Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to comm.church for more information.
Speaker 2:Today, we start a new short series about making good choices. We're gonna look at the book of first Corinthians for the next four weeks. After that, we will jump to Exodus and look at the story of Moses, which will take us right through to the summer. But before we jump in today, let's look back quickly at the season of Lent and Holy Week that we just came through. Because if you can remember all the way back to Ash Wednesday, we started the journey toward Easter with the book of glory.
Speaker 2:Now remember that is the name that some theologians give to the second half of the Gospel of John. And there Jesus gathers his friends for a final meal. He washes their feet in a symbol of what he sees what it means to lead, and then he sets out in a fairly extended teaching to try to reframe the disciples' imagination of glory. And it's sort of important to see this in the whole context here. John 12 is Palm Sunday where the crowds crush in to see Jesus and proclaim him their new king.
Speaker 2:In fact, they are loading up that moment with a lot of political rhetoric. Now perhaps in an attempt to spur a conflict between Jesus and the Roman authorities. But Jesus rejects all of that and chooses instead to enter the city on a donkey of peace. And that donkey symbolizes an end to war rather than a start. However, the disciples, like us, still seem even after that whole donkey moment to miss God's glory in the world.
Speaker 2:And so Jesus begins bit by bit and piece by piece to dismantle our misconceptions. He talks about way and truth and life and how those concepts are embodied in his life and teaching. Talks about vines and branches and how we are all of us more connected to the divine than we imagine at times. Talks about gift and spirit and all the ways that God is seen. God's glory is made real in the way we give ourselves away to each other.
Speaker 2:And, all of this is of course preparation for Good Friday where all of our expectations of glory are finally turned upside down. Divine glory is not that God could crush us on a whim. That's what we think power and glory look like. Now, the glory of God is that God gives God's self away. See, God knows the open secret of the universe, that death is not the end, that everything good returns, that resurrection is all around us all the time just waiting to be discovered.
Speaker 2:And so, on Easter morning, the glory of God's self giving on Good Friday becomes the good gift of God's generous invitation in resurrection. Not only to see resurrection for ourselves, but to participate in this new world inaugurated by Christ. Christ is risen and not one dead shall remain. What is left now is all the work of repair that we have been invited to join in on. And so now, in light of this Easter story, we want to turn our attention to some of the good choices that we can make about how we can lend a hand to God's kingdom and repair in the world.
Speaker 2:First though, let's pray. God of resurrection, life returned and hope renewed, God of open arms and big dreams, would you help us to grasp just how significant your love for us and your world truly is As we speak today, and being involved in your kingdom through our choices and our trajectories, might our dreams slowly come from being immersed in your story. Might they be the kind that pull us into the future you hope for us. The kind that invite us to become the people you created us to be. So, where our priorities need to be flexed or maybe fixed or perhaps even completely reinvented, where we have ideas for ourselves, goals and aspirations that need to be reoriented around love.
Speaker 2:Would you grant us wisdom that inspires us to see what is truly possible in you through you? Lord of life, do more than resuscitate us, bring us back to the story that we had already been living. Instead, bring us into something profoundly new and beautiful and true. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.
Speaker 2:Okay. New season, new series. And as I mentioned earlier, we are in first Corinthians for the next four weeks. However, first Corinthians is a pretty long letter. This is a fairly short series.
Speaker 2:So what we're going to be doing is looking at the theme of making good choices and decision making in this letter. We are not going to do a verse by verse look like we did with Romans a few years ago. It may be fun to come back and to try that with the Corinthian letters some point, but this year it's all about making good choices. And it seems like a good choice to start at the start. So let's read a few verses here.
Speaker 2:We're gonna jump through the first chapter today so that we can get the flow of what Paul is setting up. And to do that, we're gonna talk about co authors and quarrels and camps and community, but this is what we read in verse one. Paul called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and from our brother, Sosthenes. Now, let's stop here already. I promise we will get a little bit farther than this today, but who is Sosthenes?
