I Corinthians 1:1-17 "Paul Sends His Love" Scott Hoezee

Theologian Robert Jenson once made a curious point in the course of a seminar I attended one week. Jenson said that in history, the Christian Church has, of course, found itself in a host of very different cultures, times, and places. As we are now in the early stages of this third millennium A.D., we know that our modern world looks and feels vastly different from the world that existed even a century or two ago, let alone a thousand years ago. Our easy use of miracles like the telephone and computer, our understanding of planet Earth's place in the larger scheme of outer space, our familiarity with cars and jets--all of this makes us very different from most of the people who ever lived.

Even so, Jenson observed, when it comes to the basic beliefs of the Christian faith, we ought to have more in common with someone like the apostle Paul from long ago than with non-Christians alive right now. If third-century Christians could see a sanctuary like this one, they would likely be stunned. But no matter how agog such folks would be to see electric lights or to hear a pipe organ, even still, if they could somehow across the centuries listen in on our worship, then we could only pray that the message that they would hear from us in the year 2002 would be the same gospel they heard back in the year 202. If it were not, if we had allowed the modern world to alter our Christian proclamation and beliefs, then we could not properly claim to belong to the true Church. No matter how bizarre the setting of the modern world would be to Christians from the distant past, the message that gets proclaimed should still be so true to the Bible, that any Christian from any time or place would be able to hear what we say and respond, "Yup! That's my hope, too! That's still the same gospel message of God's love that changed my whole life so long ago!"

Long ago in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, the world began again. History changed because of Jesus. One of the things that changed is that a new group known as the Church appeared on the scene as the gathering of all those who know and love Jesus as Lord. It's a wonderful thing to know that we are part of a holy community that is now about 2,000 years old, that spans the globe, and that includes so many untold millions of people, each of whom truly is a spiritual brother or sister.

Of course and alas, it's also true that seeing our connection to the Church along the ages forces us to recognize that the Church has always had some pretty fierce struggles to remain true to its Lord and God. Those of you who were here this morning heard me talk about the fact that Jesus himself, already quite a few years prior to the formal formation of the church, made it clear that when one day there would be such a thing as a church, it would never be finished dealing with the unhappy reality of sin. That's why the New Testament has so many passages about the need to forgive as well as how to go about that ongoing task. The church is, not infrequently, a community of struggle. Still, as we will see tonight from Paul's opening words to the Corinthians, through the struggle comes the grace of God.

I Corinthians is the longest letter in the New Testament and also one of the more curious documents we have in the Bible. You can begin to detect that already in this letter's signature. These days we sign our letters at the end. But in Paul's day you "signed" your letter right up front. Then as now, however, the nature of the signature--the way by which the letter is signed--provides a big clue as to what kind of letter it is.

For instance, if one of our young people asks me to write a letter of recommendation for her as she applies to a university, it is very unlikely that I will sign that letter with something like, "Love, Scott." No, such a letter would be a formal communication in which I'd want to muster my credentials so that my endorsement of this young woman will have some clout. So I'll sign such a letter with something like, "Sincerely, Rev. Scott E. Hoezee, Minister of Preaching and Administration, Calvin CRC." On the other hand, if I am out of town and send a letter or email home to my wife, it's unlikely that I would sign that letter, "Regards, Scott E. Hoezee" (at least not if I want to be welcomed home again!).

We know instinctively how to sign letters--we know when to sign off in a warm, affectionate way and when to sign off in an official, formal way. We also sense that signatures can be a tip-off for other things. For instance, suppose you're romantically interested in someone and suppose that this someone sends you a letter or a note. Well, if this person signs off with "Cordially" instead of the "Love" you were hoping to see, then you get the sinking sensation that the romantic feelings are not mutually shared after all. Or if someone sends you a letter and if, even before you read it, you notice that the person signed off, "Sadly" or "With deep regret, Harry" you know right away this may not be a happy note! (Your heart sinks a bit more if you notice it has no signature at all. Anonymous letters are also not usually happy pieces of post!)

