Caught In The Middle
Sermon
Sermons On The Second Readings
Series II, Cycle A
Object:
It has become very popular to talk about how stressed out we are because we (both individually and collectively) are caught in the middle of too many demands and stretched too thin. For some years, we have heard about the "super-mom" syndrome of trying to juggle a full professional life with the many duties of motherhood. More recently, there is a lot of talk about the increasing time demands the workplace is putting on everyone, creating conflicts not just between work and family but between work and personhood. Many of us have looked wistfully at the comparisons between the length of the workweek and the number of weeks of vacation provided in certain European countries. On campuses, the tension is between academics and co-curricular activities, particularly big-time sports at some schools. And, of course, there is no end of political debate about how many of our resources should be spent at home and how much should be expended abroad. Would we have more funding for social programs at home if we cut down on foreign aid? Would the response to Hurricane Katrina have been better if so many National Guard troops had not been in Iraq?
As a reminder that there is nothing new under the sun, the Christians at Corinth, to whom the apostle Paul wrote a series of letters, would have found themselves similarly stretched. They were trying to be good Roman citizens in a context in which some of their faithful behavior, let alone their religious commitment, would have been suspect. Furthermore, they would not have enjoyed the kind of social support we, as American Christians, take for granted. They were a small group in a big place. Somebody has suggested that locating a Christian house church in Corinth would have been akin to trying to find the Swedenborgians in Kansas City. I haven't done the math, but that sounds about right to me. And, as we will see in the coming weeks, not only were they small, but they were fractured.
So it is interesting that in the greeting with which this letter begins, Paul mentioned two poles around which their Christian commitment must revolve: on the one hand they were Christians in a very particular Corinthian setting, and on the other they were part of a much larger body of believers. Neither of these represent vague notions, like my good friend, "what's his name." These were very real things to Paul, for the Corinthian church, its members, and its problems were realities. He had founded the church himself, from nothing at all, so far as we know. So unlike Romans, which was written mostly to strangers in a strange church in a strange city, these letters were written to personal friends in a situation Paul knew very well. And, of course, the same goes for "those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours" (1 Corinthians 1:2). While Paul hadn't begun all the churches of the time (like Romans or churches in Revelation), he had begun a lot and certainly had his finger on the pulse of the Christian communities flung all around the Mediterranean basin. Both were realities, and neither was more or less important than the other. They were Christians in a particularly dynamic if somewhat threatening urban setting and they were also members of the church-at-large. They were, in this sense, caught in the middle, as we all are.
There is the particular. They are called to be saints right where they are. The word, saint (hagios), today carries with it the connotation of a small number of people who have been set apart from ordinary Christians due to their extraordinary service. It may not be as formalized a process as that of canonization in the Roman Catholic church, but if I suggest to the church board that they include my portrait in the new stained-glass windows along with Luther, Calvin, and Wesley, it will become clear that there is some kind of process at work! The root idea of this word (hagios) is the sense of being different from others not in terms of being set apart from most Christians but because of belonging to God. This was the adjective by which the Jews of New Testament times described themselves: They were the holy people (hagios laos) not because they had somehow been transported out of this world but because they belonged to God in some particular way and owed their ultimate allegiance and service to God. When Paul calls the Christians saints, "holy," he is not writing to a select few, nor is he suggesting that they somehow withdraw from the normal life of their vibrant city. He is saying, rather, that because of their relationship with God through Jesus Christ, their lives should be marked by qualities that will set them apart. They are to be holy, set-apart Corinthians.
There has always been the danger of being fascinated by Christian ideas, teachings, and things in general, without making particular Christian commitments. In an extreme form this would include folks who have a theoretical or academic interest in religion, but make no personal or outward commitment. Sometimes thought of as "secret Christians" we often find them around campuses where the world of ideas and debates dominates. But it doesn't need to take that extreme form. I happened to be speaking in Houston just after the Enron scandals first broke. Many of the Christian leaders with whom I interacted were dumbfounded because some of the most visible figures in the breaking news, who certainly appeared to have been involved in subtle and overt kinds of dishonesty and theft, were high-profile Evangelical Christians. They were active in their churches and generous to Christian causes; they had prayer groups and Bible studies in their offices. But, seemingly, they were not set apart enough to avoid the duplicity so rampant in some corporate culture. These individuals were clearly more than "Sunday morning Christians." I, at least, am not willing to label them hypocrites, but it does seem that their holiness had not invaded every facet of their lives. We are called to be saints, in particular, in the realities of our daily lives.