Speaker 2:Quick answer, we don't know. Long answer, you ever watch a movie with your mom? I have. And granted, it's been a long time because I'm a grown man and I unfortunately live on the other side of the country from my mom, but when I was able to. My mom was famous for two things in our family when it came to watching a movie.
Speaker 2:First, reading any subtitle that would ever come on the screen out loud. So, you know, like when they put the setting on the screen so you know what's going on? Prague 1946. My mom would read that out loud. She didn't anyone want to miss it.
Speaker 2:Second though, was coming in late and then asking questions of everyone to catch up on what was going on. Right? Like, who's that and why is she doing this? And are those the bad guys? Well, that's kind of what most of us are left doing here in first Corinthians.
Speaker 2:It's actually a very odd thing in antiquity to see letters addressed this way. Really, the only other famous ancient example we have of anyone doing this is a single letter from Cicero. Paul though does it a lot. Eight times in the New Testament, he sends a letter from himself and at least one other co author. So what should we make of this?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, we should remind ourselves we are coming in late. It's always a good thing to keep in mind whenever you read a letter from Paul. The Gospels are set in a world that we don't really know, and therefore it takes some study and research to understand them properly, but they are still written for a broad audience. They are meant for you and I to come in knowing nothing of Jesus and then discover him as we read. Paul's letters on the other hand are very different.
Speaker 2:They are written for specific communities, in specific moments in history. When Paul was writing he had no concept of the way his letters would be preserved and copied and passed on and then eventually canonized. That's not a problem for us, it just means that we have to keep in mind that we are coming in late when we're reading Paul, and he's not always going to give us any backstory. In fact, Sosthenes is so enigmatic that he gets a co author credit in our bible, and we have no real solid idea who he is. Now, there is a Jewish leader in charge of a synagogue in Corinth who is mentioned in Luke 18 and who is named Sosthenes.
Speaker 2:So it's possible, actually probable, that this man becomes a follower of Jesus and starts traveling with Paul. Remember, of course, Paul is not in Corinth right now. He's actually in Ephesus when he writes this letter to the Corinthians. But if this Sosthenes is that Sosthenes, that would explain why Paul just assumes the community here in Corinth would know who he is. Still, it does bring up a bigger point.
Speaker 2:Paul opens the letter by appealing to his apostleship. Now, apostle is technically just a word that means messenger, but it can also carry the weight of being a delegate or a messenger, a representative on behalf of someone. Paul is using it that way and he is implying that he has some kind of special authority to speak on behalf of Jesus and to start essentially ecclesia or churches that will follow Jesus. And he appeals to that authority because as we're going to see throughout the series, this church is actually questioning whether Paul really deserves that title. But what's fascinating here is that Paul will claim the title for himself and then unlike anyone else in antiquity, he will constantly, consistently refuse to allow the title to stand on its own.
Speaker 2:Here, even sharing credit for what he writes with someone who, I mean, largely disappeared from history. There are 13 letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament. Some of those are likely pseudo epigraphal, but regardless, in the majority of them, eight times his title is not enough for him. Instead, he appeals to the shared communal leadership of community, those who lead with him, those who speak through him, those who journey alongside him, those who offer their credibility to him. And, that seems important to me.
Speaker 2:Like, I know that Paul can seem arrogant at times, he sees his encounter with the risen Christ on the same level as those who walked and talked with Jesus, and sometimes that makes him a little bit defensive. Still, I don't think we should miss the fact that Paul does not see authority or leadership vested in individuals. He sees those ideas as the product of a community. And, we have to be careful with this. This person trusts me, therefore, you have to trust me.
Speaker 2:That's manipulative. And, we should run away from anything that smells like that. I mean, I wrote a book last year and I found out that endorsements are a really big and a really weird part of publishing, but this is not Paul using soothe the knees for clout. This is Paul modeling something for us. None of us, not even those of us who like to throw around titles like apostle and pastor, none of us stand on our own.
