I want to start this morning by telling you something that isn't exactly a secret, but it's not something everyone knows about me either: I really love the apostle Paul. I know that as a woman heading for ordained ministry, I'm supposed to be scandalized and maybe even offended by many of his views, especially about women in authority in the church, but I just can't suppress the feelings of affection that I have for him. He's such a human character! He says what he thinks. He doesn't pussyfoot around. I might not always agree with him, but I always trust that he is acting with the good of the Christian community at heart. In Paul's letters, we see a human being, someone who can be loving and supportive, or angry and exasperated. In the Epistles, Paul is not expounding on his theology to Christians in general. He is writing specifically to a group of people with whom he had a relationship. His letters are written for a purpose –often to solve a problem in the community.
We see this clearly in today's Epistle reading. Sometimes when we think of the first letter to the Corinthians, we remember that passage from Chapter 13 that is so often used for weddings, the part about love –love is patient and kind, love believes all things, endures all things, etc etc. It seems so peaceful and beautiful! What a loving community it must have been, we think, to foster such a vision of concord! I remember how disillusioned I was when I began to learn more about the community at Corinth, how Corinth was well known at the time as a city of debauchery and immorality. How the church was trying to build a Christian way of being in the midst of a city where depravity was the norm. It was to this struggling church that Paul was writing. Because in this church there was a problem, one with which we also are familiar –the problem of factions. This early church, formed in the first flush of Paul's ministry to the Gentiles, this church, one of the first Christian communities in New Testament times, was divided –already.
The people in the community were falling into the familiar pattern of leadership that people have fallen into throughout history –the same pattern that people are falling into in our own time: the pattern of following a charismatic leader, without much caring for the message that the leader is presenting. This can happen anywhere –in the realm of entertainment, in politics, in a school or university, in a church. From all accounts there were some pretty charismatic leaders in the early church; there was Cephas (who we know better as Peter) there was Apollos, an important leader in Corinth, and there was Paul himself. Even though the message they were proclaiming was the same, the people insisted on aligning themselves with one or the other. They insisted on seeing 'their guy' as being the best, making them the best too. I belong to Cephas! I belong to Apollos! I belong to Paul! And how were they aligning themselves with their heroes? According to who had baptized them! Paul certainly had something to say about that! When we baptize people, we bring them into the body of Christ -it's a way to foster unity in the Christian community. But this very baptism was the source of strife in the church at Corinth. No wonder Paul was exasperated. No wonder he was glad not to be a part of this oneupmanship that was dividing the community. Paul needed to remind them that they were all baptized into Christ and his death and resurrection. This is what would unite them.
I don't think this dynamic of charismatic leadership is too hard for us to understand in our modern church. Even now we can sometimes hear people say things like “Oh, Dean Shepherd baptized my baby” or “My husband and I were married by Bishop Barry” or “The Primate was the one who buried my father”. It’s part of human nature to want to be connected to those we admire. But we have to be careful not to lose the message because of our admiration of the messenger. Imagine if we started saying “I belong to Dean Pitts” or “I belong to Canon Sanchez” before we say “I belong to Christ”!
And this problem can certainly extend beyond the bounds of the immediate community. It doesn't have to be based on one charismatic leader. There are a lot of other things we can use to focus on our attention on what pulls us apart, rather than what brings us together. It's not hard to imagine someone saying “I belong to the Cathedral; to St John the Evangelist; to St Stephen's Westmount; to St Paul's Cote-des-Neiges...” “I'm Liberal; I'm Evangelical; High Church; Low Church” and it goes on and on. We can say these things and use them as a source of pride or even arrogance; we can use them as a way of dividing ourselves from each other, as a way of turning away from each other. And it doesn't stop there. We can say “I belong to the Anglican Church; I belong to the Baptist Church; I'm Presbyterian; United”. .. so many ways to avoid the message Paul was talking about –there must be no divisions among you; be united in the same mind and the same purpose; we being many are one body; for we all share in the one bread.
Christian unity! We had eight days of prayer last week for Christian unity. We all want it. We know it's a good thing, but how can it happen? It's too hard. People can't do it -we're too stubborn, too fearful, too suspicious. Christian unity! What a dream! It sounds great, but how embarrassingly naïve to think it's possible! ...What foolishness... Well, Paul has something to say about foolishness and wisdom. The Christian message of unity between believers can certainly seem foolish through the perspective of common wisdom: our differences are too great; are beliefs are too far apart; we have to be realistic; the gulf between us is too wide. But this particular foolishness is a core of our belief as Christians, something Paul preached and suffered for: in Christ there is no Greek or Jew, slave or free, male or female. Differences pale before the unity we have through our baptism in Christ Jesus.
I and some of the other theology students spent part of the week of prayer for Christian unity in Cuba, visiting the seminary and some of the churches there. There were certainly a lot of differences between us, both within our little group of students and between us and our Cuban hosts. In our group were 2 Anglicans, 3 people from the United Church and 3 Presbyterians. We all have our way of looking at our relationship to God, Jesus and our faith communities. We all know each other quite well now, and we're all committed to our common life as students preparing for the ordained ministry. We spent a few minutes every morning while we were in Cuba in communal prayer, each morning led by a different person. Our traditions were quite different, but we were united in our love for God and our wish to be good Christians. Maybe it's not so hard for us seminary students to see ourselves primarily as fellow Christians and put aside our differences. Apart from a similar commitment to service in the church, we have a lot in common, including a culture and a language. This was not the case between us and the Cubans. There were a lot of possibilities for misunderstandings and disagreements between us. Our culture was very different; our political systems were in opposition; we don't speak the same language. Common wisdom might suggest that we wouldn't be able to understand each other very well, if at all.
But I'm sure that you, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, will not be surprised to hear that we were able to come together and understand each other very well indeed. The thing that struck me the most all throughout that time in Cuba was not our differences; it was our similarities. Whether we wee worshiping together, studying together with the help of a translator, visiting farms and church communities, we were all very much aware that we were on the same wavelength; we had a common understanding of the power of the Gospel message to change the lives of believers; we were one body, because we all share in the one bread.
This may be foolishness; we may be naïve. But our Paul, our difficult and strong-minded Paul, has a message for us. He tells us that this foolishness is the power of God. We don't have to be seminarians or theologians to feel this power. We are all called, as surely as were Peter and Andrew, James and John, there at the shore of the Sea of Galilee long ago, all are called to follow the one by whom we are united. We are called by Jesus, by our baptism, to work together, to seek unity, difficult as it may be –Cuban and Canadian, Nigerian, American, Asian and West Indian, all of us together, building the kingdom and following the one whose life was utter foolishness, and the only true wisdom.
Amen.
Karla Holmes