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Text: 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 (Matthew “Is Christ Divided?” In the name of Jesus, dear
brothers and sisters in Christ: The
other day I heard a church member ask with no little bit of exasperation, “Why
are there so many different kinds of Lutheran churches?” The person didn’t think that there should be
divisions within denominations – that Lutheran by itself ought to be a
more than sufficient subdivision of Christianity, and that anyone calling
himself a Lutheran really should be united together with all others whose
churches share the name. As far as the
individual was concerned, it was just wrong that that wasn’t the case. And I’d be the first to agree. It really is a shame and a pity that the
Lutheran church is as fractured as it is – though the person who expressed the
sentiment should be glad to be a Lutheran rather than a Baptist. I mean, there are only a few dozen different
Lutheran church bodies worldwide; the Baptists have hundreds, maybe even thousands
– with a lot of them consisting of just one congregation in fellowship only
with itself … and even then, I imagine in such churches the members eye each
other warily, wondering not if but when they’ll be forced to
split again over some issue and go form yet another church. But, of course, we could broaden
the original question and ask why do we have divisions in the Christian church
at all? Why are there so many
denominations? There is only one Christ. So why is it that we who follow him must identify
ourselves as Lutheran, or Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian,
Catholic, or one of the many others including the so-called “nondenominational”
denominations (which, incidentally, usually means some variant of Baptist)? Why isn’t just “Christian” descriptive
enough? It really is a scandal the way
things are – a black mark on all of who claim the name of Christ; not to
mention the fact that it’s horribly confusing to so many people both inside and
outside the church. Looking at
Christendom as it is, split, splintered, and segmented, it might very well
cause one to ask, “Is Christ
divided?” —Which just happens to be same question that
Paul asks rhetorically in this morning’s Epistle lesson. What’s clear, however, when he asks it, is
that he expects the answer to be “no”.
It’s absolutely unthinkable to him.
So considering the church’s present fragmented state, and having heard
Paul’s appeal for unity in the church, I thought it would be good to reflect on
this question “Is Christ divided?” – and on our own behavior and witness that
may contribute to making him seem so – as well as our desire (or sinful lack of
it) to promote and work toward the unity of which Paul speaks. First,
however, it needs to be understood that some division is completely
appropriate. The Christian Church is
created and sustained by a process of division.
Though Christ our Lord is not divided, he is a divider. He said so
himself. He told his disciples, “I did
not come to bring peace but division”;
even to the point of setting at odds members of the same household. We see this process taking place in the
Gospel reading for this morning in which Jesus is calling certain individuals
to follow him. In so doing, he is
dividing them out, as it were, and calling them away from their present lives
to a new one with him as his disciples. All of us
were similarly called out and divided by Jesus.
For most of us it happened in Baptism.
That’s when Jesus separated us from the world’s citizenship and made us
God’s children and heirs. And he put us
in a church – which comes from a Greek word meaning “those who have been called
out”. So a church is by definition
something that divides us from the rest of humanity. And we learn that in the church Christ sanctifies us or makes us holy – again, the basic meaning of which
is to be separated, divided out, and set aside for the Lord and his
purposes. Even the principle work of
Christ in his church is to divide – for here we come to be separated from the
guilt of our sin, filled with God’s Spirit, and equipped to let the Lord work
through us to show forth his love in the world.
And while we press on in his service thus divided out by him, we look
forward to the day when Christ will come in judgment when he will ultimately divide the sheep and goats for all
time. So there’s no question about
it: though not divided himself, Christ
is a divider of people. Of course,
Christ is also a unifier of people. In
his very person, God and man are unified.
In him, in a very unique way, we have the union of Creature and the
Creator. And his mission – the very
reason he united himself with a body of flesh – was to gather up the lost sheep
that had been scattered and reconcile us to his Father through his atoning
sacrifice. He came to heal the rift
between God and man caused by our sin.
And in so doing, he also reconciles us one to another. Those who have been forgiven and restored to
a proper relationship with God in Christ also forgive each other and are made
one body in peace and harmony with itself in him. Now, that
first part of Christ’s mission is a done deal.
