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

Reverberations

John 1.35-42

During my first semester in seminary I took a class called Worship in the Reformed Tradition. We talked about every single aspect of worship. We talked about why we have the call to worship and when it should happen and how it should be delivered. We talked about each of the prayers in intricate detail, including the Great Thanksgiving with its complex web of ascriptions of praise, petitions, and supplications. Our professor was demanding and spoke of every aspect of worship from the prelude to benediction with passion.

The week we spent talking about music he had arranged for us to be in Miller Chapel. Miller Chapel was one of the first buildings build on Princeton Seminary campus. Each building on campus has its own distinct style. Miller Chapel is Greek Revival with six grand pillars that rise up in a stately manner. On the slate porch, sheltered by the roof and the pillars you’ll find book bags and coffee cups lining the wall. Even when it rains or snows students don’t take their work inside. They leave it on the steps, protected by the portico, while they go in to worship.

Inside it is stark and plain in true reformed fashion. There are wood floors and wood pews and walls with out embellishment aside from the large windows carved into her sides. The clear glass of the chapel’s massive windows allow the worshipper to sit and marvel at God’s work in nature if God’s work in the students’ sermons is not so evident.

For all the things that Miller Chapel has, the best part is the singing. I can’t remember who it was, Julie Edwards, I think, once said she loved to go to Presbytery because it was so wonderful to hear all of the singing. Miller Chapel is like that, only better. The seminary has a Director of Music who is a professional organist. He can play the huge baffle-fed pipe organ with the agility of an accordion player. But even his marvels on the gigantic organ do not compare with the incredible sound of voices that rise in the chapel every weekday at 10am. Every person in there knows the hymns inside and out or if they don’t they sing loudly and with conviction anyway. It’s incredible, no matter how few people are in the room, it sounds like there is a strong choir. That week we spent in Miller Chapel learning about worship music, I found out why.

It’s the building itself, it sort of sings along with the voices. It takes the sound, spreads it out, and throws it back at the singers. Because the building is so old, there is not a square angle in the place. The walls tilt just a bit, which you can see it in the corners that dance up the walls. The aged plaster is mostly flat, but has almost imperceptible waves in it. And the only cloth in the whole place is in the clothes the worshipers wear. In this old building full of the quirks of nineteenth century architecture is the perfect amplifier for human voices. The sound isn’t caught in square corners but instead reverberates back against the crooked walls and wooden floors. Voices hit and bounce back filling the space doubling the sound. One never sings alone. The sound leaves the mouth and spreads out to the farthest corner of the balcony. It’s wonderful and incredible.

***
There are many interesting things going on in today’s lection, but the thing that interested me the most this week was the reverberations. The part of the Gospel according to John that we read today begins with John and two of his disciples, but it had begun before in the wilderness. John was in the wilderness saying that someone would come after him who would be greater than him. He was baptizing his disciples in the Jordan when Jesus came up. Immediately John the Baptist made a proclamation, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World!’ (v29). John baptized Jesus. After Jesus had left, John told his disciples, This is the guy about whom I told you. He’s the one I was talking about when I said that there would be someone better than me. Then John recounted what he had seen at the time of Jesus’ baptism. He said that he saw ‘the Spirit descent from heaven like a dove’ (v32). John said that he hadn’t known who Jesus was, but then afterward he remembered what he had been told, that someone would come to him and be baptized and everything would happen just as it had. When John recounted the baptism and told it to his disciples, he realized, this is the Son of God.

That brings us to today’s lection. We’re standing with John the Baptist and two of his disciples when Jesus walks by. There he is, John says. That’s the guy I was telling you about. He’s the one with the Spirit and the dove. Look, John told his disciples, here is the Lamb of God! The disciples had listened to John’s story and heard his conviction in what he was saying. ‘The two disciples heard him say [these things], and then they followed Jesus’ (v37). Just based on what John the Baptist said, based on the story of his experience, the two went and followed Jesus.

Now this is where it really gets interesting. Those two walked with Jesus and talked with him. And Jesus invited them to share his housing and to share his meal. Before they even got back to where Jesus was saying, Andrew, one of the two disciples, politely excused himself and went to find his brother, Simon Peter. Andrew had heard what John the Baptist had said, that Jesus was the Lamb of God, the Son of God. The words amplified and bounced further. He said to his brother, We have found the Messiah (v41). Andrew grabbed his brother and said, come on and see. Simon heard what his brother said and went and met Jesus and he, too, followed Jesus.
It happens again in the next section when Phillip brings his friend Nathanael along saying, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote’ (v45). Phillip told Nathanael about his experience. Then Phillip invited Nathanael along with him to follow Jesus and Nathanael went with them.

In John’s gospel, unlike the other three, Jesus does not seek out twelve apostles. He does not find each one and call them from boats and fields to follow him. Instead, the word travels form person to person. John the Baptist told the two. Then one of them told his brother. Then another told a friend. In John’s gospel, once the word has spread, there are many more than twelve apostle. The close followers of Jesus are not limited to twelve, but rather there are many more men and women who, having heard about the experiences of others, follow Jesus.

The gospel reverberated – bouncing from one disciple to another, amplifying with each bounce. Each person had their own take on it, they told about what they had heard, felt, and seen. They told of their personal experience – I saw the Spirit, we have found the Messiah, we have found the fulfillment of the law. None of them had the same story, but they did proclaim the same gospel. In their telling, they brought others along with them to follow Jesus. The good news bounced off the individuals like voices off of crooked walls that amplify and spread until Jesus was followed by twelve plus Mary and Martha and even people like Nicodemus and Zacheus came to hear. And all of these people came to meet and follow Jesus through good old word of mouth.