There is also the general: The Corinthians were not only to understand themselves as set apart for God's service in the Corinthian crossroads of the world, but in the whole world (or at least the whole Mediterranean basin, which for Paul would have been the world), with all those who called upon the name of the Lord. Even in a very large and diverse city, like Corinth, one might travel in a very small circle indeed. Some of you have probably had my experience of attending a meeting at the O'Hare Hilton or the Denver Convention Center. If someone inquires about what the city was like, you have no idea. You managed to make it in and out without seeing much. There are folks who live and work in great metropolitan centers for a lifetime, yet see little but the subway car and their office or shop week after week, year after year. They never see the interesting sites or visit the museums until their country cousins show up. It is not just the Corinthian Christians who might have been unaware of the explosion of faith that was going on around the world.
The hazard today is that we may be very active Christians within a very narrow circle. When I was a teenager in Cleveland, a wonderful place opened up near our house. It was called "McDonald's" and they had hamburgers for 15¢. They also had fries and milkshakes. One summer we drove to Sandusky, sixty miles away, and to our amazement discovered a McDonald's there. They also had 15¢ hamburgers! We had no idea it was a franchise that extended beyond Cuyahoga County. As a United Methodist (the second largest Protestant denomination in the USA), I am sometimes surprised by the number of active UMs who are as ignorant of the scope of our denomination as was the Brittain family of the extent of the late '50s McDonald's franchises. They may be quite active even at the district or conference level, but somehow just remain unaware of what is happening elsewhere in our world, which now includes everywhere. Not long ago I heard that there were more Anglicans at worship on any given Sunday in Nigeria than in the British Isles. I am sure there are similar figures for most so-called mainline denominations.
Whether this is good news or bad news may depend on your perspective, but it is news of which we need be aware. And we should probably be aware that in many cases what is growing is an indigenized form of our denominations which might startle us. Some of the church-growth models that have been accepted as divine truth by many American churches (things like a variety of services for every age group and niche marketing of worship styles) either amuse or befuddle many third-world Christians where they all get together for worship and do it all, all day long. And the pseudo-gospel of success, the "name it and claim it" gospel of prosperity, simply mystifies Christians in parts of the world where material success is limited to the ruling class who is intent on keeping it that way.
As Paul moves from the general salutation he goes on, as he does in nine of his letters, to give high compliments to his readers. It is no wonder that he is able to thank God for these people. Look at what he has to say: This church has received grace from God in Jesus Christ, including every spiritual gift, specifically the spiritual gifts of knowledge and speaking; and the "testimony of Christ," in other words, Paul's experience and understanding of Christ, is reflected in the community. So they have correct teaching or doctrine as well as the ability to pass it on. What more could they need? It is no wonder that he says that they "are not lacking in any spiritual gift."
The problem is that the Corinthian correspondence is not new material for most of us. We know what's coming, and it ain't pretty: one problematic issue after another, culminating in Paul's description of a dysfunctional body in need of "a more perfect way" of Christian love. So is Paul glossing over their faults, merely flattering them? I think not. Rather, Paul looks at his people through bifocal glasses. With one lens he sees them as they are; with the other he sees them as they can become by the grace of God. How can people who have the grace of God in their lives, who are "enriched ... in speech and knowledge ... not lacking in any spiritual gift" -- how can they commit the sins and blunders for which Paul is about to berate them? It is because they, like us, are pulled in so many directions and caught in the middle -- the middle of the process of Christian growth. They have been provided with the teaching, they have been given the tools, but they have not yet arrived. They are not what they were, but they have also not arrived.
