3rd Sunday After Epiphany: Unity in the Church — Remember Who You Are
CONTENT
Many of you may know the Disney story of the Lion King. It tells the story of a young lion cub, named Simba, destined to be King. Simba believes a lesser story about who he is and leaves behind his identity as future king to live a lesser life of ease leaving his call and kingdom in dire condition. Eventually, Rafiki, the prophet monkey, finds Simba, helping to get to the question that changes everything…: “Remember who you are”. Most of us don’t have a prophet monkey to hit us upside the head with a stick. But we do have the apostle Paul and that brings us to our lesson in 1Corinthians. We are in the first chapter of the first letter to the believers at a young church in Corinth, not unlike Corpus Christi, and in a city not unlike the northern Virginia area. Paul has been away from the church about three years… and right out of the gates, at the beginning of his letter, Paul is strongly exhorting the believers to remember who they are.
At first glance, the apostle Paul appears to be writing to the believers in Corinth to stop bickering and moving in cliques. Like a family squabble. But sitting in the passage, studying the context and listening intently reveals Paul emphatically appealing to the church on an issue far more dangerous than cliques and squabbles. In fact, the Corinthians have left their identity in Christ and as a result are living in disunity; having moved away from the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the message of the Gospel into various divisions that empty the power of the cross. And Paul is not only writing to the believers in Corinth, he is speaking to the church worldwide. He is pointing to disunity as a deadly cancer and arguing that Unity in our Christian relationships reveals the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives and the power of the cross.
As Paul argues for unity, he points to ways that the believers have left their identity. Their disunity reveals that they are not following the Lordship of Jesus Christ, they have moved away from the centrality of the Gospel and divided themselves into cultural ways of thinking rather than remaining rooted and grounded in Christ.
Paul begins by making an appeal to the believers at Corinth and to the church in the name of Jesus Christ. He invokes Christ’s name to call them back to the authority of Christ because they are not yielded to it. He speaks in vs 10 for “all” of them to be in agreement,” to have no divisions, and that they be united in the same mind and purpose.” This is strong, clear language. The very fact that he “appeals” to them in this way indicates they are not in agreement, they are not of one mind and purpose, they are divided. He argues later that his own call is to proclaim the Gospel, in humility, otherwise, the cross is emptied of its power.
Well, if the cross is emptied of its power, then Jesus is not Lord. The crucifixion is meaningless. And this is serious. Like cancer, it's deadly to our faith. Paul’s way of argument here, by claiming that Christ did not send him to baptize but rather to proclaim the Gospel indicates that the quarreling of the believers is over inferior matters interfering with the proclamation of the gospel and thereby robbing the cross of its power.
The Corinthians have moved away from the Gospel. The Gospel is the good news that God has reconciled the world-you and me- to himself through the death of Jesus Christ. Fundamentally it's about bridging the gap of separation and mending division, not only between god and people, but also BETWEEN people and people. To be God’s people is to be united with Christ. To be united with Christ is to be united with one another who are in Christ. In vs 13, Paul asks, “is Christ divided?” He’s asking rhetorically to explicitly point out their division and separation from the gospel. This is serious. In vs 17, he points out his own call, in order to remind them of theirs.
In moving away from the centrality of the Gospel, they have forgotten their identities in Christ, and their call to serve Jesus in their relationships and their love for one another. They’ve replaced that belief and love with cultural ideals represented by lesser authorities. Paul explains in vs11-12, “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s household that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters, What I mean is that one of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or another, “ I belong to Apollos,” or another, “I belong to Cephas,” or still another “I belong to Christ.” Paul is stating that those divisions among the Corinthians had created a drift away from the centrality of following Jesus and they have lost their identity as bearers of the Gospel, the good news that every one of us is a child of God, beloved by God, forgiven by God. The Gospel compels us to love Jesus and to love one another above all else. In all three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, in different scenarios, Jesus teaches us that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. These divisions Paul addresses exposes the drift away from living out the Gospel that has happened.
Instead of focusing on the power of the Gospel to save, forgive and to be united to and in Christ, the Corinthians have turned to lesser authorities Paul, Apollos, and Peter in ways that these guys never intended…but instead that align with the Corinthians own cultural comfort. In this turn away from Christ, they see themselves as superior to one another. They hone in on various philosophical emphases and those become preeminent over the lordship of Jesus Christ. They lost the humility that the cross itself and the life of Jesus embodies. They’ve lost their identity. Paul isn’t calling out each of these leaders he lists as problematic, he’s calling out the ways that believers have aligned themselves with selected characteristics of these leaders; and honestly, twisted them. Believers in the church are still doing this today. See if you recognize any of these:
The “I belong to Paul” gang: Paul planted the church in Corinth in 50-51AD over a period of 18 months, the longest he stayed anywhere except for Ephesus.
