"Is Christ Divided?" - Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter

Is Christ Divided?
Easter 5 – Narrative Lectionary 2
April 24, 2016
Grace, Mankato, MN
Acts 18.1-4; 1 Corinthians 1.10-18

I got talked into team teaching an ethics class by a golfing buddy of Al Simonson and Bill Anderson. He had always wanted to teach a class on ethics but felt he couldn’t do it on his own, so he asked me to help. Through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of the University of Minnesota, “OLLI” as it is known, uses volunteer teachers. So, although it didn’t pay anything it was enjoyable. We’ve met in the Cities four Fridays, my day off, and we’ve examined ways to “do” ethics.

After the third and penultimate session, we asked attendees what we haven’t covered that they’d like us to address. More than one member expressed a desire to learn more about how to have ethical conversations. One woman was especially interested because of her experience of differing value systems than other generations, particularly her granddaughter.

Though we don’t know for sure, having ethical conversations may be a question the Corinthian church asked Paul or that Paul was addressing with them. Last week we heard about the Thessalonian church Paul also founded, one he dearly loved and one that experienced conflict due to persecution from external sources, Jew and Gentile alike. This week the conflict is internal to the church and threatens to blow it apart. Corinth was a major seaport on the Aegean Sea in Greece, located on an isthmus in the Peloponnesus. It was a trade center with diverse population and had a reputation for “anything goes.” The church at Corinth reflected that diversity and the congregation was having a hard time figuring out how to get along with one another.

Although we can’t know for certain, there seem to be several issues creating conflict. Apparently, different groups lined up behind favored theologians and personalities. Furthermore, some of the more affluent members were eating the good food and drinking the good wine before the poorer folk showed up for worship. There also seemed to be an argument about which spiritual gifts were better than others and finally some of the members thought the resurrection was a this-life only experience. Probably the biggest irony of it all was that the one thing that should have united them as a church seemed to be a bone of contention: baptism. They even argued about who baptized whom.

Now, I’m sure some of you are shocked that there could be conflict and division in a church (wink, wink). The reality is that the history of Christianity is one of conflict: in addition to our text, there were disagreements about the divinity of Jesus. There was the great schism around 1100 CE that resulted in the Eastern and Western churches, known as the Orthodox and Roman Catholic respectively.

A few hundred years later, the Protestant Reformation resulted in multiple splits throughout Europe, a phenomenon that continued in the United States today resulting in denominationalism. The Enlightenment, which elevated reason and science about religion, caused churches to respond in various ways, the effects also being felt today. And the Civil War brought further divisions. And although our own denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was born through mergers, we haven’t been immune to splits. And, if doctrinal battles weren’t enough, there were issues of women’s ordination, the music wars and most devastating to congregational harmony: what color the carpet should be.

In 2007 I was privileged to be a voting member at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Chicago. To vote on matters, we had these nifty voting boxes in front of us. To get us used to the way they worked, then Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson give us some practice. He said he wanted to find a question we could all agree on and settled on “Jesus is Lord.” However, on second thought, he was pretty sure he didn’t want to know the answer.

The question is not how to prevent conflict; the question is how we resolve conflict without splits that destroy community. In the weeks ahead, with Paul we’ll address some of the issues in the Corinthian church I mentioned above and get some pointers on how to have conversations. For today and for your consideration, we answer Paul’s rhetorical question, “Is Christ divided” with a resounding, “No!” We listen deeply and intently to one another; and we begin and end our conversations that Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is our Lord and is the center of our life together.

Last Friday, at our last OLLI session on ethics, we practiced having ethical conversations. We agreed that we need to listen to one another with a sense of humility and curiosity. We need to share our experiences with one another with respect. It has been said, “They will know we are Christians by our love” and I hope that is true. But I would also hope that it could said, “They will know we are Christians by the way we handle conflict.” Our world desperately needs us to figure out how to get along so we can help it do the same. We have hope because Christ is risen; he is risen indeed, alleluia! Amen.