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Sunday January 16, 2005 - Epiphany 2, Year A, 2005

It's one of the earliest traces of anything
that looks remotely like the church as we know it.
Two letters, most likely cobbled together
from a bunch of shorter letters,
the apostle Paul's best attempt at answers to the questions of
the new born church,
written just twenty or so years after
the death of Jesus.

This new born church was in Corinth,
the ancient and powerful town built on a narrow bridge of land between Athens and the Peloponnesian Peninsula, between the Aegean and the Ionian Seas. If you wanted to ship things from the east to the west of the Mediterranean, they most likely went through Corinth; the same was true for things going from Northern Greece to the south and vice versa. It was the capital of the province, and like all good sized towns, full of a mix of people from pretty much every nationality and class.

There were already Christian there when Paul made his first visit, a Roman couple who brought their new found faith with them
along with their tentmaking business. Priscilla and Aquila were their names.
And when Paul preached in the synagogue, where most early Christian preaching was done,
others joined this new religion,
and soon they had grown so much that the synagogue officials kicked them out, maybe afraid that they were getting too influential,
and they set up next door in the house of another leading convert.
And there the church grew, a pretty motley bunch of old time Greeks, Jewish migrants, and settlers from across the Mediterranean. All new to this faith, bound together only
by their conviction
that Jesus Christ was Lord.

We don't know a whole lot about them, these Corinthian Christians. But what we do know, is from a letter written almost 2000 years ago
with the best advice
one of the greatest of Christian saints
knew how to give.
And while there is a lot about the church at Corinth that's different from where we are now,
there's a whole lot
that's very similar.

The Corinthian Christians
were in a minority. Just a small group of people
who dared to follow this man called Jesus Christ, who dared believe
that God might indeed be made incarnate
and live and die
for their sins.
Most people around them
were most likely pagans, followers of the Greek and Roman gods,
and a few Jews scattered among them. Society had its traditions in place,
and Christian practices didn't really fit. To begin with, this meeting on a Sunday
which for everyone else
was a working day. And then there were the things they believed.
The idea
that someone who was hung on a cross as a criminal
could take away their sin, and offer them life
after death?
To participate in ceremony where they ate flesh and drank blood?
To follow a God
that called them to love one another, even those
who were hardest to love?
Most people probably thought they were crazy. Or at least, politely put,
a little
"different."

It's hard for us to imagine, living in a culture
where Christianity has been dominant
for centuries.
But you know, the Christian church today
is becoming more and more like the church of those Corinthian Christians.
.
For hundreds of years, ever since the colonization of the United States, Christianity has been the dominant religious force in our society. Towns formed around the church — Swedesboro is a typical example.
First there were a few farmers, then they built a church, and the town grew up around it. Every one who lived locally was baptized here, was educated here, got married here, was buried here. Even when other denominations moved in, the Methodists, Baptists, Roman Catholics, not much changed. People went to a bunch of different churches, but church was still at the center of life.

But something changed, somewhere in the middle of the twentieth century.
Sometime, somehow, church slipped away from the center. Some of it was to do with the standard of living — people could afford to go away for weekends, and so weren't around Sunday mornings. Some of it was employment — people began to travel further to work, and the added travel meant they were too tired to do much when they were home. Transport improved, especially once they put a bridge across the Delaware, and so people moved further away from their friends and family, so Sundays often ended up being for visiting and church got pushed aside. Some of it was sport, with both kids' matches and professional games scheduled for Sundays. And some of it was just plain busyness. The pace of life has sped up, and Sunday seems to be the only time to just relax.

And then people began to have doubts about traditional church teaching. Science and historical discoveries raised questions, and there weren't always good answers. And the truth be told, the church failed to keep up with the times.

And in the middle of all this, church, and Christian faith, got pushed to the sidelines. Which means the people
who still make being part of the church
a priority in life
are different from the vast majority.
And in many ways, we're more like the Corinthians
than we are like most of the people who have attended this church
over the last three hundred years.
And so the words that the apostle Paul wrote
are more relevant to us today
than he could ever have imagined.

He begins his letter,
"Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes"
Those are his credentials, making sure that his hearers know
that he and Sosthenes write not just with their own authority
but with the authority of the God
who has called them.
And we know the story of Paul's call,
how as a young man called Saul, he was on his way to Damascus in Syria,
bent on seeking out and destroying the new born church,
on his way, a blinding light flashed in front of him, and he heard the voice of Jesus, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" And the voice told him to go into Damascus, and seek out a man called Ananias. And Jesus appeared to Ananias as well, with a message, a commission for Saul, now known as Paul,
to go preach about Jesus.
There was no doubt,
Paul was called by God.

But then Paul goes on.
"To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours."

It is not just Paul who was called,
it is the Corinthian Christians as well.
Called by God to be saints — the word here literally means holy — called by God to be holy.
Each and every one of those Corinthian Christians
is called by God, known by God, invited by God.
That's what this Christian thing is all about at its heart, being called by God.
And calling on God, in Jesus Christ
in return.
That's what it means,
the very heart of what it means
to be a Christian,
to be called by God
and to respond to that call,
by calling on God in the name of Jesus Christ.
That's what sets the Christians apart
from everyone else
who lives in Corinth, that's what makes them
different.
Not just that they show up for a meeting on Sunday mornings
when the rest of the world is at work,
but that they are called by God,
and call on God through Jesus Christ
in response.

And Paul goes on to remind them
that because they are called, God has given them grace
and has given them gifts of every kind.
He talks about these gifts in more detail
later on in the letter, gifts that are given to each person who is called, each of them different,
but all for the building up of the church. And even more than that
what God gives to those who are called
is a promise
that because those who are called
belong now to God,
God will keep them strong to the end, a promise
that when judgement comes
they will be found blameless,
blameless
through the death of Christ,
a promise
that God will remain faithful
because he has called them
in the name of Jesus Christ.

The old hymn, "The Church's One Foundation" captures the essence of Paul's sentiments:

"The Church's one foundation
is Jesus Christ her Lord;
she is his new creation,
by water and the word:
from heaven he came and sought her
to be his holy bride;
with his own blood he bought her,
and for her life he died."

The calling of God through Jesus Christ
is the foundation of the church at Corinth,
and it is the foundation of our church as well.
In some ways
our lives are very different from those of the Corinthians;
in other ways
they are pretty similar. We live in a world
where we who come to church to worship God each week
are, you might say, a little "different."

And what makes us different
is not just that we show up here
on a Sunday morning,
when pretty much everyone else is sleeping or visiting or playing sport,
it's that we're called by God, each and every one of us,
called by God to be his holy people,
and that we call on God
in response.

It doesn't matter
that we all come from different backgrounds;
it doesn't matter that we agree on some things and disagree on others;
it doesn't even matter that some of us are secure in our faith
and some of us have doubts.
None of that is what makes us
Christians;
none of that
is what makes us the church.
Just like the Corinthians,
we are saints, the holy people of God
because God called us,
and we answer that call
in the name of Jesus Christ.

We are called by God.
We are given grace.
We are given gifts.
And at the end of time
we will be found blameless in Christ
because God has called us
the holy people of God,
and God
is faithful.

In the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.

 

Sermon ©Raewynne J. Whiteley 2005