Then he departed. This letter was written about three years later, after he’s gotten a direct report of the troubles the church is experiencing. So, it's been a while since the believers have seen or heard from Paul. Scholars suggest that these are people who relive the “glory days” and hold to the past rather than living in the present and availing themselves to ongoing sanctifying work of the Spirit of God. People do this today in churches. They get stuck in a moment, a movement and they continually look behind them and miss what God is doing in the present, today. Chris and I just had a lovely visit with a dear saint who lives in the “I follow Chris clique” at a church where we ministered. As they reminisced about the way it was when we were there and how hard it is, three years later, to attend the church, we prayed and encouraged them that God’s Spirit is still moving there and to look for what he’s doing. Seven words of a dying church are: “We have never done it that way” or “that’s not our way of doing church.” Life is dynamic and changing constantly all around us. We have to learn from the past, ground ourselves in the present, watching for the work of the Spirit today, even as we hope for the future.
The “I belong to Apollos” is another ageless faction, still present among believers today.. Apollos was a gifted rhetorician; he spoke eloquently, he exposited the Old Testament with precision and clarity. He moved people with his speech. He had a charism. Saying “I belong to Apollos” would be a deference to an intellectual elitism. Though this charism of Apollos would help mature believers, the choice of believers to “belong” to Apollos indicates a slide back into a cultural issue common both in Corinth and today: a selectivity to an aspect of faith to the abandonment of the entirety of our faith. In other words, the expression of intellect becomes an idol over the actual content of that expression.
The “I belong to Cephas (or Peter)” folks could refer to those converts from Judaism to Christianity who had defaulted back to the cultural norm of legalism. Later in the letter to the Corinthians Paul will address “rules” the believers were defaulting to regarding food offered to idols and we know about how Paul and Peter clashed over food rules in Galatians 2. When life seems out of control, or initial fires of our faith begin to peter out (no pun intended) the temptation is so strong to build rules and laws to sustain us instead of turning and waiting on the Holy Spirit to renew us. We focus on outward patterns of our behavior rather than our relationship to our Lord, Jesus. It's from our relationship with Jesus that our behavior manifests, not the other way around.
Our last groupies, the “I belong to Christ” people, is not actually a reference to the Lordship of Jesus. Paul identifies a fourth faction here and it most likely indicates a spiritual elitism that is a bit of an offshoot of the old Gnostic heresy in elevating secret knowledge and mystery over the plain Lordship of Jesus Christ and a willingness to yield to his authority in our leaders in our church. We discipled several of these groupies in one of our congregations. Two of them actually went into the mission field long term…three different times…after six month stints they would call and come home having decided the leadership wasn’t following the Lord the way they were. We would rescue them financially and emotionally each time, but eventually left us as well. A common refrain is, “we follow the Lord, not the rector.” Even if the rector is following the Lord and preaching the Gospel. It's a deceptive disguise of uber holiness. But in reality it creates great disunity and it's confusing but it is quite prevalent today in the church. Some say, “I don’t need church because I have Jesus!” Well, Jesus established the church and called us to be the church and to proclaim the Gospel to build the church and he calls us to do it in unity. In John 17, before Jesus goes to the cross, he prays, asking God, “ protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.”
We now see the problem of disunity that Paul is addressing. It’s the very first thing he addresses in this long important letter to the Corinthians that examines what it means to be the people of God. It's the first thing he addresses because it’s critical for the church to live in unity. Their disunity is caused by their not living into their identity as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. They’ve moved away from the message of the Gospel into cultural norms overlaid in spiritual terms that have divided them into, essentially, dangerous cliques. Paul wants them to return to their identity as believers. Like Simba, they need to “remember who they are,” lest they walk away from their call and destiny to build God’s kingdom. They must return to the belief in the preeminence of Jesus Christ as Lord and the saving work of the Gospel as evidenced by believer’s unity. Unity in our Christian relationships reveals our identity as believers under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. What does it mean to be the people of God?
Let me ask some hard questions here. Have you believed the Gospel? Do you believe you have sinned? I ask this because our Culture has reshaped what sin is. Sin is moving apart from God, his authority, taking authority yourself, being your own lord, not loving God, not loving others being in disunity from other believers. Stepping away from scripture, or rationalizing that.
