I Corinthians 13.1–13
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado If you don’t know anything else that Paul of Tarsus wrote, you likely know this passage from First Corinthians, probably because you’ve heard it at a wedding. And it is a good starting place to understand Paul, who often gets a bum rap in progressive churches. And this passage is also a great way to understand love. Even though Valentine’s Day is less than two weeks away, I am not going to talk about eros and erotic love this morning…I’m going to talk about agape or self-giving love, which is the variety of love that Paul writes about in this letter. I remember a conversation with a Swedish friend many years ago in which he sang the praises of English. My friend Tore pointed to the huge vocabulary of our language, which is relatively larger than Swedish, thanks in large part to Celtic Britain being invaded by Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Vikings, and Normans, all of whom brought new words to the language we speak today. Yet we have a pretty limited vocabulary of love, at least compared to the Greeks. Yes, we have attraction, affection, and fondness, but they all sound kind of a vague and pasty compared to the eros, philia, and agape of Greek. And for us, love also is shaded by the canopy of the Romantic era, which leaves it soft, squishy, and pale. That isn’t agape. Agape is about going deeper. Agape is the kind of love needed if you are in Amsterdam in 1943 and you are hiding Jewish children in your attic. Agape is the kind of love needed if you are a part of Christian Peacemaker Teams, putting yourself in harm’s way in a war zone. Agape is the kind of love you need when you are called upon to risk and sacrifice something in order to stand up for your faith. Agape is self-giving love in action; it is risky, it is costly, and it is not for the faint of heart. When John’s gospel quotes Jesus as saying that “no one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” [John 15.13], he’s talking about agape…costly, self-sacrificial love. You and I are seldom called on to really step up and act from a sense of self-giving love for our faith, and we’re unlikely to be imprisoned for it…but that is still a reality for some Christians, like Pastor Jin Mingri, whose church in Beijing was bulldozed by the government, which then sent him a $179,000 demolition bill. In an interview with the Guardian, Jin said, “Of course we’re scared, we’re in China, but we have Jesus.” [The Guardian, 28 Sept. 2018, “We Were Scared, but We Have Jesus: China and its War on Christianity." At last week’s congregational meeting, we were able to meet openly, elect a slate of folks who agreed to serve on boards and council, pass a budget, and there was no intrusion from the state. We don’t talk very much about “loving Jesus” at Plymouth; and even if we don’t use that phrase, our love of God drives us to do amazing things together, going deeper in our faith, getting out of our comfort zones, making offerings that are costly to us, and living out our faith boldly. People like Bob and Nancy Sturtevant, who established a kindergarten in Ethiopia and just returned from there last week…and you’ll see them giving their time as well as moderator, deacon, sound guy, Interfaith Council rep., and more. That’s what self-sacrificial love looks like. Glennon Doyle, a UCC member, whose #1 NY Times bestseller is called, Love Warrior, says this: “Life is hard because love is hard, and it’s not because you’re doing everything wrong. Often life is hardest when you are doing everything right.” [From Glennon Doyle’s talk on Work of the People.]
Earlier in First Corinthians, Paul writes, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” [I Cor. 8.1] How do you see that at work in your home or workplace or here at Plymouth? Offering our service, our time, our wealth, our compassion, ourselves to God and one another is an act of self-giving love.
