The Right Focus--May 6, 2022

The Right Focus--May 6, 2022

"For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, 'I belong to Paul,' or 'I belong to Apollos,' or 'I belong to Cephas,' or 'I belong to Christ.' Has Christ been divided?  Was Paul crucified for you?  Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" [1 Corinthians 1:11-13]

There's a contradiction I live with every day, and I might as well say it out loud here at the outset for honesty's sake.  I get Paul's point here, about not lining ourselves up into teams according to the names of people who happened to have taught us, people who happened to have been our initiators into the faith. I understand that there's danger in breaking Christianity into a million little shards, based on whose slightly different "take" on the gospel we follow, because it will lead us to--well, exactly where Christianity is today in the world, especially in the late days of the American empire: a bunch of people fighting with each other over both big and little things so often that they can no longer tell which are the differences they can set aside, and which are the ones holding the line for.  I understand all of Paul's reasoning for why we shouldn't go around labeling ourselves according to whose school of thought we ascribe to, or which tradition or person we most associate with.

And yet, here I am, a pastor in a tradition named for a specific individual, who is not Jesus (Martin Luther), that helps to identify my particular understanding of the way of Jesus.  Paul might very well be disappointed in me for being a "Lutheran" pastor, although he would then also have to be upset with every other Christian group--including the ones who think they have outsmarted him by just naming their particular brand "non-denominational" or "Christian" while still having all the same hallmarks of a denomination.  Here we are, people whose way of being church is in direct contradiction to Paul's warning here about claiming that we belong to these other sub-groupings, still trying to wrestle a blessing out of his words and to see how we may need to change our way of being church in light of what he has to say.  

And while we're at it poking bears and all, we should probably also note that contemporary Christianity has added a whole mess of other labels that are intended only to sound like neutral adjectives or general descriptions rather than denominations or groups, but in practice cause the same kind of division that Paul is upset about as he writes to the Corinthians.  We have labels like "evangelical" or "Protestant" or "mainline" or "Pentecostal," or "liberal" or "conservative," or "progressive" or "Bible-believing," and as often as not those labels are used as sharpened weapons to criticize others (those you want to judge as "non-Bible-believing" or "too traditional" or whatever).  Of course, at least those labels are honest, more or less, about the additional layers we are adding to our understanding of the Christian faith.  Most dangerous of all, I think, is the temptation to assume my particular set of beliefs is the only right one, and therefore that MY group is the "true Christan perspective" and to call myself "Christian" without any other modifiers or labels because I'm convinced anyone who disagrees is damned to hell.  At least a label, like "Lutheran" or "Methodist" or "Catholic" or "Ukranian Orthodox" says something about the particular branch of the family tree from which you come without necessarily saying that everyone else is doing it wrong.

In Paul's day, the divisions were over different details, but the pattern is the same.  When Paul had gotten word from an important church leader named Chloe about the factions developing in Corinth, they were lining up into groups according to which early Christian leaders had first brought them into the faith--Paul, a preacher named Apollos, Peter (Cephas in the Aramaic), or somebody else.  And of course, too, there were people making the move of saying that they belonged to Christ, while giving a side-eye to everybody else as though they were NOT truly Christian.  So we've been here before.  I don't know whether that's comforting or disheartening, but we've been in the position of fragmenting since the beginning it seems.  And Paul has been calling us to question those divisions, and whether they have cost us our allegiance to Jesus, for twenty centuries now.

I think that's the piece that we can't ignore in all of this.  We may well find it helpful to own the traditions we come from, and the importance of those whose perspectives have shaped our own.  It's helpful for me to be able to say from the get-go that I have been influenced by the tradition that grew out of Martin Luther, like it's helpful for folks who have been shaped by John Wesley or Saint Francis of Assisi or Gustavo Gutierrez or Teresa of Avila to be able to say that as well.  But I think Paul's point is that these voices are never an end-goal for emulating. The goal for me as a Lutheran Christian isn't to become more like Martin Luther, but to become more like Jesus.  The goal for my Methodist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, Catholic, Baptist, non-denominational, and progressive siblings in Christ isn't to become simply better at promoting our own brand, but to become more like Jesus, and more shaped by his love.  Where my own tradition is helpful for that, great--I need to listen to my tradition for ways it helps me grow in the love of Christ and the way of Jesus.  Where other peoples' traditions are helpful, especially in revealing the blind-spots and hidden corners of my own perspective, I need to listen to the input and voices from those other traditions to help me deal with the things I cannot see in myself that keep me from being more fully like Jesus.  And where any of our traditions are hindrances, we need to be able to keep revising, re-forming (this is why traditions like those from the 16th century movement had a slogan "semper reformanda"--always reforming), and re-envisioning what it looks like to follow Jesus, to be loved by Jesus, and to love like Jesus.

And Jesus does have a particularity to him.  His way does have a particular direction.  Jesus may not have left commandments chiseled in stone about the proper rate for the capital gains tax or the amount of water we should use in baptizing, but he does have a particular way of being in the world--marked by love for all, truth-telling even when it is costly, humility in serving, commitment to doing justice especially for the most vulnerable, and a welcome to the least, the lost, and the left-out.  Where my tradition as a "Lutheran kind of Christian" helps me to embody that more fully, great, I should dig in deep and put roots down. And where my tradition keeps me from, holds me back, or gets in the way of living out that Jesus-shaped way of life, I need to be able to let go of the pieces that are obstacles.

I don't want to be naive and suggest that all we need is just to try to be like Jesus more and all of our disagreements will fall away (and I'll be shown to be right in all of my particular beliefs, of course).  But I do think that the only honest way forward has to keep Jesus at the center of our view.  That will mean we practice a willingness to keep examining ourselves and being open to the possibility that we may be wrong about something, or that others may show us something that brings Jesus into focus more clearly.  It will mean, too, that we constantly be willing to look and look again at whether we have made our particular social or political commitments more important than Jesus, or whether we have tried to baptize our agendas and then force Jesus to fit into the mold they make for him.  It will mean recognizing that people of other cultures, languages, backgrounds, and life experiences have things to show us about following Jesus, or perhaps that they will be able to point out things getting in the way of our following that we don't even recognize are there. And it will mean surrendering our illusion that "my" way of following Jesus is the only way to follow Jesus.  

That's the challenge for today--and again, it can't ever be the "last step," but it is maybe the next step for today--is to commit to looking at Jesus, and seeking for us to see what helps us to love more like he does, and what things in our lives (or our traditions, our culture, our background, and our politics) are keeping us from loving like Jesus.  That at least keeps our focus in the right place.

Lord Jesus, we offer you our selves and all that makes us--our traditions and backgrounds, our life experiences, and even our sense of "right-ness." Help us sift through it all, to hold onto what is good, and to be able to let go of whatever has taken your place.