Speaker 2:We are all of us the product of community. So it's Paul and Timothy. It's Paul and Silas. It's Paul and Sosthenes. I think one of the spiritual disciplines all of us could benefit from is learning to always add an and to the end of our names anytime we are ever tempted to take credit for anything.
Speaker 2:None of us have ever done anything on our own, we are all of us the product of the people around us. Now, know I've only gotten one verse into this letter so far, but I promise this is not just me running off on a sidetrack here because I actually think this is central to the opening chapter of first Corinthians. Because after introducing himself and so is the knees, Paul is now going to transition into his first major argument, and the posture is going to be important throughout the rest of the letter. So let's jump to verse 10 here. This is still in chapter one.
Speaker 2:This is where he starts to lay things out what's going on in Corinth. I appeal to you brothers and sisters in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree with one another in what you say. And that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. Hold on to this. We're gonna come back to it.
Speaker 2:This tension between division and unity here. But, my brothers and sisters, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. Again, quick note here, notice how personal this letter is. Right? He just name drops Chloe because he knows we all know Chloe.
Speaker 2:She's a real one. Am I right? But this is what I mean. Of you says I follow Paul and another I follow Apollos. Another I follow Cephas and still another I follow Christ.
Speaker 2:Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say they were baptized in my name. Although, actually, yes, I did baptize the household of Stephanus, but beyond that, I don't remember baptizing anyone else.
Speaker 2:And come on, that is just pretty cool to read. Right? Like Paul doesn't have a word processor here. He's thinking on the fly, so he's editing as he goes, throwing in some footnotes and caveats along the way. I love that, but then he ends with this.
Speaker 2:For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach good news, not with wisdom or with eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. So, well, what's going on here? First of all, there is conflict in Corinth. People are starting to line up behind these different teachers, and that's creating tension that Paul wants to address in the community before he gets into the meat of his letter. And remember, this is verse 10.
Speaker 2:This is Paul basically in his opening gambit here and already he goes straight for the juggler. This is not a guy who likes to chitchat about the weather. I still remember being at a dinner once with some people I hadn't met, and I was introduced to someone sitting at the table. And this guy asked me, what do you do? And I said, I'm a minister.
Speaker 2:And he said, mean like a priest? Like you've never had sex before? And I was like, that's a very bold opening, but sure, let's talk about our sex lives, Chad. The names have been changed to protect the innocent here, but like Chad, Paul is not wasting his time. This is important to him.
Speaker 2:He's going straight for it. But here's the thing, it's tough to talk openly when there is unresolved tension hanging in the air. Right? I'm not saying that you always have to jump straight to the hard stuff in every conversation, but I do think there is something to be said for not avoiding the hard stuff either. Sometimes what happens is we are trying to have our conversations out of order because we're afraid of the one that we really need to get to.
Speaker 2:And rarely does that work out well for any of us. Now, I'm certainly not suggesting we all need to be like Paul. My goodness, no one wants that. But we do need people in our lives who will cut to the chase when it matters. We need to do that for ourselves sometimes.
Speaker 2:And so sometimes it's good to have a little Paul in the back pocket. So what is the conflict though? Well, one of you says I follow Paul, another I follow Apollos, another I follow Cephas, and still another I follow Christ. For the record here, Cephas is Peter. Now, you may remember back to last week when we talked about nicknames.
Speaker 2:One of Jesus' first disciples was a man named Simon and Jesus starts calling him Peter or Petros, which means rock in Greek. Now, of the ironies is, you realize pretty quickly in the gospels that Peter is not much of a rock at all. He misses the point a lot and he gets scared and runs away a few times, not exactly the firm foundation you want to build your movement on. And yet, Jesus seems to see something in him. And so that name Peter the rock, just like Mary the tower, is meant to draw that out of him.