Paul writes of all kinds of wonderful spiritual gifts -– speaking in tongues, prophetic witness, knowledge, faith, hope, giving away everything. And he says that if you have those gifts and graces but you don’t have love, then you are left empty. Agape, as Paul describes it, is not always easy to put into practice…maybe it is also a variation on what we know as “tough love,” when we have to do uncomfortable things because we see a person bent on self-destruction. Families who do interventions with a member with a substance abuse problem know what agape love looks like. Tough love doesn’t tolerate denial; it “rejoices in the truth.” Maybe agape in this sense blends love and courage. It takes a lot of love to tell someone things they would rather not hear. My own family did that with my mom to help her acknowledge her alcoholism. It is seldom easy to “speak the truth in love” [Eph. 4] when you have something hard to say…but it can be loving. So, here is a small dose of truth telling that I hope you will hear in the spirit of agape: I think that we as a congregation have become complacent. We’re a little bit “fat and happy,” and there is nothing recently that seems to drive a sense of urgency. When you walk into Plymouth, you see a comfortable, well-maintained building, and so perhaps you assume that “it’s all good,” that there is no financial need here…that people seem generally happy and affluent. That’s because we have some people who tithe and give sacrificially of their time and money. But this involved segment is pulling more than their weight, and it’s not sustainable. if you missed the Congregational Meeting last Sunday and didn’t read the 2019 budget or annual report…you missed the urgency. Twice last week, I told members of the congregation and staff, “Sorry, we can’t do that, because of budget cuts.” To those of you who give generously of both your time and your money, thank you! And to those of you have time and wealth to give, please consider this an encouragement, and invitation to step up with a sense of self-giving love. I appreciate the congregation’s understanding that freezing spending on all mission and programming costs and not being able to fully fund cost-of-living increases for staff was not a nefarious deed on the part of the Budget & Finance Committee or the Leadership Council. All of us together are the ones who decide what Plymouth’s annual income will look like, and we decide it by what we pledge. And to all of you who are giving so generously of time, talent, and money…thank you deeply! An even bigger issue is that we need to live our faith from a place of God’s abundance and infinite love, rather than from scarcity. Richard Rohr writes, “The flow of grace through us is largely blocked when we are living inside a worldview of scarcity, a feeling that there’s just not enough: enough of God, enough of me, enough food, enough mercy to include and forgive all faults.” We need everyone –- yes, everyone –- at Plymouth to go deeper in their faith with a sense of agape. That might mean helping with Faith Family Hospitality, teaching Sunday school, working at the reception desk, helping at spring clean-up day, and yes, it means stretching yourself when it comes to financial giving. We also need you to follow through on the commitment you make when you join Plymouth to attend worship more frequently…and also to invite your friends who need the gift of Plymouth. So, why? Why do we need to kick it up a notch? Is it because we don’t want our church to stagnate? Yeah…in part. Is it because there are people out there trudging through life and not finding much meaning in an endless cycle of work and entertainment? Yeah…that’s part of it, too. Is it because somebody in this town has to stand up for LGBTQ rights and sensible gun laws and immigration reform and people who experience homelessness? Yeah…sure. Those are all perfectly good reasons why we need to lean into our common life at Plymouth. But the dominant reason is that God calls us to live out our agape love for one another, for the world around us, and for God. I wonder if we sometimes forget that that’s why we are here in the first place. In Deuteronomy, the heart of Jewish faith is expressed this way: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all you soul, and with all your might.” Deut. 6.5] And Jesus adds another: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” [Mark 12.31]. That’s agape. I hope that you hear what I am saying as an expression of my love for God, for Plymouth, and for you. I love you all far too much to remain silent. Love is both a noun and a verb in our language. My prayer for Plymouth this year is that we go deeper and take action to tie our faith together with a sense of God’s love for us and all those we call neighbors. Amen. © 2019 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint. AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal.
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1 Corinthians 11:17-26
World Communion Sunday Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson 1 Corinthians 11:17-26 17 Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. 18 For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it. 19 Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine. 20 When you come together, it is not really to eat the LORD's supper. 21 For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. 22 What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you! 23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the LORD's death until he comes.
The apostle Paul, who wrote our scripture text as part of a letter to the church in Corinth, was a tough-love pastor. He didn’t pull any punches with the churches he founded and served. Lovingly and firmly he instructed them, calling them out on their misbehaviors, their false piety and their injustices. Tough love is what we hear in the opening passage of our scripture reading today. Just before this passage he has been commending them on some good church practices...now he brings the hammer of justice down. “I do not commend you on the way you are celebrating the Lord’s Supper. You are NOT remembering relationship and you are not remembering the Christ who died for you.” Boom!