Do you believe that when you ask for forgiveness he has forgiven you? Have you asked for forgiveness? Have you received his forgiveness?
Have you received his love for you? Do you realize how much you matter to Him? It may be hard to see in seasons of grief, anxiety or disappointment, confusion. . If you’re having difficulty receiving Jesus’ love or forgiveness for you, it may be hard to follow him as Lord and to live in your identity as his child, united to him, and united to other believers. Reach out to Father Morgan, to a leader in your church, to a spiritual friend you can trust. If you’re in a season of grief, allow Corpus Christi to help you, but you must tell them you need help. Sometimes we hide behind pride because it hurts to make ourselves vulnerable again when we’ve been disappointed. When Jesus asked the Father, in the Garden of Gethsemane, “would you take this cup from me?” I wonder if he felt disappointed, as a human being, in the way God required for our salvation to be accomplished. Maybe Jesus’ acceptance of disappointment might encourage you, that he’s walked the road of grief and disappointment ahead of you and he wants to walk it with you. Life can be quite disappointing. Yet, Unity in our relationship with Jesus reveals the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives.
If you’ve believed the gospel, then return to Your identity as a believer in the Lordship of Jesus Christ and unity will be the fruit of that.
I became a Christian at a very early age. I was raised in a wonderful church but as for most of us, life got hard in my teen years. I really struggled. When I was 16 I spent some time with a youth pastor and he could see that I loved Jesus and I had accepted him as my savior. But, he asked me if I knew what it meant to follow him as my Lord. His question that day changed everything for me. It was a turning point that I return to again and again when I find myself out of sync with others or with the Lord. I have to be reminded that Jesus IS Lord, and my life revolves around him, not the other way around. Ephesians 1:23, in the Message version, says, “The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.” We have to live in unity with one another, or we empty the Gospel and the cross of its power.
As the people of God, our relationships to others matter. Are you united to those believers around you in your family and church? Is there anyone with whom you’re in conflict, yet you both follow Jesus?
Our unity as believers is critical. If you have family members that have not accepted Christ, they need to see your unity with other believers. They need to see your identity and oneness with Christ. They need to see humility and love for others in us. With family members who are believers, it's normal that we have disagreements that separate us. Often these are born out of years of old systems and patterns and we get stuck believing that we are always right as a defense mechanism. What if we surrender the need to be right? In Jesus, Jesus is right. Jesus is right every time. What if your rightness comes solely from Jesus being right; not you. Could that be enough? Sit in the beatitudes in Matthew; or his teachings throughout the Gospel. You’ll notice he never teaches, “you must be right.” He tells us that he is our right(ness) or righteousness. Ask yourself, in your conflicts with other believers, especially family members, “maybe I could be wrong?” Maybe there is a nuance or perspective I haven’t seen or become aware of yet. Take every disagreement to the Lord and wait on him to reveal His heart for this person. He may show you something that changes everything. And I can assure you, when you walk in humble submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, it does change everything. Your priorities change. You don’t need to be right. You can allow the Holy Spirit to convict and persuade others, You don’t have to do the Holy Spirit’s work in convicting everyone.
Unity in our relationships in the church reveals the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives. Now I’m going to meddle a little…Frustrations with your pastor and church leaders happen. That’s normal. We bring different backgrounds and cultural perspectives to every relationship and expectations from our past. Your pastor absolutely loves Jesus Christ as Lord above all else. He has devoted himself to loving and serving the church, both Corpus Christi and the worldwide church. He studies, he prays, he listens, he loves, he serves. He loves Jesus, he loves his family, he loves you, the church. If you have frustration with him or anyone else in leadership at the church, remember that God anointed him for this work and sovereignly placed he and other leaders there for a season and God is at work in their lives as much as He is working in yours. And prayerfully, with humility, consider what God might be shaping in you as you walk through any disunity. Ask God to reconcile you and to bring about restoration.
Unity in our relationships in the church reveals the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives. It defines us as the people of God both to one another and to a world dying without Jesus. Paul wrote this letter to a congregation in a context very similar to our own, even 2000 years ago. Is Jesus divided? Was Paul crucified for you? No, and no. Jesus is one and we are one with Jesus so we are one with one another. Jesus was crucified for you. He is our only Lord and Savior. On this snowy day, would you consider if you may have left your identity to follow lesser ones and like Simba, left the Kingdom you are called to. And maybe consider me your Rafiki, the prophet monkey, thwacking you upside your head to “remember who you are.” A beloved child of the King, called to love and serve Jesus as Lord and to live in unity with the body of believers called the Church.
