By the Rev. Frances A. Hills, Rector
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
What happened in Tucson a couple of weeks ago is baffling. It’s hard to believe
someone’s insane frustration and anger can lead to something as devastating as that. . .Killing and injuring many and mostly innocent bystanders. We can’t begin to imagine the physical, spiritual, emotional and financial suffering that’s involved. No doubt the pain, suffering, fear and other repercussions will go on for a very long time. This incident has shaken the core of the people in the U.S. We’re horrified to realize (once again)…It CAN happen here. In the blink of an eye. Sane or insane, self-will was run riot in Tucson. Someone could only see the world through their own eyes, through the lens of their personal agenda; and people were killed. People were hurt.
Now it’s good that kind of self-will and personal agenda never happens in the Church, isn’t it? But, of course, it does. We know it, and St. Paul knew it 2000 years ago when he wrote to the Church in Corinth. It seems they were fighting because of the loyalties they’d developed towards the persons who’d baptized them. Somehow they’d become competitive about which one was better. Obviously in doing this, they’d gotten off-track from the faith they were actually baptized into, and they’d made into idols the ones who’d initiated them into the faith of the crucified Christ. They were promising allegiance to Paul, Apollos, or Cephas, and arguing which was better…
Paul gets a report of these quarrels through Chloe’s friends, and calls them up short: “(So) Has Christ been divided?” In other words, “Have you just decided to cut up the body of Christ, which you yourselves are as his Church?” Then Paul calls them back to a unity of focus and allegiance: “What you are about as the body of Christ is living into the message of the Cross.” The important focus here is about Jesus, about his dying and rising. That’s what you’re baptized into! That’s what you must be in agreement about, and you must be united in the same mind and same purpose….‘None of this quarreling about these unimportant things, which you start to worship as idols, instead of Christ crucified and risen.
Now I must say St. James, it’s been reported to me (but not by Chloe) that there are some quarrels among you. So we must really take this scripture to heart, because we are bound together by the love of God in Christ and in the Cross of Christ. At St. James, we have (at least) two visions going on here among us: One is to go back and worship at 352 Main St., to try to reclaim life as it was in a beautiful, well-restored place. The other vision is to do something new and to be open to more possibilities: To let the Spirit lead us in our conversation with St. George Church, to become more and more a church that’s listening to God’s nudges to understand the future God wants for us.
Although there are these two visions, which may or may not intersect with each other, we are not free just to slam each other. We are not free just to complain and snipe about one another. When these things stay underground or to the parking lot, they poison us as Christ’s body. They divide the body of Christ, which is intended to be whole. Now it’s not that we won’t have our differences, but as followers of Jesus, we’re called to a higher ground. We’re called to place our common commitment to Christ above anything else. So if something else is more important to us than Jesus, it becomes an idol—a false god, and conflict will inevitably escalate. Now an antidote to this is to really listen to each other so that giving and receiving forgiveness becomes possible. If forgiveness happens, it is a gift from God, but there are things we can do to help create an environment for it to happen. The contemplative Richard Rohr sheds some light on this when he writes: “Do not judge. To see clearly, we cannot start with ‘no’…We must start with ‘yes’. This is a ‘yes’ of basic acceptance, which means not too quickly labeling, analyzing, or categorizing things as ‘in or out’, ‘good or bad’, ‘up or down’. You have to leave the field open, a field in which God and grace can move.” Rohr continues, “The judgmental mind prevents you from being present to the full moment by trying to ‘divide and conquer’. Instead, you end up dividing and being conquered.”
As Christians, we are called to cultivate a life in common…It’s not about divide and conquer. How we are with each other IS what matters. And the distraction conflict causes takes away precious energy from God’s work that needs doing. Like those first century Christians, what we are about as the Body of Christ is living into the message of the Cross.
My hope is that we can move to a place of deeper listening and understanding,
So that God’s Spirit has a chance to show us an even better vision than any we may already have—so God’s Spirit has a chance to help us find consensus, a way forward that serves the common good, regardless of our personal agendas. On this day of our 249th Annual Meeting, I invite us to consider the One into whose name we are baptized, the one who calls us to lose our lives to save them… Is his Cross foolishness to us? Or is it the very power of God?
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