The problem the Corinthians Christians were having stemmed from the Roman culture and hospitality practices in the first century. The church was meeting in the homes of its wealthier members. In these homes, there was the central dining room which could hold about 9–10 people reclining on couches. So, traditionally, the most important people ate there. Then there was an outer atrium where another 20 or 30 people could gather. Important, but not the inner circle. And then there was another room for the servants and slaves. So the church was not truly gathered together for the Lord’s Supper meal. It was separated in terms of status and class. Some ate well; some not at all. When the early Corinthian church gathered to celebrate the Last Supper or Lord’s Supper there was no distinction between the actual meal and the ritual or eucharist or communion. It was all of a piece in one dinner, a “love feast" or “agape meal.” So if the church is scattered across at least three different spaces eating different foods, how can they celebrate communion in unity? And the group with no food or drink? How could they celebrate at all? The church was meeting... but they were not really in relationship! And this was the big problem that Paul had with them!! Being out of relationship across class and economic spectrums, they were not remembering that Jesus had died a sacrificial death at the hands of the Romans for all of humanity. Or that God had conquered death in Jesus’ resurrection for all humanity. The Corinthian Christians let their comfort zones and unexamined habits get in the way of their commitment to the love of God in Jesus the Christ. Thus, the stern reprimand from Paul. And his repetition to them of what he had been given about the Last Supper. We often hear the second portion of this passage at Maundy Thursday services because it is the earliest historical written reference to the Last Supper. Paul wrote down the instructions in this letter 20 or so years after the death of Christ. Most likely he had been taught them verbally -– perhaps by a disciple who was at the supper. This is just about as direct a report as we get from that pivotal night in the life of Jesus. All the gospel reports were written twenty to forty or fifty years after Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. This is a very beloved and historical passage in Christian history. But it was not originally written for us to revere with sentimentality. It was written to emphasize why and how to celebrate this founding ritual of Christian faith. On the very night he was betrayed Jesus revealed new significance to the bread and the wine of the ancient Passover ritual of deliverance and liberation from oppression. Both Jewish and Gentile Christians in the early church would recognize grapes and grain offerings as typical sacrificial elements prayerfully offered in Jewish and Greco-Roman temple worship. They are first fruits sacrifices given to God in thanksgiving. In the tradition passed down through Paul, Jesus says to the first century church and to us, “Remember me when you eat together. Remember that as grapes and grain give their lives to be transformed into wine and bread, I give myself for you so that we may all be transformed in God’s love.” Paul adds to Jesus instructions “as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the LORD's death until he comes.” Why proclaim Jesus’ death? Because it was through Jesus’ sacrificial giving of his whole life to God even unto death that revealed the unifying power of God over the divisive powers of humanity in the life-giving power of resurrection. So what do with do with all this besides fondly remember these metaphors and meanings as we celebrate communion? What about Paul’s reprimand of the first century Christians? Is there anything in the reprimand for us? Surely we would meet with Paul’s approval in our ritual of communion. We do it right now....all in one room....all at one table. Everyone invited. Yes....and..... Paul’s instructions and admonitions call us to examine the bigger picture of our lives as Christians in our 21st century world. We all know we live in a world of extreme divisions and divisions among the Body of Christ are not new. Like the first century Corinthians unconsciously following the patterns of Roman culture, 21st century Christens are separated into different rooms by class, political and religious affiliation, theological interpretation and practice. Is Paul’s admonition a call to reach out across our Christian differences to celebrate in communion God’s gift of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection? If so, that is a daunting call. How can we possibly heal from the 2000 years of abuse of one another in the Christian faith? We have fought viciously over theology and ethics, persecuted one another even to the point of death, deeply shamed one another because of differences in biblical interpretation. And many of us gathered here today are the walking wounded of these divisions, as well as hidden sexual abuse in both Catholic and Protestant churches. Is there any hope for reconciliation between Christians? Any hope for breaking down barriers to listen deeply and with compassionate hearts to one another as we listen together to God? I wish I could say I had a plan for this grand scheme of healing! I have not been divinely gifted with one. The only way forward that I see is to come together in this local body of Christ and seek healing through prayer, through service and through the unifying ritual of communion. I firmly believe that as we acknowledge our wounds, tell our stories to one another in appropriate settings, here in this gathered body of Christ, we begin and further our individual healing. As we risk vulnerability with one another here, we gather the wisdom and strength to reach out in vulnerability and compassion to those in our families, our neighborhoods, our work and our schools who come from what seem to be opposing forces in Christianity. Vulnerability is not weakness. It is the strength of standing in the authentic being of your soul. It is the joyful and arduous journey to know yourself in all your gifts and wounds. It is the ability to