Speaker 2:Well, Cephas is actually the Aramaic word for rock and that is likely the name that Jesus actually gave to Simon, which was then translated into Petros for Greek speakers in the Gospels so that they would get the reference. By the way, same for Magdalene last week. Magdala is Aramaic for tower, that's what Jesus calls her. The town that is called Magdala in Israel today is called that because of her. It was called Migdal in the first century.
Speaker 2:So Cephas is Peter's Aramaic name because that's the conversational language that Jesus used with his friends. The gospels update that to Peter for the Greek audiences and that's what we got stuck with. You have to remember in the first century, it was Hebrew for worship, Greek for commerce, Latin for politics, and apparently it was Aramaic for all your inside jokes. Point is, anytime you read Cephas, think Peter, it's the same guy. Which make this all pretty interesting because we know that Paul and Peter had some pretty serious desktops.
Speaker 2:Paul's big thing is that Jesus has broken down any dividing walls in humanity. There is no longer Jew or Greek, nor slave, nor free, nor men, woman, none of that matters. We are all one in the story of Jesus. And therefore, Paul thinks that Jewish people like himself should continue to worship with whatever custom they're familiar with. He's saying not saying anybody should abandon that, but he doesn't think it should be imposed on anyone else.
Speaker 2:He thinks that the freedom of Christ should not be imposing traditions on others and honestly, that's a probably a good reminder for all of us who have a tendency to do that at times. And in principle, Peter's on board with that. Peter is there at the Jerusalem council that affirms that's all in Acts 15, except that when he hangs out with his old friends, he won't sit at the table with his new friends. That gets Paul pretty heated and they have it out. So that's their conflict.
Speaker 2:What about Apollos? Well, we don't know as much about Apollos. In Acts 18, we read that he was an eloquent man with a thorough knowledge of the scriptures and he taught about Jesus accurately. We also read that it was two of Paul's friends, a woman named Priscilla and her partner Aquila who heard him teaching and then invited him over to their house to quote, explain to him the way of God more adequately. So what we know is he's a pretty good guy, he's learning about Jesus in community, and at some point he ends up in Corinth likely, for lack of a better term, as the pastor of the church here.
Speaker 2:Paul says in chapter three that he planted the seed in Corinth, it was Apollos that watered it. Now, our best guess about what the differences are between Paul and Apollos is that Apollos, who comes from Alexandria, is more influenced by the wisdom, the Eastern tradition in the church. That's the perspective that tends to emphasize how Jesus opens our eyes and enlightens us to truth. That seems to be a tradition that the Corinthian church was really fascinated by. It's probably why Paul will keep talking about the gospel confounding the wisdom or the Sofia of humanity in this letter.
Speaker 2:Now the gospel is so much more than just eloquence and rhetoric. Big parts of that tradition. And we actually saw this at the end of the passage we're looking at today, for Christ sent me to preach good news, not with wisdom and eloquence, Sofia and Logos, lest the Christ of cross be emptied of its power. Now, I do not think that Paul would deny the wisdom tradition of Christianity. In fact, I think Paul would absolutely agree that Jesus enlightens us to what is really real.
Speaker 2:I just think that Paul sees that as incomplete. He also wants to make sure that we also emphasize how Jesus reconciles us to God and repairs our relationship with the divine. So understand, this is about emphasis here. This is not about heroes and villains, which makes the last comparison really interesting. Because here we get Paul saying, one of you says I follow Paul, one of you says I follow Apollos, another I follow Cephas, and still another I follow Christ.
Speaker 2:Except, like isn't that the whole game? I mean, that's the objective. Right? To follow Christ. What is Paul's problem with that?
Speaker 2:Well, what I think Paul is getting at here is this tendency that all of us have to slowly over spiritualize opinions and confuse them with Jesus. Have you ever discussed theology with someone and they say, well, sorry, I just believe the Bible. And you wanna say, yeah, no kidding, we all do. We wouldn't be here having this conversation if we didn't. Like figuring it out is hard, that's why we're all still wrestling with it one, two thousand years later.
