a sermon on 1 Corinthians 3:1-9
And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul’, and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’, are you not merely human?
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. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.
One of my seminary professors, Rodger Nishioka, would begin several of his Christian Education classes with a quiz. This quiz was based on a Gallup poll, I believe, from the late 1990s or early 2000s.
One of the questions on the quiz was “What is the biggest fear young people reported having?” The answer might or might not surprise you: entering the school lunchroom and having no place to, no friend to sit with.
I am not sure if that is still the biggest fear young people face today but I do think the need that fear underscores is one that is pretty basic to all of us—no matter our age.
The need is for belonging.
Belonging fills a need for community. It enables us to be a part of something that is bigger than ourselves, and to gather with others who share values and interests similar to our own.
Belonging also give us a sense of identity. Saying that we belong to a certain family, or that we are students at a certain school, or that we play or cheer for a certain team tells others who we are, where we come from, and what things we can be expected to do.
This church is a great example of that. I’ve said before that one of the things I have appreciated about Southminster already is that you know what it means to be Presbyterian.
To say one belongs to the Presbyterian church, means more or less that we believe in certain things: the sovereignty of God, the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the primacy of grace; and that we respond to God in certain ways: by giving thanks, by caring for others, by being good stewards of creation.
Belonging is something the church in Corinth though, is struggling with. In the passage we heard from chapter 3 of Paul’s letter, Paul is continuing an argument begun in Chapter 1, answering people who claim to belong to certain theological camps. Some say they belong to Paul, others to another teacher named Apollos.
This is something like us today saying we belong to the Republican or Democratic party, or to the camp of liberal or conservative, or even closer to home, Alabama or Auburn.
The problem with the Corinthian church though is that these camps they say they belong to have become fixed; they’ve come to be defined as much by who they exclude as who they include. They’ve become huddled masses of us vs. them. Perhaps that’s happened to some of the groups we belong to from time to time as well.
When that happens belonging really isn’t belonging any more. It becomes idolatry.
It’s idolatry because what we are really saying is that who we are is not defined by God but by the expectations and customs of one group.
It’s idolatry because it treats the image of God in others and ourselves as secondary to what the group thinks is worthy and valuable.
It’s idolatry because it claims that what really matters is the way we look, or act, rather than how God looks at us, how God acts for us.
Paul, thinks such claims are nonsense. “Who is Paul?” He says. “Who is Apollos?” Certainly not the be all and end all themselves. They are rather servants of the one to whom we all belong.
To say otherwise about Paul, or Apollos, or any group we may belong is to miss the point entirely of our existence, to tell a lie instead of the truth about who we really are.
And the truth about who the church of Corinth was then-and who we are today is this: they are, you are, we are children of God.
Not by our own doing, but by God’s grace.
We are children of God and God uses us to be part of something far greater than we can imagine. God plants us as a field, God crafts us as a building, Paul writes, God makes us—as different as we each are–Christ’s body at work in the world so that we may proclaim that God’s love known in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is for all.
Everyone belongs, because God says we belong.
Of course this may seem like foolishness to much of the world, and Paul says as much elsewhere, and perhaps that’s because the world, in all of the ways it wants us to belong, doesn’t really demand of us as much as belonging to Christ demands of us.
Belonging only to Apollos or to Paul or to this team, or that political party or that theological position means you only have to look out for those who are wearing your same uniform, who are going for the same prize you are, who will always say “yes” to your ideas, who will always make you feel safe and secure that your position is the right one to have.
But to belong to Christ and to follow the message of the cross demands that we trust in God above anything else, we trust that to God belongs the ultimate powers of salvation and of growth, and that God means for everyone to enjoy those blessings.
To belong to each other through Christ means that we have to put aside jealousy and quarreling and take up instead the challenging tasks of breaking down walls of exclusion, of going outside our comfort zones, of struggling together with those who feel and believe and act differently than we do, of recognizing the mark of Christ in even those we consider strange, lost, or less than.
That’s a good lesson for us to remember, for just like the church of Corinth we can experience conflict in our life together. We can disagree about decisions that need to be made, and can be tempted to huddle in like minded groups in an us vs. them mentality
Our challenge is to lean on Gods grace and resist that temptation, proclaiming the truth rather than being swallowed by the lie.
There is a practice I have found helpful in remembering and proclaiming that truth of our belonging—and I’d like to share it with you.
It’s to always answer the question “Who are you?” with the phrase “I am a child of God.”
In my ministry with children and youth at camps and conferences, with confirmation classes and even with adults in Sunday school and on retreats, I have even used that question and answer as an impromptu liturgical response. I ask: Who are You? And the answers come shouting back: “I am a Child of God.”
I’ll be asking just that question of all of you during the benediction.
It’s simple maybe, and perhaps a bit cheesy and I know that some of the people I have had the privilege of growing in faith with have rolled their eyes at it.
But it’s one of the best way I can think of remember who I am—who we are, and how we belong to God and to each other. And besides–it’s the truth. We are children of God.
Thanks be to God. Amen.