January 26, 2020
Hope Lutheran Church
Rev. Mary Erickson
1 Cor. 1:10-18; Matt. 4:12-23
We’ve All Been Caught in the Same Net
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
If one thing marks our current culture, I think many people would say that it’s division. We’ve become increasingly tribalized. And we can factionalize in so many different categories.
- Religiously, we divide ourselves between Protestant and Catholic. Within Lutheranism, we divide between our many synods. Our brothers and sisters in the United Methodist Church are currently undergoing a potential division of their church body.
- Politically, we’ve created fierce divisions between our two political parties. We label the people we meet as either red or blue. People exclusively watch specific news sources and distrust all other viewpoints.
- Socioeconomically, we divide ourselves into differing camps. There’s increasing discrepancy between rich and poor. There’s distrust between people living in rural, middle America and those in urban, coastal regions.
There’s nothing new about this. Human instincts have always gathered us into differing camps. The early church in Corinth suffered from it, too.
St. Paul addressed these polarizations in the passage we heard today from 1 Corinthians. Paul had been the initial Christian evangelist in Corinth. He travelled there during his second missionary journey. Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half. Soon after he departed, a Christian evangelist named Apollos arrived in Corinth. Apollos was a gifted orator and he preached with strong conviction.
Paul now receives news that the Corinthian church is breaking into factions. They’re creating loyalty camps. Some of them identify with Paul. Others circle around Apollos and others even around Peter. Paul is horrified. This cult of personality is not what the church of Jesus Christ is about!
As we read further into his letter, we find there are other divisions, too. Some people in the Corinthian church have received the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues. These individuals sense that they’ve been blessed more greatly than those who don’t speak in tongues. And they feel superior about it. There’s a growing hierarchy of holiness.
But there’s even more division going on in this beleaguered faith community! The believers in Corinth come from varying economic levels. Some of them are from the wealthy, gentrified class. They live off the earnings of their estate and so they don’t have to work. But others come from the laboring class or are slaves. They put in long, hard days at work.
The early church met in house churches. They didn’t have dedicated church buildings like we do. When the church community gathered, they started with a potluck dinner. They called it an Agape Feast. They brought their food and beverages along to share. But the wealthy, gentrified people didn’t want to share their fine food and wine with the poorer people who came after a long day of work. The food and wine they brought was inferior. So the rich people made it a point to come a little early. They ate and drank quickly so that their food was gone before the working people joined the fellowship. The poor church members were left to share their crumbs with one another.
This Corinthian church was broken in so many ways! Talk about a fractured community! Paul addresses their brokenness in the opening verses of his letter. “Has Christ been divided? Paul makes it known that we are united in Christ. Christ is what binds us together, and Christ alone.
The image of a ship has long been used to illustrate the church of Christ. We are all in this same boat called faith. We’re in this community together. But what tempests can assail us! There are fierce forces buffeting against our small ship. They’re doing their best to tear our vessel apart!
When I was in seminary back in the mid-1980’s, a classmate of mine came from Austin, Minnesota. Nowadays, Austin is best known for the Spam Museum. Travelling along Interstate 90, the billboards will alert you about this not-to-be-missed tourist attraction!
Austin is the world headquarters of Hormel Foods. George Hormel moved to Austin in the late 1800s. He borrowed $500 from someone and started his meat business in 1891. From such humble beginnings has come this global corporation.
During my time at seminary, the workers at the Hormel plant in Austin went on strike. This strike would become known as the worst labor strike in Minnesota history. It lasted 10 months. 1500 meat workers went on strike.
When the company brought in non-union workers, it was like throwing gasoline on a fire. The National Guard was called in to monitor the situation. At its worst point, a riot broke out. Law enforcement found it necessary to use tear gas to maintain order.
It was bad! But my seminary classmate added a clearer perspective. This strike was bigger than just Hormel. It was affecting a community. Many of these people involved in the strike attended congregations within Austin. All week long they fought and argued on either side of the negotiation table. But on Sundays, they headed to their houses of worship.
The air on Sunday morning was so tense you could cut it with a knife! On Monday through Friday they were labor and management. They were strikers and scabs. But on Sunday morning, they found themselves sitting side by side in their houses of worship. They handed out bulletins to one another. They served each other communion. It was tense.
This was an extreme situation. There are stormy tempests fighting against Christ’s church! How does the church endure such storms? How do we survive? What pulls us through the seas and to the safe harbor on the other side?
Only one thing. When Paul reasoned with the Corinthians, he nailed it. He asks them three rhetorical questions. The answer to each question is no.
Has Christ been divided? No.
Was Paul crucified for you? No.
Were you baptized in the name of Paul? No.
No, Christ has not been divided. And Christ is the one who was crucified for us.
For Paul, our healing and our salvation is found in the cross of Christ. Jesus’ actions on the cross bridge the gap of our ills. His life-giving actions show us that nothing can separate us from the love of God. For love is of God, and God’s love is stronger than death.
Christ crucified unites us with God. And his cross also has the power to unite our broken humanity. In his cross we’re able to see where it is that we really stand. And that’s at the foot of the cross. We all stand at the foot of his cross. From there, we’re alike. We’re all the recipients of this amazing, divine love.
We see that the one who is our foe,
- the one with whom we have animosity,
- this one whose views we cannot understand,
- this one is Christ’s beloved.
Beginning with Peter and Andrew, the church of Christ has been called to be fishers of people. Paul and Apollos both fished the waters of Corinth. Both of them worked the nets. And together they made a great haul. We, too, have been caught in that net. We’ve all been hauled ashore in Christ’s great, encompassing love! We’ve all been marked with the cross of Christ.
The cross of Christ has the power to break the dividing walls of hostility. But crosses are about laying down. Crosses demand dying. Something dies, something is extinguished in a cross. As his disciples, Christ asks us to pick up our own crosses and follow him. And where there’s a cross, there will also be some kind of death. Something dies.
What is it? Our anger? Our animosity? Is it resentment? A long brooding feud? Are we asked to lay down our prejudice? Hatred for our foe?
We hand it over to the one whose resurrected hands still bear the scars of crucifixion. Whatever it is, we hand it over to our Lord. He is our unity. His cross is the way of peace. It makes all things new.