speak your truth in love with diplomacy and compassion, rather than wielding words as weapons. Vulnerability is reserving the right to self protect and have boundaries even as we take risks in sacrificial love to reach out to others. It is knowing that each of us is wounded and seeks healing even as we know that we have most likely wounded someone else and want to seek their healing as well. It is laying down our lives for one another in love through the very living of our lives. It is asking for the grace to forgive and be forgiven. Forgiveness is not easy. I know from personal experience that sometimes it is just doesn’t feel safe to forgive a person or a system who has abused you. That is when I ask God to do the forgiving that I cannot do. When we feel too wounded to forgive, we can still take the risk of a baby step. We can in vulnerability let go of just enough hurt to trust God has a bigger picture of suffering, healing and forgiving than we do. With God nothing is impossible. Jesus was and is our supreme model of the strength of vulnerability. He vulnerably offered himself as a vessel of God’s love in all his teachings, stories, healings, miracles and ultimately in sacrificially giving his life in non-violent resistance to a system of false power. God sustained him through it all. How can we respond to Paul’s call to be in relationship and union with all our Christian brothers and sisters? By following Jesus to this table. Here in this core ritual of our faith we remember the strength of Jesus’ vulnerability. Even as he was being betrayed by the political powers of his time he said, “This is my body given for you. This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. As often as you share this meal remember me.” May it be so. Amen. AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate, Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series. Learn more about Jane Ann here. 1 Corinthians 12.12-31 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado Did you hear the one that goes, “Why is the church like Noah’s Ark?” … “Because the stench inside would be intolerable if it weren’t for the storm raging outside.” Or “How many Congregationalists does it take to change a lightbulb?” … “What do you mean change?!” How about the classic one-liner: “Jesus promised us the Kingdom of God, but all we got was the church!” The past 50 years have not been easy ones for religious institutions. Some of it is our own doing, and some of it isn’t. We all know about “mainline decline” and the rise of people who have no religious affiliation. And we all know that churches have been complicit in protecting pedophile priests, financial malfeasance and greed by televangelists, and political power grabs by the religious right. And those wrongs need to be addressed. Those stories dominate the news, and if you don’t know anything else of the church, you’re likely to have a rather dim view of what it means to be the church in America today. That catalog of tragedies has caused countless people to say they’ve had enough of the church and decide to chuck it all. I was there, too, when I was 18, having witnessed a bitter factional struggle in the church of my youth and when televangelists shouted and wailed across the airwaves. To my teenage eyes, which tended to see things only in monochromatic black-and-white images, my perception was that the church was broken. Who needs the church?!? So, I left for about 10 years…and eventually I returned through the back door of the Unitarian Church in Santa Barbara, when I realized that I needed a community where I could nurture and explore my spiritual life. I needed the church. I know my story is not unique…but I did have a family background that provided me with something to come back to. Yet, a large segment of young Americans today has never stepped foot into a church, mosque, or synagogue, because their families were never involved in the first place. When they are in their 20s or 30s and feel a pull toward spiritual community, they have no home to return to. I was born at the end of the Baby Boom, and one of the hallmarks of my generation, especially older Boomers who remember the Vietnam War, the shootings at Kent State, and Watergate, was to “do your own thing.” In the 1960s and 70s, every institution was distrusted, including the church. And it is true that the church in this country has been a bastion of sexism, homophobia, classism, and racism. And if your local church was just a social club or a place to be civically involved like the Elks Club, then it was part of the establishment that the Boomers abandoned. Lots of people left in disgust, saying “Who needs the church!?” So, that’s the bad news folks. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that “There are always two parties, the party of the Past and the party of the Future, the Establishment and the Movement.” And here is something that very few people in America realize: from the days of Jesus himself, the church can only function well as the Movement and not the Establishment. Some suggest that the church got corrupted when the Emperor Constantine adopted the faith and made it the official state religion of the Empire, and that may be so. But think about our own church’s Congregational history: separating from the established Church of England, rallying for the abolition of slavery, ordaining a woman in the 1850s, expounding the Social Gospel in the late 19th century, supporting Civil Rights in the 1950s and 60s, and working in the courts, legislatures and the in the church itself for the full inclusion of LGBTQ folks. That’s what the Movement looks like, and for many of us, that is a big part of what it means to be the United Church of Christ today. Years ago, one of our lay leaders, Larry McCulloch, was talking about why he was giving to the capital campaign that renovated and expanded our building, and he said that part of the reason was that the church, unlike any other organization, has been a potent force for social change for over 2,000 years, and that he wanted to invest in our future. Staying power is the upside of institutions. Social change is central to what we do in the UCC: it’s in our denominational