Rev. Tom Lenhart
Sermon January 21, 2007
“Worship Matters”
Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10, I Corinthians 12: 12-31a, Luke 4: 14-21 

Let us pray.

            Let us listen in on two conversations that might have taken place this week in different corners of our world. The first -- as befitting our national preoccupation with profession football at this time of the play-offs -- takes place in the locker room of the “Barracudas” during the week leading up to a crucial playoff game involving that team.

Head coach: “Gentlemen the offensive coaches and I have been up late all week devising a game plan for this Sunday’s game. Having studied hours of film on our opponents the Tiger Cats, it is clear that our best strategy for winning is to run the ball as much as we can. The defensive line of the Cats is small and with our offensive line outweighing them by 30 pounds per man we ought to be able to grind it out on the ground against them. So you will see in the play book a number of new running plays and blocking schemes for this week.”

Star quarterback Billy Bob; “Well coach, I hear what you’re saying but you know I am what got us here. I have the most passing yardage of any quarterback and the highest pass completion percentage in the league. Me and my main receiver Antoine have a special relationship. Nobody can stop us. Isn’t that so Antoine?”

Antoine the star receiver – “Right on Billy Bob! You’re the man – nobody can stop our passing attack.”

The head coach – “Now, Billy Bob, don’t worry. There will be passing plays for you and Antoine and the other receivers. But our strength this week is in the running game and that really dictates that we feature it Sunday. We all want to win. It must, of course, be a team effort defense, offense, running and passing, and special teams.”

Chuck the principal running back – “I’m ready to run it 30 times, if that’s what the coach wants and it will help us win.”

Billy Bob – “Maybe you all didn’t hear me. I just got a long-term contract for $86 million dollars over 6 years. And by the way what are you getting paid coach.  I’ve lead this team to 13 wins this season.  I bet every player in this room understands that we will go only as far as I take them. Boys, if I’m right raise your hand ….”

Or to change the venue dramatically, let’s listen in on a rehearsal of a major symphony orchestra.

Guest conductor – “Gentlemen and ladies, you are just too slow in that 2^nd movement of the Haydn symphony. You have got to pick up the pace, especially you strings. Keep up with me.”

Concertmaster – “I have been concertmaster and first violin here for 25 years. We have played this Haydn piece with Sir Colin Davis, Sir Neville Marriner, James Levine and Sir George Solti and while they were all distinctive in their handling of it -- none of them played this movement as fast as you are suggesting. It’s just not appropriate. We are not rushing to a fire and neither was Haydn. It losses its beauty when we play it your way. I know others agree.” (Murmurs of agreement).

Guest conductor – “I have done it this way around the world -- in Berlin and Amsterdam and Chicago to rave reviews. Just give it a try my way.”

Concertmaster –“You will be gone next week, but we will all be here and it is our reputations that are on the line.  Some of us are world famous and not about to have our reputations ruined by you and your inappropriate approach to this piece. I didn’t win a Grammy last year to have it tarnished playing for you. You can’t even get a regular conducting position as it is.”

Now I concede these conversations are a little silly, over written and implausible. But at their heart they reflect key problems that Paul was addressing in the church at Corinth. In each of my vignettes the identity and essence of the entity in question was at issue-- in one a sports team and in the other a symphony orchestra. Each was challenged by the self importance of one or more members who saw themselves as more important than the whole. In our passage from Corinthians, it is the church that is under similar attack. 

