1 Co 1:1-9

20 January 2008

“Called to be Partners”

            I ended my sermon last week with a preview of this week.  I said that, according to Paul, we’re called to be partners with Jesus, and I posed this question:  “What does it mean to have Jesus as your partner?”  What would it look like to enter into partnership with him?

            In his new book, unChristian, David Kinnaman of the Barna Group reports on research that suggests too few Christians have entered into a partnership with Jesus.  (In case you didn’t know, the Barna Group is an organization that, among other things, conducts studies on topics of interest to the church.)

            The result of a three-year survey of people outside the church, aged sixteen to twenty-nine, is eye opening.   According to the study, “here are the percentages of people outside the church who think that the following words describe present-day Christianity:  antihomosexual 91%, judgmental 87%, hypocritical 85%, old-fashioned 78%, too political 75%, out of touch with reality 72%, insensitive to others 70%, boring 68%.”[1]

            We may or may not see ourselves that way, but we should ask ourselves why so many of these young people view the church in such a negative way.  Admittedly, some of it is due to portrayals on TV and in film.  But I think too many Christians are partners with our own ideas, our own possessions, our own way of doing things.  There’s too little interest in being a partner with Jesus.  But let’s look at what the apostle Paul says about it in his dealings with the church in Corinth.

            Our epistle reading is the introduction to what we call Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  But it’s not the introduction to all of his correspondence with them.  I’ll explain what that means.

            He previously writes at least one letter to them, but it hasn’t survived.  Paul refers to it in 5:9.  Then we have the letter we know as 1 Corinthians.  Afterwards, a crisis erupts, and Paul makes a brief, stern visit to the church, and he says he will return.  Instead, he sends a delegate, who gets treated in a rude manner.

It’s then that he writes what’s sometimes called the “painful” or “tearful” letter.  He talks about it in 2 Corinthians 7.  Finally, we have the letter we know as 2 Corinthians, which some people think is actually a combination of two or three different letters.

            I mention all this to give you a little glimpse at how Paul’s experiences with the church in Corinth have been chronicled.  I think it’s safe to say that his relationship with them could be called “interesting.”  At times, things become rather stormy; they get quite tempestuous.

            Part of the problem is due to the nature of Corinth itself.  The city is positioned at a key crossroads of trade in the Roman Empire.  It’s at the narrow strip of land connecting most of Greece with the southern region known as Peloponnesus.  Its location makes it a good seaport, and the city is known for its wealth.  Corinth is a population center, with people constantly coming and going.

            And obviously, those people who are constantly coming and going bring with them cultural practices and religious and philosophical ideas from around the empire.  Last week I mentioned this quote:  “Our baptism calls us to question everything, to hold up everything we do to the light of Christ’s teachings”—to the light of Christ himself.[2]  That can get especially tricky in a place like Corinth.  Read 1 Corinthians, and you’ll see some of the issues that spring up.

            Maybe you can see why it would be hard for the church to decide just what they’re all about.  And maybe you can see why Paul would get so much flak.  (Not that it’s a one-way street.  Paul admits some weaknesses of his own.)

            Among the readings for this past week in the Rule of Benedict are some that deal with qualities of the abbot or prioress.  (Just so you know:  the abbot and prioress are leaders of male and female monasteries, respectively.)  You can see the Rule of Benedict, along with Sister Joan Chittister’s commentary, at the website of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie.

            “The prioress and abbot…must know what a difficult and demanding burden they have undertaken:  directing souls and serving a variety of temperaments, coaxing, reproving, and encouraging them as appropriate.”

Chittister comments on this quote from the Rule.  “It is not easy for honest people who hold their own failures in their praying hands to question behavior in anyone else.  ‘There but for the grace of God, go I,’ John Bradford said at the sight of the condemned on their way to execution.

“Aware of what I myself am capable of doing, how can I possibly censure or disparage or reprimand or reproach anyone else?  On the other hand, Benedict reminds us, how can those who know that conversion is possible, who have been called to midwife the spiritual life, for this generation and the next, do [any] less?”[3]

This is where my comment about the weaknesses of Paul comes into play.  Fierce criticism is leveled at him.  It’s likely that not only is his personality and his leadership style called into question, but it seems that Paul has some physical disfigurement, maybe even a speech impediment.  You can see references to that in 2 Corinthians and Galatians.  I know this is hard to believe, but sometimes we make judgment based on outward appearances!

Chittister makes a comment on weakness.  “Once chosen, it is their weakness itself that becomes the anchor, the insight, the humility, and the gift of an abbot or prioress, a pope or a priest, a parent or a director.  But only if they themselves embrace it.”  We must admit our weaknesses; we have to recognize them.  Running from them, denying them, does no good.

“It is a lesson for leaders everywhere who either fear to lead, because they know their own weaknesses, or who lead defensively, because they fear that others know their weaknesses.  It is a lesson for parents who remember their own troubles as children.  It is a lesson for husbands and wives who cannot own the weaknesses that plague their marriage.”

She sums it up, “We must each strive for the ideal, and we must encourage others to strive with us, not because we ourselves are not weak, but because knowing our own weaknesses and admitting them, we can with great confidence teach trust in the God who watches with patience our puny efforts and our foolish failures.”[4]

That’s how Paul can say in 2 Corinthians 12, “Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (v. 10).  And that’s also how he can introduce himself as “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” (v. 1).

The word “apostle” literally means “one who is sent.”  Paul is confident that he has been sent by God in the name of Jesus Christ.  God has called him—in his weakness and his strength.  God calls us in the same way—in our weakness and our strength.

When Sister Joan says we must embrace our weakness, that’s not a statement of resignation.  It’s not a statement of surrendering to weakness.  It’s a question of knowing who we are, and it’s a question of helping others to know who they are.  And that’s precisely what Paul immediately does with regard to the Corinthians.

Look at how he begins in verse 4:  “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus.”  As we go through his introduction, we can almost feel the momentum building until we reach the high point in verse 9:  “God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

I like the way it appears in the New Jerusalem Bible.  “I am continually thanking God about you.”  “You are not lacking in any gift as you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.”  Friends, we have what we need!  “He will continue to give you strength till the very end.”  We will continue to receive what we need!  And again, the finale:  “You can rely on God, who has called you to be partners with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (vv. 4, 7-9).

The word translated here as “partners,” and as “fellowship” in the NRSV, is the Greek word koinwnia (koinōnia).  It’s often translated as “communion.”

            Paul isn’t trying to flatter them.  He’s letting them know that calling—that vocation—isn’t about ourselves as individuals.  If you want to succeed in American culture, then yes, it’s very much about you as an individual.  But if we’re talking about the church, then it’s the community of Christ.

            I was just quoting someone who’s a forty-five minute drive from here.  We aren’t a monastic community, but we are a koinwnia.  We make promises every week.  We make promises to God, and we make promises to each other.  We do this every week in worship.  I hope we pay attention to the elements of worship.  In the prayers we pray, in the songs we sing, in the sacraments we celebrate, in the offerings we bring—we bind ourselves to God and to each other.

            Being able to rely on God means being able to rely on each other.  That sounds easy; it sounds like no big deal, but it is revolutionary stuff.

            That seems to be an especially appropriate note to end on.  It’s appropriate, considering that we’ll be electing officers of the church, and that tomorrow is set aside in remembrance of Martin Luther King, Jr.  All of us are called by God, in both our weakness and our strength.

back to home page