DNA. But we are more than the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, GLAAD, or the ACLU, though we sometimes partner with them. There is a different dimension to who we are and what we’re about. We in the UCC, especially in the Congregation tradition, tend to have a “low” sense of ecclesiology — the theology of the nature of the church. Some of us here today may not see Plymouth as all that different than the organizations that I just named, and perhaps you see us essentially as a community organization that meets once a week…but with good music. Others of us know that there is more to the story, more to the nature of who we are, and more to explore as our spiritual lives unfold individually and together as a body. Early Congregationalists in England refused to identify with the church under the monarchy or even as a denomination. For them, the true church was a gathered body of people in one local place, called together to seek God and God’s intention for our lives. The Salem Church Covenant of 1629 spells it out: ‘We Covenant with the Lord and one with another; and do bind our selves in the presence of God, to walk together in all his waies, according as he is pleased to reveale himselfe unto us in his Blessed word of truth.” And when new members join Plymouth, as they (will do/did) today, we still exchange words of covenant with each other. Your name doesn’t go on a national list at the UCC offices in Cleveland…you are a member of Plymouth Congregational UCC, the local church. Your clergy are not members of the denomination, a presbytery, an annual conference, or a diocese…we are members of this local church. Our forebears didn’t believe in great hierarchies or bishops or popes or monarchs, but rather in people and pastors, who together try to seek God’s ways and live accordingly. And that is a radical notion of being the Movement, not the Establishment. And today, we also see ourselves as connected ecumenically to sisters and brothers around the world. And there is a more mystical aspect as well, in what it means to be the church. The roots of Greek word for church, ekklesia, from which we get our word ecclesiastical, mean called out. We are called out of our private lives to form community. We are called out of our comfort to have compassion for those who are hurting. We are called out of our individual needs to serve the needs of others. We are called out of our radical individualism and self-interest to be part of something greater. We are called out of our aloneness to be the body of Christ in the world. The gathered body — that is what it means for us to be church. When Paul was writing to those who had been called out and then called together in Corinth, he was doing so before any of our four gospels had been written, probably about 15 years before the earliest, the Gospel of Mark. So, this is early material…perhaps from 20 years after Jesus’ death. People did not yet know what it meant to be the church, so Paul uses this amazing metaphor of parts of the body, which are organically connected. “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” We aren’t just a collection of individuals…we are an organic, even a mystical, whole. And through baptism and covenant, we individuals become part of that organism. We become part of the Movement: the same Movement that Jesus started 2,000 years ago. “Now, you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.” Those are powerful words, but only if you let them sink into your being…past your mind, past your emotions, into your body and the depths of your being. You are the body of Christ. So, move! Go! You are called out to pray and to serve, BE the church because God and God’s world need you! Amen. © 2018 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
March 4, 2018 – 3rd Sunday in Lent Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson (17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. ) 18 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. 19 For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. (26 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. 27 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; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." ) Paradox: " a statement contrary to common belief or expectation, contrary to expectation, incredible.” From the Greek para ,meaning “contrary” and doxa, meaning “opinion.” Paradox: a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true. I have always found great power in paradox because it opens up possibilities beyond black and white reasoning, not discounting facts or logic but looking at them with new and unexpected imagination. In the passage we just heard from the opening of his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul proclaims the gospel through the rhetorical power of paradox. And what he proclaims is scandal to his first century hearers! His proclamation of the crucified one as Christ, the Savior Messiah, is “a stumbling block” – literally in the Greek, skandalon, a scandal – to the Jews. It is craziness to the Greeks who love logic and philosophy. The cross was shameful, an ignominious means of political execution for the Roman Empire, an instrument of torture and death. How could one crucified be a Savior of anything? My dear progressive, social justice activist friends here at Plymouth, this is a passage for us! As those who work for justice and love, who must work to subvert the status quo of our political, social and cultural paradigms of power, greed, prejudice and intolerance....this passage is for us! Paul is speaking our language in proclaiming the subversive, scandalous power of God’s love and justice in Christ crucified. He is proclaiming the paradoxical power of the cross! Let us begin with a moment or two of line by line Bible study to flesh this out. Paul is writing this letter to a divided community at Corinth, a church community divided between Jews and Greeks, divided between upper and lower classes, educated and not so educated – and a community caught in the cultural fast-living of Corinth. The city of Corinth overlooked two busy, thriving seaports. It was a prosperous, multi-cultural city known for its nouveau