“God’s Cure for Conflict at the Cultural Divide”
“God’s Cure for Conflict at the Cultural Divide”
I Corinthians 1:10-17
I Corinthians 1:10-17
Keith Fournier is a contemporary observer of the American religious scene and he made this remark in a book of his: “The greatest tragedy of our day is not abortion, pornography, the undermining of the family, corrupt government, drugs, promiscuity, or homosexuality. Division within the family of God is.”
Isn’t that a provocative statement? All these very troubling problems we all know about but are they nothing compared to the division going on in the Christian church? How are we to understand this? We don’t sense any disturbance here. Seems pretty calm. Is division an ever-present threat to congregations like ours? Frankly, it is, and further division is nothing new. In fact, it’s the subject of today’s Epistle lesson. And to make the threat more real, use your imagination for a moment and picture yourselves two thousand miles south of here in the beautiful British Virgin Islands and you’re out on a boat on the sea and you’re about to anchor for the night. Are you with me? And let me add just a little theology. In Christianity our anchor is sound biblical doctrine. But what happens if it’s not secure, or if it’s ignored, or if the line is intentionally cut? So, imagine yourself on that sailboat in a tranquil cove in the Caribbean where your about to drop anchor for the night. Great care must be taken to assure the anchor has gripped securely. If it failed at night while all were asleep below deck, at first it would be no problem. But over the long night the gentle current and imperceptible waves would gradually cause the boat to float away and threaten to crash on nearby rocks. Likewise for the church. For a while our faith standards wouldn’t drift too far. Tradition and habit would keep our practices hovering over the same spiritual vicinity at least for a season, but the real danger is what would inevitably happen over time. Cultural currents adrift with false teachings pose a great danger of our doctrine and practice crashing on the rocks of heresy and sink into irrelevancy.
Sound a little farfetched? Well, think again because this is the alarm that sounded in today’s lesson from 1 Corinthians. The Apostle Paul had started the church at Corinth and left to continue mission work elsewhere. Yet we hear in today’s lesson that three or four years later servants from Chloe, an Ephesian woman, had visited Corinth and brought back news of disunity. Four major factions had arisen and they all had their slogans. “I follow Paul,” “I follow Peter,” I follow Apollos.” These were various big names at that time, but there was one other group that said, “I follow Christ.” They looked with disdain on all the groups, but it was uncertain what they believed.
What was going on? It was four crowds of worshipers following four different people. They were personality cults and behind the rallying cries of I follow Paul, Peter, Apollos, Christ, were the false teachers who had infiltrated the church and were promoting the disastrous practices later mentioned in the letter – gross sexual immorality, lawsuits between members were ending up in civil courts, confusion regarding marriage, taking sides on whether or not to eat food sacrificed to idols, drunkenness at the Lord’s Super, chaotic worship practices, and uncertainty regarding the resurrection. The church was in jeopardy. The anchor of sound doctrine had slipped and the rocky shoals were dead ahead. Belief and conduct were compromised by those who were presenting a different Jesus and a false Gospel to the faithful during the two or three years when St. Paul was not at the helm.
The division was huge. In the Greek, it’s the word “schismata” and from it we get schisms and schizophrenia in English. In response Paul says: “I appeal to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree with one another.” But what is at the heart of the issue? This is where the application begins to take shape regarding our lives of faith as St. Paul summarizes in the last verse of our lesson:
“For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel – not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.”
What caused all the mass confusion? It’s centered in one word. Wisdom. The core problem was the understanding of wisdom. In the Greek it’s sophia, and the false teachers steeped in Greek culture saw it as human philosophy. They regarded the apostles like Paul on the level of human philosophers of the day, and for them wisdom was defined by style over substance. It was all about the skillful use of human reason with the view of convincing the hearer of the truth of your position. Here the focus was self-glorying, my wisdom is better than his through being the most persuasive. It’s about me pushing my agenda. That’s what was causing the mess and it’s no different than the factions created by political parties today. People were being taken in by forceful personalities.
