In The Shadows

1 Corinthians 1.10-18

Vivian Paley is a noted child psychologist and early childhood education researcher as well as a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient.[1] While doing research at the University of Chicago, she taught at the University of Chicago Laboratory School. The University of Chicago Laboratory School is a private school known for its new and progressive learning styles as well as for its academic excellence. At the Laboratory School, Payley was a kindergarten teacher and acute observer of child behavior.
Over the course of her years of research, Paley noticed that cliques form as early as kindergarten. She saw cliques forming among kindergarteners that lasted throughout years of school. The class was like fabric that, once torn, couldn’t be mended. She wanted to figure out a way to prevent the fabric of the class from ever tearing, to stop groups of ‘in’ crowds and ‘outsiders’ from forming.
After observing the playing habits of her kindergarteners, Paley created and instated a revolutionary mandate in her class. She sat her class down and showed them the new decree. “You can’t say you can’t play.”
Paley discussed it with the children so that they all understood what it meant. If two children were playing and a third walked up and asked to play, they could not say no. And she asked them what they thought about it. The class full of five year olds sat on the semi-circle of carpet with their little legs crossed and stared at her for moment, silent and incredulous. Shortly, the ring-leader of the class, Anna, broke the silence. Anna firmly believed that there was no way it could work. Not a chance. It was absurd to think it would. I mean, what would happen if everyone wanted to play dress-up or with the blocks? It would be crazy. It was no fun playing if Everyone could do EVERYthing! The semi-circle of children nodded emphatically in agreement.
What Paley found surprising was not that the dominant kids thought the mandate was a bad idea, but that the kids who were ‘outsiders’ also thought it was a bad idea. Bobby, who was often excluded from other groups and played primarily by himself, said that no one should have to play with anyone they didn’t want to play with. The children tried to talk Vivian Paley out of the mandate, but after all the discussion, the decree stood.
Whenever disputes arose, whenever someone had their feelings hurt because they were not allowed to play, whenever someone was actively excluding another person, Paley would point to the sign on the wall and ask, what is our motto? The kids would chime in, “You can’t say you can’t play.”
There were a few rough weeks in the beginning, she said. When Bobby would walk up to Anna and a group of kids and start playing with the blocks, everyone would walk away from him and find somewhere else to play. In their clever little minds they had figured out a way to play exclusively without breaking the rule. But he kept trying and after a few weeks of transition, things began to smooth out. Kids began to play together. Anna and Bobby would play in the kitchen together or play dress up or play with the blocks without any difficulty. The mandate remained on the wall all year long, but eventually the children didn’t even have to be reminded of it. There were no more cliques. The class was no longer divided into insiders and outsiders. The tear had been mended.
Years later, Paley has heard from many of those kindergarteners who are now adults. Both members of the ‘in’ crowd and the ‘outsiders’ have told her that their kindergarten class motto set the tone for their lives. It had affected them throughout school and in their careers.