riche money, it’s lavish lifestyles of the rich, if not the famous. Paul is writing a letter of correction to a Christian community which has been drawn into factions between the haves and have-nots, the privileged class and the poorer classes, including slaves. There is a division between those who think themselves more educated or “wise” than others whom they consider “foolish.” The “wise” have been lulled into a gospel message that is contrary to Paul’s message by extravagant Christian orators, super-apostles as scholars call them, who have come to preach and teach after Paul helped found the community. Those who follow these orators are boasting that they were. baptized by them into the faith. They look down upon those baptized by Paul and those who cling to him as their teacher. They critique Paul’s presence as a speaker saying he is weak. He does not measure up in spoken power and presence to these super-apostles. The irony, of course, is that in his writing, Paul uses superb rhetoric. He may not be as much of an oral preacher but he can turn a phrase persuasively on the page using the formulas of classical Greek rhetoric with the best of them. Paul calls the community squarely on the carpet saying it makes no difference who does the baptizing. It does matter whether or not they are unified in community by the gospel of Christ Jesus. Just before the passage we heard he writes in verse 17, “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.” Glib rhetorical oratory will not capture the power of the cross says Paul – only plain spoken words, paradoxical and scandalous as they may be. Paul writes: 18 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. Note that being saved from aimlessness and sin is a process for Paul. He anchors his proclamation in the ancient prophet, Isaiah, who wrote as God’s mouthpiece,19, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." This is God’s ongoing plan. Then the zingers: 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? That would be wise ones of the Jews, the ones who know law and scripture. Where is the debater of this age? The Greek philosophers and rhetoricians who teach in the marketplaces. Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. All the wisdom of the world, the rhetoric, the philosophies, even the Torah have not saved us as human beings from ourselves, have not redeemed our relationship with the Holy. 22 For Jews demand signs of the true Messiah, a conquering Messiah and Greeks desire wisdom, systems of great thought from great minds .23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block, a scandal, and crazy foolishness. Why would the Jewish Messiah who is supposed to deliver the Jews from oppression, to be their savior, be this one who ends up as an indicted dissident, this one who proclaimed non-violent resistance against evil and oppression, this one who is executed as a criminal death on the Roman empire’s instrument of torture and fear? How can a Savior be one who has left no powerful philosophical treatise, but only the stories and sayings of God’s love and justice, and a reputation for not only consorting with the poor, the uneducated, the marginalized, but healing them, loving them as well? Scandalous! Crazy! It makes no sense in the wisdom of the world. Yet says Paul.....This is the One! And his death on the cross signifies to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. This symbol of our faith, the cross, is not ultimately a symbol of death…no, it signifies God’s infinite love for us, for human beings who do not know their right hands from their left as we quarrel about wisdom, creeds, philosophies and forget about love, as we seek to be one up on one another forgetting that we are each and every one of us made in God’s beloved image. The cross is God’s subversive message to the world that God gives God’s self for all that God loves. Even creation the trees and mountains, the air, the water, all the living creatures and plants, the very rocks. Jesus died a violent death as a non-violent resister of all that was contrary to God’s ways of justice and love in the world. He did not die as the sacrificial victim of an abusive father’s need of atonement so that the father could go on loving and forgiving all the rest of God’s children. That is the theology of substitutionary atonement. We may have grown up and it is still a prevailing doctrine with many Christians, I find it empty of meaning and downright harmful in the proclamation of the gospel. Jesus gave his life sacrificially in dearth for what he lived, God’s love and justice. Not to appease a stern judgmental God. He still put his whole life in God’s hands. I trust with all my heart that God was right there on the cross with him. That is the saving grace of the cross. That we are not abandoned to death and the sins of our won hearts or the world that can trap us into isolation. The old poet and philosopher said, “Bidden or unbidden God is always with us.” [Carl Jung] The young poet and philosopher said, “...love is not human centered.....it is the center.” [Colin Richard “Ferguson” Ward] When we look at the cross....we look at Christ... the spirit and power of the living God that Jesus embodied as fully human. This in the Spirit alive in the world leading us in the subversive, scandalous work of turning the ways of the world upside down for God’s sake, for Christ’s sake. The witness…the death…of Jesus, takes an instrument of execution, reverses its meaning, and lets us know that death is never God’s final word. The cross is a paradox – repugnant, visceral – and liberating, enlightening, full of hope. It is God’s ultimate “no” to death and “yes” to life that empowers us to live for Christ. I say to you, my brothers and sisters, in Christ what Paul wrote so many generations ago, “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. 27 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; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are...God is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God.” Amen. AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate, Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series. Learn more about Jane Ann here.
