Sermon manuscript:
In our epistle reading we learn that there were divisions in
the congregation at Corinth. Paul tells the congregation what he has been
hearing: “Each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or
I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’” We know who Paul is. He is
the one writing this letter. Apollos was one of the preachers that spent some
time in Corinth. Cephas is the Apostle Peter. “Cephas” is Aramaic for “rock.”
So what Paul has heard is that some are saying, “I’m one of Paul’s disciples.”
Others are saying, “I’m one of Apollos’s disciples.” Others: “I’m one of
Peter’s disciples.” As you heard, Paul is not pleased. They are all to be
Christ’s disciples.
This gives us the opportunity to take up a difficult topic
when it comes to our own church. We have divisions too. Congregations can be
divided into factions. For example, some might be for the pastor; others,
against the pastor. Some might think we should do one thing with Communion.
Others might think we should do something else. Some might be satisfied with
the worship. Others might want something else.
We might have some divisions and factions in our own
congregation, but, by God’s grace, I don’t think they are too bad. However, you
probably know that other congregations in the Missouri Synod are much more
divided. It wouldn’t be hard to come up with a list of hot-button issue: Open
vs. closed communion, women in positions of leadership vs. women being
submissive, so-called “traditional worship” vs. so-called “contemporary
worship.”
Often the highly politicizing words of “liberal” and
“conservative” get used in the way these things are talked about. The liberal
platform solves the problems one way. The conservative platform solves them
another way. So then one congregation is “liberal,” and another congregation is
“conservative.” Paul had heard that in Corinth each individual was saying, “I
belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Cephas.” That sounds a lot like
what you could hear among us in the Missouri Synod: “I belong to the liberal wing,”
or “I belong to the conservative wing.”
What do conservatives and liberals do when they get
together? They fight. Or, perhaps, if they are sick of fighting, they despise
one another. One congregation goes one way. Another congregation goes the
opposite way. The hostility can be tremendous, as some of us who have spent
some time in synod activities have experienced over the years. Ruthless,
mean-spirited tactics have been used by one side as well as the other. In my
opinion the conservatives have probably been meaner and more ruthless, but such
words would be a sure-fire way to pick yet another fight.
So how should we think about this? Paul sums up what is
going on with these factions fighting one another in chapter three. We’ll hear
this three weeks from now in our Epistle reading. Paul says: “Brothers, I
could not speak to you as spiritual people, but as people who are led by the
flesh. … You are still people who are following the flesh. Indeed,
insofar as jealousy, strife, and factions have a place among you, are you not
people who are following the flesh? Are you not behaving in a merely human way?
When one says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ and another, ‘I belong to Apollos,’ are you
not being merely human?”
Paul says that jealousy, rivalry, and division are of the
flesh. When Paul uses the word “flesh,” he means how we naturally are—the
fallen, sinful nature that we have inherited from Adam and Eve. And isn’t what
Paul says the truth? We’ve all experienced the truth of what he says. Take, as
just one poignant example, what is so common in middle school and high school.
The kids divide up against one another. They form groups. They hate each other.
They’re mean to each other. One wants to be better than the other. Jeering,
mocking, sarcasm, and so on get used as weapons in the fight. The goal is to
make the other person feel horrible, to defeat them—perhaps even to make them
hate themselves.
This rivalry and harassment can get so bad that in the past
20 years or so several of these kids have decided to come back to school armed
with guns to get revenge. Every single one of the shooters in these school
shootings have been kids who were picked on. Let that be just one proof of the
truthfulness of Paul’s words: “Jealousy, rivalry, and division are of the
flesh.” They are from that loveless, murderous, evil spirit that we have
all inherited from our parents. Jealousy, rivalry, and division in the church
are of the flesh too.
But perhaps some of you are thinking, and understandably so,
that some divisions in the church are good. And that’s true. Some divisions are good. Paul in this very letter says
later, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You
cannot share in the table of the Lord and of the table of demons.” This
means that there is to be a division when it comes to the Lords Supper. Those
who are believing and behaving wrongly and unrepentantly are not to share in
the cup and the table of the Lord. He also says in this same letter that there
must be divisions among them so that those who are approved may become evident.
So on the one hand Paul says that divisions are of the
flesh, and then, on the other, in the very same letter, he says that divisions
are good and necessary. Why does Paul seem to be saying one thing at the
beginning of the letter, and then later in the letter something that sounds
like it is the opposite?
There actually is no contradiction here, because Paul is
talking about two different kinds of division. When Paul speaks about jealousy,
rivalry, and division being bad he is talking about how these Corinthians were
attaching themselves to certain teachers. The other kind of division is from
being divided from Christ. Divisions in the church are not to be made because
of persons and factions and rivalry. However, there should be division when
people are not being faithful to Christ.
Let’s look more closely at how we should not have jealousy,
rivalry and division. Jesus lambasts the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23.
What Jesus says of them is easily applicable to what commonly happens among us.
Jesus says of the scribes and Pharisees: “They love to be seen. They love having
power. They love being called, ‘Rabbi,’ by people. But you are not to be called
‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher and you are all brothers. Also do not call
anyone on earth you ‘Father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. And
you are not to be called ‘leaders,’ for you have one Leader, the Christ. But
the greatest among you will be your servant.”
