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| COTHA Clergy: St Michael's: 22nd January 2017 |
It was really
good to worship with friends from Churches Together on The Hill (COTHA) last
Sunday at St Michael’s. Opposite is a
picture of all us ministers who took part!
I was asked to preach and one of the lectionary readings was from 1 Corinthians 1 as Paul addresses the ‘divisions’ within the church at Corinth. Here’s part of what I said – well, I believe in ‘re-cycling’!!
As Paul writes to the Corinthians in our epistle reading today he also urges them to hang on to their dreams and visions. Yet he writes with a deep concern that they are looking for the wrong sort of light in their church life together.
I’m told that when the Keswick Convention descends upon that Lake District town, as it has done for over a hundred years as a sort of forerunner to Spring Harvest or Soul Survivor, it has a banner above its main tent with an aspirational text: All one in Christ Jesus.
Now that isn’t a banner you could ever have hoisted in Corinth.
This congregation may be seeking for the light but they are not all looking in the same place. Factions had developed with some saying they belonged to Apollos, some to Cephas, others to Paul and, ironically, listed last of all, some to Christ!
It all sounds a little too uncomfortable to read this during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity as maybe a modern version would say: I hear divisions have broken out amongst you, some say they are Methodists, others Anglicans whilst others who can’t seem to make up their minds, namely Baptists and URC’s, you muddy the waters even more by calling yourselves ‘Free’!!
Paul is saddened by these divisions and he seems frustrated by that very human activity of ours to make the leaders we like into ‘cult’ like figures bordering on idolatry as we give them an almost God like status.
So, instead of clinging to the cult of so called ‘spiritual’ celebrity, what does Paul suggest should have been the light to have guided the Corinthians and us? At the end of today’s reading he says it is ‘the message of the cross’.
Instead of boasting about the eloquence of Apollos or the careful logic
of Cephas or even the baptismal successes of Paul – their focus and their unity
should be located in what they believe about the cross.I was asked to preach and one of the lectionary readings was from 1 Corinthians 1 as Paul addresses the ‘divisions’ within the church at Corinth. Here’s part of what I said – well, I believe in ‘re-cycling’!!
As Paul writes to the Corinthians in our epistle reading today he also urges them to hang on to their dreams and visions. Yet he writes with a deep concern that they are looking for the wrong sort of light in their church life together.
I’m told that when the Keswick Convention descends upon that Lake District town, as it has done for over a hundred years as a sort of forerunner to Spring Harvest or Soul Survivor, it has a banner above its main tent with an aspirational text: All one in Christ Jesus.
Now that isn’t a banner you could ever have hoisted in Corinth.
This congregation may be seeking for the light but they are not all looking in the same place. Factions had developed with some saying they belonged to Apollos, some to Cephas, others to Paul and, ironically, listed last of all, some to Christ!
It all sounds a little too uncomfortable to read this during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity as maybe a modern version would say: I hear divisions have broken out amongst you, some say they are Methodists, others Anglicans whilst others who can’t seem to make up their minds, namely Baptists and URC’s, you muddy the waters even more by calling yourselves ‘Free’!!
Paul is saddened by these divisions and he seems frustrated by that very human activity of ours to make the leaders we like into ‘cult’ like figures bordering on idolatry as we give them an almost God like status.
So, instead of clinging to the cult of so called ‘spiritual’ celebrity, what does Paul suggest should have been the light to have guided the Corinthians and us? At the end of today’s reading he says it is ‘the message of the cross’.
As Jesus died upon it didn’t he show us and teach us something about the value of brokenness, failure, vulnerability and sacrifice. Doesn’t he show and teach us a new way of living which isn’t about power, instead it’s about service.
Paul says it’s this defiant symbol of the cross that we Christians should gather around – not the cult of celebrity leadership. It’s the cross that defines us because it’s that cross shaped love and grace that brings light into the darkness.
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