Long divisions

Sermon for January 24th
Readings - 1 Corinthians 1:10-18,
Isaiah 9:14, Matthew 4:12-23

In a Peanuts cartoon, Linus is watching television. Into the family room storms Lucy. Putting her fist right into his face, Lucy demands that Linus change the channel to what she wants to watch.
"What makes you think you can just walk right in here and take over?" Linus wants to know. Lucy strikes back. "These five fingers! Individually they are nothing. But when I curl them together into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold!"
Linus shrinks, "Ah, ah, what channel do you want to watch?"
As Lucy takes what was his place in front of the television set, Linus turns away and looks at his own fingers. "Why can't you guys get organised like that?"
(Story from Connections, January 24, 1999, Third Sunday of the Year (7 Lantern Lane, Londonderry, N.H. 03053-3905), Jan.1999.)

"By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ I appeal to all of you, to agree in what you say, so that there may be no division among you."
Ha, ha, ha.
Of  course we have taken that reading to heart over the centuries haven't we?
The Christian Church is united, harmonious, at one with itself and God.(!)
Its really been a tale of long division hasn't it?
Divisions over ways of worshipping, of working out faith, of social groupings, of all sorts of other things we like to dress up in theological language but are really deep down dirty prejudice of one kind or another. So Paul - shout your message down through time we need to hear it again now!

Divisions, divisions, divisions.
When I was a teenager in  Swansea, I knocked about with a group of friends. And as often happens, we looked like a close knit bunch from the outside, but were a seething bunch of petty quarrels and jealousies on the inside. There were one or two dominant personalities and the rest of us would vie to be closest friend of those people. Oh the hurt to find out that something really exciting had happened at someone's house and you weren't invited. In the end many of us realized that one person was playing us off one against the other and we all stood up to it by very bravely (!) giving her the cold shoulder. It did help relationships between the rest of us, but we had lost one of our closest friends and things weren't quite the same again. It was a great cost.

In Corinth, the members of the church are busy joining cliques. Not because any of the evangelists are playing mind control games, but I guess because people are made that way! We love to be partisan! But its no good. All they are doing in the long run is hurting themselves and worse - weakening the message of the good news to those who live in the shadows.

Bob Allred , a minister in Atlanta is very proud of his local football team. The new coach has made all the difference. The Atlanta Falcons are playing in the Superbowl - which even I know is a big achievement. Most of those in the know think that Dan Reeves secret is that he has unified the team; he has brought them together and the players seem to genuinely care for each other.

In his letter to the divided church at Corinth, Paul makes the observation that they can never accomplish their purpose as long as they are divided: It had been reported to Paul that there were quarrels and divisions among them. Some had expressed loyalty to their founding pastor, Paul. Others said they belonged to Apollos, or Cephas. Only a few had expressed loyalty to Christ above all others. This infighting had diminished the cross of it's power in their congregation.

Then Paul points out the one thing that can cause unity within the church: It is the only focus that could unify a diverse group like the Multi-cultural congregation at the sea port town of Corinth. "...the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (v. 18). Thus, we can find unity as we rally around the cross, and Jesus' atoning death. In the Church, we must be "ONE BODY, OR NOBODY."

Of course, that is also true in football, and in most ventures in life. No business can make a profit with constant infighting for power. No school can accomplish its purpose as long as the teachers, pupils and governers are pulling in different directions. No nation can long survive when it is torn apart. But, Together We Can! When we are one, all things are possible! Can today's churches become: "ONE BODY, AND SOMEBODY?"

Divisions, divisions, divisions.
There are other kinds of divisions too. Before I moved to Swansea I lived in Surrey where I suffered under the last throes of the 11 plus system there. Not so much for me, because I passed and went to the grammar school. Those who failed had to stay in baby primary school another year. It was hard to stay friends. Divisions were caused. The local secondary modern girls hated us. I can't imagine why. Was it our superior manner? Then they joined the schools together. We used to have to go to the old secondary modern site to do our cookery. Those who had stayed in the building would hiss and jeer at us as we went in. I was never very good at cookery...

In the church at Corinth there are divisions along intellectual lines between the members. I think maybe Paul feels that he is being unfavourably compared to the more educated Apollos - and maybe that the church members put on airs of being intellectually superior to Paul too. The greeks liked to think of themselves in that way. But Paul says 'Oi Corinthians, NO!' The message of the good news isn't about big words. The message of the good news isn't about theological concepts. The message of the good news isn't the language of worldly wisdom.
It is Jesus, the Son of God dying for us on the cross and rising to bring us new life.
As simple as that.

As Nathan Nettleton, (Pastor of South Yarra Community Baptist Church,Melbourne, Australia) puts it .
'There are some things it’s not worth getting too clever about. We are here together as a worshipping community because we have experienced the love of God in Christ. We are here because in a man being tortured to death on a cross. We have encountered the God of the Universe, a God who shares our suffering and leads us on to newness of life.

It is such a seemingly absurd idea that it’s no wonder people get embarrassed about it and want to turn it into some sophisticated philosophy, some profound new wisdom. But as Paul seems to be saying, as soon as you do that you get bogged down in the detail and instead of being a power for reconciliation it becomes something that divides us up into warring factions instead. At its heart the gospel is quite simple - it’s ugly, unsophisticated, gory and awkward - but its quite simple. In Jesus dying in agony on a cross at the hands of callous men, we have met God and witnessed the lengths to which God will go to reach us in love and save us from the world’s headlong slide into destruction."

Divisions, divisions, divisions.
"By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ I appeal to all of you, to agree in what you say, so that there may be no division among you."
But of course there are. Otherwise why would we have the Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Church of England (high, low and evangelical), Roman Catholic, Methodists, Peculiar Methodists, Baptists, Strict and Particular baptists, the United Reformed Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Congregational Church, the Salvation Army, the Assemblies of God, house churches, new life fellowships, closed Brethren, open Brethren? Some of whom talk to each other, some don't. Some of whom worship together, some can't or won't. That is how good we were at coping with division when the church of Christ first began.

But that is not all bad news. Each of the different denominations highlights different ways of worshipping and living out our faith. Each provides rich treasures, new insights for us all. And the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is a positive way of beginning to heal some of those divisions. Not by looking to join up into some kind of super-church, but by showing that though our expressions of it are different, our faith in God as revealed in Jesus, is the same. On Wednesday night the Churches Together on the Headland held a meeting to dream dreams and see how we can work better together in the future. And lots of ideas came out that we are working through now. I think that our fingers are curling together to form a fist. Not as a sign of brute force, but of the strength we have in unity, the unity we know in God's love for us.

Jesus called all sorts of people to be his disciples. We hear more about the fisherman than the others - was their call more extra-ordinary? Jesus called people who worked with their hands, political zealots, those hated by the community, and other ordinary people too. He says to all of us - come follow me. Whatever our ability, our age, our denomination, Jesus calls us to follow him and preach his good news.

As Nathan Nettleton says, we can worship God together because we share that experience together. Not because we interpret it the same way, or because we all agree on all the implications of that for how we live, or because we all subscribe to the same party lines on what it all means. There is nothing wrong with discussing those things, so long as we don’t fall into the trap of thinking they are what really matters.

What really matters is our common experience of Christ and his suffering love and our willingness to respond to him in gratitude. And it might look foolish, and it might seem embarrassing, and it might not win us any scholarships, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God and the only things that really matters.

We have a choice. We can live in the shadows, the shadows caused by our divisions, the shadows caused by our failure to respond to the call of Christ. Or we can walk in the light. We can celebrate the strength that we receive in unity, while celebrating differences. And the only shadow on our lives will be the wonderful shadow of the cross.