Building Blocks (1 Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23)

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 2/23/14

There is one movie that is out in theaters now that I cannot wait to go see. It has been the top at the box offices for the past two weeks. The movie that I cannot wait to go see is “The Lego Movie” I don’t know if you’ve seen ads for it but it is an action adventure movie in which all of the characters in the movies are Lego people.  While the movie itself looks funny and there are many great voice actors in it, the reason that I want to go see it so badly is probably because Legos remind me of my childhood.  Legos were a great toy to play with, small little blocks, different sizes and different colors, that you could stack on top of each other in order to create some wonderful structures. I loved playing with Legos except there was one small problem; I was horrible at building with Legos. In my mind I would have pictures of amazing bridges or castles that I was going to build, which then in reality turned into rickety oblong structures that one would really have to use their imagination to see a castle. My problem was that I had no sense of construction, no sense of building. I would want to build a castle but not understand the foundation that first must be laid.  I would want to build a bridge, but just quite couldn’t figure out how to stack rectangle blocks on top of each other in order to make an arch. People would walk by and ask me, “what are you building?”  I got so bad at Legos that eventually I started buying ( or my parents started buying me)  Lego sets that had directions for how to build what was on the cover of the box.  For example you would have step by step instructions for where to put each certain piece in order to make something like a spaceship or a car. Thank goodness, for the folks who put those things together with instructions to help poor little kids like me who knew nothing about building.

            Paul on the other did know a lot about building.  No, he may not have been able to construct a building or a bridge, but Paul certainly understood what it took to build a church, what it took to build up the Body of Christ. While we have seen this at play throughout our sermon series, today as we conclude our series, Paul seems to drive the point home. Paul in fact even uses the analogy of building in order to explain further to the Corinthians what it takes to build up the Body of Christ. Much of what Paul says to the Corinthians is nothing new; in fact much of it in a way recaps what he has been saying from the very beginning.

             While using the analogy of building a structure of some sort,  Paul argues that you much first start with a strong foundation.  It is no surprise then what Paul tells the Corinthians the foundation must be; that is of course Jesus Christ. We have heard this before from Paul.  We are all members of the body of Christ and Jesus Christ is the head. Everything that we have is from God and everything that we are able to do is through the grace of God.  It is nothing new for us to recognize that all life of the church, all life as the body of Christ must center around Christ, but this analogy may really help to drive the point home. There are many who can identify with a step by step approach to addressing an issue, like me and my lego sets a step by step direction for how to build up the body of Christ.  Paul cannot make step one any more clear. Step 1: Lay a foundation with the foundation being Jesus Christ. Any other foundation will eventually end in ruin. Like my Legos I can start with a piece and go from there and for a while it may even look  correct, but you get to a point where you can’t go any further, you get to a point where it all falls apart and that is because you did not start with the proper foundation.  The proper foundation, the only foundation for the Body of Christ, is Jesus Christ.

            Paul moves on in his analogy of building and notes that after the foundation of Jesus Christ is laid, we continue to build upon that foundation, and at the same time we are part of that building, of that structure being built. Paul talks about how he himself helped to lay the groundwork for the church in Corinth, and we have seen him earlier in the chapter acknowledge that Apollos also played a large role in cultivating and developing the church. At the same time the people of Corinth themselves have put a lot of work and heart into the growth of that church. With Jesus Christ as the foundation, these leaders and members of the church have helped it to grow.

            And yet though they helped it to grow, Paul makes the distinction that they are part of it. He says, “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?
 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.” Now you may have heard before someone say that your body is a temple and therefore you must take care of your body; though our scripture for today sounds a lot like this; this is not what Paul is saying here, that comes later in chapter 6.  Instead when Paul says do you not know that you are God’s Temple he is using the plural for you.  In my Greek class in seminary we would sometimes joke that southerners have it right when it comes to languages because like Greek, we have a word for the plural of you, that is of course ya’ll. This is what Paul is saying, “Do ya’ll not know that ya’ll are God’s temple and God’s Spirit dwells in ya’ll. For God’s temple is holy and ya’ll are that temple. This changes how we think about how we read this passage. We are not talking about our individual being as being holy (though it is), Paul is telling us that together, collectively we are God’s holy Temple.

