January 27, 2012

Geno Sisneros

Epiphany 3     1 Corinthians 12:12-31a     Luke 4:14-21

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You will often hear progressive theologians complain that there is no such thing as a literal 'biblical literalist'! Those who believe they interpret the Bible literally, never interpret the whole Bible literally. They will always have to pick and choose what to take literally. Here's an example, when it is said that Jesus is the 'Lamb of God', one scholar reminds us that no one actually believes “Mary had a little lamb”. Or do they? 

That's a pretty basic and fundamental human-right, the freedom to believe what you want to believe. In fact you are well within your rights to not believe in anything if you so choose. But this morning, I’m interested in exploring the interaction of our beliefs and the implications they have for Christian unity and the intrinsic right each human being has to be free and equal.

Paul desperately wants the church at Corinth to believe in unity. He wants them to believe that as Christians, not only are they members of the body of Christ but that this is a very good thing. The body, though it has many different parts, those many parts have need of each other if the body is to function and be what it is called to be.

And much like in our own Anglican context today, the Corinthian’s were having internal struggles about what it meant to be a Christian and what beliefs one most hold to be able to call themselves Christian and who held ultimate authority to decide who was Christian.

In Paul's time, these divisions were not unique to Corinth. The epistles tell us that churches throughout the Roman Empire were having these same struggles. When we speak of the first churches it is important to remember that they first consisted of only very small groups of believers, maybe 5 to 10 people, who met in small spaces to avoid attention and obviously grew from there. But even in very small groups, the divisions over beliefs could be very deep.

Some of these new converts were unwilling to let go of elements from their old pagan religions which others found unacceptable. In many other first churches, divisions between Jewish converts and gentile converts abounded, usually over whether or not Jewish Law still applied to this new movement which many believed was still a part of Judaism. Should male gentile converts be required to undergo circumcision? Was it not sinful for a Jew to eat across the table from a gentile if that gentile was eating meat that was not kosher?

So as you can imagine, much of Paul's ministry was lived out as a mediator, but he understood his role to be authoritative in areas of doctrine and belief and right behavior. Overall, he implored these conflicting congregations to embrace unity. 

It is often understated that Paul was also having his own struggle with James the brother of Jesus over what it meant to be Christian. James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. He was firm in his belief that Christianity was not a new religion at all but an extension of Judaism and therefore the Law still applied. But for Paul, Jesus had fulfilled the Law and therefore gentile converts to Christianity were not required to adhere to it.

Who was right about what it meant to be Christian, James the brother of Jesus who walked and talked with the earthly Jesus or Paul who never met the earthly Jesus and encountered the resurrected Christ in a vision? John Dominic Crossan has said we have Paul's version of Christianity in our Bibles rather than James' not because Paul was right but because he won! 

Division in beliefs has been a part of our Christian ancestry even from the very beginning. But the question remains, with so much diversity in Christian beliefs today, can we really say that we make up the body of Christ as Paul envisions it? Or does Paul have a flawed understanding of what ‘unity’ actually means?

If we are the body of Christ, then this is how the body might described; the left foot wants to go in one direction, the right in another making it impossible to walk in any direction. One hand wants to reach out while the other prefers to stay tight-fisted and firmly in the pocket. One eye is tightly shut and one ear only hears what it wants. The digestive system doesn’t tolerate change very well and partly despises a diverse diet. There is conflicting activity in the brain which renders cohesion of thought impossible and the heart seems like it is about to give out. How effective can this body divided against itself ever be?

We have a very good idea of how Paul defined 'unity', because earlier in this same letter to the Corinthians he writes, “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no division among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose.” 

If Paul were here today, I would hate to be the one to break the news to him that in over two-thousand years, the body of Christ has never been unified in mind or in purpose. If it was an impossible task for Paul and James, what unimaginable feat is it for a global church with over one billion believers?

Chances are, if a strategy hasn't worked for over two-thousand years, it might be safe to assume that it is probably time to try something else, that is assuming we can be of one mind that Christian 'unity' is a worthy goal. But let's not have that conversation today. Let's assume that Christian unity is a worthy goal. 

A new understanding of Christian unity might look something like this; that at the core of our Christian tradition is the commandment to love ones neighbor and part of loving our neighbor is respecting each others God-given freedom that each individual has the right to believe or not believe whatever they choose. And that's it! 

It's the optimist in me. It looks good on paper but I've left out one very important component. Not all Christians believe that every individual has the right to believe or not believe whatever they choose and still call themselves Christian. This is called religious fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is a phobia which I define as: the fear of others not believing like me and wanting to impose my beliefs on others. Fundamentalism isn't any one denomination or sect of Christianity. Like Progressive Christianity it flows through all denominations in all places though it is a relatively new arrival to Christianity – an early 20th century invention.

Fundamentalism often carries over to the political sphere where its goal is usually to curtail the freedom and equality of people who don’t agree with them. And I used to be a fundamentalist, so I'm fairly knowledgeable about how it all works, and that's how it works.

A good example of this: American fundamentalists colonising through Christianity in African nations like Uganda for instance, where they have engineered legislation in Uganda’s parliament that if passed would make homosexuality a crime punishable by death. 

In New Zealand we have legislation in the form of our Human Rights Act, for example, which was has the power to protect the vulnerable from the religious beliefs of those who would curtail their freedoms.

It is important to remember that there are people around the world today who do not have such protections. There are many who have had their freedoms and their lives confiscated because of someone else's beliefs. There are many places in the world where it is not safe to be a woman, where it is not safe to be ethnic, where it is not safe to be gay or transgendered, where it is not safe to be a child.

None of that is what Jesus had in mind for his movement. If anything he charged his followers to be advocates for the freedom and equality of every person. I wonder if he ever dreamed in a million years that it would be some of his followers that the most vulnerable members of society would need protection from.

This morning, I’m asking you to think about what it means to be the body of Christ. Does Paul get it right; will we ever be united in the same mind and the same purpose with all our different beliefs? Is it possible that we might someday be able to embrace a Christian unity that goes beyond belief?