Almighty God, by the hand of Moses
your servant you led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last:
Grant that your Church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King,
may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your
children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
I
know the 1 Corinthians passage today isn’t the most fascinating Scripture
reading that we have, but we can learn a lot by reading the beginning of a
letter. And you can tell a lot from a letter by its mechanics. For example, how
do you sign the letter? Is it a formal “sincerely” or a warm “with love?” And
how do you address the letter- “my dearest so and so” or do you use all the
proper titles? Just looking at the signature and address line, you’ll learn
something. So as we consider the beginning of 1 Corinthians, let’s pay
attention to the mechanics of the letter.
“Paul,
called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother
Sosthenes; to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified
in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every
place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace
to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The
Church in Corinth was one of the ones that Paul himself founded, having spent a
fair amount of time there. But he was getting reports that things were getting
off track. People were becoming divided. Cliques were forming, and rivalries
over various gifts were becoming far too common. You know, you had the group
that wanted to use incense at services. And then there was the group that
wanted Sunday School to be at 9:15, while others insisted that it should be
during the 10:30 service. There was the group that wanted to feel the Holy
Spirit more, and wanted more contemporary music to facilitate that. Of course,
we wouldn’t know anything about such divisions today, but they were threatening
to tear the Corinthian church apart at the seams.
One
of the things that we often lose when we read the Bible today is the humor. And
this passage is full of it. Listen- “I give thanks to my God always for you
because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus.” It was
precisely their lack of grace that precipitated this letter. “For in every way
you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind.” Their
claims of speech and knowledge were tearing apart the community as they fought
with each other. “Just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among
you- so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing
of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It was their competition over who has the best
spiritual gift that was causing the conflict. “He will also strengthen you to
the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God
is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus
Christ our Lord.” Paul ends his opening remarks by reminding them that they are
“called into fellowship.”
Paul
wants them to see that while gifts and knowledge are nice, and even helpful
things, there is something bigger waiting for them. But they aren’t going to
find it until they learn how to come together. Paul is building towards the
climax of his argument, which comes in the well known chapter 13- “As for
prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for
knowledge, it will come to an end…For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then
we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully…And
now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is
love.”
It
is reminiscent of the prophet Isaiah’s words today. This Servant Song is one of
my favorite passages of Scripture. The Servant, who is seen as the redemption
of Israel and a prefigurement of the Messiah, is thought to be charged with the
task to bring Jacob back and gather Israel back to God.” But God responds “It
is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of
Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the
nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Again, we see that
things are bigger than we thought they were. It isn’t just that God plans to
save Israel, but instead all of Creation. God desires the unity of the Church
in Corinth, just as God longs for all the world to have the light of salvation.
How
often though do we forget this? How often do we forget the grandeur of God’s
dream? How often do we act as if there is no hope of redemption, of reconciliation,
of Resurrection? One of the things that has really been bothering me lately about
Christians and Church in general is our fatalistic and, quite honestly,
defeatist attitude towards the world. It seems that, as a whole, we’ve grown
weary and given up. A great example is the shortage of clean water around the world.
Estimates are that 1 out of 9 people in the world don’t have access to clean
water. And most of those people live in sub-Saharan Africa, where access to
water is the difference between life and death. A lot of the world’s problems
are complex- global peace takes a lot of negotiation, curing diseases takes
scientific breakthroughs, but giving people clean water is actually rather
easy, you just have to throw enough money at it to build wells. But yet, we haven’t
done it.
Verna
Dozier, in The Dream of God, says “the
Christian church has distorted the call, narrowed it from a call to transform
the world to a call to save the souls of individuals who hear a specific
message, narrowed it from a present possibility to a future promise.” Or, in
other words, we’ve made the Gospel about us instead of the Life of the world.
And this plays out in a whole host of ways.
I’ve
heard a few, indirect, comments about our Listening Groups, our new Evangelism
effort. Some say that Episcopalians and Evangelism just don’t go together. That’s
sort of like saying that you’re a parent who isn’t willing to give their child food.
It just doesn’t work. Many people say that we’re a Christian nation, and yet,
we spend more money on making war than any other nation. In fact, the US
accounts for 39% of all military spending in the world. Seems like an odd way
to follow the Prince of Peace. I’m glad the saga is over, but a month ago all
of our news stations were filled with the ridiculous drama of some guy that
makes duck whistles, meanwhile we still ignore the fact that our fellow
Christians are being truly persecuted around the world. And we don’t see news
stories about the fact North Carolina ranks 49 out of 50 states when
it comes to food insecurity for children under the age of 5.
