Christ Divided

Text: 1 Corinthians 1:10-17

The Lutheran church in the U.S. is fostering splinter groups. Some people are not happy with the way things are going. Some folks do not like the agreement Lutherans have made with the Episcopalians. Some don’t like the agreement made with the UCC and Presbyterian churches. Some don’t like the stance of the church on the ordination of gay or lesbian pastors, some think the church is too liberal and others think it too conservative. Some think they are the real Lutherans. Some think they are the real Christians. Some of these folks have formed clubs of like-minded people. Some of these clubs have threatened to resign from the Lutheran church. That’ll show ‘em, they think.

Has Christ been divided, Paul asks. Has Christ been divided? You bet he has.

In this letter to the church at Corinth, a church he started, it is clear that Paul is not a happy camper. The church is full of splinter groups, just like the Lutherans. I’m with Paul, some say. I’m with Apollos, some say back. I’m with Peter, say a third group. What are you guys doing? Paul writes to them. You are all strutting around, disagreeing with each other, each group thinking they have it right. Where do you get that arrogance from? Not from me, that’s for sure. And not from Jesus, that’s for sure, too. I appeal to you, Paul writes, stop the division. Stop it.

Not that they should all be the same. That is not it. Paul later writes about how the follows of Jesus have all sorts of different skills and gifts, but they all come together in Christ. No longer Jew or Greek, male or female—we quote Paul from one of his other letters. We are all one in Christ Jesus. What Paul asks is that they all be on the same page, as we would say now.

But not that they spend too much time on the page, or on too many of those pages. Following Jesus is not the same as writing a treatise about Jesus. Eloquent wisdom is not what this is all about, says Paul. In fact, eloquent wisdom sometimes gets in the way. The fights between one Christian faction and the other are rarely based on personal experiences of God or understandings of the heart. They are and have always been more often based on theology and doctrine and creeds and interpretation. Such talk, while really interesting and entertaining (I like to do it, anyway)—but such talk, Paul says, can drain the cross of its power.

When you gather with other Christians, don’t ask them to explain what they believe. Ask them to tell their own story about what God means and has meant in their own lives. That would be a good way to start. It works with people who are not Christian, too, I’ve found.

Paul uses the phrase “brothers and sisters” twice as often in this letter (38 times, to be precise) as in any other letter. He wants the people in Corinth to remember that they are all God’s children, and that God has no favorites among them. If they are putting on airs, it is because of their own valuation of themselves, not God’s.

There is a unity among the followers of Jesus that comes from the heart of Jesus' teachings and his resurrection. But that unity does not come because we think we should be unified and should work really hard at not being divisive. It comes from God’s grace. As a consequence, Paul’s relationship with other Christians does not depend on how Paul feels about them or whether Paul likes them or whether he thinks they are good people or whether he agrees with them. It is based on the fact that God’s grace is alive in them.

Paul was a missionary. And this appeal he makes to the people has a lot to do with evangelism and hospitality. It has to do with evangelism because it means that you cannot convince someone anything about Jesus by talking at them. What you can do, and what Paul does all the time, is tell them some stories. Real ones, that you know about because they are yours. And it has to do with hospitality because everyone is welcome. Everyone is welcome because there is nothing on the face of it that can tell us any reason to not welcome them. Listen to their story. It is the flip side of evangelism. Evangelism: you tell your story. Hospitality: someone tells you his or her story. It works out nice.

Noah [a child in the church] was just baptized. He has become a Christian by this sacrament, marked with the mark of Christ, we said. This is part of Noah's story, should he someday want to tell it. It is part of your story too, having been witnesses to it and having promised to nurture Noah in his faith. He was baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The name we call God. Noah and we share a story and always will.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians starts with the greeting: “to all people everywhere who call on the name of Jesus.” Paul has nothing against eloquent wisdom per se. But it is not the first thing, nor the most important thing, maybe not even an important thing. The first thing, the most important thing, is that we are followers of Jesus.

For now, all those Lutheran groups I mentioned have decided that they will stay within the larger church. Partly because they think they can be more effective. But mostly because though they differ in many ways, they share in common one thing. They are all people who call on the name of Jesus.

Come and See

Text: John 1:29-42

It seems a little foolish.

It seems a little foolish to follow this man to who-knows-where for who-knows-what purpose. To follow Jesus on the strength of John’s exclamation: Look, here is the lamb of God. As if that were a reason. But it turned out that that was reason enough for Andrew and the other disciple (who does not even get mentioned by name). Enough to abandon one kind of life, known and familiar, for another kind, unknown and exotic.

There is a notion that becoming a follower of Jesus, becoming a Christian, allowing Jesus to be one’s guide and leader, is a decision that can be made rationally and with clarity. Something thought through and figured out. And sometimes that may be how it works. But often enough what happens between you and Jesus is unexpected and mysterious, and in a moment one’s life is rearranged. It is rarely prudent.

So it was with the first disciples, who in all the Gospels follow Jesus suddenly and for no apparent good reason. Come and see, Jesus says, and they do.

