May 10, 2020 - Jesus Unites Us Despite Our Divisions - 1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Jesus Unites Us Despite Our Divisions
1Corinthians 1:10-18
Easter 5 – May 10, 2020

Get-Along T-shirt

·       Kids “quarreling” (fighting!) this past week (quarantining isn’t easy on any of us! ;) )

·       Mentioned to Andy that maybe we should get one of those giant T-shirts that says, “This is our get along shirt”

o   Idea being that you put 2 kids in it – both of their heads through the head-hold and each get 1 armhole – but they are bound together with this shirt until they learn to get along

o   Doesn’t really teach them how to resolve conflict, just forces them to be close to one another; makes for a funny picture, but it’s not really effective

At 1^st read, sounds a little like what Paul is advocating here – just get along!

“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. ¹¹ For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters.” – 1 Cor. 1:10-11

·       The church in Corinth was a contentious mess

·       Disagreements all over the place about all sorts of things

·       In this passage – it’s about loyalty to different leaders – “I belong to Paul/Apollos/Cephas/Christ”

o   Familiar territory – preferred preachers/pastors – founding pastors, the person who baptized/confirmed you; the one who was there when you joined the church

·       Lots of other issues too – about how to handle sexual immorality among them, what to do about divisions of socio-economic status/behavior at common meal, who had the most important spiritual gifts, etc.

·       From the reading, we hear that they are divvying themselves up into different factions, with each respective group thinking that their preferred leader/way/belief is the “right” one

o   Roman society was a hierarchical structure – wealthy and powerful at the top/ sense of entitlement based on those kind of divisions

·       Church kind of like kids squabbling and fighting, and you can kind of hear Paul exhorting them to just get along!

 

A Get-Along shirt doesn’t solve the deeper issues

We know this to be true

·       Live in a deeply fractured society that seems to just keep splitting farther and farther apart

o   Certainly we can see this in congregations – though CTV really doesn’t seem to have too many of these kinds of issues, I’m thankful to say! J

·       Part of human nature to define ourselves as what we are vs. what we are not and to group up with others who are like us; this is how we get our sense of identity, which is so important to who we are and how we feel we connected to the world

o   Some are small and trivial things: Coke vs. Pepsi, Android vs. iPhone; Packers vs. Bears (or maybe the Vikings) (I know that last one doesn’t feel so small or trivial! ;) )

o   Some are bigger: Rural, suburban, urban; liberal/conservative/independent

·       So often we just don’t understand one another and our differing points of view (and there is social science research out there that indicates that in some cases, we literally take in the same info and experience/understand it in very different ways – it’s fascinating!!)

·       And we don’t always honor and value one another as we ought – we “other-ize” people with labels, we dismiss one another, we talk past each other; we want to hold on to the idea that we are right

o   Do this on an individual level, sometimes with friends and family (sometimes I just have to “hide” people on FB, b/c their posts just rile me up and raise my blood pressure, though I do try not to do that; I try to stay open to other points of view)

o   But that’s hard work – much harder than just putting on a “Get-along shirt” would imply

·       And Paul isn’t really advocating the underlying message of a “get-along” shirt

o   Being united in the same mind and same purpose is not the same as uniformity of opinion or just pretending differences don’t exist

o   We don’t have to be the “Borg” (of Star Trek fame – the “hive mind” where everyone believes exactly the same)

·       But the heart of what Paul is saying throughout this 1^st letter to the church in Corinth (which was made up of a hugely diverse group of people from all walks of life) is that all that they do as a people who are following Jesus comes back to love

·       It is not that the differences don’t matter or that that should just be brushed aside (though certainly Paul thinks that your preferred leader is NOT what or who is important here) – it’s that our identity is no longer to be found in all of those differences that we think are so important

·       Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians – and us – that all of the social structures that would define us, all of the ways that we identify our “tribe”, all of those differences that divide us into factions – those don’t, those shouldn’t matter

·       What unifies us is the love that we know in and through Christ Jesus and that is the unifying force for us within our congregations and how we should then interact with others in the world around us

o   Not privileging ourselves and our own understandings/beliefs, wants and desires above and beyond others

o   Not thinking that our loyalty to one particular leader or another is what matters

·       But recognizing that the core of our identity is based in Christ, who unites and unifies us beyond all that would divide us

o   We’re never going to just “get-along” – in our congregations, in the wider church, in the world

·       But belonging to Jesus reminds us and calls us to do the hard work of trying to understand one another, and to treat one another with dignity and respect, even if we’ll never see eye to eye,

·       This is our work as followers of Jesus, who laid down his rights to himself and took up a cross, dying there to reveal God’s love for all the world

·       May we seek to live out this kind of foolish, powerful love in our lives and in the world around us. Amen.