            Once again this is nothing new for us, it is just another reiteration of the fact that together we are the Body of Christ. But here Paul uses the metaphor of the Temple to warn them against defiling God’s Temple. “So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours,
whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future--all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.”  Paul once again brings up the conflict that has been happening in the church, once again he acknowledges the divide caused by different leaders, and this time he is telling them that it is defiling the Temple of God, for they are the Temple of God. That they are this Temple resting on top of the foundation of Jesus Christ, and instead of being a steady base to further build from, they rip and tear, they go off in their own directions and Paul warns that if they do not stop, if they do not unite then they will crumble back down to the foundation.  We are building and yet we are the building.

            While Paul’s words for the most part simply reiterate what we have already discussed throughout this sermon series as we have discussed becoming the Body of Christ, this analogy of building may give us a couple of insights about the Church that the analogy of the body might not suggest.  This first is that we need to recognize and observe what we are building upon. Recognizing what we are building upon is two-fold. The first aspect is to appreciate that we are not starting from scratch.  We are not building from the ground up because there have been many faithful Christians who have paved the way for us. Sometimes we feel like we have to reinvent the wheel, that we have to come up with something that is totally new and original, but as the old cliché goes, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.  As United Methodists, as Christians we have a rich heritage, a rich tradition that we can learn and grow from. Leaders in the early church have already wrestled with some of the most difficult discussions of our faith, including the trinity, the role of the church, Jesus’s humanity and Jesus’ divinity.  In fact each week we profess these things in worship through our affirmation of faith, but that creed that we say each week took many years of debates and wrestling with scripture for our early church leaders to develop. We now simply have the benefit of learning and understanding the thought, prayer, and work that they have already put into expressing our faith beliefs. It doesn’t just stop with the earliest church but we can look at the founder of Methodism John Wesley and what he has taught us about grace through his own wrestling with scripture and through his sermons. We can appreciate and learn from the call for social justice from Boehm and Otterbein,  leaders of the Evangelical United Brethren, which merged with Methodism in the US  and is where we get the United from in United Methodist.  We can learn from the movement of a few women in Methodism who gathered for the purpose of education and mission and which grew into the powerful organization we now know as the UMW. And we can learn from those members of this very church who have served before us. Who built this church as a mission to the community, who taught Sunday school, who gave generously of their time and gifts. When we gather as the body of Christ we gather in appreciation for those who have faithful served before us. We gather knowing that we do not have to start from scratch but simply build onto the rich tradition that has come before us.

            But when we reflect upon the fact that others have built before us, we must also examine what it is that we are building upon.  As I said earlier there is so much passed down to us through our tradition that can help to shape, and guide us in our own service to God, but we must recognize that not everything passed down to us is helpful.  One of the biggest killers of any church is the phrase “because that’s how we’ve always done it.”  The problem is not that it has always been done that way, there was probably a reason why it was originally done that way. The problem arises when we no longer understand why we do something, but simply do it because that’s the way it’s always been done.  Sometimes what we build upon can lead us off of our foundation.  A church with an unspoken tradition of being exclusive, or a tradition in which the laity of the church have no responsibilities, these are not helpful traditions, these are Legos hanging of the edge of the foundation, that if we continue to build upon will cause  us to topple. We must take time to examine what it is we are building upon. When we do that we may also rediscover the original intention of something that we have always done, and in doing so renew a vigor in our spiritual life. I heard the story of one church that had a tradition of having a monthly meal as something the church had always done. At one of their council meetings the discovered that this meal was costing them a great deal, and someone called into question what was the point, since members just came and ate together. One of the older members of the congregation spoke up and said that when they started, it was a meal for the less fortunate in the community in which they would serve guests and then eat with them, and slowly over the years it has just turned into a members meal. Well this reminder sparked a new fire in the church and they set out to once again make the meal a time of service to the community.