***
It’s not too hard to see where I am going here. Each and every person here has his or her own experience of God and of this church, and all of them are valid. I couldn’t begin to say how God impacts you personally…but you can. You can tell people about how you experience God in your life, and about all of the amazing things you love about this church. Tell your friends, relatives, acquaintances, and neighbors. Maybe you already have, but then, tell them again. It’s news that’s worth repeating. Because maybe, just maybe, like the disciples in John’s gospel, they want to come and check it out and then, they, too, will become one of Jesus’ disciples - part of the future and of the history of this church.

Baptized in Water

Matthew 3.13-17

As I was doing sermon prep this week I read several different commentaries about this passage from Matthew about Jesus’ Baptism. It was interesting. A lot of them seemed to get hung up on one little detail or another. They focused on each verse or part of a verse to ferret out the meaning behind the text. They discussed why Jesus went to John to be baptized. There were all sorts of rationales for that. The scholars discussed the meaning of conversation between Jesus and John the Baptist. Some thought the gospel writer wanted to make it clear that the only reason Jesus was baptized was to fulfill scripture. Another suggested that Jesus was trying to become one of John’s disciples. There was one discussion about the dove that I still don’t completely understand. Its basic idea was that the gospel of Matthew talks about a real dove coming down from heaven and Luke and John only compare the Holy Spirit to a dove and this is evident by comparing the grammar of Matthew with the grammar of Mark and John. But it never explained the importance of that point.

Reading the passage through a number of times it always seems to come out the same. Jesus was baptized in the waters of the Jordan by John, and when he came up from the water God said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

***
Let’s think about it in the context of people who might have been hearing the gospel in the first century. What would those Jewish-Christians have heard? Their ears would have been tuned to hear the story through the history of Israel. They’d be thinking, we’ve been to this river before. This isn’t the first time we’ve stood on its banks. After the forty years of wandering, after the manna and the quail we came to this river, don’t you remember? We stood beside the rushing waters of the Jordan waiting as the Ark of the Covenant went before us on the shoulders of the house of Levi. When the priests dipped the toes of their sandals in the water it pulled back from them. Then the water was heaped up upon itself and they stood there in the middle of the riverbed with the water held back and we climbed down the banks and passed by. The riverbed sucked at our sandals and we walked past, and Joshua led us into the Promised Land.

When our first century brothers and sisters heard the name of the Jordan, they thought of deliverance and the new life that began on the other side. They remembered the stones set up in the middle as a tribute to God and the stones set up on the sides as a sign of their safe crossing. When they heard the name they couldn’t help but think about the story they had heard so many times about how they had been saved by the waters of the Jordan.

But this time, when they approached the river, in the new story of Jesus, the water didn’t pull back. John the Baptist was already in the middle, with water flowing around him, waiting for Jesus. When Jesus dipped his toes in the water it didn’t pull back from him. It did not heap up upon itself and reveal the stones of Joshua. As they heard the story, our first century brothers and sisters felt the waters of the Jordan flowing around their ankles and making the hems of their tunics dance in the current. It climbed their legs and then up over their wastes as Jesus waded into the water. They thought of the cool water on their warm skin and of the current pulling at them.

As they watched Jesus submit to John’s baptism, as they watched him serve the will of God, they heard the words of their own baptism as Jesus leaned back and John pushed his head below the water’s surface, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” And they felt the water engulf them for a moment before their forehead and cheeks broke back through the water’s surface and were met by the sun and the air. And what was it they heard as they imagined Jesus finding his footing on the river bottom? From the heavens, in the voice of the Lord, they heard, “This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” In their ears it was not a phenomenon to be explained. There wasn’t a question of whether the dove was a literal dove or a figurative dove. When they heard the words and imagined the dove, they saw a coronation. Like a sword upon the shoulders of one knighted or a crown upon one kinged, the dove came from heaven and the words were spoken as a sign of Jesus’ role as Son of God. He was anointed King of the Jews by God’s Spirit.

Jesus’ baptism was not only a sign or a mark upon Jesus’ head. It not only united him with all the sinners he came to save. Jesus’ baptism was a charge, a commissioning to lead and to serve.
It is no coincidence that baptism marked the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. When he went below the water’s surface he died to old life. When he rose, Jesus rose to a new life of service. From then on he led and served the people. He preached and healed. He showed them the way to the kingdom and taught them how to live their lives to the glory of God. Baptism was the beginning, not the end of Jesus’ life of faithful response to God.

***
Our own baptism is no different. When the waters rolled off the tops of our heads we were delivered from our sins by God’s grace. The water was a sign of the seal of God’s grace upon us. And as the water rolled down our cheeks we rose to new life – life with a purpose and calling. If you were baptized as an infant, the people around you were charged with the task until you could grow up to accept it as your own. If you were baptized as a child or an adult, then you received your charge after your baptism. Either way, we were all charged in our baptism to live our lives to God’s glory. That means we were charged to listen and respond to God and to serve one another.

Baptism is something that happens to us. God does it and we sit by, passively receiving the gift of God. It doesn’t matter how it happens, whether water was dribbled on your head or you were immersed. God’s grace works just the same and there is nothing we can do about it to make it more or less important. Nothing. What glorifies God is what we do afterward, after the water is poured and the words are said. What glorifies God is how we live our lives each and every single day. Are we kind to one another? Do we serve one another? Do we love one another? Do we give God a proper place in our lives? Do we acknowledge that everything we have is from God and give back to God accordingly?

The amount of water or where the water is from or even whether there is water at all doesn’t really matter. Those are details on which we fixate like biblical scholars trying to ferret out additional meaning. There is no need. When we hear the words of the baptism we hear our own ancient story. We, too remember the waters and the one who stepped down into them in his coronation to serve.

There are many ways to go about it, but there is just the one Baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and every time, every time, it demands a response.