived and would be read in worship on the first day of the week. Maybe that Sunday, the worship space was packed with people in anticipation of hearing what Paul had written.

The letter begins the same way all of Paul’s letters begin. There’s the usual greetings and a word of thanksgiving to God. Then Paul writes: you, the church in Corinth, have been enriched in Christ so that they were not lacking in any spirit gift. Can you sense the happiness of the congregation that day as Paul’s words are read aloud? God is faithful, the reader continues, by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Someone might have leaned over to a friend and said, what great, uplifting words we are hearing today.

And then I imagine the reader pauses, the paper he’s holding might be shaking a little. He’s nervous and looks around for a moment and then glances at an elder who motions him to continue reading.

And so he does: 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.

With this I imagine the smiles in the congregation are gone. The mood has changed and it’s clear that the Apostle’s letter is speaking right into the middle of that conflicted church. The reader continues: It’s been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you. 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.”

And there it is. The reason for Paul’s letter is now clear to the entire congregation. What follows is a long letter addressing the several reasons for division in Corinth. The letter ends with a series of commands: keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. (16:13-14) I imagine there’s a long silence after the reader finishes the letter, then the pastor speaks.

Paul began with an appeal: that the Corinthians be united in the same mind and the same purpose. Unity is a theme for the entire letter. That prompts a question for me? Is unity too high a calling for the church? Church history has been one of division. In the church today there are struggles about music or how much water should be used for a baptism or the wording in a prayer book or who God calls to ministry and how mainstream exactly are Mormons? Is it too high a calling for broken people to be united in the same mind and the same purpose when it comes to church matters? We don’t have a very good track record when it comes to this.

Nevertheless, Paul wants this for the church because he believes unity in Christ helps us navigate our differences. So that’s where he begins this letter. Did you hear the test he offers for unity? It works in Corinth or anywhere else. It’s a simple test: answer three questions correctly.

Here’s the first one: Has Christ been divided? Our tribalism is deep in our DNA. We divide into groups very quickly: denominations, religious affiliations, groups who prefer one kind of worship over another, styles of baptism, different ways of coming to the table, even economic political and racial divisions in the church. We are quick to divide as a people, but has Christ been divided? No, we’re the ones who are divided—and mostly by our own choosing. We have a tendency to want to keep Christ with us in our group. We forget that we’ve been called into fellowship with Christ, not the other way around. Has Christ been divided, Paul asks? No.

Here’s the second question: Was Paul crucified for you? Our faith begins around a cross and an empty tomb. The cross in our sanctuary is empty, but that’s not because we have forgotten who was on it, or that it doesn’t matter who was on it. It’s empty because of Easter. Resurrection means that both cross and tomb are empty, and Christ is risen. Jesus wasn’t the only person crucified in the ancient world but we believe he was the only for whom crucifixion was not an end, but only a beginning. Was Paul crucified for you? No.

Here’s the third question: Were you baptized in the name of Paul? Baptism is that signs that one has a greater claim on you than God. You belong to the household of God. Many groups make lesser claims on your like, but whom do you wish to have the greatest claim on your life? Were you baptized in the name of Paul, he asks?

A church that answers no to all three of these questions passes the test and has the potential to become united in mind and purpose. That doesn’t mean we suddenly agree about everything. When has that ever been the case in the church? It does, however, mean that no matter how we separate into groups we still share a common Lord, we still have one faith in the saving work of Christ on the cross, and we still hold to the sense that God alone lays claim equally to all of us in the waters of baptism. Similar words are shared with the church in Ephesus (4:5): One Lord, one faith, one baptism.

The Corinthians didn’t pass the unity test. The letter Paul wrote them was part of Paul’s attempt to help them rediscover unity in Christ. We don’t know whether they found it or not, but we can know whether or not we are united in Christ, and share the same mind and purpose. Passing the test is only the first part, living it out is the second. I want to offer two images that speak to me about living out our unity in Christ.

The first image comes from my home last week. On Tuesday when it snowed, Susanne made chicken soup. That snowy day was a great day for soup. She added chicken, water, many different vegetables, rice, herbs, and spices. Separately those foods are all good, but together on that day, they all made each other better. Unity Christ is that calling to combine, to make each other better and offer the world something good on a cold day.

The second comes from John Calvin who writes that Paul is challenging the Corinthian church to move from quarreling to chorus. In this challenge discordant tones are replaced by a harmony which allows each person or group to sing its own part and yet still all share in the one overarching song the composer of which is God. That song is the song of the cross of Christ and its power.