            That leads us to our final point, is that as part of this body, as part of the Holy Temple that Paul tells us we are a part of, we must not only examine what it is it that we are building upon, but also what are we going to leave to be built upon. Just as so many have come before us paving the way for our ability to worship and serve, we must also think about what we are going to leave for the church after us.  Are we going to leave a massive heap for our later generations to have to sort through, or even for them to leave in rubble, or are we going to build upon that strong foundation of Jesus Christ, and the solid work of those who have served before us. And we must also question what it is we are building toward? Are we building toward a guarantee of our own personal salvation and a plot in the graveyard for our bodies when we die, or are we building towards a church, a body,  kingdom in which God’s mercy and justice reigns and we live in peace in love with our brothers and sisters.  Are we building for personal reasons, or are we building in praise and gratitude for the grace we have received through the Lord almighty. Are we building with hope that we can help to build up the Kingdom of God until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.   As we close our sermon series today we close having explored what it means to be the body of Christ. That we are all important members of this body, and that Christ is the head that leads us. That we are called to obtain the mind of Christ and that we can do that through the grace we receive through the power of the Holy Spirit. We have learned that true growth first starts within, with us seeking to be drawn into closer communion with Christ and with each other, but as we close we realize that we do not stop there. That we are part of something built before and that will last far after we are gone. We realize that we are building on a firm foundation, and that we have the ability to build towards something extraordinary. And so as a church, as the body of Christ, reflecting upon all we have learned we must ask ourselves as we go forward, what are we building, and what are we building towards?

Church Growth (1 Corinthians 3:1-9)

Sermon as Preached at Lambs and Evington UMC 2/16/14

Today in our sermon series we finally take a look into what has become one of the most popular topics for churches around the nation; that is church growth.  If you attend any type of pastor’s seminar or venture to take a look at some of the books in a Christian bookstore geared towards churches, you will surely find many that deal with this topic of church growth. 5 easy things for church growth,  10 ways  to tell if you church is growing,  Is your church growing or dying? Now these are some made up book titles but I bet you would be able to find some actual books out there that are eerily similar. Online you can find signs, coffee mugs, Bible studies, and sadly yes even sermons, that are guaranteed to help your church grow; well maybe not the guaranteed part, but you get the point. Even in our conference there seems to be seems to be a push towards more numbers, as we record and analyze our average worship attendance each week as part of our Vital Congregations initiative. This push for growth is not unfounded either, Jesus tells us in Matthew 28 to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Now here in the third chapter of 1 Corinthians Paul addresses this issue of church growth. Finally we are no longer talking about a theology of Jesus as the head of the body of Christ, no longer are we talking about unity in the church, no longer talking about wisdom and spiritual disciplines, we are talking about church growth! How exciting, except we are still talking about all those things, because while we are talking church growth is very different than what we normally discuss.

            Paul’s discussion about church growth is not a discussion about numbers, in fact Paul’s message to the Corinthians in our chapter for today is not even explicitly evangelistic. So far we have been talking about what it takes, what it means to come together as the body of Christ, and here Paul does not abandon this idea.  Paul picks up right where he left off. If we recall last week we talked about the power of the Holy Spirit and how we had different means of grace by which we are able to experience the grace of God.  Paul talked about how because we as humans are both physical and spiritual beings, and that through the power of the Holy Spirit our spirit is able to connect to the spirit of God.  Now Paul picks up by talking about growth in the church, but here Paul does not discuss growth in numbers, rather he discusses growth in spirit.

            In fact Paul calls the members of the church of Corinth babies. Yes you heard that right he says, “ And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.” Paul calling the people of Corinth babies, or infants cuts two different ways. The first is a harsh indictment of the church, or in other words Paul is intentionally insulting the Corinthians.  He goes back to the division that has been going on in the church, and calls their actions into question.  He once again mentions the divide that has been caused by following the different leaders of Paul and Apollos and essentially calls the conflict childish. He says, “for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?  Paul tells the people that though they claim to be spiritual people, full of spiritual gifts, they act no different than those of this world. That through their actions there is no way to tell whether they are Christian or not.  That people who were spiritually discerning God’s will would be able to recognize that the way they are acting is not conducive to growth as the body of Christ. They are acting like babies.

            Paul drives the issue home further, he says, “ For when one says, "I belong to Paul," and another, "I belong to Apollos," are you not merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each.” Paul acknowledges that though he and Apollos may have had their differences, that they are still working together fulfilling their own role in kingdom building. Paul is the planter, Apollos is the waterer, but God gave the growth.  We actually lose some of the intensity of this point in this translation, for the Greek actually says something more in verse 8 more along the lines of, “the planter and the waterer are one.”[1]  That though Apollos and Paul differ, though they have different gifts and responsibilities, that they are one because they both work together in strengthening the body of Christ.  Paul calls the Corinthians infants, because they have failed to see that how they are behaving spits in the face of body of Christ.