By his sacrifice on the cross and his rising again, he fully
accomplished work of clearing the barriers that stood between God and man. Everyone who hears that message and by the
power of the Spirit believes it has already been redeemed and restored and has
been reunited with God. Now, that
doesn’t mean that because it’s done we can just forget about it. No, because of our continuing sin and
tendency to doubt, we need constant reassurance and building up in the Word and
Spirit. If we deprive ourselves of that
which divides us from the world and unites us to God, we’ll soon reenter the
atmosphere and come falling back to the ground in flames. So, when I say it’s a done deal, understand
that I presuppose a person’s ongoing faithfulness. Those who remain faithful are united with
God. But for
those who are faithful (to greater or lesser degrees), it’s in the second part
of Christ’s mission, the union with fellow believers, where we see that there’s
still a lot of work to do. But why is
that? It’s because our union is in
Christ Jesus – our common faith in him – and Christ is not divided; but we are – I mean individually – each
one of us has two natures, one that’s reborn and united with God, and another
that’s still corrupt, sinful, and rebellious.
It’s still very much part of the world.
So understand this: in Christ
there can be no division. Therefore that
which divides us in his church is always stuff we bring in from the outside –
from the world and the old sinful nature.
For us to have unity with each other, all that stuff needs to be thrown
out. This is
what Paul is addressing in the text concerning the divisions in the Corinthian
congregation. They were divided by
sinful rivalry, self-promotion, ambition, the stubborn refusal to admit being
wrong, and the desire to be the discoverer or creator of something new. It was church politics at its worse. They had broken into factions that were
quarreling with each other over every issue you can imagine, and each group
thought they had the final word of authority based upon the teachers from whom
they had first learned the Gospel. So
you had the originals who had been taught by Paul. They saw themselves as the old guard – the
charter members. They knew the way
everything should be done, and they didn’t want to see any changes or
innovations. Then you had a later group
that had come in under pastor Apollos, who served the congregation after Paul
left. Apollos was a very gifted speaker
who attracted a lot of new members not so much on account of his deep theology
– he wasn’t as well grounded as Paul – but more by virtue of his skillful
speech. And please don’t misunderstand
me: both Paul and Apollos were good
Christian pastors; they just had different strengths and weaknesses. Then there was another group who claimed
Peter as their patron. Maybe they
transferred in from Jerusalem. Who
knows? But they figured they were better
because they had been taught by the Apostle who had been Jesus’ right hand
man. And then to get a leg yet higher
up, there was another group who tried to trump everyone else’s authority by
claiming to follow Jesus First. But it was all about pride and
one-upmanship and trying to feel superior to other members of the body of
Christ; and it’s this sort of quarreling that Paul condemns as foolish and
inappropriate. It doesn’t matter who
your teacher was, he tells them, or who baptized you; what matters is the
Gospel of Jesus Christ – it is into him and him alone that we were
baptized. We are one in him, in his
sacrifice for sin, and in his Spirit as we continue to hear and follow his
Word. And with this understood, we see
that there is an appropriate time and place for division in the
church – and that’s when it’s not a question of sinful personal contention, but
when there is instead deviation from the Word of Christ. You cannot claim to be the disciple of Jesus,
that is, someone who has been called to follow him and listen to what he says
if when he speaks you ignore him or argue with him. When Peter argued with Jesus about the plan
of salvation, Jesus told him to “Get away from me, Satan.” Now, that’s what I’d call division. No, Jesus has built his church on the true
confession of his Word. That is, the
church is to say and believe what Jesus has taught – what Jesus says in the
whole Word of God – precisely because he is the whole Word of God. To deny any part of it is to deny him – to
divide yourself from him. And that’s why in this morning’s
text where we heard Paul tell the Corinthians to, “agree with each other” what
he actually says is in Greek is: “all of you speak the same thing” – that is,
your spoken confession should be the same.
And it’s not just what you say, but he tells them to “have the
same thoughts and judgment.“ That is,
they are all to think and believe in perfect accord with the teaching and Word
of Christ. That’s where their unity
lies: in Christ and what he says. When we aren’t listening to him, we are
listening to the sinful nature – to Satan – to the things that divide us. And if we pretend to be united without
listening to Jesus, we are only fooling ourselves. For a good, contemporary example
of such self-deception, some of you may be aware that a little over a week ago,
the largest Lutheran church body in the US, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America (ELCA), released its long awaited Report on Human Sexuality. It’s something they’ve been working on for
several years as they’ve been grappling with two big issues, namely: 1) Will
our churches have permission to bless same sex unions? And 2) Will we allow our churches to be
served by non-celibate homosexual pastors or pastorettes? (And just a side here: the very fact that they consider these to be
questions worth arguing about should help anyone understand why there’s more
than one Lutheran church body in America).
