OT Reading: Isaiah 9:1-4
NT Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is a
good example of his letter writing. Any time Paul writes a letter critical of behavior
we are assured he is talking about something a real problem in the
congregation. If we keep that in mind, it makes it easier to use Paul as a
guide for the modern church.
Two types of problems plague our modern
church. One of them is “denominationalism.” We slowly get the idea that the way
we do things puts us closer to God’s grace than those who walk a different road.
Here are some examples. I read a comment in print last week that someone heard
Pope Francis say Catholics believe repentance of sin is essential for salvation
and penance for sin after confession helps you refine your faith. This writer concluded
the Pope was preaching a distorted non-Christian works-righteousness. In a
worship service downtown last week a man told me his denomination insists you must
be baptized to join their congregation, even if you have been baptized already.
Another group, actually an old spinoff of Presbyterians believes we must abandon creeds in preference to
the Bible and structure our worship and congregational governance around the
practice of the early church in The Acts of the Apostles. There can be no music
and the Holy Spirit can only be received through the Scriptures, not by
enthusiastic preaching. Some of those folks in these examples take this so
seriously that they say if we don’t agree we have a spiritual problem separating
us from Christ. There are people among our own group of PC(USA) and PCA Presbyterians
who will refuse to collaborate as if the other were Satan incarnate – all
because of the way we interpret Scripture to guide Christian living. I remember
when I worked in Mississippi as a construction manager for Presbyterian
Disaster Assistance, my immediate supervisor and his supervisor both were
horrified and shot me down when I proposed we team with the recovery group from
PCA in the area. You don’t have to look very far to find people so enamored by their
denominational practice they will publically criticize or ostracize others as
non-Christians.
Our lectionary passage from 1 Corinthians
shows it happened 1640 years ago. It reveals Paul struggling with a life and
death spiritual problem in the Corinthian congregation. How does it bear on our
modern denominational world?
Let me give you a little background
history on the church at Corinth. Paul founded the congregation at Corinth in
the middle of his ministry. He wrote at least two letters to them and visited
at least twice if not three times over problems. 1 Corinthians is probably the
second letter written to them.
Corinth was an unusual city. It was
destroyed by Rome about 150 BCE and laid in ruins for 100 years until Caesar
rebuilt it as a defensive outpost because of its strategic location with two
seaports and to be as a Roman Colony for freed slaves. Freed slave
overpopulated Rome and getting them out of Rome eliminated potential political
trouble. It gave the freedmen an opportunity for entrepreneurial growth and the
city grew rapidly into a center of commerce. By the time of Paul it was a
thriving city-state dominated by Romans, immigrants from East and West and a
strong Greek pagan religious culture. It had no landed aristocracy, but a lot
of rags to riches Horatio Alger stories. There was a large number or poor
people. The city was known for its religious vices of Greek religion, where Aphrodite,
the goddess of fertility was worshipped with
temple prostitutes. Basically it was a typical seaport town where money and
vice flowed freely among available transient men and women. Corinth has been
called the combined New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas of the ancient world. The Corinthian
congregation mirrored its Gentile Greek religious population. Paul cites Jew,
Greek and Roman names among its congregation in 1 Corinthians.
Entertainment by eloquent, philosophical
scholars appealed to Greek society of Corinth and its pagan heritage. The Greek
philosopher used language delicately, eloquently and persuasively to create
quite a show for the listener. But Paul was too uncouth, he was short and scrawny
and was a poor public speaker He could hold no candle to the eloquent Greek philosophers
and the philosophers were appealing. Greek philosophy was strongly dualistic;
that is, they believed there is a pure spiritual part of existence and a sinful
physical part of existence. Many believed these two parts of the person are at
war and the desired goal is to attain the spiritual state that leaves behind
the dirty human body. It is easy to distort Christian spirituality and sin into
this view.
Besides having this idea about
spirituality, most of the church members were formerly members of the religious
sects whose practices were abhorrent to Christians, e.g., prostitution, idol
feasts, etc. Each of Paul’s letters take the Corinthian congregation to task
for accommodating this pagan, spiritual outlook into their Christian.
Paul was not interested in a little
friendly discussion about style and order in worship. Paul was dealing with their
outright assault on his Apostolic authority and what he saw as total religious
failure, heresy. The congregation had fallen victim to its pagan history. He
responds like an angry parent who has gotten a note from the teacher about an
ill-behaved child, as well as one from his friend, the next door neighbor whose
child in the class brought home the same news. Furthermore, Paul’s child has
just started arguing with him taking exception to his criticism.
Verse 10 makes it clear, “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.” He did not say. “I
appeal to you to listen to me because I started this congregation,” no he said,
“I appeal to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” that is the only reason
for the existence of the congregation, Jesus Christ.
Paul says, “My friends who visit tell me
you are fighting among yourselves over who you owe loyalty for your salvation,
some say Apollos, some Paul, some Peter.