            Like I said earlier however, Paul’s use of the word infant has two sides to it; it was an insult as we have just discussed, but at the same time it was instructive. In chapter 2 Paul has just told us that we are able to obtain the mind of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. That since we are spiritual beings the Holy Spirit connects us closer to Christ.  As we talked about last week however this is not an instantaneous event. Our first moments as a Christian does not mean that we know it all; in fact if we can look at our own spiritual lives and realize that there is still a lot that we have to learn. It is for this reason that Paul calling the Corinthians infants or babies is also quite fitting, for we are all infants in our spiritual walk.  It is a reminder that Christianity is not a name it and claim it title, where we are baptized and then are allowed to go about living our lives as if nothing has changed, for if we go about living our lives as if nothing has changed, then spiritually nothing really has changed. We receive grace from God, inviting us to come closer, but if we do not continually seek to be closer to God,  why would we expect it to happen? Jesus in the gospel of John tells us that we must be born anew, born of the spirit, and at baptism that is exactly what happens, but we must remember that is but the birth. If we do not seek to be drawn closer to Christ through the grace of God, then we are exactly what Paul says we are; infants.   For this reason we must continue to seek the grace of God through those means of grace that we talked about last week. We must continue to pray, both in private and with others. We must continue to receive the sacraments, as often as possible in fact. We must continue read the Bible and to also discuss it with others, because though our culture tells us the importance of our personal faith, we must remember that we are members of the body of Christ, and therefore our faith is not just a personal faith, but one that is connected to all members of the body.  We must be in service to those in need, seeking justice where injustice lies. When we talk about church growth, we must first talk not about growing in numbers, but growing in in faith, or in spirituality as Paul puts it.

            Paul makes a wise observation about growth however, and that is that things change when we grow. It is in making this point that I believe Paul’s term of infant is so powerful. After calling the Corinthians infants, he makes an interesting analogy using baby food.  He says, “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready,” Paul reminds us that in our own physical lives the nourishment we receive changes. When we are infants we are fed milk, when we grow a little we begin to eat baby food, mashed up carrots or peas, pretty bland food, As we grow we begin to eat more and more; when often begin to like spices that we didn’t use to, and we begin to recognize our need to eat healthier as well. Our growth in Christ is very much like this.   When we first came into the church we probably came and grew from simple messages of faith. Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not die but have eternal life.” The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.”  We were satisfied with just sitting back and being passive listeners in worship, and an occasional Bible study would fill us, and we would never really wrestle with some of the difficult questions.  Why do bad things happen to good people?  What really is the trinity?  How do we interact with other Christians who have some different theological ideas than us? 

            Paul reminds us that in the beginning of our new life as a Christian we are fed what he calls baby food. This sounds harsh, but in reality there is nothing wrong with this. For most of us when we are young in our spiritual lives this is what we need to ground and strengthen our faith. It would be almost foolish to demand answers to those hard questions from someone who is still young in their faith.  The problem arises when we never move past baby food. If we live with a shallow understanding of our faith, then our faith will be shallow. As we have said our goal as Christians, our goal as the body of Christ is not to be baptized and then just sit and wait, but we must continue to grow closer to God. We must continue to strive towards Christian perfection, that is to love as God loves. That means we need to move past baby food, and start feeding us with the rich nourishment that God provides to us through those means of grace that we talked about last week.  It might mean a more active role in worship or in the life of the church, it may mean taking more time for prayer, or reading the Bible more, or even reading in through the lens of views that might challenge your own. Just like our bodies that grow when we take on the nourishment that we need, so too will we grow both individually and together as we continue to grow in our faith. You see those church growth seminars, books, and vital congregation statistic collection is not wrong about our need to grow by reaching out to others and bringing them into the church, but real church growth begins with how we push ourselves, challenge ourselves and grow in our faith. Because others will see that growth in the church, and see the growth in our personal lives and say, I want that in my life, I want to be a part of that.  The real growth of this church, the real growth of any church, begins within.