Before we explore the problem at issue, a little background is in order. Corinth was located on a Greek isthmus and controlled two harbors-- one of which had direct access to Asia and the other had direct access to Italy.[1] It was a major trading center and many different groups lived and visited there. The biblical scholar,  Wayne Meeks, wrote that Corinth was made up  “largely  [of] immigrant[s] and sailors from everywhere under the sun …  bringing with them their gods … Isis and Serapis from Egypt, Astarte from Syria, Artemis from Ephesus among others…”[2] It was a rough place to live. Indeed, with apologies to dog lovers, the Greek word to “Corinthize” meant to go to the dogs.[3]

Paul founded the church at Corinth on one of his missionary journeys after having been asked to leave the local synagogue, taking with him a small group of followers who accepted Jesus as the Messiah. Paul stayed and preached for a year and a half in Corinth and then continued on his pilgrimage of spreading the “Good News.” While in Ephesus he apparently received word of serious difficulties in the church at Corinth. First Corinthians is his response to them. The problems in the church were many. But in our passage the main issue appears to be understanding the nature of diversity within the church and the nature of the church itself.  In other words how to understand the whole and the parts and how they are related. As in the case of our hypothetical football team and orchestra the problem seems to have had its genesis in certain members believing that they were special, more important and valuable than the others – indeed, in a fundamental sense, that they were synonymous with the team, and the orchestra. The same was apparently going on in the Corinth. Those with the gift of ecstatic speech – those able to speak in tongues -- were in their own minds and in the minds of some of the others special – unique recipients of the Holy Spirit. From this we can infer that they were seeking to control the life of the church, relying on their perceived special relationship with God.

Paul’s answer is to use the wonderful metaphor of the body. In words that all would understand he makes the point that all  -- legs, arms, lips, ears, eyes, --are of equal value to the body – but more than that are equally necessary.  In Paul’s words “for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”  (12: 13) The power of these words threatens to be lost to our modern ears. In Paul’s day the divisions between religions were enormous. Paul himself, after preaching and teaching in the synagogue in Corinth, was asked to leave and never to come back. Why?  Because Paul believed Jesus was the Messiah and further that one could follow Jesus without rigid adherence to the ritual laws of Judaism. In other words one could follow Jesus and not be a Jew by birth or conversion. The distance between Jews and Gentiles was great and widening. And the distance between slave and free was also great in these Roman controlled communities that were hierarchical, authoritarian and divided by class and economic status. The classes within the society, let alone slave and free, did not generally socialize. So the openness to all -- espoused by Paul for the church -- was remarkable. But what is even more remarkable was the rationale for this openness. Not only were all one church -- but each member, like the ear or the eye of the human body, was essential and of equal importance to the church.

This is not simply a message for a group of followers of Jesus struggling to survive 2000 years ago. No, it is apt for us. The lessons Paul articulated apply to us. First, we too -- as the church -- must be open to all. Emphasis on the all! All who thirst for faith must be welcome. Why?  We live in an era in which most church communities are concerned about growth. As membership rolls stagnant at best or at worst ebb away, those that love their church become anxious. As we look at budgets and deficits we are legitimately concerned about raising more money as expenses go up and up. And the answer to that financial imperative is not simply giving more but having more givers. All of this is practical, rational and hard headed and churches can not be immune from such prudent concern for growth. Similarly, we in the church sometimes open our doors to others because we are concerned for the visitor. “They need us,” “they are going through a difficult time,” or “they are new to the area and we can provide a community for them.” These are kind sentiments and we do all these very things -- and rightly so.

But the main message of Paul’s letter is that bringing in new people is not simply to help them or to solidify our membership and finances (though they both happened and wonderfully so), but because we as the church will be better. We will be more complete as a community of faith with new families and new members. The greater the diversity – the greater the gifts that join with us in one body -- the more we are the church as Jesus envisioned it.  We want people to join us certainly because we want to share the good news but also because they will deepen our faith together. The imperative behind the movement in the UCC for church’s to be Open and Affirming – that is to welcome all regardless of sexual orientation – is not simply because we are acting as Jesus did  in reaching out to all  but because in a most fundamental sense the community of faith is enriched  by diversity. We will understand each other better – indeed, we will love our neighbor more fully -- the wider our community.  One of my prior ministers, the Rev. Loring Chase, wrote

            [T]o say to people, “Come, join us because we need you to help us in the great things we do” doesn’t sound as good on the receiving end as it feels on the sending end. “You come and help me do my thing, and I’ll tell you how to do it” is I think an approximation of how the message is often heard.