Well, as I said, ancient letter-writers like Paul signed their correspondence right up front. If you pay attention, these signatures also can be a clue as to what kind of letter you're looking at. For instance, Paul opens his letter to the Philippians with the signature, "Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus," and he thereby sets up a letter that will be about service and humility. In many letters, Paul's signature is warm and friendly, as in Colossians when he signs, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, to the holy and faithful ones in Christ at Colosse: grace and peace to you and, by the way, I thank God every time I so much as think of you."

In sharp contrast you have a letter like Galatians: "Paul. An apostle. Sent not by the will of man nor on human authority but sent to you directly by Jesus Christ. To the churches in Galatia: I am astonished that you have abandoned the gospel!" And right away you know that this is not going to be a friendly letter! Paul is ticked off and so dispenses with the ordinary niceties of letter-writing to cut to the chase of rebuking the Galatians.

When Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, his signature talks about callings. "Paul, called to be an apostle, to the holy ones at Corinth, called to be holy . . . together with all those who call on the Lord." Thus Paul sets up a letter that is going to remind a very divided congregation of their common calling to be holy in all their conduct. But precisely because Corinth was so divided a congregation, precisely because Paul was quite exacerbated with these folks, I agree with Tom Long who thinks that verses 4-9 were written in a somewhat ironic mood. Paul is kind of jostling the Corinthians in the ribs here, poking some fun of them as a way to shame them.

Take another look at those verses and as you do so, keep in mind that Paul had already received a letter from the Corinthians in which they presented him with a very long laundry list of questions and disputes that were tearing their tiny congregation to shreds. Reading between the lines of I Corinthians, it's clear that this was a congregation in turmoil. Already in verse 12 we find out that the Corinthians were divided among those who claimed to follow Apollos, those who claimed to follow Paul, those who claimed to follow Peter, and those who claimed Jesus all for themselves. Scholars think the Corinthian church could not have been much bigger than 50 to 100 people at this time and yet they're chopped up into groups of 10-25 people, each claiming their own patron pastor.

Worse still, in and through these factions were still more sub-factions. There was the "holier-than-thou" group focused on speaking in tongues and on spectacular spiritual gifts. These were the kinds of people who, as Martin Luther once described them, thought they had swallowed the Holy Spirit feathers and all. They used their more obvious, spine-tingling gifts as a way to claim superiority over everyone else. Then there was the "smarter-than-thou" group focused on superior intellectual skills. These folks were convinced that they had been granted a secret knowledge from God that made them wiser than everyone else (and closer to God, too, since he had taken them, but not everyone, into his holy confidence).

On top of all this, the Corinthians were also bickering about questions on marriage, food sacrificed to idols, and the authenticity of Paul's apostolic credentials. They were also filing lawsuits against one another. They were harboring in their midst a man having sex with his mother-in-law. Their celebrations of the Lord's Supper were marred by the rich folks of the church pushing aside the poorer members. And a few folks were questioning if Easter were true, casting doubts on whether or not Jesus had been raised from the dead.

But outside of all that, things in Corinth were just fine! So into the midst of this factious, contentious little group of people, Paul drops his bombshell of a letter. As we already noted, in the first two verses Paul establishes the letter's tone by introducing the theme of calling. We are all called by God to be holy--that's our number one task! Given the state in which the Corinthians found themselves, that reminder must have been a bracing slap-in-the-face--yea verily, a type of wake-up call!

But then come verses 4-9. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, Paul writes, "You know, I thank God for you people. You've been made rich in every way. You're just so smart, aren't you? Your speech is so temperate, isn't it?" Of course, Paul knew full well that speaking in tongues was tearing the church apart as was some people's focus on superior knowledge. He goes on: "You've been given so many gifts, haven't you?" Paul knew full well this matter of gifts was nearly bringing them to blows. "And I know God is going to keep you strong"--they were dreadfully weak--"and make you blameless"--they were blameworthy in excelcis--"because it is God who has called you into his divine fellowship"--their actual fellowship was rapidly becoming non-existent.

Then, after going on like this for a few lines, Paul shifts tone in verse 10 and cuts to the chase. "Now enough sarcasm! Listen up, folks! I beg you to agree with one another and clear up all your divisions because I know full well what's really been going on among you!" Paul then takes a deep breath and dives into the heart of this letter, writing in an almost non-stop, breathless clip for sixteen more chapters and 420 verses. Paul methodically ticks off the list of their questions and squabbles in an attempt to help them think correctly about gifts, wisdom, marriage, lawsuits, the resurrection.