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[1] New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary Volume X

"Means of Grace" (1 Corinthians 2:1-16)

Sermon as Preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 2/9/14

A few weeks ago in a children’s message as we began this sermon series, I asked the children, “If you had to tell something very important to someone else how would you do it?”  There was a variety of responses, starting with the most obvious you would tell them by speaking to them. But then I asked, “What if that person is far away, how then would you tell them this message?” The children and I came up with a great list of ways to communicate the information such as: calling them on the telephone, texting them, emailing them, and of course writing them a letter; the means in which Paul used to communicate with the church in Corinth.  This little exercised showed us that there were many different means in which we are able to tell people the good news of Jesus Christ.  But what if I rephrased the question, what if the question was no longer about how we can tell others about the gospel, what if it were not about means of communicating with people at all but instead means of being in contact with God?  How then would we answer the question? What are the means in which we experience God, what are the means in which God’s wisdom is revealed to us, what are the means by which we experience God’s grace?

            Why do I ask this?  I ask because this is the next logical question to ask if we continue to follow Paul’s line of thinking in the beginning of 1 Corinthians, like we have been doing over the past few weeks. How so?  Well let’s do a little recap of the argument that Paul has been making.  At the very beginning of chapter 1 Paul commends the people of Corinth for the ways in which they have shared the gospel message and  the ways in which they have grown; but throughout this commendation Paul makes it abundantly clear that everything that they were able to do was through the power of Jesus Christ. In other words, all authority belongs to Christ, and everything that we do in the church is a testament to the glory of God, not to our own power.  This is key to our understanding of 1 Corinthians; the rest of Paul’s argument centers around an understanding that all honor, power, and glory belongs to God.  Paul will later develop this point further by using the analogy of a body for the church, stipulating that the head of the body is Christ.

            We see that this understanding of the authority and power of Christ is important for Paul to write to the Corinthians because there were many divisions amongst the members of the church. There were divisions based upon authority; some claimed authority based upon who they were baptized by, For example some claimed Apollos, and others claimed Paul.  Other divisions occurred in the church due to a diversity of spiritual gifts; those who had a particular spiritual gift believed that theirs was the most important, and that it warranted them having more power and authority in the church. Other divisions in the church centered around those with Jewish heritage and Gentiles, while still other divisions occurred due to wealth and poverty. Paul once again reminds the Corinthians that authority and power does not belong to any individual, but that it belongs to God; that we were not baptized in the name of anyone other than Christ.

            This moves Paul into the last part of the first chapter that we talked about last week in which we see Paul starts to make a differentiation between our power and God’s power; between our wisdom and God’s wisdom.  Paul acknowledges that there is a wisdom of the world, that especially in those times power was derived from those who were the greatest speakers, greatest debaters, those who were fluent in the writings of Aristotle and Plato and many of the other classical philosophers.  Paul recognizes that there is a understanding of power in the world that raises up an individual based upon his knowledge, and based upon what signs of strength and wonder they have performed. Paul labels these things as the wisdom of the world. Paul then contrasts this wisdom of the world, with the wisdom of God. He says that to the standards of the world, the wisdom of God seems foolish, where in reality, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”  For this reason we can all recognize the call that God has given us, for most of us are not from noble birth, nor are many of us rich, but Christ can use that which may seem foolish to the world as part of his wisdom, the Holy Spirit can take that which seems weak to the world and make it powerful.

            And it is at this point in the argument that we find ourselves this morning, now into chapter 2.  Paul has set up the wisdom of the world against that of the wisdom of God, as these two vastly different things. Paul has then left us with the notion we as members of the body of Christ are able to act in the wisdom and the power of God.  And so the question must be asked how. If we are human, not God, which of course none of us are God,  then the power that we have is power that we have is the power of this world, the wisdom that we have is the wisdom of this world? How are we as humans supposed to obtain the wisdom of God?  By what means do we receive this grace? Can we even obtain it at all?

            Well, the last question is by far the easiest to answer; Can we obtain the wisdom of God? Paul tells us flat out that the answer is yes. “Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. ⁷ But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.⁹ But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived,what God has prepared for those who love him.”   Yes we are able to obtain the wisdom of God; it is not the wisdom of this age, or the wisdom of the rulers of this age, it is the eternal wisdom of God. Paul makes it clear that we who love God, who seek to be in relationship with God truly can receive this wisdom.