The unity test, Soup, and song. 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. Amen.

 

Whither the Flame?

Matthew 5:14-16 and John 1:29-42

There are some television shows Susanne and I want to preview before Katherine watches them. Sometimes it’s the show itself and sometimes it’s the commercials during the show. You may remember last fall I shared about a terrific movie we previewed about a spelling bee: Akeela and the Bee. I remember someone saying once that PBS was the only channel they would let their children watch by themselves. We want to see what Katherine is watching and so when the new season of American Idol began this week Susanne and I watched it after Katherine went to bed.

You may already know that American Idol is a nation-wide talent search for one individual, who will become a pop star. We hadn’t paid much attention to it until last year, when Katherine wanted to watch it. The season begins with auditions in a few American cities and a cross-section of America shows up for these—many with talent and many more with no talent at all. From these auditions people are selected to move onto the next step in the competition.

A young lady who was auditioning shared with the judges that she does impressions of famous singers. They asked her do one of her impressions, which they thought sounded very good. And then they said, now let us hear your voice. She started singing again, but they recognized it as another impression. They stopped her and said we want to hear you. She paused and then began singing again and this time it was her own voice. The judges listened to her and then complimented her saying that her own voice was better than her impressions of other singers. They moved her on to the next level of the competition.

How often are we like that young lady doing an impression for others? Or to ask that another way, do you do different impressions of yourself for the people around you?

I don’t mean characterize that in every case as wrong. Sometimes it’s necessary and practical. You’ve been up all night with a sick child and you’re exhausted, you feel lousy, and you still have to make that presentation to your coworkers. You’ve gotten terrible news that morning about a loved one and you still have to meet with prospective clients that morning. You run into a neighbor at Kroger’s and you say everything’s fine even though almost nothing right now is fine.

We all know what it’s like to show the world something on the outside that’s different than what’s on the inside. Some of us are good at it and some of us are only good at it some of the time. Maybe you want to keep things private or you worry about burdening someone else with your problems, or you’re uncomfortable when the spotlight is on your troubles.

There are a couple of things Jesus said that I think speak to this. The first happened when Andrew took his brother Simon to meet Jesus. Andrew had been a disciple of John the Baptist and that’s how he first meets Jesus. The reading from John is early in Jesus public ministry, and it’s John (the gospel writer’s) account of the first time Jesus meets these two fishermen brothers. Jesus’ first words to Simon are these: “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas,” which John reminds us means Peter.

John Calvin writes that Jesus gave Simon the name Peter because of what he would become not because of his past accomplishments or failures. He would become the leader of the early church. Peter is Greek for rock.

Jesus does the same for us. As followers of Jesus we too are given a new identity, and everything else about us is secondary to that name Christian. Paul writes about this. He writes that in Christ everything is new and all things have passed away. A modern-day way of saying this might be: what part of new don’t you understand?

Like Simon Peter, you and I are now identified by our future in Christ. And that means our best self is not the impression we do of the person with everything put together or the impression of the happy person or the confident, secure, worry-free, strong person. Our best self is the new creation we have become in Christ.

When a community of faith can come together and recognize that we are all followers of Jesus and who don’t have to do impressions for each other as put-together, nothing’s-wrong-here people then we have begun to mature not only as Christians but as a community of Christians. When we can do that, then we are what Jesus called the light of the world.

You are the light of the world, Jesus said. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on a lamp stand so that it gives light to all in the whole house. I hear this as a challenge to let go of the impression we do in life, which are the bushel baskets that hide the light. The light is our true self in Christ shining into the world. I hear this as a call to authenticity—authenticity before God and with each other.

Generally when people are good at impressions, they are asked to do them, or they’re comfortable doing them. The judges on American Idol may have been the first people to tell that girl that they would rather hear her own voice than any impression she could do. I say that because she looked surprised when they told her that her own voice was her best voice. Isn’t that how we should encourage each other? We are all broken people who walk a common path, and we don’t have to pretend we have everything put together or figured out or under control—but we follow the one who does. What a spirit of grace that would generate.

Martin Luther King said an individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

It takes a lot of energy to do impressions for each other and it takes energy to catalogue the past successes and failures of others. Impression and cataloging only keep us in narrow confines. So what if in this new year we rose above that and didn’t worry about those things any longer, and we discovered ways to celebrate that we are named for what we are now, not what we have been?