Paul wasn’t able to stop the cliques in back in kindergarten before they really got started. He was dealing with a community of adults, and he was not there to enforce a sign on the church wall. He was all of the way over in Ephesus. He had been communicating with the Corinthians through written correspondence. It was a slow process. Not only did they not have e-mail or telegraph, they didn’t even have a postal system so they had to rely on travelers to deliver notes back and forth. It was not entirely reliable. Letters could be lost. Plus, letters included only what the writer wanted to tell. Paul was only getting parts of the story of the church in Corinth and that was one perspective at a time and sporadically. It seems, though, that the story he was getting was pretty consistent. All’s going well in Corinth, hope Ephesus is nice this time of the year. That is, until he heard from Chloe’s people.
No one is clear about who Chloe was or who her people were. Several commentaries suggested that Chloe was a wealthy patron of the Corinthian church and that the people who were writing were her slaves or indentured servants. Whoever they were exactly, their story was a departure from everything else Paul had heard. He could have dismissed it as false information, just the complaints of some slaves, but he valued their presence in the church just like anyone else’s and decided to accept the report as truthful.
The word was, according to Chloe’s people, there were quarrels in the church in Corinth. The people were bickering with one another. There is no indication about what the argument was, but we could certainly imagine the disagreements that might arise.
Whatever the argument, the ultimate result was that people were choosing sides. They were dividing into cliques and ripping tears in the smooth fabric of the church community. The people were aligning behind the person to whom they felt the closest or behind the person they knew the best. I belong to Paul. I belong to Apollos. I belong to Cephas. From Paul’s reaction we can guess that at least he had no idea that his name was being used in that way. He was upset, not only that his name was being used, but that it was being used to divide the church. Has Christ been divided? He demanded.
It was a rhetorical question. Of course Christ had not been divided among the groups, parceled off like books from a library. There was one Christ, and for Paul, there is one church. There was no room for factions. And more than that, there was no power in factions. Why would people say that they belong to Paul? Paul hadn’t been crucified for the sake of the people. Why would people say they belonged to Cephas? No one was baptized in the name of Cephas. Paul said all of this to point out the absurdity of claiming allegiance to an individual or a view point.
It was Christ who was crucified and the Holy Spirit who baptized. The only power was not in the names of people. The only power was the power of God. All were baptized in the same name. All were saved by the same grace. All were part of the same body of Christ. There are many parts of the body, but only one body.

Based on the power of God and the oneness in Christ, Paul called the Corinthians to be united and to be in agreement without divisions. “Now I appeal to you brothers and sisters,” he says, “by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”
Now, I’ve struggled all week long with this idea of being united and in agreement. It is both appealing and repulsive at once. It would be great if the whole world agreed with me, but I don’t want to be made to agree with the world. But I was reading it wrong. Paul starts out by appealing to the adelphoi. Now I appeal to you adelphoi… the word translates as ‘brothers and sisters’. It is inclusive of the entire community – men and women, slave and free. From the very start the appeal allows no one to be the ‘in’ crowd and puts no one on the ‘outside’.
Then Paul calls the Corinthians to unity. When I read ‘unity’, I read ‘uniformity’. Uniformity is all being in lock step. It’s children in blue pants, white shirts, and saddle oxfords. Uniformity is green fatigues and a buzz cut. But that is not unity. Unity is being woven together like the multi-colored threads of a tapestry without a tear.
The actual word that Paul used, which was translated as unity, is the exact same word that is in the gospel passage today when Matthew says that James and his brother John were mending the nets (v21). In first Corinthians it is translated as unity and in Matthew as mending. Paul isn’t demanding that everyone agree on every single thing or that the members of the church at Corinth become drones. Rather he is urging the church to draw together and mend the divisions they have torn in their community. He urges them to do away with their cliques and remember how they came to be a part of the community, through the calling of Christ, through the one baptism of Christ. Paul is urging the church to ally themselves with Christ over anyone else and anything else. The same mind he calls them to is the mind of Christ. The same purpose is Christ’s purpose. Independent opinions are fine as long as they begin with the acknowledgement that we all are Christ’s, claimed by the power of God and the Holy Spirit.

Cliques in modern churches are not always as overt/obvious as grade school cliques. There are denominations, which aren’t necessarily cliques, but can be if some Christians are included at the table and others are excluded. There are political views which may or may not affect the people who gather in worship on Sunday morning. But even within our walls, there are tears in the fabric of the church. There are people who like the new Sunday schedule and people who don’t and aren’t really willing to give it a try. There are people who don’t even know they are part of an ‘in’ crowd and others who feel on the outside. There are those who have been members of this church for many years and those who are new members or simply newer members. There is the flow of information from the session to the congregation which, inadvertent though it may have been, has set up a group in the know and those who feel they are left in the shadows.
These things aren’t necessarily complicit or intentional, but they are snags in the fabric of our community nonetheless. They are snags that are in need of mending. And all are equal participants in the mending. The mending will take place when those in the shadows come out with hands outstretched and when those in the light reach across the tears. The mending will happen as we all recognize that we are united, firmly joined together, by the power of God in Christ.
“Now I appeal t you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose” (v10)
In the name of the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, Mother of us all. Amen.
[1] Story heard on NPR’s This American Life