However, this is where St. Paul took his stand. The Gospel was not to be couched in the words of human wisdom – the language of the trained orator with his studied techniques of influencing others by persuasive rhetorical argument – the faith being treated as in politics. No, the only way out was through divine wisdom – the wisdom of the cross. That’s the two forces in tension in today’s lesson and the cross of Jesus Christ is at the central point of contention. Indeed, this is being played out these days where many churches have begun compromising the cross of Jesus Christ. One such church was Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan. When the church removed the 40-foot-tall steel cross and the name of Christ from the building, the minister explained: “We have a number of Muslim people, Jewish people, Buddhists, and atheists in our open-minded community. The cross has become a negative symbol for a lot of people.”
Yet to us who understand its meaning, the cross of Jesus Christ is the greatest symbol of love and unity the world has ever known. No wonder the powerful spiritual forces of spiritual darkness want to suppress it because it’s God’s only answer for sin. There is no other name by which we can be saved. “Christ crucified, the hope of glory.” However, the work of the cross goes much deeper beyond the forgiveness of sins to get at the root and cause of sin. In a marvelous way, the work of the cross gives us new life by saving us from ourselves by putting to death the fallen nature within each of us. How else are we to understand these words from St. Paul: “I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live.” “I die daily.” “Those who are in Christ Jesus have crucified the old nature.” “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross and follow Me.” In our lesson Paul recognized this was the only way to break the power of the worldly, prideful, divisive spirit among the factions in the Corinthian church. The cross is the great equalizer. There is no place for human self-glorying. In the catechism we hear of the Holy Spirit’s work of drowning our old nature. It’s that nature fostered by the world’s wisdom –that exalts one’s personal agenda and opinions – the petty partisan politics between the factions. How else could we be set free of the god of me, and liberated from the idols of greed, power, sensuality, ambition and materialism? It’s the key to unity because we are all humbled – all of us sinners alike under the cross in our need of grace. Only through the cross will the factions yield to one another in love through the Spirit’s sanctifying work.
God’s cure for conflict – the cross. Isn’t there a huge divine paradox here regarding this symbol? Imagine there existed a world where people wore jewelry in the shape of an electric chair – where models of electric chairs crowned the pinnacles of sacred buildings, where people sang songs about a particular electric chair? You would think they were crazy, but just switch one instrument of capital punishment with another – replace it with a cross and that’s us here on earth. But what changes everything in that is the Son of God died on it. That’s why we wear jewelry in the shape of an instrument of capital punishment. It’s because of the radical power of God to transform an object of torture into an object that brings love and mercy, hope and grace. It’s the instrument that brings death to self and then new life. It has the power to release us from judgment and turn every darkness in your life to light, every sorrow to joy, every evil to good, every sin as white as snow, every failure to victory, every death to resurrection. No wonder that the execution stake has become a sign of everlasting love!
Therefore, in our lesson St. Paul stresses that human wisdom must never get in the way lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. Charles Spurgeon, the great English preacher opined: “Nothing worse can happen to a church than to be conformed to this world.” Isn’t that a real challenge for our churches these days to fall prey to practices of the culture as did the Corinthians? I began this morning sharing with the image of a sailboat in the tranquil cove, but if the anchor was not secure the gentle currents and imperceptible waves would gradually cause it to float way and be endangered with shipwreck. In truth, a congregation’s anchor is to be the Word of God, but the strong cultural currents cause many to be set adrift. While still living out on the east coast, my niece got married here in the city and the reception was on Michigan Avenue. We stayed at the Hyatt and the next morning, I wanted to go to church. Not knowing about this First St. Paul’s, I went to an Episcopal church close by. To my dismay they were worshiping the mother goddess of nature. That was over 15 years ago and now many other Christian congregations promote false teaching more seductively under the guise of Progressive Christianity. They stress that the Bible’s teachings are culturally determined and being reinterpreted in the light of current cultural practices. But may the influential voices of worldly wisdom never pull away our anchor. The cross – God’s cure for conflict at the cultural divide. May this church and multitudes of others stay strong that the cross not be emptied of its power to save us from sin and ourselves and so set us free and free indeed.