Or mostly suddenly. They do ask Jesus for his resume, for a reference. “Where are you staying?” Where do you live, might be another way to put it, where do you abide. But “where are you at?” is more the meaning. What exactly is with you? Where do you stand on important issues? They try for a moment to pin Jesus down. But as so often in the Gospels, Jesus will not give them a straight answer. Jesus does not offer them a position paper or a business plan or mission statement. Instead of an answer of this sort, Jesus makes them an invitation. Jesus just invites them: Come and see.

They call him a teacher, and like all teachers he teaches less about truth and more about possibility, which is perhaps better truth. Jesus’ invitation is always: Come and see. Come and see what might happen, Come and see who you might be, Come and see who you might become, Come and see what the world might become, Come and see what it might be like to follow me. The disciples do not know the answers to these questions when they turn to follow Jesus. All they really know is that they have received an invitation. That seems to be enough.

Invitations draw us into the future. Invitations are the foundation for adventure, freedom, and joy. They are spoilers of certainty, stability, and control. Life makes steps by constant invitation. Who knows where they will lead or how things will turn out? You are invited to be married, have a family, change jobs, go to school, start a company, join the army, run for office, speak out against injustice, leave your home. Who knows what will happen? The disciples didn’t.

It seems to me that the invitation that Jesus makes to us has four parts. Or maybe better to say Jesus makes four invitations, each intertwined with the others.

First, Jesus invites us: Come and be with me. The invitation is both personal and corporate. That means that Jesus is asking you to be connected with him. It also means that you will be connected to his ministry, and therefore all the other followers of Jesus. Our focus is on a particular person, Jesus Christ. We are not invited to join an organization that is centered around an idea or a doctrine. The center for each of us is Jesus. At the same time, we are part of a group of people who are all expected to work together and who bring each other hope, comfort, and mutual admiration and also warning, and to embolden and hearten each other.

Second, Jesus invites us: Come and transform the world. In his ministry, Jesus paints a picture of a world different from the one of his time and of ours. In it, people give away all their money. They do not fight back. They lend without expecting anything in return. They love their enemies and their neighbors. They are compassionate even if it leads to trouble. They rely on the good will of others to be fed and housed, and those who have food and housing freely share them. What kind of world would it be if all who followed Jesus did as he preached? Or worked to make a world in which it was easy to do those things rather a world which considers this kind of talk to be unrealistic and naive at best and revolutionary at worst.

Third, Jesus invites us: Come and be brave. The disciples suspected soon enough that to follow Jesus was a risky endeavor. We in our time know it is. To be Christian is to take risks. Not so much risks of persecution, though that has been a risk and still is in some places. But more, the risk involved with doing what Jesus tells us to do and to be. Transformation is not welcome if you like the way things are. If you preach that the last will be first and the first last, those who are first now might not be happy with you. If you love your enemies, your friends might not be be happy with you.

And fourth, Jesus invites us: Come and transform yourself. If we accept Jesus’ invitation to come and see, what we will see is a broader horizon. We might be able to see people who before were invisible. We might act with courage where before we were timid. We might accomplish things that before were impossible. We might love the unlovely. We might let go what before we grasped tightly. We might walk lightly where before we were burdened with things of the earth and things of the spirit. We might trust God where before we trusted no one. We might become different people, with new names, as Simon became Peter.

The invitation of Jesus in all its parts is of the essence of Christianity. A God of grace, as we know God to be, does not coerce us, does not boss us around, does not play games with us. A God of grace makes us an offer. Christianity is in part an invitation to see and be and behave in a new way.

People sometimes describe faith as a body of knowledge, a done deal, learn it and be it. but because it is invitational, it is more experimental. Christianity is an experimental religion, not in the way that people say “an experimental airplane,” but experimental in that we don't quite know what is going to happen moment to moment. We try things out. Our faith is built on experiences. We respond to Jesus step by step, as the first disciples did, opening our faith as he continues as he continues to offer his invitation.

On the radio last week there was a story of a young girl who was blind. She had been reading a new kind of book, a picture book in braille, with bumps and forms on the page that let her imagine the images as a seeing person would from a photograph. The book was a book about astronomy, and the pictures were pictures of galaxies and nebulae and shooting clouds of interstellar gas. The girl, having been given the gift of the universe through this book, said she was interested in space exploration. The interviewer asked her whether she would like to be an astronaut some day. She said: Uh huh, totally, yes!

Not all of us answer as emphatically when we hear Jesus’ call. Sometimes we respond “totally, yes!” and sometimes it takes a while. We do not know why Andrew and his friend—and later Simon Peter and all the others—we don’t know why each of them followed Jesus. We don’t know whether they were confident or nervous. We don’t know whether they thought they were frightened or amused. We do know that Jesus invited them to come and see—and they did.

It may be that the message of Jesus is universal. But that does not mean it reveals itself in each of us in the same way, or that we all hear it in the same way. It is interpreted in each of our lives in individual ways. And the way you interpret it and respond is a result of how the invitation you hear bangs up against all that you know, and are, and have been.

Our bishop wonders whether it is time go go from “come and see” to “go and tell.” But all we really can tell is that there is an invitation. And all we can really tell is the invitation that we, each of us, have heard. All all we can really tell is what happens to us when we hear jesus call us: Come and see.