You can tell that what Jesus says is of a different spirit
than the evil spirit we have in our flesh. I, also, have an evil spirit that
whispers in my ear: “Michael Holmen is just the best pastor ever. The best
teacher. Always right; never wrong. If only others would acknowledge my
greatness I could achieve great things!” How stupid and evil! We all have only
one Teacher. We are all equals.
And if you want to be great, Jesus says, then serve and
suffer more than all the rest of them. Be more truthful, more open, more
long-suffering. That certainly is of a different spirit than that of the flesh.
Jesus says greatness is in serving and suffering. How it works among us is that
the conservatives want to get rid of the liberals, because then we’ll be done
with our work and have a pure church. The liberals want the same. Once the one
side has vanquished the other, once the mastery of the one over the other is
acknowledged, then all our problems will be solved. I’m right. Everyone else is
wrong.
But notice how Paul includes himself in what he says. He says
that there were some in Corinth who said that they belonged to Paul. They were
on Paul’s team. This seems to disgust him more than anything else. In our
reading he says, “Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the Name
of Paul?” Then he seems to even say that he is glad that he didn’t have
that much more to do with them. He only baptized Crispis and Gaius. And, oh
yeah, he also baptized Stephanas’s family. But that’s it—and thank God!
Otherwise their devotion to Paul might have been even worse! Their devotion
doesn’t belong to Paul but to Christ.
The same thing is true with me. If I were to cease to be
your pastor because I died or was called to some other place, there is a part
of me that would like you all to say, “Pastor Holmen was the best pastor ever.”
And there’s a part of me that would like it if you’d compare the next pastor to
me and say, “Our new pastor isn’t nearly as good as Pastor Holmen was.” But
this is evil. To act that way is to act like those evil, cool kids in school.
They think they’re the best. And why are they the best? Is it because they love
so much, because they serve so much? No. It’s because they’re so cool, so
smart—if only everyone were like them as though they were little gods. That is
obviously of the flesh.
The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, convinces us that we
have one Teacher, and one Father, and one Leader, and that leader is Jesus
Christ. Paul speaks very passionately at the beginning of our reading: “Brothers,
I am making an appeal to you using the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I ask
that you all express the same view and have not any divisions among you, but
that you be joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” How
does Paul want them to be joined together with the same mind and the same
judgment? Does he want them all to be following him? No! He explicitly rejects
that. Who is Paul? Who is Michael Holmen? They are nothing unless they are pointing
away from themselves. They are nothing unless they are helping people to trust more
and more in Jesus. In fact, Paul and Michael Holmen would be enemies of Jesus
if they would seek for themselves partisans and disciples, instead of pointing
people to Jesus.
And, supposing something like that were to happen and go on
unchecked, it would be necessary for there to be a division. Division is good
and necessary when people are not following Christ, but are following someone
or something else instead. “What has darkness to do with light?” Paul
says. Jesus says, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does
not gather with me, scatters.”
Now let’s think again about the divisions that exist among
us. It is very easy and convenient to divide into groups: “I belong to Ft.
Wayne.” “I belong to St. Louis.” “I’m a liberal.” “I’m a conservative.” Behind
these labels is the belief that if only we can rally our forces, get the right
people elected, politicking meanly and ruthlessly, then we will stride gloriously
into a golden age. Against such silly but powerful persuasive dreams we must
sober up with Paul’s statement: “I came to preach Christ crucified.”
Christ the crucified doesn’t seem like it will work. It has
never seemed like it will work. Jesus’s disciples lost their faith in him as
the Christ when he was crucified. But Christ crucified is the power of God unto
salvation.
With Jesus as our Savior instead of ourselves or our own
party as the Savior that means that we can be open, loving, accepting,
merciful, kind, cheerful, optimistic, and so on. This can be a real challenge
for people like me who can be defensive or suspicious. It is very helpful to
others to get to know Christ when we are open, kind, and gracious. Paul, I
believe, was like that.
But we also know what’s true and not true. Our goal should
not be just to impress people with how nice we are. Is niceness the Savior? No.
Our loyalty is to Christ the crucified. It is only in Christ the crucified that
there is wisdom and power. It is only in him that there is true unity and
goodness. And so if there are people who don’t want to submit to Christ and his
Gospel, and if they won’t repent, then division from them is not only
necessary, it is good. But we must be careful that this is because they are not
following Christ, and not because they don’t belong to our own little club. The
closer and more faithful we are to Jesus, the better.
To critique and correct the Corinthians is a large part of
why Paul writes this letter. If you are al all familiar with 1 and 2
Corinthians, then you know that he is not just telling them what a great job
they are all doing! No, he has many struggles with these people. He even writes
a letter to them in tears. He strives mightily. He suffers much. But this was
not so that he could create a Pauline appreciation society. It was so that they
would believe more and more in Christ the crucified.
So also with us. We would do very poorly if we were striving
to create a Missouri Synod appreciation society, or be a conservative
congregation, or a traditional congregation. None of these things are our
Savior. Jesus alone is our Savior.
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