Allegiance

Epiphany 3A, 1/26/14
1 Corinthians 1:10-18

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Oh, sometimes these Bible readings just hit so close to home.

The reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is one that could have been written to us, the members of Cooksville Lutheran Church.

For it has been reported to me that there are quarrels among you,

my brothers and sisters.

Paul laments the fact that people are claiming allegiance to one person’s camp or another within the church that he had established in Corinth. People were dividing themselves into competing subgroups. That’s not what church is supposed to be about, Paul says. Church is about discipleship… and that’s something we all share in common.

Let me tell you about a little project I’ve been working on for the past several months. Some of you have already heard about this project – actually, a couple of you have helped me with it.

I have a file on my computer for the genealogy of Cooksville Lutheran Church.

It has come in handy a few times – like when Lois called and asked me to do the burial for her husband Jerome in our cemetery, and I needed to figure out how she was related to the members of this congregation. I wanted to know who of you all had known Jerome, or had been related to him. I needed to know where Lois fit into the family tree, so that I could provide better pastoral care to her and to the rest of you after his death.

My Cooksville family tree spreadsheet has pages for the Haakensons, Hatlens, Julseths, Brunsells, and Ericksons – so far. There is a lot of overlap between the pages. Actually, I started with the Haakensons, and once another name in the congregation came up in the tree, I just started a new page for that family.

It has been helpful to me to realize how many long-time members are related to one another, and to people who are buried in the cemetery out back.

It has also been enjoyable to learn about all the interconnected families here at Cooksville. Your stories are interesting to me. In my family, I can name every single person in the world who shares my last name – at least, every single person who spells it the same way that I do. I can’t really trace down long-lost relatives of my own, so it’s fascinating to me to learn about the relationships that exist between everyone here. 

Anyway, as I’ve been learning about the interrelatedness of the Cooksville community, I’ve realized – the small town connections we share here are not that different from the make-up of early church communities.

The communities in the earliest days of Christianity – churches like the one at Corinth – were made up of households, of parents and children and grandparents and cousins, who all brought their loved ones into the fold in order to help grow the church. Probably some neighbors and friends were invited in, and the families ended up intermarrying, and inviting in other relatives from the in-laws’ side.

We    are similar    to the church that Paul was writing to in our second lesson today. And that helps to drive home his point. Can you imagine what would happen if we tried to divide ourselves along family lines, like the church in Corinth did?

I belong to the Julseths!

I belong to the Hatlens!

I belong to the Hakkensons!

I belong to Christ!

Now, that last one is really the only claim that matters in the church.

All those other divisions along family lines are ridiculous. They’re not even really enforceable, with all the intermarrying that has happened between families in our community.

And when we talk about divisions that way, we realize just how ridiculous they are.

Obviously, what’s most important is that we belong to Christ.

Ultimately, our community is united because we share a common mission, and because we all follow Jesus.

We realize how out of line the church in Corinth was, dividing themselves into competing camps based on who baptized which family – knowing, of course, that in these early days of the church, the head of household probably baptized his own family. The Corinthians were creating factions along family lines.

But just like we can’t untangle the interwoven branches of our family tree, the church can’t be divided into unrelated subgroups. We will always be connected to one another.

Realistically, though, our community of Cooksville Lutheran Church is often not united around following Christ.

We let our squabbles get in the way of our mission.

We frequently spend more time focused on the details of how our work is done, than on what the work is to begin with, or on who it is that we minister with or to.

Our divisions are much more nuanced than who belongs to which family, or who follows which leader. We can be just as divided as the church in Corinth, but we define those categories in different terms, and we tend to couch our divisions in the language of church work.

I believe that we should serve Communion differently.

I believe that money should be a private matter.

I know the best way to run the Fall Festival.

I think Sunday School should be done differently.

I believe that long-term members’ opinions should be given the most weight.

You get the picture.

All these opinions are expressed in good faith. I know they are. Everyone here cares so much about so many things in the church.

These beliefs and insights about how to do ministry are made with the best of intentions. But when we let differences of opinion separate us from our common mission, then we have become distracted from serving God and others. We have let our selves get in the way of our mission.

Has Christ been divided?

As long as we allow divisions to define who we are as a member of this church, we do not allow our identity in Christ to shine through.

Jesus has given the church a very simple mission:

Love God, and love your neighbor.

Simple, right?

Not always easy. It can be really hard to keep God at the forefront of our lives, and it can be extremely difficult to love your neighbor when they drive you up the wall.

But it’s a simple mission, anyway. Easy to understand.

Love God, and love your neighbor.

Or to state it even more simply, in the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson, follow me.

Believe what you want about Communion or Sunday School or the Fall Festival… what Jesus really wants is for us to follow him.

Some of you have heard me try to explain this before.

Let’s take Communion, for example.

What matters about Communion is not what is served or how it is served, but whether the body and blood of Christ are served to the people of God.

Are there ways that I prefer to celebrate and to serve Communion? Sure there are. Are some of those ways things that would never fly at Cooksville? You bet. Are some of the ways we do things ways that I would rather not? Yeah, they are. But is the mission being met? Is the body and blood of Christ being served to the people of God?

Yes, it is. Every week, through the efforts of altar guild and Communion servers and ushers and the people who do the scheduling and the people who help others to come forward even when they have difficulty walking – every week, the body and blood of Christ are made available to the people of God.

If the bread makes someone sick, or the wine causes someone to lose control over their impulses, then we’re not serving the body and blood of Christ appropriately.

But with options for bread that can be accessible to all, and with options for wine or grape juice that can fit the theological and devotional and physical needs of all our people, everyone here is able to receive the body and blood of Christ. And ultimately, that’s what the sacrament is all about. Whether it’s at the rail or standing, by intinction or drinking out of those little cups, it’s a sacrament that offers us grace and forgiveness and unity as the people of God.

That’s Communion.

Can we expand that line of thinking into the entire ministry of the church?

There’s that saying that was popular a few years back – what would Jesus do? That line showed up on bracelets and bumper stickers and in everyday conversation.

But that’s not actually the question of the church, when it comes down to it. The issue is not, what would Jesus do, but rather, what would Jesus have us do?

None of us is supposed to be Jesus – thank God! The role of dying for the sins of all humanity has already been taken. That’s not our work.

But the savior who died for our sins does have some pretty emphatic instructions on how we ought to live our lives, and specifically, on how we ought to live our lives in community.

Follow Jesus.

Love God and love your neighbor.

Don’t let little disagreements split the church.

Has Christ been divided?

I sincerely hope not.

And if not, then, we should be able to put our differences aside and work on mission – on furthering the kingdom of God – we can fish for people, like Andrew and Simon and James and John did – and not focus on our own internal squabbles. We can be united around our calling as the people of God, rather than divided by arguments and differences of opinion.

What would Jesus have us do? Surely, our purpose is not to quarrel with one another. We belong to Christ. So please, folks of Cooksville Lutheran Church – Haakensons and Julseths, Hatlens and Brunsells, life-long members and newcomers – please, let’s put aside our differences and work to further the kingdom of God.

Amen.