            But how? How can we as mere mortals receive wisdom from the Almighty God?  The way that Paul answers this question is one of the reasons I love this text so much; Paul’s answer is very Trinitarian. We have already acknowledged that the head of the Body of Christ is none other than Jesus Christ, and Paul refers to God the father and the eternal  nature of God’s wisdom; but here in the second chapter of 1 Corinthians Paul stresses the importance of the often neglected third person of the trinity; the Holy Spirit.  these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.¹¹ For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.”   Paul reminds us that humans are both mortal and spiritual creatures, and that through the power of the Holy Spirit we are able to receive wisdom from God. This Holy Spirit working within us is the way that we are able to be in communion with God, as Paul says in another one of his letters, the letter to the Romans, “When we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” In other words it is through the power of the Holy Spirit that we are able to experience the grace of God.

            The question still remains, how?  If the Holy Spirit is working with me to reveal God’s grace and wisdom to me, then shouldn’t I know it all? Shouldn’t bask in the power and glory of God rather than falling into the darkness of my day to day failures?  If the Holy Spirit connects us with God, then why do I still feel as though I am not wholly connected?  Paul tells us, “Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else's scrutiny. For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.” Paul once again tells us that we are able to have the mind of Christ, but how? We know that it is through the power of the Holy Spirit, but it certainly doesn’t seem as though we obtain it now.  But Paul tells us that those who are spiritual discern all things, and this discern is a critical word. We do not obtain all things, we search all things. The Holy Spirit does not give us the mind of God so that we ourselves may be like God; instead the Holy Spirit connects us to God. The Holy Spirit helps us to follow God’s will, to love as God loves. We have the mind of Christ not as our own mind, but we have the mind of Christ because we are all members of the body, and Christ is the head that leads us. The grace of God helps us to discern God’s will, and the love as God loves.

            And yet still we ask how? Yes we know it is through the Holy Spirit, but what are ways in which we are able to receive this grace, what are the means of grace? John Wesley described means of grace as, “outward signs, words, or actions, ordained of God, and appointed for this end, to be the ordinary channels whereby he might convey to men, preventing, justifying, or sanctifying grace.”[1] Wesley says it pretty well, it is the channels in which God conveys to us grace. For Wesley, the means of grace could be broken into two different categories, “works of piety” and the “works of mercy”[2] Works of mercy are exactly what they sound like. It is our joining in with service to God and service to others.  Through works of mercy, these acts of service, we are able to receive the grace of God.  Now let me be clear, it is not that these acts of service cause grace, it should not be viewed as an action that produces the outcome of grace, if that were the case we would be saving ourselves. Rather, it is through works of mercy that we open ourselves to experiencing the grace of Christ in our lives. They are channels that we know of in which it is possible for us to receive grace.  Many people today are brought into the church through participation in acts of service.  The act of helping someone else in need can stir something inside to make a person realize there is something much greater at work. Cleaning a park, planting new trees, or participating in a recycling program can allow us to understand God’s love for all creation.  There are so many works of mercy available to us, and they are truly amazing ways in which we are able to experience God’s grace.

            We are able to experience this grace in other ways than works of mercy as well; Wesley called these means of grace works of piety. These are the actions that we do, both individually and communally, that are more intentionally geared towards spiritual growth.  We often call these spiritual disciplines, and they include but are not limited to, public and private prayer, worship, public and private reading of scripture, fasting, and the sacraments, which for United Methodists is Baptism and Communion.  Just as the was the case with works of mercy, works of piety do not produce grace, but they are channels in which we can experience it.  They are almost like the tuner on the radio, that you turn and turn and work at, that helps to bring a station in more clearly.

            Paul tells us here in chapter two, that though we are humans, we are capable of obtaining the wisdom of God. We know that this is through the power of the Holy Spirit, and John Wesley has helped us in our understanding of how exactly we can best receive this wonderful grace. And yet if we do nothing, how will we ever grow closer to God?  If we are not out in service, if we are not participating in worship, reading or Bibles, praying with God, receiving the sacraments, how can we expect to experience God’s grace drawing us into a deeper communion with Christ, with each other, and with all the company of heaven?  If we do nothing we are relying on our own strength, our own wisdom, but I don’t know about you, but I’d rather rely on the strength and wisdom of the Almighty. Paul’s message for us today, is that if we want to grow as the body of Christ, we must grow closer to God, and that this is not an impossible task because of the grace we receive through the power of the Holy Spirits. A church that serves, a church that studies the word, a church that prays, a church that partakes of the sacraments, that is a church that grows, for that is a church growing closer to God.