Greek has the beauty of having a form of
the pronoun “you” as a plural, an accurate translation is “you all.” Paul says,
”It has been reported to me that there are quarrels among you all. Each one of you all (every one of you)
say you belong to Paul, or Apollos or Peter. What may have started with a few now
involves every Corinthian in the congregation. Paul is outraged, not at a few
of the ringleaders, but everybody. Paul is not angry because there are schisms
but because they all have wandered from the Christian message he taught them.
Paul is outraged that they think they can
worship with their idol worshipper friends because they have already gotten their
spiritual state ironed out and are immune to the sin of the pagan practices. They
think Paul preaches about “milk for babies” when they are ready for the headier
“food for idols.” They party at the Lord’s Supper and fail to bring enough food
to share with the poorer members.
Remember this is the man who persecuted
Christians and his past sins though forgiven, still dogged him. He ran a tent
making business so he could support his missionary work. Paul is irate that
anyone can say Paul is worthy of worship, when he could only find the lowest
state of humility to atone for his past sins. He can only sputter in anger,
“Has Christ been divided?” Of course not. You know the answer, so did the
Corinthians. He continues the argument for
four chapters.
This is the crux of his argument: “You puff
up people like Apollos and put down others like Peter and Paul. You have lost
the spirit of Christ. You think you are superior because you have some magical “Spirit”
through baptism and lord it over the others. You say you have a special
understanding no one else has, and speak in tongues at loud gathering so no one
understands what is said. Baptism has become a magical ritual for you that
imparts some spiritual gift. Paul has to diminish the value of baptism to make
his point. “Was I crucified for you all? Were you baptized in the name
of Paul, or Apollos or Peter? Did I come
to baptize you all, or to proclaim the Good News to you all? Did
I come to do it with eloquent words that only you all understand or do I
do it with the power of the Cross that everyone may understand?” Paul uses
these outlandish questions to show them their foolishness. Paul is playing for
keeps because their very salvation and his apostolic authority is at stake.
The bottom line for Paul is the Kingdom
of God may have arrived but they are not on board if they have forgotten or deny
the core of Christian belief. That core is: “There is no East or West, no North
or South, no rich or poor, no Paul or Peter in the Good News. There is only
Jesus Christ who died on the cross and defeated death for us all through his resurrection.”
He tells them if they don’t believe that they aren’t on board. If they do
believe that and add more, they are a stumbling block and woe to the stumbling
block.
Paul’s message to the Corinthians is simple,
put nothing between you and your salvation but Jesus Christ. Don’t put rite and
ceremony, eloquent speaking, or Apollos, Peter or me there either.
Now that I’ve spent most of this sermon
trying to capture Paul’s concern over the distortion of Christian perspective
of the Corinthians, I need to emphasize that Paul loved these people. He is
reacting like a parent to a child because the core of his effort is to bring
the Good News to God’s children.
What does this letter of Paul have to do
with us today? Is it a prescription to avoid prostitutes, sexual indiscretion
and partying with heathens at their religious services? Yes, but not really. Those
sins are a consequence of a deeper spiritual problem. The Corinthians know
better but have convinced themselves they can divide the congregation and not
destroy the faith. They can deal with sin and not get burned as spiritual
persons. “Woe to them,” Paul says.
We can find dissent and sniping in some congregations
today, but most congregations are not split by the kind of divisive, competing
spiritual loyalties of the Corinthians, certainly not us. Many congregations today do face a real, subtle
problem of falling victim to thinking about their Christianity in the context
of denominationalism. One of my former pastors often told the story of his
grandmother who was the wife of a Presbyterian minister from a long line of
Presbyterian ministers. A young man accosted her on the street in a town in a
nearby state asking if she was born again. She immediately replied without even
taking time to think, “Young man, I’m a Presbyterian, I was born right the
first time.”
It’s funny because we can laugh at our
ideas about what predestination means, but it was really a divisive issue for
both, one went away mad, the other disgusted. Each had used a “measuring stick”
to show how to get into the Kingdom but not the other. Some do it when they say you have to be
baptized again to be a member of their congregation. Some do it when they say
if you are an elected official unless you vote a certain way you can’t
participate in the Lord’s Supper.
Other’s do it when they tell a person that they can’t really get through
the pearly gates until they accept some idea of dogma such as infant baptism
even though the person professes and proclaims the essential tenet of Christian
faith (Jesus is Lord and he defeated death so that I may live). Basically we
all do it when we start thinking of our denomination in terms of an “-ism.”
Paul ended his message to the Corinthian with
the words, “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing, (repeat) but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
Let’s never forget our humility as brothers and sisters in Christ even when we all
realize we have a different take on how to practice true Christian faith.
Foolishness is for those who are perishing.
* note: The following commentaries provided the historical situation at Corinth and nature of the Corinthian congregation:
Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, William B. Eerdemans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI., 1987; and William E. Orr and James Arthur Walther, 1 Corinthians, The Anchor Bible, 1976
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