            And, when we stop to think about it, and sift our own feelings, that’s certainly not how we want to be heard, and it’s not really what we have in mind. When a “you” becomes a part of “us,” then he or she enters into a full partnership in the church community … as a brother or sister in Christ who has the privilege of voice … in other words power within the fellowship of the Church. Rather than say, “you come help us,” we might say,             “our future is open; we invite you to help us shape it.”[4]

Now, I think there is little risk that we would not open our community to new comers and not urge them to help us shape the future. Rather, I think the lesson is to remember that the imperative is not growth per se or even the financial and other dividends of growth --real though they are -- but it is that we will be enriched by new members -- by the gifts they bring. Spreading the “good news” is certainly about helping people to embrace faith and with it the grace and forgiveness and salvation of God. But it is also that we will as the church be fuller and richer for their joining with us.

And in welcoming the newcomer -- as when we look at ourselves -- we must not prioritize the gifts that are offered. Like an orchestra where the third violins are as essential as the first violins, so too are all the various gifts each of us offers our church. Frederick Buechner tells a story of an esteemed minister. After his death he appears in front of St.  Peter, who asks him, “Who are you?” The Preacher visibly puffing up says, “I am the Most Reverend Winslow Arch. I have preached for 40 years in churches and on the radio to millions. St. Peter, looks down at a book he is holding, after a moment he replies, “no one here has mentioned your preaching.”  The minister taken aback but not deterred says, “I have for years lead many outreach efforts – indeed, I recently traveled to Africa to help build a major school and hospital. St. Peter, looks down again, and then answers, ‘I am sorry but there is no mention of you in connection with these efforts in the book.” The minister is dismayed and begins to turn away. St Peter looks up and says, “Hey, are you the guy who feeds the sparrows in the park?  The minister says over his shoulder as he walks away, “Yes.” St. Peter replies, “The Creator of all sparrows would like to meet you inside.”[5]  Each and every one of us contributes to this community. Every gift -- whether a nod of a head, a pat on an arm, teaching a class, feeding the homeless, the taking of minutes at a board meeting -- is important. That is one of the things that separates this community from virtually every other one that we are a part of – no one here and certainly not our Creator keeps score or critiques our efforts.

Finally, so we are all equally important members of the one body. But what is it that keeps all the members part of that body?  Paul says it is that we “drink of one Spirit.” What does that mean? How do we -- this multitude of arms and legs, eyes and ears drink of one spirit?  I submit it is in the very act of identifying with and coming to this community. It is not in accepting a set creed or list of prescribed beliefs.  Yes, we do share some things – a belief in God – albeit for some a belief that is sometimes in dynamic tension with doubt. We share an acceptance that Jesus was different --not simply in the way he lived and in what he said but some how different than the rest of us – though we may not all understand that difference in the same way.  What holds us together is the striving to know, understand and embrace this faith. It is not in the certainty of the answers -- though some of us may be graced with greater certainty than others. 

We are not one body, however, without that glue of striving – without that shared desire and thirst to embrace fully faith. In the book, The Faith Club,[6] one of the participants talks about coffee hour religion – that is fellowship that passes for faith. The time we spend together in fellowship and having fun is necessary to be one religious body but it is not sufficient. Musicians can play by them selves in the quiet of their home or practice space. They can join together in trios and in string and other quartets and play wonderful music. But to be a symphony orchestra requires that they join together in the aggregate. But even then they need something more to be a true orchestra. They need a score to play -- a score with parts for each which celebrates there individual gifts -- but in the end uniquely joins them in one.  Each player is necessary but alone insufficient to be an orchestra. Joined by a score they become more than the sum of the parts; they become a whole that transcends their individuality.  I have always thought that the church is like that. And worship is the stage when we come together through receipt of the score. It is not the only place where we play but it is an essential place for us if we are to be an orchestra playing God’s music. Amen