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
Consecration Sunday October 22, 2017 Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 6 The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. 9 As it is written, "God scatters abroad, God gives to the poor; God’s righteousness endures forever." 10 God who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; 12 for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. 13 Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by the generosity of your sharing with them and with all others, 14 while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that God has given you. 15 Thanks be to God for God’s indescribable gift! My dad once walked into my kitchen and said “This is just like your grandmother’s!” What he meant was the number of plants and bits of plants I have in my kitchen window. And its true. We have a greenhouse window above the kitchen sink and it is full. Of pots of herbs. A few flowers I nurture through the winter. The last of the tomatoes ripening. And yes at least a couple of odd-shaped bottles of plants sprouting roots in water. It is reminiscent of Grandmother Ferguson’s kitchen window sills in the old farmhouse in Oklahoma. I loved Grandma Ferguson’s house. Not fancy at all, comfortable, old pictures on the walls, the smell of the earth and the smell of iron from the well water. Her Oklahoma red dirt garden out back was complete with terrapins, as she called them, box turtles. We would paint their shells with finger nail polish to identify them the next time we came. There were chickens, goats, cows, sometimes puppies... I’m guessing I first heard the old hymn that gives us the sermon title this morning sitting in with her in the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Harrah, OK. I even remember the old sanctuary where my dad and all his siblings grew up wiggling in the pews beside her. “Bringing in the Sheaves” was written in 1874 by Knowles Shaw, who was inspired by Psalm 126:6, "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness, Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve; Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping, We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. Refrain: Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves, Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. What have you harvested recently in your life? Let’s think literally first. Vegetables, flowers from a raised bed or container garden? How many have actually harvested wheat or hay or soybeans or corn or some other large crop? Now let’s think figuratively... in metaphor. What have you harvested in your life? What are some seeds you have planted in relationships, family, school, career, a hobby, sport, a craft that have resulted in a satisfying, abundant harvest?.....for instance just over 25 years ago I decided to study storytelling, to start learning and telling stories...I took classes and went to workshops and spent hours in the library looking up old books of tales (this was before the internet made it easier to find all kinds of stories from different cultures and traditions)....I spent hours crafting a story, writing it down at the beginning,.... making storyboards of the scenes....rehearsing and rehearsing....I would get very nervous before telling. The harvest of all those hours of study and research is abundance. More than I ever imagined. I still work at my storytelling , I still tend it like we have to tend a garden day by day, week by week, year by year, .....but now I learn stories with an ease that surprises me. I have a style of telling that has developed over the years that surprises me. And telling stories is second nature to me. I feel fully who I am and a closeness to God I never imagined when I tell stories...that’s not why I set out to tell stories...its the harvest of all the years of tending the practice of storytelling. What about you? What have you harvested in your life with the perseverance and love and the help of God that surprised you? The beauty of life is that we never have to stop planting seeds of change and growth and harvesting their results. Growing a church can be like growing a garden, well maybe more like tending an entire farm! Each church is started in its earliest years with a handful of folks, the first seeds....and they begin to grow community and ministry as they worship together, study together, care for one another, laugh and cry together. They sow seeds of God’s love and justice, reaping the harvest through times of joy and sorrow. The apostle Paul was tending the garden of the church in Corinth when he gave them the words of encouragement that you just heard our liturgist read. To paraphrase Paul, “You reap as you sow, abundantly or sparingly, God supplies the abundance that empowers your generosity and sharing...Out of God’s abundance of blessing our ministries, our community, in the name of Christ grows....Thanks be to God for God’s indescribable gift....of love in Christ Jesus and so much abundance that we must share!” So what about the harvest of our lives together here at Plymouth? The harvest of our pledges, our tithes and offerings, that make up our yearly operating budget? The harvest of our work together to make God’s realm of justice