But understand that for them this is a big flap that’s been threatening
to divide their church. On one side
you’ve got lots of folks (and, sad to say, most of the leadership) pulling hard
toward the pro-homosexual agenda, and on the other side you’ve got the folks
who want to maintain the present biblical standard with regard to these
questions – which is not only “no” to both, but “how can you even to ask?” So the whole church body has been
on pins and needles as they’ve waited for the official report of the select
group of theologians and laypeople who have been tasked to discover a
God-pleasing solution to these issues that are threatening to split them
apart. About ten days ago they got their
answer, and here’s what the task force recommends: 1) That we should not let these issues divide
our church (…okay), 2) That we keep the same standards, officially
prohibiting gay marriages and actively gay pastors (… so far, so good), and
(but here’s the kicker) 3) That we don’t enforce the standards and simply allow
our congregations to do whatever they want.
So when all is said and done, what they recommend is unity at all costs
– even if we don’t speak and think the same; and who cares about the truth of
Christ? What they are attempting to do
is to maintain a false, unbiblical unity by simply avoiding the questions. Let’s just stop talking about it; then we
can’t disagree. If I were one of the
people who helped contribute the millions of dollars spent to create that
report, I’d demand my money back (and yes, that would be divisive – but in the
right sort of way). But I only use this example to
make the problem clear, because we have the same kinds of problems in our own
church body – only the issues are different.
And to tell the truth, we’ve become almost a “two party” church. Sad to say, lots of the division we have is
based on personalities, politics, and the sinful struggle for supremacy. Mixed in, however, are real differences in
our confession of Christ’s truth. We
simply aren’t saying the same things or sharing the same mind when it comes to
issues such as the proper service of women in the church, the practice of close
communion, and a number of questions that surround fellowship issues, to name
just a few. And to complicate matters,
sometimes the two causes of division are becoming confused. When someone stands up to contend for the
truth of Christ against a false teaching – that is, the proper kind of division
the church must have even to be the church – he immediately gets accused of
being guilty of the inappropriate kind of sinful quarreling that destroys the
church. So what’s happening is that the
theological debate and discussion necessary for the church to learn and grow in
Christ is being stifled in the name of false peace and unity. It’s “Believe what ever you want; just don’t
upset the boat – because upsetting the boat is the only sin that matters.” Yeah?
Well Jesus didn’t think so. With
his teaching he turned the whole world upside down. And make no mistake: when his Word is taught in its truth and
purity it still upsets things – it still divides things – today. So, what I’m saying this morning
is that in order for us to have unity, real unity in the church of
Christ, we must start with division. We
must be divided from the stuff of sin and the world that we bring into the
church that cause the factions and the infighting between us. We call the division I’m talking about “repentance”. Let us therefore examine our own lives to see
where we have let our sin and pride stand in the way of unity with others who
also claim Christ as Lord and Savior.
And at the same time, let us also consider where we have let false unity
stand in spite of real differences in what we say and believe concerning the
Word and teaching of Christ. Both of
these sins destroy the true unity of the church – and both need to be expelled
for us to be one in the Lord. And repenting of these sins, let
us turn to Christ who is not divided – but who was divided once for
us: he was divided from his Father’s
grace when he bore our sin, and ultimately he was divided in body and Spirit
when he bowed his head in death. He did
that to bring an end to our divisions.
And now that he is risen, he is one and will never be divided
again. He is one with his Father, and
with all those who have answered his call to follow him as disciples. And he unites his disciples as one by
teaching them his truth. That’s what
heals the divisions between us: the Word
and teaching of Jesus – which is precisely what we see in today’s Gospel: Jesus teaching, preaching, and healing
all that has by sin been put out of its proper condition. He heals our divisions when we listen to
him. Let’s let the healing begin. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Soli Deo
Gloria! |
