2nd Sunday after the Epiphany Year A

The 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany Year A January 19, 2014 If we ever longed to return to the golden days of the early church, when all churches were at peace and in perfect unity, Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth quickly disabuses us of that naïve notion. In fact, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians has much to teach us today about how to deal with conflict in the church. In today’s epistle reading, we see the opening part of the letter where Paul uses the traditional opening format of his time to set the tone and to begin to address the fighting he has learned about in the community at Corinth. He has heard from Chloe’s people that they have divided up into factions; he has received a report of their acceptance of sexual immorality; and he has received a letter detailing problems of communal life. Despite his having spent 18 months with them, teaching the Corinthians about how to form a Christian community of diverse people, even Paul’s own authority is being called into question at this point in the life of the church. So at this point in the letter, the beginning, Paul is getting geared up to roll up his sleeves and let them have it. But this introduction to the letter sets the tone for how he is going to go about addressing the differences that can be most instructive to us. First, he opens with his own credentials: “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God….” But then he quickly follows up with their own identity: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” Note that Paul never refers to a saint in the singular. He never talks about a saint as an individual Christian. He always talks about saints plural, saints communal. We are saints in a common vocation, a shared gift; united together in the fact that we all are called by God. And he reminds the church at Corinth that they are not an isolated cell of followers of Jesus. They are connected, in and through their calling, to all followers of Jesus Christ in every place and time. He then goes on to offer thanksgiving for them, and he roots that thanksgiving in the fact that God has already bestowed upon them grace, given them everything that they need. No amount of division or discord or disunity can undermine this work of God that God has already been doing and God continues to work through them. They are a diverse group of people who have been brought together in and through God’s call, and it is God’s call that unifies and unites them-- much like we see happening in the gospel reading for today. We see a sort of magnetism that happens between Jesus and Andrew and the other disciple. And it is so powerful that all Jesus has to say is “Come and see” and a process of discipleship begins that will change the world. Andrew goes to his brother Peter and says, “You have got to come see this,” and their lives are transformed irrevocably from that point on. They become knit together, joined with others who have also been called by Jesus to follow the way of discipleship. So what does all this mean for us? I thought perhaps the best way I could communicate that to you today is to write you an introduction to a letter, much like what we have from Paul today. So here goes: Melanie, called to be a priest of Christ Jesus by the will of God and with support of God’s church and our brother Scott, To the church of God that is found in St. Peter’s by-the-Sea, Gulfport, to those who have been called here by Jesus in a variety of ways, called to be saints together and united with all those around the world and throughout time who also call on the name of God. Grace and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God for you always because of the grace that God has given you in Christ Jesus. You have been given so many gifts to you all together by God, and I see the fruits of these gifts at work every single day in our life together. I am thankful that God has given you a spirit that is reflective of the space in which we worship together: open, light, welcoming to all. I am thankful that God has given you the gift of hospitality—of making things beautiful and inviting. I am thankful that God has given you the gift of creativity, that we might be co-creators with God in creating new ideas, new things. I am thankful that God has given you the gift of generosity of spirit, most especially in the face of an identified need. These gifts have been given by God not to individuals but to us all together as a whole. And the gifts that God has given you are and will always be more than enough to do what God calls you to do. Everything you need to be St. Peter’s has already been given to you by God, and no amount of conflict or discord or individual or small group discontent can diminish the gifts that have been given to this body as a whole by God, nor can it diminish the ministry to which God has called us as a whole. I am also thankful for you because you help me live and grow into my own vocation as a priest—loving people in ways that I would have never imagined, dealing with challenges that I would have never anticipated, dwelling in the holy places and in the ordinary ones and seeing God there with you. We, like the church in Corinth and like any other church that has come since and will come, are not perfect. We have our problems. And yet, as the philosopher Erasmus wrote to Martin Luther about his decision to stay with the Roman Catholic church in the midst of the Reformation: “Therefore, I will put up with this church until I see a better one..and it will have to put up with me, until I become better.”1 My brothers and sisters, above all, I give thanks to God that our unity is found in Jesus Christ and in his common call. Our unity is found in the acceptance of the invitation to “Come and see,” which orients our lives beyond our own self-interests and desires toward God, the body of Christ, and something so much richer and fuller and deeper than our own little lives. A unity that is grounded in that common call will not be undermined by our divisions or conflicts or heartbreaks. May God give us the grace to live more fully into this call together this year—a call to exist not so much for ourselves but for others. May God strengthen us to that end so that we might live more fully into this fellowship with Jesus Christ to which we have been called. 1.as quoted by Dan Clendin in his essay for this Sunday on his blog Journey with Jesus.