Once again, we see two extremes, neither of which is beneficial. The one is the extreme of impotence. The Corinthian Christians, small as their fellowship might have been in a large and wild center of commerce, had what they needed to succeed in proclaiming the gospel for one reason only: God had equipped them. Whatever strengths they had, it was because of the grace of God given in Christ Jesus, and they needed to use those strengths. When my younger brother was in the church nursery, my mother received a call asking if she could fill in as the junior division superintendent for a little while. I think she retired from that job when he was in law school. I came to appreciate how difficult it is to get Sunday school teachers, and how ironic it is that in a church full of people who have gone to worship, Sunday school, and Bible study their whole lives, no one feels equipped to teach a class for six weeks. We need to hear Paul's words of encouragement, that by God's grace we are empowered to do the work of the gospel.
On the other hand, in eschewing impotence, we must avoid self-importance. Speech and knowledge are going to be touchy topics between Paul and the Corinthians, precisely because some felt that they had an understanding of the gospel superior to Paul's. When Paul says that they are not lacking in these things, he underscores that it is because God has provided them. And it is worth noting that he uses the passive voice in describing their growth in Christian knowledge. It "has been strengthened," not "you have picked yourselves up and carried yourselves along." When things are going badly, we look around for others with whom we can share the blame. But when things are going well -- and many things in Corinth were going well -- we tend to take the credit. Paul would have them, and us, remember that when things go well, it is because we are cooperating with the grace that God has given us.
As a lifelong Wesleyan, I recognize the danger of seeing John Wesley's notion of "going on to perfection" lurking around every corner. But it is almost impossible not to see it in the conclusion of Paul's introduction: God gives us these gifts and strengthens us, the apostle says, "so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." The simple fact is that many of us gloss over passages like this because we are so comfortable in this world that we are not really waiting for the day of the Lord, and we know that even Paul's eschatological fervor seems to have diminished as time went on. But no matter, these words remind us that time has a direction and that it is possible to regress as well as progress. If there was no possibility of backsliding there would be no need for God to continually strengthen us.
In the coming weeks, we will see that there were those in the Corinthian church, as there have been in every church of every time and place, who sincerely felt they had arrived. They would have heard Paul's words as unconditional commendation, and they would have been wrong and open to strong rebuke. Paul knew that no one arrives at a point in this life where they cannot commit sin. The goal is to arrive at a point where we are so in fellowship with the Son that we will not commit sin.
It is true that we are pulled in many directions, feel fragmented, and sometimes don't know where to turn. We are caught in the middle, and we are in good company. But for those of us who believe we have an ancient word that helps us today: "God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." Amen.
As a reminder that there is nothing new under the sun, the Christians at Corinth, to whom the apostle Paul wrote a series of letters, would have found themselves similarly stretched. They were trying to be good Roman citizens in a context in which some of their faithful behavior, let alone their religious commitment, would have been suspect. Furthermore, they would not have enjoyed the kind of social support we, as American Christians, take for granted. They were a small group in a big place. Somebody has suggested that locating a Christian house church in Corinth would have been akin to trying to find the Swedenborgians in Kansas City. I haven't done the math, but that sounds about right to me. And, as we will see in the coming weeks, not only were they small, but they were fractured.
So it is interesting that in the greeting with which this letter begins, Paul mentioned two poles around which their Christian commitment must revolve: on the one hand they were Christians in a very particular Corinthian setting, and on the other they were part of a much larger body of believers. Neither of these represent vague notions, like my good friend, "what's his name." These were very real things to Paul, for the Corinthian church, its members, and its problems were realities. He had founded the church himself, from nothing at all, so far as we know. So unlike Romans, which was written mostly to strangers in a strange church in a strange city, these letters were written to personal friends in a situation Paul knew very well. And, of course, the same goes for "those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours" (1 Corinthians 1:2). While Paul hadn't begun all the churches of the time (like Romans or churches in Revelation), he had begun a lot and certainly had his finger on the pulse of the Christian communities flung all around the Mediterranean basin. Both were realities, and neither was more or less important than the other. They were Christians in a particularly dynamic if somewhat threatening urban setting and they were also members of the church-at-large. They were, in this sense, caught in the middle, as we all are.