Getting to Know You

Text: Ephesians 3:1-12
Other texts: Matthew 2:1-12

Herod wanted to know. He was ignorant. He knew a little something. He wanted to know more. Herod knew what he had heard through rumor, gossip, and from mysterious travelers. What little Herod knew made him afraid. Herod was a frightened man. Anyone who rules through coercion, through violence, is an frightened man. Anyone who rules by making people afraid—and that is how Herod ruled—anyone who rules like that lives in fear. Someday, something will be happen. Herod heard from the mysterious travelers, the magi, that maybe his replacement had just been born. You have to be pretty jumpy to worry about babies who were just born who might possibly someday replace you, but it seems that Herod was pretty jumpy.

The wise men were not super reliable. We call them wise and we call them kings, but really they were not the sort of people anyone in Herod’s time or Herod’s position would normally have respected. Neither kings nor necessarily wise, they were magi, which is the root word for magician, which is what they mostly were. They would not have been honored, being one step up, at best, from charlatans. They claimed supernatural powers. They were held in esteem then about as much as television psychics are today.

But Herod was super-vigilant, and he paid attention to the news that these flaky magi brought. And he gathered his own wise counselors and priests and scholars, who told him a little more about what he wanted to know. But they didn’t tell him enough to find Jesus, fortunately. Providentially, you would have to say. Through providence, Herod’s hunger for knowledge was not satisfied.

Herod wanted to know. He wanted to know so that he could keep his power. That’s one of the big reasons people do want to know things. To be powerful, to get power, to keep power, to protect power. Knowledge is power. That is why we have state secrets. Secrets are powerful. But God in this case knew how to keep a secret.

Today is Epiphany. Epiphany of our Lord, to be more formal, to distinguish it from just plain old epiphanies. The word epiphany means to reveal, or to make manifest, and its roots mean to shine up. As if there were something buried in the ground but which suddenly emits a ray of light, shining up into the sky. Like in the movies when the archeologists digging in the ruins uncover the mysterious source of energy they have been searching for, and a light shines up like a geyser. Epiphany does not mean “turn on the light.” It means “see the light.” Like the hymn, “I saw the light.” See the light which was already there, but perhaps hidden. Or perhaps you were not looking in the right place. Or for the right thing.

Epiphany is an (often sudden) revelation. An understanding.

Paul wanted to know, too. He already knew a lot. But he wanted to know more. Paul wanted to know more about God. And Paul wanted to know God more. God knows how to keep a secret, but fortunately God knows how to reveal one, too.

There is a strong consensus among scholars that Ephesians, from which we just heard, was not written by the Apostle Paul. They think this for a lots of different reasons. But generally it is like the way you could tell whether a letter from your significant other or parent or good friend was authentic. The style, the words used, the ideas or content of the letter—nothing is quite the same as the letters that most people agree Paul himself wrote. It just doesn’t sound like Paul.

This passage in particular is full of ideas and words not used elsewhere by Paul. Even so, I think whoever wrote this letter had a good sense of Paul’s hunger to know God.

When you fall in love with someone, you want to know everything about them. If you are falling in love with someone, and they with you, you are willing, eager, to spend time learning about them, discovering them, being surprised by what you find out, being amazed by them.

Paul is in love with God. And the story of Paul told through the epistles is a love story. In it, we see Paul’s excitement at learning about God through God’s call to him and as revealed in Jesus. Paul is amazed by God. And Paul is amazed at what God reveals. The passage in these verses are an explosion of revelation.

“ … you have already heard of the commission of God's grace that was given me for you, and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, [… you will be able] to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.”

Three things excite Paul about his relationship with God. First, that God would be such a person of grace as to send Jesus to this world to heal the whole world. Second, that God would be so open as to let Paul in particular and humans in general see what God is like inside, because Jesus is God’s insides. What Jesus does, God does. Jesus tells the truth about God in the way Jesus is and what Jesus does. And the third thing that excites Paul is that God has chosen him, Paul, to get the message out.

We all share, more or less, Paul’s hunger to know God. Your presence here is evidence of that. Not all of us—but some, for sure—were knocked off our feet by God the way Paul was. Not all of us were called so energetically to serve God. But some have been, and some will be yet. Our relationship with God is like the relationship between two courting friends getting acquainted, or two people falling in love.

As in all developing relationships, there are ups and downs. Sometimes things go great. Sometimes it seems we feel like were have to break up. We experience little epiphanies. God is revealed to us. We allow more parts of ourselves to be revealed to God; we bring more to God. We learn, as we do with someone with whom we are falling in love, that there are things we can say to God without driving God away. Even though they might be embarrassing and awkward. Even though we have never told these things to anyone else. We long to know, but we also long to be known.

We want to know. Sometimes we want to know like Herod, so that we feel more powerful, more in control. We want to know what God wants exactly, what we can do to make God favor us, what we have to do to stay out of God’s wrath, what we might do to cajole God and get what we want.

But sometimes we are like Paul. Head over heals in love with God. Being powerless but being eager. Letting our relationship with God unfold, looking forward to our future together. Being grateful and amazed.