3rd Sunday after Epiphany Isaiah 9:1-4 Psalm 27:1, 4-9 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 Matthew 4:12-23 “Unity of Purpose” Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the Lord Jesus Christ, whose mission we share. Amen Last week we began our time in 1 Corinthians where we will stay until the beginning of Lent, we heard Paul give thanks for the community in Corinth because God’s grace was active in them, even as he reminded them that their community was a small part of the larger community in Christ and that God had called them into partnership. To the question: who are we? We received the answer: we are God’s, full partners in the work of the kingdom. Today as we get deeper into the letter we hear Paul’s reason for writing to the community. It has been reported to him that the community is divided, people are choosing patrons to follow sometimes along the lines of who baptized them and are claiming they belong to Paul or Apollos or Cephas. And this is a problem for Paul because his mission is not to baptize as many people as possible but to share the life changing, lifesaving message of the death and resurrection, the cross, of Christ, the message that is the power of God, that unites all people by telling the equalizing story of our utter need for God’s grace and the gift of that grace through the mercy of God in Christ.[1] To that end Paul calls on the community, naming them siblings, to be in agreement, to be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For those of us who have experienced severe division in the public sphere, or un-mendable division in our families, or the hurtful division in community like the Corinthians are going through, this seems to be an impossible and even naive request on the part of Paul. There are some breaks in this world that cannot be fixed. but Paul reminds us that we are dealing with more than the world, we are being saved by the power of God and in that power unity is possible, because it comes from the source of life. Now, it is important to note that when Paul says unity he does not mean uniformity later in the letter he rejoices in the variety and necessity of gifts and skills that are brought together as one in the body of Christ. What is important is unity of purpose, for the community to be working for the same cause and only with a common purpose can the variety of gifts and skills in the community be used to their full potential. We see the importance of varied gifts and skills in Jesus’ call of disciples. We heard this morning Jesus gather his first disciples, fishermen, right out of their boats, and to the fishermen he adds tax collectors and people at loose ends on the road, influential people like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, and the nobodies of society like the man found living among the tombs because he was possessed by a legion of demons. Jesus’ disciples include people whose focus is service like Martha and people who sit and listen like Mary, people who are quick to speak and act like Peter and people who want to take the time and see for themselves like Thomas. Little children and foreigners like the Samaritan woman at the well or the Syrophoenician woman whose child was sick. The centurion who believed Jesus could heal his servant from a distance, the friends who lowered their sick friend through the roof to get him to Jesus. All wildly different people, united by Christ, people whose faith and stories are the reason the community lives on in us and our stories. This is really the main reason we are doing our visioning process, writing a new mission statement, setting goals. We have a rich variety of gifts and skills within this congregation, and I’ve seen firsthand how when united under a common goal, whether it is to feed children during the summer or to care for families at Christmas, this congregation does amazing things. The vision process is a time for us to imagine and put into words our common goal, our mission, as members of the world wide body of Christ, as a community of Christ in Cass County, so that united in the same mind and same purpose our individual gifts and skills can be used to their full potential. So, as a community gathered together by the saving power of Christ, the question becomes: what do we have to offer? For the rest of the sermon time I want you to turn to your neighbors and discuss the gifts we have to offer as a congregation, what is important to us? what is it that we have to offer to the mission of Christ in this place? After a time of conversation I’ll ask for some volunteers to share what their group came up with, There are some half sheets of paper in the pews, please write down your responses and put them in the offering plate. [1] New Interpreter’s Bible, “1 Corinthians.” The rest of the sermon time the congregation broke into small groups and recorded their answers to the above questions. Feel free to submit your own answers in the comment section!
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AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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