Such is the letter to the Corinthians, such was the sorry state of the congregation in Corinth. It's hard to believe that already in the earliest days of the church--within a generation of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection--already then the church was experiencing some of the same difficulties it has faced ever since. But so it was, and the New Testament is very honest about this. Even a casual reading of the Book of Acts shows that the early church was no more free of heresy, schism, feuding, and trouble than the church today. Those who think we can scour the Bible to discover the secret that will help us return to the "golden age" of the early church will have to ignore a lot of characteristics of that early church in order to maintain the notion that once upon a time, the church on earth was nigh unto perfect.

These days, as pluralism in America takes ever-deeper root and as we are increasingly confronted with many other religions, people like to challenge Christianity's claim to the truth by reminding us that the history of the Christian Church is not always very pretty. It is as though people want to say, "If Christianity were the one true religion in the world, then its people would have behaved better all along."

Yet although we cannot be happy about how Christians in the past and the present behave--including how we conduct our own lives sometimes--the Scripture on which our faith is founded is realistic about what happens when God's holy grace crashes into the lives of folks like ourselves. Paul's words in verse 2 could be translated, "To the church of God in Corinth: to you holy, holy ones." Given the state of things in Corinth, Paul's piling up words about holiness probably made those folks squirm. Maybe it has the same effect on us: we don't always feel like "holy, holy people."

Corinth was a mess when Paul composed this letter. Few congregations today are as bad off as this one was two thousand or so years ago. Even still, when Paul rounded out this long letter, his last line--written in his own handwriting--is simply, "My love to all of you in Christ Jesus, Amen." And he meant it. Paul sent his love, his agape, and he did so in the very name of Jesus. Because Paul of all people knew that it is in Christ Jesus that our sinfulness is dealt with and put away. It is in Christ Jesus that one day the Church at Corinth and Calvin Church and Woodlawn and Shawnee and all churches everywhere and from every time will be presented blameless in Jesus before the throne of God.

So here we are tonight, portions of three different Christian congregations from this part of Grand Rapids. We are united not just by all belonging to Classis Grand Rapids East and not just by virtue of all being Christian Reformed. We have that more fundamental unity of being one in Christ. Long after denominational lines have been erased in the kingdom of God, that is the unity that will persist forever. This is our family--the family of God--but like all families, we don't get to choose to whom we are related and sometimes, frankly, we can't believe some of the people who can claim us as kin! Family reunions are always curious affairs as you get the chance not only to catch up with those cousins with whom you have so much in common but you also get to see the relatives who couldn't be more different from you if they tried (and some of them actually do seem to be trying!).

But the gospel proclaims that Jesus has indeed salvaged out of this bad and crazy world a people for himself. The love of God has come down to this world and has crept (and sometimes crashed) into the hearts of people everywhere. We are privileged beyond measure to be part of that people. Things don't always go swimmingly. We struggle. We fail. We don't always look like "holy, holy ones." But just as Paul sent his love to the Corinthians, so God keeps sending his love to us.

Our hope is rooted in the fact that we serve a God more relentless than even our own sin; a God who is patient and kind and who flat out will not let us go. So through it all, through the horrible Corinthian mess and through far less dramatic messes in places like our various congregations, the love of God keeps getting sent out, keeps getting received.

Composer Igor Stravinsky once wrote a symphony that contained a perilously difficult violin passage. After weeks of rehearsal with the orchestra, the lead violinist came up to Stravinsky and said, "I'm sorry, maestro, but I've given this piece my best and I just can't play it." "I understand that," Stravinsky replied, "but what I'm after is the sound of someone trying to play it."

As Philip Yancey once observed, maybe God takes a similar attitude toward the church. We're called to holy, holy living, to be saints. Often we don't feel saintly, though. But perhaps the sound of millions of Christians at least trying to play a holy tune has added up to a symphony of holiness that has changed and that will continue to change the whole world. After all, if one of the most important documents in the New Testament emerged in and through and because of the mess that was the Church at Corinth, well, anything is possible! In fact, by the alchemy of grace, all things are possible, even our being holy, holy saints! And so, my brothers and sisters here tonight, may the love of our God in Christ be and abide with you all, Amen.