January 30, 2011 - Epiphany 4, Year A (RCL)
What were you doing on Tuesday night?
Probably a lot of you were, like me, watching the State of the Union address.
I have to admit
that it hasn’t been high
on my list of priorities in past years;
I’ve usually just caught snippets, or watched the first five minutes and then given up because I can’t follow with all the interruptions of clapping.
This year, it was only because I was visiting parishioners
and they turned it on
that I watched it,
and I’m glad I did.
What sticks in my mind
is not what the President said,
but what the listeners did.
They sat together.
Now that may seem a small thing.
But for the last hundred and fifty or so years,
whenever there’s been a joint sitting of Congress, the parties have been divided.
One has sat on the left, the other on the right,
with an aisle in between.
And that aisle might as well have been a chasm.
No way was anyone going to cross it.
But this time,
wearing black and white ribbons in honor of Gabrielle Giffords,
they mixed together,
Democrats and Republicans sat side by side. No longer divided, at least by the aisle.
Of course, it’s only a first step. The bipartisanship that has been visible since the shooting in Tucson
has to go beyond mere appearances
and enter the realms of reality.
The sort of acrimonious divisions that have marked our politics recently
and spread to the wider population
don’t do anyone
any favors.
Our legislators
need to be able to work together
for the good of the country.
But it was a first step, and a very public one.
One of the things that struck me, as I was watching the State of the Union, is that the state of politics here in the US at the moment
is not a whole lot different
than the state of the church that the apostle Paul was writing to
in his first letter to the Corinthians.
We’ve been reading from chapter one
for the last couple of weeks;
two weeks ago, we heard Paul begin his letter
with thanksgiving for the members of the church in Corinth
and for Christ
who called them to faith.
But then last week,
Paul got down to the point of his letter.
“It’s been reported to me,” he said
“that there have been quarrels among you.”
One group
went on about how much they liked Paul’s ministry,
and another group
disagreed. They thought Apollos did a better job.
And then there was another group
who preferred Cephas, or Peter.
Finally, there were a few
who didn’t particularly care about who was the minister;
they just wanted to get on with following Christ.
Of course,
those probably aren’t the only differences.
As you read on in the letter,
it seems that the church in Corinth is divided
on a whole bunch of things.
Whether it’s better to be married or not.
What sort of food they should eat at communal meals.
What roles women and men should have in worship.
And it’s quite likely
that those divisions match up
with their favorite ministers.
But what Paul says, is
“Quit fighting among yourselves. If you’re going to be able to do the work that Christ has called you to, you have to decide to agree,
you have to decide that
no matter who baptized you, no matter who you think of as your spiritual mentor,
at the heart of it
you’re all here
because of Christ.
Christ has given you gifts, Christ has given you strength;
you have to get over your differences
and work together
for God’s sake.”
Now Paul’s logic begins to get a little convoluted at this point, right where this week’s reading begins.
He heads off into an eloquent discussion of wisdom and foolishness,
pointing out the paradox
that people who have no faith in Christ
think that Christian faith is foolish,
but in fact,
what they think is foolish
is the wisdom of God, and they are the ones
who are foolish.
Yeah, but how is that related
to what he’s been saying about divisions in the church?
It sounds like a whole other issue.
What I think Paul is saying, though he could have been clearer,
what Paul is saying
is that the divisions among the members of the church in Corinth
are truly foolish.
Because they’re based on who you know, whether it’s Apollos or Paul or Cephas,
and on spurious arguments
about things that aren’t at the core
of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The so-called wisdom of the world around them
is spurious. It’s stupid. And they are foolish
for getting caught up in it.
Especially given that if God had applied their standards to them,
they wouldn’t have made it into God’s inner circle.
Because they aren’t, by the world’s standards, for the most part
they aren’t important.
They aren’t powerful or educated or wise.
But God called them anyway. God called them anyway,
and saved them, and gave gifts to them,
and charged them with the task
of proclaiming the good news
of Jesus Christ.
They are wise words,
words that have applied as much through the centuries
as to the church back in Paul’s day.
Think of the sixteenth century. There were those who said “I follow the Pope” and others who said “I follow Luther” or “I follow Calvin” or “I follow Cranmer.” They disagreed about the relative importance of faith and works,
what language you should pray in,
who should get to read the bible,
and at what age you should be baptized.
And somehow, all too often,
the gospel of Christ
that they all shared
was lost in the disagreements.
And that gave us
what today we call
denominations.
And nowadays, we’re not a whole lot better.
Christianity is losing its power,
or at least it looks that way.
Fewer and fewer people
are attending church;
fewer and fewer even know
what Christian faith is really about.
What gets reported in the media about Christians
is all too often the bad news.
It’s the crazies on the extremes,
like Fred Phelps and his family
protesting at funerals.
it’s the splits and divisions within the church,
whether it’s over women clergy
or sexuality
or fights within congregations.
Meanwhile, many people
have missed out on hearing about
the heart of our faith.
I still remember the time, back before I was ordained, when I worked for the government,
when my boss came to me and said,
“What do you think about this book?”
The book was “Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism”
by the former bishop of Newark,
Jack Spong.
Now, I have to admit, I’m not Spong’s greatest fan.
His books seem to me
to be a bit thin
in the answers they give,
and I disagree with him on a whole bunch of things.
But his books
have gotten people talking
about the core things of our faith.
My boss and I talked about scripture, about faith, about what being a Christian is all about.
It was amazing.
It reminds me of two parishioners in a parish I served a few years ago.
They disagreed vehemently
about a particular issue in the life of the church.
They were both convention delegates,
and each year
they shared a ride to convention.
Because they counted their faith in Christ
and their commitment to God’s work in our town
as far more important
than any disagreements, no matter how deeply held.
The reality is, that any group of people is going to have differences,
and in the church, it’s often more evident because we have so much of our hearts and souls invested in it.
We all have in our own minds
some sort of image
of what the perfect church looks like,
often based on a kind of patchwork of the best of every experience we’ve ever had:
this building, and that music, and that priest, and those people,
and this way of doing the liturgy, and that style bulletin,
and these activities, and so on.
And because we’re all different, and have had different experiences,
our patchworks look different.
Our ideal church looks different.
And so it’s easy to disagree.
Paul’s descriptions of the Corinthians
ring true,
if not in the details,
in the overall effect.
And so does his advice.
are as true as they ever were.
“Listen
to the wisdom of God.
You know
what is the heart of your faith. It is Jesus Christ.
Christ has given you life, Christ has given you gifts, Christ has given you strength;
above all, Christ has saved you.
God has called you together
to worship and serve him
in Christ's name.
Don’t get sidetracked by arguments, but celebrate
your unity in Christ, share the good news,
and trust
in the wisdom
of our God.”
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010