What could we do for the broader concerns of all humanity with all that redirected energy? Let’s find out together? Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Pathways to Change

Psalm 29 and Matthew 3:13-17

We finally sold our red jeep. Some of you may have noticed the “For Sale” sign in its window since October. We were beginning to wonder whether anyone would buy it. Maybe it took the first snow of the winter, but we sold it last week. A soldier coming back from a two-year deployment to Iraq bought it. He was in the Kentucky National Guard and had been deployed while a student and UK. He’s come back to finish his degree and now he’s got a good jeep to get him around—in all kinds of weather.

It was a little emotional to watch the Jeep drive away. We bought it nine years ago, the year before Katherine was born. We needed a bigger car at the time with a baby on the way. Not to dwell on this too much longer, but getting rid of the jeep was a change forced on us by circumstance. We didn’t want to see it, but the kids can’t ride in it safely anymore—no head support in the back seat, and then there’s the price of gas. It was time for a change.

That word, change, is getting a lot of attention these days especially by presidential candidates. I’m the candidate of change! That one’s not. Ready for Change. Change you can believe in. Changing what’s wrong has to come from the outside. In 2008, “Stay the course” doesn’t sound like a slogan people want to hear.

In these early days of 2008, some of you are making changes of one kind or another as new year resolutions. In my newsletter article for this month I suggested some changes that could benefit all of us, and the world around us. Read those if you have a chance.

Matthew is also telling us that it’s time for a change. As the first book of the New Testament, Matthew is the first to announce the change which has arrived. A New covenant has been established by God, a covenant for all the world now and the one who has brought that covenant to earth is Jesus Christ. The change from Old Covenant to New has been accomplished in his life and work. This New covenant is about changing the established ways of relating to God and neighbor, being at peace with God and neighbor, and being reconciled to God and neighbor. And it’s Jesus who shows us what this change looks like.

In this account from Matthew 3, this is the first time we meet Jesus as an adult. He’s about to begin his public life and ministry. The Bible doesn’t venture to tell us why at that moment in Jesus’ life he put away his carpentry tools, hung up his apron, and made his way to the Jordan to be baptized.

What it does tell us is that when it was time for Jesus to go from a private person to a public person that meant seeking out John who was baptizing at the river Jordan. For he was the one sent to prepare the way of the Lord.

Doesn’t it seem out of place that Jesus should be baptized? This is a strange moment in the gospels. I imagine that moment looking differently. I imagine Jesus standing on a hill supervising baptisms. Don’t forget that one, John, he might say. Use a lot of water on that one. Even John didn’t understand why Jesus would be baptized. I need to be baptized by you, he said, and you come to me?

The first time we meet Jesus as an adult, he at the Jordan and stood in line with others who, like him, were entering the water as a sign of turning from their old ways and making a change. He didn’t ask to go ahead of anyone. He didn’t expect anyone to step aside so he could go first. He simply went and stood in line until it was his turn. We don’t know how long he waited, or who he spoke with while he waited, we simple know that Jesus choose to be with the people, and to stand with them.

I need to be baptized by you, John said, and you come to me? It has to be this way, Jesus said, to fulfill all righteousness. That’s one of those sayings that doesn’t make sense in the moment, but makes sense after Easter. A lot of what Jesus said is like that. But here’s what he means: that day at the Jordan, the son of God began a very human journey that will lead from the waters of the Jordan to a cross and an empty tomb. And all things will be set right for the world because of that journey. It will fulfill all righteousness.

Life changed for Jesus after his baptism, and his baptism was the visible sign of that change. A voice from heaven spoke into the moment. He went from there to begin his public ministry teaching and preaching and healing people. He called others to follow him. He was confronted because he challenged the long-agreed upon ways of doing things. He carried a cross up a hill. He triumphed over death.

That’s what happens with baptism. It changes people. It sets them on a new path. It identifies them with a community of faith. It shows God’s prior claim on your life. It challenges us to think about belonging to something bigger than ourselves. How will you be a testimony to the power of God to change you forever by the waters of baptism? Martin Luther, the great reformer of the church, who brought change would say, Remember your baptism.

We bought a new car this week to replace the jeep. When it rained on Thursday, I was worried about the rain leaving spots on it. I admit when you buy a new car you worry about silly things. But that shallow, passing worry about water spots got me thinking. What are the water spots that baptism leaves behind?

Here’s the mark I see that it left on Jesus. In his public ministry he continued to stand with people—right were they were, right in the midst of them—and he told his disciples to keep this work going. This is indeed God with us. Amen.