There is the particular. They are called to be saints right where they are. The word, saint (hagios), today carries with it the connotation of a small number of people who have been set apart from ordinary Christians due to their extraordinary service. It may not be as formalized a process as that of canonization in the Roman Catholic church, but if I suggest to the church board that they include my portrait in the new stained-glass windows along with Luther, Calvin, and Wesley, it will become clear that there is some kind of process at work! The root idea of this word (hagios) is the sense of being different from others not in terms of being set apart from most Christians but because of belonging to God. This was the adjective by which the Jews of New Testament times described themselves: They were the holy people (hagios laos) not because they had somehow been transported out of this world but because they belonged to God in some particular way and owed their ultimate allegiance and service to God. When Paul calls the Christians saints, "holy," he is not writing to a select few, nor is he suggesting that they somehow withdraw from the normal life of their vibrant city. He is saying, rather, that because of their relationship with God through Jesus Christ, their lives should be marked by qualities that will set them apart. They are to be holy, set-apart Corinthians.
There has always been the danger of being fascinated by Christian ideas, teachings, and things in general, without making particular Christian commitments. In an extreme form this would include folks who have a theoretical or academic interest in religion, but make no personal or outward commitment. Sometimes thought of as "secret Christians" we often find them around campuses where the world of ideas and debates dominates. But it doesn't need to take that extreme form. I happened to be speaking in Houston just after the Enron scandals first broke. Many of the Christian leaders with whom I interacted were dumbfounded because some of the most visible figures in the breaking news, who certainly appeared to have been involved in subtle and overt kinds of dishonesty and theft, were high-profile Evangelical Christians. They were active in their churches and generous to Christian causes; they had prayer groups and Bible studies in their offices. But, seemingly, they were not set apart enough to avoid the duplicity so rampant in some corporate culture. These individuals were clearly more than "Sunday morning Christians." I, at least, am not willing to label them hypocrites, but it does seem that their holiness had not invaded every facet of their lives. We are called to be saints, in particular, in the realities of our daily lives.
There is also the general: The Corinthians were not only to understand themselves as set apart for God's service in the Corinthian crossroads of the world, but in the whole world (or at least the whole Mediterranean basin, which for Paul would have been the world), with all those who called upon the name of the Lord. Even in a very large and diverse city, like Corinth, one might travel in a very small circle indeed. Some of you have probably had my experience of attending a meeting at the O'Hare Hilton or the Denver Convention Center. If someone inquires about what the city was like, you have no idea. You managed to make it in and out without seeing much. There are folks who live and work in great metropolitan centers for a lifetime, yet see little but the subway car and their office or shop week after week, year after year. They never see the interesting sites or visit the museums until their country cousins show up. It is not just the Corinthian Christians who might have been unaware of the explosion of faith that was going on around the world.
The hazard today is that we may be very active Christians within a very narrow circle. When I was a teenager in Cleveland, a wonderful place opened up near our house. It was called "McDonald's" and they had hamburgers for 15¢. They also had fries and milkshakes. One summer we drove to Sandusky, sixty miles away, and to our amazement discovered a McDonald's there. They also had 15¢ hamburgers! We had no idea it was a franchise that extended beyond Cuyahoga County. As a United Methodist (the second largest Protestant denomination in the USA), I am sometimes surprised by the number of active UMs who are as ignorant of the scope of our denomination as was the Brittain family of the extent of the late '50s McDonald's franchises. They may be quite active even at the district or conference level, but somehow just remain unaware of what is happening elsewhere in our world, which now includes everywhere. Not long ago I heard that there were more Anglicans at worship on any given Sunday in Nigeria than in the British Isles. I am sure there are similar figures for most so-called mainline denominations.
Whether this is good news or bad news may depend on your perspective, but it is news of which we need be aware. And we should probably be aware that in many cases what is growing is an indigenized form of our denominations which might startle us. Some of the church-growth models that have been accepted as divine truth by many American churches (things like a variety of services for every age group and niche marketing of worship styles) either amuse or befuddle many third-world Christians where they all get together for worship and do it all, all day long. And the pseudo-gospel of success, the "name it and claim it" gospel of prosperity, simply mystifies Christians in parts of the world where material success is limited to the ruling class who is intent on keeping it that way.