Speaker 2:I think what Paul is saying here is that no, you should not be lining up in different camps against each other, but also that doesn't make you any more spiritual just because you don't acknowledge your influences. I mean, sometimes, honestly, that just makes you kind of maybe a little bit arrogant. We're all doing our best to follow Jesus. We're all doing our best to work out our faith in real time. You and I, we are doing the best with what we've given.
Speaker 2:Let's not start dunking on each other and saying, I'm the one who follows Jesus just yet. And honestly, that right there is the heart of this whole opening passage. The key that is going to unlock everything in this series when we talk about making good choices when Paul starts to address very specific situations. Because, Paul does not see difference as a negative. Paul sees division as the enemy to avoid.
Speaker 2:Let's look again at verse 10 here. I appeal to you in the name of Christ that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. Couple things here. First of all, there's no word for agree with one another here anywhere in the Greek. The word is actually, means to speak with one another.
Speaker 2:And so the heartbeat of this request is not that we all agree all the time on everything. It's actually more like Paul urging the community to speak together, to converse with one another so that there is no division. The word is schismata or schism in the community. In fact, he wants them to speak this way to each other so that they can be perfectly united. It's what the NIV on the screen here has, but the operative word here is karitzo, which means to repair or mend something broken.
Speaker 2:Paul's point here is not you should all agree on all of your theology. In fact, you should probably all agree with me because you must have perfect unity if you're gonna be good Christians. His point is something more like, look, you have to find ways to speak with each other in ways that will mend the tears in the fabric of this community. That's what it looks like to follow Jesus. Don't go around telling people you're on my side.
Speaker 2:Don't let me hear that. Don't go around telling people you're on Apollos or Peter's side. You better not let me hear you going around saying you're on Jesus' side as if everyone who disagreed with you is not. That's only gonna make things worse. Instead, try to learn to speak in ways that knit the community back together again.
Speaker 2:Your mind knit should be focused together on what you offer to each other even perhaps maybe especially in your differences. Because notice this, the Apollos camp, the Peter camp, the Paul camp, none of those are made out to be villains here. It's the camps themselves that Paul wants to replace with loving community. At the end of the day, for Paul, the gospel is preached not in wisdom through eloquence with rhetoric and arguments, it's preached through communities that embody the way of Jesus in the world. Neighbors that live out of the divine love that breaks our walls down.
Speaker 2:Neighbors that actually learn how to learn from each other. Neighbors that model divine love in how we figure out how to get along even though sometimes we wrestle with each other. And so if you want or if you aspire to make good choices in your life in the model of Paul, if you hope to navigate the complexities of community and wrestle through lawsuits and legalities and food and freedom and sex and relationships and all the very specific things that Paul's going to address later in this letter. And for Paul, it starts with this willingness to be open to each other. To refuse to decide on our camp and then to put up our walls and ignore everyone else.
Speaker 2:And then, to actually be humble enough to acknowledge that we are not the only one who's doing our best in this moment. That the people around us are striving toward Jesus and they have something to teach us. Paul is saying here that Paul, that Peter, that Apollos, that person beside you sitting here as you listen to this letter, all of them have something to teach you about the way. And together, we find our way back home in that community. Let's pray.
Speaker 2:God, of grace and love, of resurrection and reunification, might we grasp together today that the beginning of wisdom, the start of all our good choices comes when we refuse to settle into a camp and stop learning. Might we begin that slow, steady, hard work process of tearing down our barriers To understand that there are new perspectives that we can listen to, new ideas we can learn from, new people that we can meet and be impacted by. And that sometimes the scariest thing is not our difference or our disagreement, but our willingness to stop learning. And so God, help us to learn from Paul and from Peter and from Apollos. Help us together not on our own say that we are following the way of Jesus by opening our hearts and our minds, by wrestling back and forth with each other and pointing each other toward the way in the world.
Speaker 2:May that path of peace slowly become more aware every day, every week, every time we gather because we are willing to listen to each other. In that, may your spirit be present wherever we gather leading us always back to you. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.