September 28, 2008 Sermon

No Division
I Corinthians 1:10-17

Where to put a piano bench. Whether the pastor can drive a foreign car. How many prayers to include in the worship order. Whether to use the (old) blue hymnbook or the (older) red hymnbook. May the retiring church secretary take home a coffee mug as a memento? Should the automatic timer for the church sign turn the lights off at 6:00 or 6:30 a.m.? Each of these burning issues has helped split a church.

Take the piano bench. Please take the piano bench! A church in Alexandria, Virginia received a gift of this antique from the estate of a deceased member. I have seen a picture of it; it looks more like a weathered park bench. But it was made by an 18th century craftsman out of elm wood. It is rare and valuable. The terms of the will specified that the organist sit in it. The organist refused. It had arms, which he felt constricted his ability to play, and it was uncomfortable. The pastor tried putting it in the church parlor. Friends of the dead giver protested. They knew what she had wanted. Factions formed: one group insisting that the organist sit on that bench, the other equally insistent that he not. People began sneaking into the church at odd hours, moving it into the sanctuary or back into the parlor.

Those factions hardened. They began to fight about everything, over issues nobody really cared about—except they were not about to let them win. The church split in two. The larger, pro-piano bench in the sanctuary side kept the church property; the minority, including the pastor and the organist, started meeting in a school. Both churches suffered. The smaller group dwindled to nothing. The church that stayed home has not recovered, either.

Any experienced church person would know that congregation must already have had divisions within it. The piano bench, while an important symbol, did not in and of itself matter enough to generate that kind of passion. Though many in the congregation may have remained unconscious of it, no doubt their fight went back years. The bench was just the last straw. Any group of people with a common history also has a list of common grievances. Families do. So do college faculties, men's golf leagues, and offices. Human nature is sinful. We all battle greed, insecurity, envy and more. Unless a group of people shares a solid commitment to unity, it often divides. Church: find your unity in Christ.

The Apostle Paul helped start the Christian church in Corinth. With a few fellow-travelers he walked into that great and cosmopolitan city, started teaching about Jesus as the Messiah in the synagogues, and attracted enough converts to start a Christian church. Then he left town. Paul had a job to do. As he wrote in our passage, his job was to preach about Jesus. Paul was an evangelist. Baptizing and pastoring and administration he left to others who had the gifts from God to do them. After starting the Corinthian church he left it in others' hands to run.

Do not think Paul did not care. He carried on lively correspondences with dozens of churches he helped start. Two-thirds of the New Testament consists of some of these letters. He wrote many more. They crackle with honesty, joy, anger, love. He corrected errors. He rebuked church leaders who misbehaved. He taught solid theology. This letter of First Corinthians alone contains personal joys and concerns, important teaching about communion and the resurrection of Christ, encouragement to observe the spiritual disciplines, and advice on how to live together as a church. This last might seem less important, but without unity none of the rest of it can happen. With Paul I therefore say again: Church, find your unity in Christ.

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters,” Paul wrote, “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.” These are the very first words in this letter after its pro forma opening lines. The reports of division in the Corinthian church were likely Paul's most pressing reason for writing. He wanted the Corinthians to heal those divisions and right now. He knew the damage division can do if unchecked. And Paul knew how to help them heal those divisions: by appealing to the name of Christ. Church, find your unity in Christ.

Paul dove into specifics. He named his source: Chloe's people. None of the usual, “Well, a lot of people say,” or, “Somebody told me,” but a lawyer's precise citation of a credible witness: people from the house of a leading member of the church. Paul made a specific indictment. At least two, if not four, factions had arisen in the Corinthian church. They had even named themselves after Paul, Apollos, Cephas (or Peter) and Christ. Paul did not yet list the issues in question. He did not seem to care nearly so much about them as he did about the fact that the church had divided. He kept his eye on the big picture, the big threat: division.

Cut it out, Paul wrote. Quit saying, “I belong to Paul,” or, “I belong to Apollos,” as though any Christian should want to belong to another. No, we all belong to Christ. Paul even dissed his own preaching in order to keep the focus on Jesus: “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.” Okay, I baptized a few of you, Paul wrote. I cannot even remember how many or whom. That's how unimportant getting baptized by me really is. No, my purpose was to introduce you to Christ, to evangelize you. I accomplished this by preaching...badly. I preached without eloquence, without wisdom, so you would not worship me but worship Jesus Christ. He is the point. He is our purpose. He is our center. He is our wisdom. He is our hope. He is our unity.

Perhaps a few of you might wonder why I have chosen to preach on this passage. Does the NLCC have divisions? Do I perceive the need to tell my congregation to cut it out? No. While we have disagreements we do not, so far as I know, face the kind of division Paul feared in his beloved Corinthian church. I preach on this passage today because I have started preaching through First Corinthians and this is the first important preaching point in it. Church, find your unity in Christ.

Start with Christ. Know Him. Happily, I know a method for coming to know Christ that also creates togetherness in the church: attending Sunday School. But we have a perplexing situation on our hands around here. We have without question one of the most gifted, dedicated groups of teachers it has ever been my pleasure to serve alongside. Yet most of our children do not attend Sunday School. I get it. Families feel stretched. Six days a week they force themselves out into the world earlier than they (especially the children) would like. Saturdays have become the new weekday: a day for scrambling around, doing errands, playing sports, and generally not staying home. Now here comes Sunday. Oh blessed chance to sleep in! But I have a question. Before I ask it, please understand that I know some folks cannot control some of their Saturday commitments. But I feel this is a fair question: What do you truly value? If you are not sure, would your decisions on how you use your family's time guide you to an answer? What we offer at Sunday School makes many of the things we think are important pale in comparison. If you can, work ahead, plan ahead, and attend Sunday School. It promotes fellowship and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

But once we know Christ we still must work to find our unity in Him. This means working to imitate His mercy. We must practice forgiveness. Any church worth its salt tries new ministries and makes changes in old ones. This can create conflict. How will we handle that conflict?

The business world abounds with conflict resolution resources. People even make very good livings as mediators. They emphasize listening, communication, observing boundaries in relationships, and the like. This is all good stuff. Here at church we most certainly ought to listen, communicate and behave appropriately toward others at all times. But adhering to these practices without grounding them in the love of Christ creates a kind of donut: it has a sweet outer ring but completely misses the center. I know churches that get along famously but have little Spirit. They are hard to distinguish from country or service clubs. The Apostle Paul loved Christ, and Christ’s church, enough to insist on the whole pastry. Treat one another well, he wrote, and do everything in the name and through the power of Jesus Christ.

I served as an intern at a church that had a division between those who liked the pastor, and those who thought he was too passive. The two groups “solved” their conflict by creating parallel church lives. They attended separate Sunday School classes, sat across the center aisle from each other in worship, did not attend the same picnics or mission projects. But in his quiet yet spiritually powerful way, that pastor tirelessly worked to resolve that conflict. He prayed long and hard to love those who did not love him. (I heard more than one of those prayers at staff meetings.) He visited people and listened to their grievances, face-to-face. Through him the Holy Spirit healed that church during the time we spent there.

Church, find unity in Christ. Come to know Him. Imitate Him. Forgive one another. Minister in His name—through ministries new and old. Focus on Him and everything else will tend to work itself out. Church, find unity in Christ.