February 6, 2011 - Epiphany 5, Year A (RCL)
“When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.”
So begins
the second chapter
of Paul’s first letter
to the Corinthians.
He’s done for now
with the issue that seems to have originally prompted him to write,
the divisions and infighting
between members of the congregation.
Now he’s moved on
to something he considers far more important, something he thinks
they should focus on
rather than the relatively trivial things
that they’ve been obsessed about.
He’s moved on
to what is at the core of his faith. The gospel of Jesus Christ,
and him crucified.
That’s what really matters.
That’s what they
should be obsessing about.
But let’s backtrack for a minute.
Paul is writing
to the people of Corinth.
And Corinth
is a unique place.
It sits on a narrow neck of land
that joins the big chunk of land called the Peloponnesus
to the mainland of Greece,
and between the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf.
trade routes ran from north to south on the land
and east to west by sea,
and pretty much everything that went from the center of the Roman Empire
out to the eastern provinces
went that way.
People came from all over to live and trade there.
It was a place of culture and learning,
and of every religion
known to humanity.
And into Corinth
came the gospel of Jesus Christ,
but it was never going to be an easy job
for it to get a foothold;
there were too many competing beliefs.
And even if it did,
there was the constant threat
that other beliefs
would sneak their way in
and distort
the gospel.
No wonder Paul
was anxious.
No wonder
he had such an obsession
with wisdom.
Because wisdom was the intellectual currency of Corinth.
Everyone
had a better idea
of how and who
to worship.
And they all claimed
to know the truth.
But what Paul realized
was that having a good argument
wasn’t going to convince people about Jesus.
Or at least, not for long.
Because the next time someone came along
with a better offer,
people would simply convert to that one.
Plus
the whole idea of getting people to become Christians through arguments
was essentially flawed.
Because that’s not
how Jesus did it.
Jesus didn’t simply appear and dictate a treatise,
an evangelistic tract,
and expect people to read it an follow him.
No,
he spent three years
wandering around Israel,
meeting people, talking with them,
healing them,
getting to know them.
Fishermen, tax collectors, prostitutes alike,
it was that encounter with Jesus that convinced them
to follow Jesus.
Even Paul himself
who appeared on the scene
after Jesus died
had met him,
met him in a vision
on the road to Damascus.
But of course
what Paul realizes
is that for people further down the passage of time
that sort of meeting
isn’t going to happen.
Not in person, anyway,
and even the first hand witnesses
will soon be gone.
And not everyone
is going to get a vision like he did.
So what he does
is preaches Christ,
tells the story,
but not the story alone.
It’s accompanied
by what he calls a demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
But he makes no mention of miracles;
my suspicion is
that what he’s really referring to
is a life lived
shaped by the power of Christ.
It’s the same life
that’s referred to in our gospel today.
In the gospel, Jesus talks about us being like salt.
If salt doesn’t taste salty, he says, if it doesn’t have the properties of salt, then it isn’t salt.
If our lives aren’t Christian, if we don’t act like we’re Christians,
then maybe, maybe
we’re not.
Our lives, our actions,
have to match up with our words, our beliefs.
Wisdom alone
is not enough.
But if that’s the case, why bother?
If the words won’t work, why bother
to tell anyone about Jesus?
The answer, according to Paul,
is that we bother
because when we speak
God’s spirit
will speak to the spirit of those we speak to.
It’s not our words
that do the converting;
they just provide the opportunity
for God’s spirit
to do its work.
And what will make someone open to that spirit
is not just our words
but our lives,
our lives
which have been shaped
by that very same spirit.
When I was a teenager
growing up in the more evangelical end of the church,
there was a great deal of emphasis
on apologetics.
Apologetics
is not, as you might think, about making apologies - “Sorry about that” -
though it comes from the same root in greek.
It’s the discipline of defending a position,
usually a religious one, through the systematic use of reason.
In other words, it’s about developing logical arguments
for faith.
I spent my later teenage years
learning the arguments.
I’d try them on my friends.
And for the most part
they weren’t convinced.
Not because there was a problem with the arguments themselves,
but because there was a problem with the idea behind them.
You can’t argue someone
into faith.
But I discovered something else a few years later.
Somehow, my mother met one of my classmates.
And she had become a Christian.
She wasn’t one of the ones
I had practiced my apologetics on
But she told my mother
that I had been part of the reason for her conversion,
without even knowing it.
Not because I’m anything special,
but because she could see the evidence of Christ in my life.
My words and actions together
had provided the opportunity
for God’s spirit
to speak to her spirit.
And I didn’t even know it.
God’s spirit speaking to our spirits.
It’s an amazing thing,
one that we can’t control or predict
but that happens nevertheless.
And often far more often than we expect or deserve,
we ourselves provide the opportunity
for God’s spirit to speak to someone else’s spirit.
Our lives and words, our testimony
to our own encounter with Christ
allow them to open the door
to the spirit of God.
And it’s that open door
that is so crucial.
It makes sense of why it is
that so often we become aware of God
at times of crisis in our lives. Because it’s at those times
that we know
that none of the arguments work.
It’s at those times
that our spirits
are open to God’s spirit
to receive wholeness
and healing
and the blessing of Christ.
So live out your faith. Make sure your actions
match up to your words, and your words to your actions.
And if someone you care for
just doesn’t buy
the arguments for Christianity,
pray for them, pray that they will be open
to the world of the Holy Spirit.
And trust that that Holy Spirit of God
will speak to their spirit
and bring them to faith
and fullness of life.
And pray for yourself
that your own spirit
will continue to be open
to God’s spirit,
so that we ourselves will know
the fullness of life
in Christ.
Breathe on me, breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010