2 Corinthians 6: 1-13
Good morning and grace and peace as we move on into this summer season—the
solstice actually at 12:38 p.m. today, just a couple of hours from now. Again, a warm word of welcome!
This pastoral letter from Paul to the small church in Corinth, Second
Corinthians, as he works lovingly but with a firm hand to help get them back on
track after they have experienced and to some extent seem to be continuing to
experience a great deal of distress caused at least in part by leaders who had
been straying away from the gospel message they had heard from Paul. We’ve been paying attention to this letter
now for a couple of weeks in our Sunday lectionary.
The results of straying from the gospel were
clear as it played out in the life of the Corinthian Church: conflict and division and a culture of
negativity and grievance. I can’t help
pausing over that as we look ahead in the next week to the gathering for our
Episcopal Church General Convention. The
Church in Corinth becoming something of a political entity where people are
striving to be in charge of things. It’s
all about winners and losers, my group and your group, about identity and
privilege. We remember Paul’s
prescription, in the perfect literary expression of First Corinthians 13. Love is patient and kind, not jealous or
boastful, not arrogant or rude. Love
seeks not its own way. Words that sound
so beautiful in theory when you read them at a wedding. But so difficult to make the words real, to
walk the walk and not just talk the talk--whether in a marriage or, as Paul
originally intended them, in the life of a Christian congregation.
The Second Century North African theologian Tertullian famously
accounted for the rapid rise of Christianity in Late Antiquity by saying that
where the Church was established people in the neighborhood would begin to say,
“These Christians, how they love one another!”
And Paul knows this in his
heart. Not love simply as some sort of
general affection and good will, but the kind of costly and sacrificial love
that would begin to frame and interpret the story of the life and death and
resurrection of Jesus before people had even heard the story.
A little side note here. At a
continuing education event a couple of weeks ago I heard an English historian,
Frances Young, give a presentation on exactly this topic. Again, accounting for the spread of
Christianity through the Hellenistic culture of the Roman Empire. Her study of the topic was entitled “Holiness and Mission: Learning from the
Early Church about Mission in the City,” published in 2010, and what she
basically tries to account for is the rise of Christianity especially in places
where even the basic story would have been unknown and where what we would call
public preaching and evangelism was sharply restricted. And what she says, and I will quote here from
the introduction to her book, “Within in context of Roman cities . . . people
seem to have been attracted by belonging to a
community, by support offered, both material and spiritual, and by the
lived ethic of love, love of neighbour, stranger, and even enemy.”
Young’s basic premise is that for us to understand something about
mission and ministry in our own context, on into the complexity of life in the
21st century, even here in the East End of Pittsburgh, we may need
to take a ride in the Delorean that carried time-traveller Marty McFly “Back to
the Future.” If you remember that great
and fun movie and series. Young in her
presentation at the conference talked about how in the first great smallpox epidemic
in Rome in the year 165 AD terrified citizens would abandon even family members
to die in the streets, except for the
Christians, who cared not only for their own but even opened their homes to
care for neighbors and strangers, despite the risk of infection and death. A community noted for care for widows and
orphans, newborns and the dying. A
community noted for scrupulous honesty in trade and commerce, for life-long
fidelity in marriage, for generosity, simplicity, kindness. Before the first recitation of the story of
journey from the Manger to the Cross, the character of that story had already
made itself known, and in a society storming with violence, greed, rampant
materialism, a disregard for the value of life, and a commercialization and
degradation of marriage, family, and sexual conduct, these small clusters of
Christians would give testimony “not only with their lips, but in their
lives.” First by walking the walk, and
then, later, by talking the talk. But
that pattern was critical. People wanted
to hear what Christians had to say because they were drawn first by how
Christians lived.
In any event, that’s where we are here in Second Corinthians 6. When Paul talks about his own qualifications
for Christian leadership—and apparently arching his eyes with a sense of irony
as he contrasts himself with those who have claimed leadership in Corinth by
boasting of their status and accomplishments.
He doesn’t in any event list seminary degrees, ecclesiastical honors,
and a track record of institutional success and church-growth. This is a different kind of a resume
altogether. “Great endurance, in
afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors,
sleepless nights, hunger.” That’s how
you’ll know someone has been doing it right.
Show me your scars.
What you would expect to see in the life of your own congregation, when
you’re getting it right, Paul is saying. How when the going got tough, you pitched your
tent. You made your stand. Pretty challenging, then and now--and it
always does seem like we put other kinds of things front and center in our
church publicity materials. Dietrich
Bonhoeffer said, “when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Again, and welcome to our newcomers this
morning!
And what else in this recipe?
“Purity,” –already a tough sell in the world we live in. And “knowledge,
patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love”—notice, not false love,
not superficial love, not easy love, but genuine love—“truthful speech”, and
showing day by day not your own strength and authority and success, but “the
power of God.”
But deep down, isn’t that the kind of church we want to be a part
of? Well, you tell me the answer to that
question. Isn’t that how we want to
describe our friends? What we would hope
and pray would begin working in our lives?
Of course we desire to have a Church that is theologically centered and
true to the witness of Scripture and the Creeds and the teaching of the
Apostles. But what is the sign that this
is the case. Says Paul: “Purity, knowledge, patience, kindness,
holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, the power of God.” And battle scars. And not just for an hour and fifteen minutes
on Sunday morning . . . .
And then we go on to read these polarities: People treat us as
imposters, Paul says, as hypocrites, and yet we hold fast to the truth. They say we have hidden motives, but we open
our hearts and our minds and even our homes to any and all. They say we are dying, failing, irrelevant,
the past and not the future, but see, we are alive. Even as Christ is alive.
If this Second Corinthians 6 sounds familiar, we might be remembering
that it is also the epistle reading appointed in our lectionary for Ash
Wednesday, when the theme is all about waking up from a life of dreams, from a
false life, and meeting the true life that is only known in Christ Jesus. Ash Wednesday echoing on the First Day of
Summer, a reminder of that day of fasting and prayer and reflection about how
to live in his world truly in the light of Christ. His Cross, the generous love that forgives us
our sins and showers us with grace. The opening words of the reading this morning,
“We urge you not to accept the grace of God in vain.” Like getting tickets to a play as a birthday
gift, and then when the day comes, just forgetting about them, not valuing
them, not paying attention. “Forgiveness
of sins, resurrection of the Body, life everlasting.” An ancient creed and words on a page, but all
in vain if we don’t allow them to live in
our lives. Doesn’t it make sense that
people who have received blessing would then be a blessing? That people who have received grace as this
free gift of God given in the life of Jesus, in his costly sacrifice, would be
characterized above all else by graciousness?
Which is a decision, really.
Turning this way rather than that way.
Putting our cards on the table. And no time like the present. I always love the way this lesson rings like
an alarm at the early-morning Ash Wednesday service. Paul asks, what are you waiting for? Little church in Corinth. And the words echoing down through the
centuries. What did you think this was
all about? There are easier answers out
there, though whether they are the right answers or not—you’ll just need to
sort that out. Not so for Paul,
here. Little Church in Corinth, he says,
what did you expect? What are you
waiting for? “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is
the day of salvation!” What in the world are you waiting for?
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