As Paul moves from the general salutation he goes on, as he does in nine of his letters, to give high compliments to his readers. It is no wonder that he is able to thank God for these people. Look at what he has to say: This church has received grace from God in Jesus Christ, including every spiritual gift, specifically the spiritual gifts of knowledge and speaking; and the "testimony of Christ," in other words, Paul's experience and understanding of Christ, is reflected in the community. So they have correct teaching or doctrine as well as the ability to pass it on. What more could they need? It is no wonder that he says that they "are not lacking in any spiritual gift."
The problem is that the Corinthian correspondence is not new material for most of us. We know what's coming, and it ain't pretty: one problematic issue after another, culminating in Paul's description of a dysfunctional body in need of "a more perfect way" of Christian love. So is Paul glossing over their faults, merely flattering them? I think not. Rather, Paul looks at his people through bifocal glasses. With one lens he sees them as they are; with the other he sees them as they can become by the grace of God. How can people who have the grace of God in their lives, who are "enriched ... in speech and knowledge ... not lacking in any spiritual gift" -- how can they commit the sins and blunders for which Paul is about to berate them? It is because they, like us, are pulled in so many directions and caught in the middle -- the middle of the process of Christian growth. They have been provided with the teaching, they have been given the tools, but they have not yet arrived. They are not what they were, but they have also not arrived.
Once again, we see two extremes, neither of which is beneficial. The one is the extreme of impotence. The Corinthian Christians, small as their fellowship might have been in a large and wild center of commerce, had what they needed to succeed in proclaiming the gospel for one reason only: God had equipped them. Whatever strengths they had, it was because of the grace of God given in Christ Jesus, and they needed to use those strengths. When my younger brother was in the church nursery, my mother received a call asking if she could fill in as the junior division superintendent for a little while. I think she retired from that job when he was in law school. I came to appreciate how difficult it is to get Sunday school teachers, and how ironic it is that in a church full of people who have gone to worship, Sunday school, and Bible study their whole lives, no one feels equipped to teach a class for six weeks. We need to hear Paul's words of encouragement, that by God's grace we are empowered to do the work of the gospel.
On the other hand, in eschewing impotence, we must avoid self-importance. Speech and knowledge are going to be touchy topics between Paul and the Corinthians, precisely because some felt that they had an understanding of the gospel superior to Paul's. When Paul says that they are not lacking in these things, he underscores that it is because God has provided them. And it is worth noting that he uses the passive voice in describing their growth in Christian knowledge. It "has been strengthened," not "you have picked yourselves up and carried yourselves along." When things are going badly, we look around for others with whom we can share the blame. But when things are going well -- and many things in Corinth were going well -- we tend to take the credit. Paul would have them, and us, remember that when things go well, it is because we are cooperating with the grace that God has given us.
As a lifelong Wesleyan, I recognize the danger of seeing John Wesley's notion of "going on to perfection" lurking around every corner. But it is almost impossible not to see it in the conclusion of Paul's introduction: God gives us these gifts and strengthens us, the apostle says, "so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." The simple fact is that many of us gloss over passages like this because we are so comfortable in this world that we are not really waiting for the day of the Lord, and we know that even Paul's eschatological fervor seems to have diminished as time went on. But no matter, these words remind us that time has a direction and that it is possible to regress as well as progress. If there was no possibility of backsliding there would be no need for God to continually strengthen us.
In the coming weeks, we will see that there were those in the Corinthian church, as there have been in every church of every time and place, who sincerely felt they had arrived. They would have heard Paul's words as unconditional commendation, and they would have been wrong and open to strong rebuke. Paul knew that no one arrives at a point in this life where they cannot commit sin. The goal is to arrive at a point where we are so in fellowship with the Son that we will not commit sin.
It is true that we are pulled in many directions, feel fragmented, and sometimes don't know where to turn. We are caught in the middle, and we are in good company. But for those of us who believe we have an ancient word that helps us today: "God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." Amen.