and love visible?We give faithfully year after year and there are many things we see grow, but we may miss the abundant and amazing scope of the harvest. We have a harvest of ministries that is so abundant that people can glean from our fields. In Hebrew scriptures we hear of God’s mandate about gleaning to God’s people. They are to always leave enough in their fields at harvest time so that the poor, the widows and the orphans, those on the margins of society could come and glean from the fields. They could harvest from the fields they had could not plant or tend because of their particular vulnerability, to feed for their themselves and their families. People glean from the fields of Plymouth through our generous giving of financial resources. Our pledges support a growing operating budget. We give above and beyond that to disaster relief, to Neighbors in Need for UCC ministries around our country, to the Christmas Fund to enhance support for retired UCC ministers. We have a beautiful building to share with the Fort Collins community. We have active vital staff that not only tend Plymouth’s garden but reach out to connect us with the wider church and to be leaders in social change. Our youth are involved each summer and throughout the school year in mission and service trips....this summer our abundance spilled over into the Red Bud Reservation of South Dakota....and there are several Front Range Youth Events planned so they can continue service closer to home. The Immigration Team is very visible right now and growing in its ministry. Think of our giving to Bennett School, through the Alternative Giving Fair, the Giving Tree at Christmas, Faith Family Hospitality.....these just name a few ways in which people glean from our generous and abundant field. And they glean from our spiritual engagement in this community. We come to worship, we meet for study and spiritual growth, for fellowship and to care for one another, to volunteer, in very tangible ways. This spiritual and physical energy spills out into the wider community of Fort Collins and northern CO. as we take the spirit of God that we encounter together in worship to our places of work, our schools , our neighbors. The abundance of Plymouth’s fields of ministry overflow. In the midst of abundance we know that ministries, like plants, need constant tending , watering, feeding, warmth and light to grow. They may be new growth or they may be in the midst of change. There are times when ministries need tending with extra care. Like the Japanese eggplant I still have growing on our patio. I bought it on sale late in the season. It’s almost dried out with too little water, its almost drowned with the rains we had. In fact I had to repot it once because the soil was too wet. I bring it in when it threatens to freeze outside...and after losing blossoms, almost dying...it now has blossoms and four little eggplants growing. There are times when ministries need pruning in order to grow -– like my bougainvillea vine... When it looks like its at death’s door, I trim it back and give it a little plan food and it grows more leaves....it blooms pink at Christmas and magenta all summer. Then drops its leaves and we start again. Ministries in churches are like that. What needs tending at Plymouth? Our Christian Formation programs need consistent tending children and youth with new volunteers, teachers bring creative and imaginative faith. Our evening service needs consistent tending so it is not a ghettoized or isolated group within Plymouth but a vital, connected part of Plymouth’s wide abundant fields. Our Calling and Caring program of lay visitation needs care as it expands to serve a larger church. Our outreach to college students in our community, starting with our immediate neighbors at CSU and reaching out in time across town to Front Range needs a great deal of tending as a new ministry of our community. Developing lay leadership skills and volunteer recruitment and management needs very consistent tending. development and involvement from a wider segment of our members. Progressive evangelism....making ourselves visible for the sake of expanding and making visible the realm of God in northern Colorado needs meticulous care. Understanding what it means to offer extravagant welcome must be tended each time we open our doors....we will never finish tending our welcome. We will never finish tending our vital faith for God keeps giving abundantly so that we can share abundantly. The old song continues.... Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows, Fearing neither clouds nor winter’s chilling breeze; By and by the harvest, and the labor ended, We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. We know the labor never really ends....it just changes with the seasons, with new growth, with the extravagant giving of God. Thanks be to God for God’s indescribable gifts to us as today we bring in the sheaves of God’s abundance and grace. Amen! © The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, 2017. May be reprinted with permission only. AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate, Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series. Learn more about Jane Ann here. |
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