Pentecost Sunday A
May 28, 2023
Christ, Preston, MN
1 Corinthians 12.3b-13
Susan related a story from her days as the young wife of an equally young Army officer, Lloyd. To understand this story, you need to know that it was before the Army became an equal opportunity employer with women serving alongside men. The Base Commander’s wife invited the wives of the newly arrived officers to a reception at her home. After they’d arrived, the Commander’s wife instructed them to sort themselves by rank. Susan, a bit flustered, knew her husband was a lowly Lieutenant and let the others move themselves around, figuring she’d be at the end of the line. After they sorted themselves out, the Commander’s wife sternly admonished, “Ladies, you have no rank! It’s your husbands who have rank, not you.” With that, the Commander’s wife informed them that they had no special status because of that of their husbands.
The Apostle Paul may have been expressing the same sentiment to the church at Corinth. This was a church that Paul founded and with whom had a deep relationship. This intimate relationship was maintained through letters back and forth. Most scholars agree that 1st and 2nd Corinthians contain a mashup of several letters Paul has sent, as many as five. We have none of the letters that the Corinthians wrote, but we have some of Paul’s. They would ask Paul questions and he would respond and we have to guess at the issues by how Paul responded. It’s like listening to one side of a phone conversation. Like many communities of faith, the Corinthians were trying to figure out what it meant to be followers of Jesus. Remembering that this was a scant 20 years following Jesus’ ascension, to a large extent Paul was doing the same thing.
The situation of the Corinthians made this question important. Corinth was located on a busy trade route in Greece and the city contained a diversity of peoples. The church at Corinth likewise mirrored that diversity: there were old and young, rich and poor, slave and free, Jew and Gentile etc. None of these groups was used to gathering with the other. In addition, all had previously worshiped various gods. Prior to today’s text, Paul answered questions about worship. In particular, it appears that the rich and privileged were able to gather early for the weekly meal, which has come down to us as the Lord’s Supper. Not waiting for the working people, they ate and drank to excess, leaving nothing for the others. Paul admonished those who were privileged that they must wait for the others and eat together. (That’s the issue in 1 Corinthians 11, not how old you need to be to take Communion.)
That’s not the only divisive issue as Paul addresses the idea the Corinthians had that some spiritual gifts were better than others. In fact, as we can see in chapters 13 and 14, the gift that caused the uproar was speaking in tongues. Those who spoke in other tongues deemed their gifts superior, giving them a higher rank. However, Paul makes two points and then a metaphor to explain how wrong this is. First, Paul insists that there is only one Spirit, Lord, and God, not three (or more as the Corinthians were used to). Second, Paul tells them that all of the gifts are to be used for the common good, not their own personal aggrandizement. He then illustrates his points with the metaphor of body. They are all like many members of one body. Later, he’ll tell them they are the body of Christ, who is the head. Thus, in addressing the issue of spiritual gifts, Paul is also speaking to the larger issue of unity in the midst of diversity.
As Rabbi Ed Friedman has noted, this is the same phenomenon that is baked into the fabric of creation and being worked out since. Millions of years ago, single-celled organisms gained the ability to join with others and as time passed, cells would specialize and become the diverse multi-celled creatures we see today. Even so, this diversity is always in the service of the larger whole. The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. This process of giving up some independence in service of the larger whole, Friedman notes, was used by the original 13 colonies to form the United States, most eloquently stated by James Madison in The Federalist Papers. This led to the unofficial motto, E Pluribus Unum, “out of many, one.” Diversity serves the greater good.
As I counsel couples preparing for marriage I always tell them that, “If my wife and I were the same, one of us would be unnecessary." There is diversity of opinion here at Christ Lutheran about what the next pastor should be like and if there should be shared ministry with Union Prairie Lutheran. That’s good and healthy as long as some of the cells don’t become cancerous and insist everyone else be the same or, to shift the analogy, thumbs don’t dictate to the rest of the body, The unifying principle of America is found in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, but of course, our unifying principle is Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and ascended. This is neatly summarized in your mission statement: Love God – Love People – Follow Jesus. To do so we are blown by the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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