Perhaps
these readings this morning might be a reminder to us, as they were to the
people of Corinth and Israel, that God has bigger dreams that our reality. What
might seem impossible to us is quite possible with God. And it all depends on
us putting aside our petty differences and working together for the Gospel.
I
recently read The Future of Faith by
Harvey Cox, a great book, in which he reminds the reader that heresies didn’t
really exist in the first 300 years of the Church. He says “What bound them
together wasn’t creed or governance, but a confidence that the shared a common
Spirit and were engaged in the same activity: following Jesus on the Way, and bringing
his message of shalom to the world.” But
like the Corinthians, we’ve become better at excluding than including, better
practiced at fighting than making peace.
As
you all know, when I have Sundays off, I worship at other churches. In my time
in Greensboro, I’ve probably been to a dozen other churches. And my sad
take-away from that experience is that, for the most part, we can’t speak to
each other. People talk about interfaith dialogue as a great project, but we
have some work to do at home first. It seems that we need to focus more on
intra-faith dialogue. If I speak to a Muslim, I have enough humility and
respect to say “I don’t know much about your faith, tell me more.” But when we
speak to a Baptist, we tend to think “oh, I already know all about you, and I’m
not going to waste my time speaking with you.” We’re never going to transform
the world if we can’t be united. Now we don’t have to agree on every issue of
doctrine, but I don’t think Jesus really cares about this. In fact, he gave us
the litmus test- and it wasn’t “what do you think of gay marriage, or the
Virgin Birth, or the nature of the Eucharist?” No, Jesus very clearly said- just
as you gave me food when I was hungry, water when I was thirsty, visited me in
prison, welcomed me when I was a stranger, and gave me clothing when I was
naked; truly I tell you, just as you did those things to one of the least of
these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
God
has something bigger in store for us all, to be the light of the world. But we
need to lay aside our differences to more fully serve the Gospel. And this is
something that The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. said as he spoke
truth to power in his prophetic ministry. I know we didn’t read any of it
today, but in my opinion, King’s Letter
from Birmingham Jail deserves to be read as Scripture, and it speaks to
many of the same themes that we’ve been examining thus far.
Writing
from prison after several white clergy, sadly including the Episcopal Bishop of
Alabama at the time, wrote an open letter essentially telling him to “keep
quiet,” he penned a response filled with the Spirit. He begins by defending his
actions and presence in Birmingham, noting that he is there “because injustice
is here.” And, having obviously read 1 Corinthians, he continues “I cannot sit
idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of
mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.”
When
I read today’s gospel reading, what struck me was the names. John proclaims “here
is the Lamb of God;” the disciples called Jesus “Rabbi” and “Messiah;” and Jesus
renames Simon as “Cephas.” As I said earlier, the mechanics of a letter matter.
And so do the names that we use. A formal address is different than a familial
one. We’re going to sing a wonderful hymn during Communion today called “Blessed
Martin,” and it will call King “pastor, prophet, teacher, preacher, dreamer.” And
given the gospel’s emphasis on names, I’m wondering- what will your name be?
I
pray that all of our names are something like “follower of Jesus, voice for
justice, peacemaker, instrument of God’s peace.” But there is work to do. There
is reconciliation to be done and a refocusing on our Gospel mission. As Paul
wrote to the Corinthians, pleading for unity in a time of division, we too need
to come together more. Paul, like Martin Luther King, knew of the dream of God:
that we might show forth Jesus, the light of salvation, to the whole world.
And
action is needed. As King writes, “for year now I have heard the word ‘wait!’…This
wait has almost always meant ‘never.’ We must come to see…that ‘justice too
long delayed is justice denied.’” And the same can, and should, be said of the
Gospel. It is time to put the Gospel back at the center of our lives, both as individuals,
and as nation that is predominately Christian. It is time to uphold the dignity
of every living person, it is time to better care for Creation, it is time to
put down the sword, time to feed the hungry, visit the sick, and make peace
with our enemies. As King prophetically wrote, “human progress never rolls in
on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of [people]
willing to be co-workers with God…the time is always ripe to do right.”
My
brothers and sister, the time is indeed ripe. Let us lay aside our differences,
and our indifferences. May we focus more on what unites us, rather than what
divides us. Let us put our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, casting on him our fears,
our anxieties, and our doubts. Let us give thanks today for the ministry and
witness of Martin Luther King, praying that we might have the trust, courage,
and will to be co-workers with God. And as King closes his Letter, “in some not
too distant tomorrow [may] the radiant stars of love and brotherhood shine over
our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.” Amen.
