Sermon Text(s): 1 Corinthians 1:10-18, Baptismal Covenant Question #3
As we enter week three of this preaching series on baptism, we’re going to spend another week on the third question of the Baptismal Covenant:
“Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?”
Why are we spending two weeks on this question? Well, the collect and the scriptures for today continue to focus on God’s call to us to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ. The opening collect says:
“Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works…”
For our reading from the Hebrew scriptures we have that famous passage from Isaiah that we just heard during Advent and Christmas – “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light!” – and in the Gospel passage we have a narrative about how Jesus fulfilled that scripture and called his first disciples by the Sea of Galilee. But as we continue to consider the topic of evangelism this week, we’ll look at it from a slightly different angle, from the perspective represented in our second reading from 1 Corinthians. Paul writes to the church at Corinth:
“Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”
This passage takes on particular meaning in light of the fact that this week is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. So today, I’d like to think about Christian unity and in what ways our division compromises our witness.
Many people look at the mind-boggling number of different churches and denominations in Christianity, particularly in the U.S., and become disillusioned. All this infighting, all this disagreement! So much for Christians being “one body in Christ” and having “all things in common,” as the scriptures tell us the early church did. Instead, we’ve got bishops excommunicating each other, fights over whether one particular phrase is included in the Creed or not, parishioners refusing to receive communion from certain priests, arguments about predestination and free will – and that’s just a small section of our dirty laundry! For all our theology about being “one in Christ,” we seem pretty divided. How can we “proclaim the Good News of God in Christ” to the world if we can’t even agree amongst ourselves?
Our passage from Paul’s letter reminds us that the church has always had to deal with conflict and division.
“It has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters,” Paul writes to the church at Corinth.
What? Quarrels? In the church?
Oh, yes.
He continues, “What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul’, or ‘I belong to Apollos’, or ‘I belong to Cephas’, or ‘I belong to Christ’” (1 Corinthians 1:11-12).
He chastises those who identify with the person who baptized them rather than with Christ, who is the proper object of their faith.
“Has Christ been divided?” he asks. “Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor. 1:13)
Later, in chapter 3 of the letter, he drives his point home:
“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” (1 Cor. 3:5-7).
This critique of the Corinthians is certainly relevant to the church today, with so many denominations centered on the person who started that movement. Lutherans, Wesleyans, Calvinists… by identifying ourselves in this way, aren’t we doing the very same thing the church at Corinth was doing and saying, “I belong to Luther” or “I belong to Wesley” or “I belong to Calvin” rather than “I belong to Christ”?
It’s gotten to the point that the church is so divided that we don’t even recognize one another as being part of the same religion anymore. When I talk about interfaith dialogue in Christian contexts, inevitably someone will say, “Oh, yeah, we did some interfaith dialogue one time! We had a meeting with the Baptists!” or “We held a joint service with the Lutherans!”
But guess what, people? That’s not interfaith dialogue! Christians talking to other Christians is not interfaith dialogue! Interfaith means talking to someone of a different religion -- a Muslim, or a Sikh, or a Jain, or a Jew, or a Buddhist -- a different religion. All of these denominations of Christianity -- Baptists and Lutherans and Methodists and Presbyterians and Pentecostals and Charismatics and Evangelicals – they’re all Christians! Their denomination may be Lutheran or Baptist or Methodist, but that's not their religion. Their religion is Christianity. Unfortunately, we often talk of our denomination as if it is our religion. If someone were to ask you, "What's your religion?" We might say, “I’m an Episcopalian.” Our friends at United Lutheran might say, “I’m Lutheran.” Our friends at Church Without Walls might say, “I’m Baptist.” But really, we should all have the same answer to that question: What religion are you? “I’m CHRISTIAN!”
It’s not an accident that when we are baptized in the Episcopal Church, we don’t profess faith in the Episcopal Church or in the Presiding Bishop or the Archbishop of Canterbury. We profess faith in JESUS CHRIST. Period! Our baptismal vows don’t say anything about the Episcopal Church. We don’t vow to follow the canon law of the Episcopal Church (priests and bishops may, but lay people don't!), we vow to follow Jesus! And so do each and every one of our brothers and sisters in Christ, regardless of which denominational structure oversaw the ritual of their baptism. What unites us as Christians is our common desire and commitment to follow Jesus, regardless of our disagreements over how the church should be structured or governed or who should be allowed leadership within it, or any number of other things over which we disagree.
As the testimony of the early church shows, it’s unlikely that we will ever be “of one mind” on all things, however much our leaders may urge us to be. But we must continue to work toward the ideal of “Christian unity,” even if we never reach it, because Jesus prayed for his followers to be “one, even as [he] and the Father [were] one” (John 17:11). “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me,” Jesus prays the night before his death (John 17:20-21). Jesus believed that our oneness – with each other and with God in Christ – was key to our witness – we are to be one so that “the world may believe.”
But perhaps we’ve been thinking about “Christian unity” all wrong. Maybe unity doesn’t mean that we all become members of the same church or govern ourselves in the same way or worship in the same style. Maybe unity doesn’t mean that we share similar political opinions, similar cultures, similar backgrounds, or even similar interpretations of scripture. Maybe “Christian unity” is as simple as remembering who we were baptized into. Were we baptized into Paul or Apollos? Were we baptized into Luther or Wesley or Calvin? No, these were all merely servants of God who brought us to know Jesus. Maybe “Christian unity” is as simple as the affirmations at the beginning of our baptismal service:
"Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?
Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?
Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?" (BCP 302-303)
Our unity as Christians comes in the form of our answer to those three questions. Those of us who answer “yes” to those questions (or “I do,” as we say in the liturgy) are united with all others who answer those three questions the same way, regardless of whether we agree on anything else!
Ronald Rolheiser, a Canadian Roman Catholic theologian, describes the essential unity of the church in this way:
"To be in apostolic community, church, is not necessarily to be with others with whom we are emotionally, ideologically, and otherwise compatible. Rather it is to stand, shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand, precisely with people who are very different from ourselves and, with them, hear a common word, say a common creed, share a common bread, and offer a mutual forgiveness so as, in that way, to bridge our differences and become a common heart. Church is not about a few like-minded persons getting together for mutual support; it is about millions and millions of different kinds of persons transcending their differences so as to become a community beyond temperament, race, ideology, gender, language, and background." [1]
If we can truly do that – if we can form the kind of community that transcends differences through our shared love of Jesus and commitment to follow in his way, if we are intentional about forming that community with people of other denominations – then our witness will not be compromised. Despite our apparent divisions, we can still “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ” – by showing that even in the midst of the messy human diversity in the church, a sense of shared consciousness and an acknowledgement of oneness in our Lord is possible, thanks be to God.
[1] Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality (New York: Doubleday, 1999): 115.
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