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[1] John Wesley, “Means of Grace”

[2] John Wesley, “On Zeal”

The Sophomore (1 Corinthians 1:18-31)

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC 2/2/14

In high school and in college have you noticed that we give strange names to people in each different grade?  Instead of just calling them 9^th,10^th, 11^th or 12^th graders (or in college 1^st,2^nd,3^rd, 4^th year students)  we give these students the names of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. I guess some of it makes sense, The oldest students in the school are the seniors, the next oldest then also makes sense to be called the juniors, the next step down from the seniors, but what about freshman and sophomore. Even freshman makes some sense, even if it is a bit sexist,  because the students are fresh, new, beginners at the school. But that leaves the curious name of sophomore. Sophomore is actually compound of two Greek words, sophia, which means wisdom, and moros, which means foolish.  We can see both of these words in other words we often use such as philosophy which means love of wisdom, or moron which is a straight connect to the for fool.  The two words combined making the word sophomore create a very odd meaning of the wise fool. Now in terms of being in your second year of school I don’t know if being a wise fool is a very good thing, I guess it means you are smarter than freshman but not yet seniors, but according to Paul, a sophomore is exactly what we are called to be.  We are called to be wise fools.

What do I mean by this?  Paul doesn’t actually use the term sophomore, but he certainly uses the idea of being a wise fool.  In our reading from 1 Corinthians this morning, Paul starts out by saying, “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  What does Paul mean that the message about the cross is foolishness? Today we are so familiar with the message that it has almost become an ordinary statement for us, but Paul gives us insight to why this message seemed so foolish. He says, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,” He says that first many of the Jewish people of the time looked to signs and miracles as a sign of authority and power. We see this often in the gospels where the people are asking Jesus to show them a sign. And yet the gospel of the cross tells of Jesus dying on the cross. There was no miraculous sign of him coming down of the cross demonstrating his power, instead Jesus died.  Paul said that for many Jews, this became a stumbling block in their faith.  On the other hand Gentiles, many of whom were influenced by the Greek philosophers and the Roman orators, search for authority through wisdom. The person at that time who could speak and argue most eloquently, who could make clever arguments was seen as wielding much power, and yet Paul acknowledges that the claim that the death of the Son of God is an act of extreme power that Christians claim as a victory, seems quite foolish.  And yet Paul says, “For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.”

            To Paul, humans put too much stock into the wrong type of power. We lift up as our idols those who have been cutthroat, ruthless, and have done whatever it takes to make it to the top of their field, and we celebrate it as ambition and wisdom. We label them as wise businessmen, or politicians or what not. We tend to view their characteristics, such as their looks, their education, their social upbringing, and we begin to strive for those things in our own lives because we believe that is where true power rests. Paul reminds us that the message of the cross negates this. In a dog eat dog, individualistic society where the one who makes it out alive is the king of the hill,  the message of the cross reminds us that true power is not who is able to conquer and outlast the other, but rather who is willing to sacrifice themselves for their neighbors. The message of the cross is not about what I can do, the message of the cross is about what we can do together.  The message of the cross is not that our power comes from innate traits that we have inside a select few of us, it is instead that we all are capable of great things through the power of God. 

            Paul really drives this last point home, He says, “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.”  Paul says to us, look I know that most of us were not born into nobility, born into some elite status; not all of all of us have the same level of education, the same athletic ability, not all of us have the same ability to speak in public or social skills, and yet all of us have the same power through God.  That according to worldly standards many of us do not seem to be the most qualified to participate in the important role of serving God, but we don’t live but human standards, we live by God’s standards. We may be asking why me, what can I do, it just doesn’t make sense for me to a have a role in this body of Christ, and yet to the world the lifeless body of Christ on the cross doesn’t makes sense earlier. And yet we know better, we know the power that is in the cross, we know the power that is in God the father, and the power given to us by the Holy Spirit. We know that we have the power to do great things through the power of the cross, we know that as we gather as the body of Christ there is power in each other for the sum of the parts is greater than any individual part. We know that this calling that God has put on each of our lives is no mistake, no matter what the world says we know that God has equipped us for great things. As we continue to learn about what it for us as a church to truly become the body of Christ, let us never think that we can’t do it.  Let us recognize the call God has placed on our lives, and on the lives of those around us. To the world we may not look like much, what we claim that we can do through the power of God may seem foolish, but I want to be fool. I want to be a sophomore.