Third Sunday after Epiphany

At the time when Paul’s letter to the Corinthians was written, the city of Corinth was an exciting place. It was a seaport with lots of hustle and bustle, lots of diversity, different peoples and cultures. Not a boring place, but a very adventurous, busy city. And yet apparently, those who gathered as the church in Corinth were bored and felt the need to create some excitement by a lot of arguing and bickering.

Now often when we approach the biblical story we are faced with the difficult task of making the scripture relevant to our lives today, translate what it means from God to the people today. In seminary they call that hermeneutics. Over the course of many years since the bible was written, things have changed, and so we have to mediate the truth of
the story in such a way that we can hear the gospel as it relates to our age and culture today.

However, this passage from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians does not fall in that category. It does not require much hermeneutical work; Paul could be writing to many of our churches today and not have to change much of his letter. The passage will play today in Duluth or St Louis, or even here in Russellville as well as it did almost two thousand years ago in Corinth. And the reason this is so, is that it is simply a

reality of human nature that whenever a group of people are required to work together as one body, then conflict occurs. And often when it occurs, people immediately choose up sides and form factions, which seems to be what has happened in Corinth.

Community is not an easy, natural experience. I used to always get irritated when I would attend conferences or retreats and there was always someone who talked about community as if it was something we could create for ourselves if we'd only get in a circle with our arms entwined and sing enough verses of We are One in the Spirit. True Christian community is not that easy or fast; it involves more than just the warm fuzzies and most of all it is dependent upon God's grace and NOT our works. Community is like marriage; the honeymoon is important and wonderful, but eventually you have to take on the work ofmarriage. Eventually, you begin to notice the way he slurps at his teeth after a meal, or that she does not make the biscuits like your momma did.

I have a cousin who didn't like how his new wife made biscuits and gravy, so one day at work he announced to me that that night he was going to send his wife over to my apartment for me to teach her the right way. They happened to live the apartment just below me. My cousin didn't cook, but he knew I did and that I made biscuits and gravy the
"Right" way. After work in a preemptive strike I came downstairs to their apartment. His wife came out dressed in a housecoat wreaking of rum and coke with a glass still in her hand and a dazed look in her eyes. At a rare moment of clarity, for that age, I temporarily came to my senses and the rare experience of wisdom. I looked at him and I said "No
I am not going to do this. You are crazy. You and your wife are going to have to work out this biscuits and gravy thing between the two of you or it's going to grow into something much more critical than biscuits and gravy.”

It’s the same way in the church, what begins as disagreement about issues, is eventually raised to the level of doctrinal, theological imperative, if we start choosing sides and forming factions. The truth is we don't have to agree on everything. We are a body that is made up of liberals and conservatives, of wealthy and modest means, evangelicals and catholics, and we all have different views on

sexuality, education, politics, and abortion. Any number of different things.We are all so different; so how in the world can we even imagine that it is possible for us to be one body? Well we can't because it is impossible. We’re too human, too different. It's impossible without God, without God's grace that enables us to honestly disagree, and yet still
break bread together at this altar. We don't create community ourselves; it is a gift of Grace. Christian community is not being the same, all of us in the same uniform
professing identical thoughts; rather it is when we are able, regardless of our differences and divergent views, to come together as one in Christ and recognize the mission of the church as calling all persons into a union with God and one another. That only happens when we put aside our own individual pet peeves and theories about the correct, right way
or experience and recognize that our source and the power of the gospel does not lie in how well it is thought out or rhetorically expressed in a uniform, mechanical confession, but in the power of the cross. Our unity was established at the cross and our part is simply to
recognize it. We don't have to agree, or look alike, or pretend to like one

another all the time. Our recognition of that unity does not depend on our denying those differences, but rather on how well we choose to relate to one another despite the differences. When we look to the cross and realize that we are bound together by something much more important, much more powerful than those things that seem to separate us, then we will astound the world as we begin to celebrate the mystery
of a myriad of individuals becoming the one body of Christ. Amen.

The Rev. Dennis Campbell