In Praise of Unity

A Sermon on Psalm 133 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Rev. Christopher A. Henry

Shallowford Presbyterian Church

Atlanta, GA
January 23, 2011

Nearly fifty years after his death, the British novelist, literary critic and lay theologian C.S. Lewis remains one of the most popular Christian writers of all time. His Mere Christianity is consistently on the top-fifty list of religion books on Amazon.com, an invention he never could have imagined. I can remember many childhood evenings that ended with my sister on the couch, listening intently as one of my parents read to us from Lewis’ wonderful novel (now turned blockbuster film) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

But I was surprised when, as an undergraduate taking a class on C.S. Lewis and his writing, I was most moved by another of his fictional works. The Screwtape Letters chronicles a pen-pal relationship between Screwtape, a high-level assistant to Satan, and Wormwood, his nephew and a novice demon working on securing his first human soul, or “patient.” Lewis uses the correspondence between Screwtape and Wormwood to offer a stirring critique of the church of his day. At one point Screwtape writes these instructions to his young nephew: “…if your patient can’t be kept out of the Church, he ought at least to be violently attached to some party within it. I don’t mean on real doctrinal issues; about those, the more lukewarm he is the better…the real fun is working up hatred between those who say ‘mass’ and those who say “holy communion” when neither party could possibly state the difference between (the two).”[i] We might chuckle a bit at this description of the church, and many of us have heard the tragically comic stories of congregations coming apart at the seams over the color of carpet or brand of coffee served at fellowship hour. But we laugh nervously, because we know that there is more truth in Lewis’ fictional description than we’d like to admit.

One of the things you will learn about me in the months to come is that I love the Apostle Paul. I love the boldness of his faith, the poetry of his words, and especially his uncanny ability to make sense of the Christian faith in a particular context. Paul, like C.S. Lewis, wrote practical theology. He knew that a disembodied gospel with no response to real world questions would never survive the challenge of real world lives. So, Paul’s letters are earthy, grounded, relevant to the concrete lives of his churches. Paul did not write theological textbooks. He wrote urgent appeals to real people who struggled to hold fast to fledgling Christian faith in complex times. And his most common theme is the same one a frustrated parent might give two squabbling children (and I imagine it in the same tone of voice): “You are members of the same family. Try to get along.”

A case in point for the seriousness of this message is the Christian community in the Greek city of Corinth. Not many years before writing the words we read this morning, Paul had arrived in Corinth with a message and a passion for proclaiming it. He had preached the gospel there, apparently he had baptized a few families, and he had founded a Christian community made up almost entirely of cosmopolitan Gentiles. It was a sign for Paul of the movement of God in the world, that these former pagans could hear and believe and be transformed and then united in the body of Christ.

But then Paul went away and Apollos, the silver-tongued orator and Paul’s colleague in ministry, was called as the next pastor of First Church Corinth, and so Paul left his prized example of Christian unity to plant other churches in other places. He had not been gone long when he got word from Chloe, a leader of the Corinthian church and a trusted friend of the Apostle. Her report was devastating. The church had devolved into fractured factions. Rather than coming together for worship and fellowship, each affinity group gathered secretly to proclaim their superiority over the others. They had fallen into personality-driven discipleship. I belong to Paul; I belong to Peter; I belong to Apollos.

Well, Paul wastes no time in this letter to the church in Corinth. Recognizing the danger of division to any community of faith, he quickly moves past the pleasantries, and in verse ten of chapter one, he gets straight to the point: “I appeal to you, for the sake of Jesus Christ, be in agreement.” Children, try to get along.

Paul’s words are sharp and they are serious, because division in the church undermines its mission in the world. Paul would agree with our Presbyterian Book of Order, which states plainly that there is one Church, and that divisions obscure the unity that is our gift from God. And so, passionately, frustratedly, Paul demands unity in Corinth.

What would Paul make of the contemporary church, in which more than 34,000 different Christian denominations exist, and more are created each year by the tearing apart of older denominations? I think his words to the church in Corinth would be his words to the church of the 21^st Century. Be united, of the same mind and purpose. It sounds simple. But how? There is such great diversity of practice, theology, and composition in the modern Church. What could possibly unite this vast array of different viewpoints and people?

Paul’s answer was deceptively and profoundly simple. The glue that holds the Christian church together, then as now, is faith in Jesus Christ and a desire to live his way in the world. Again and again in his letters, Paul reminds the divided church that their unity in Christ far outweighs any disagreement that might surface.

Several years ago a Task Force of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), representing the diversity of our denomination in all its forms, was appointed to study the divisiveness that has gripped us for decades and constrains our mission and our witness. The group of denominational leaders met for five years, engaging in Bible Study, singing hymns, writing papers, sharing meals and laughter and the stories that make us human. After these meetings, this group, called the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church, released its report to a divided church. What they had discovered in their meetings, they explained, was truly astounding. Not unanimity but unity. Not complete agreement but a common faith. And so, turning to the epistles of Paul, they concluded that our unity, our peace, our purity have the same root. Jesus Christ provides us with the model for all three, and it is our shared faith in Christ that gives us unity. There is no other source. We belong to one another because we belong to the body of Christ.[ii] I for one believe that Paul would have been proud.

We are called to be the church of Jesus Christ, to embody the world-altering, earth-shaking truth that in Jesus Christ there is no more division. In our denomination, in our congregation, in our own lives, we have to find ways to testify to the overwhelming power of unity in Christ. The church should be the one place where people can argue intensely about political views, sports rivalries, and even church policies and then come into this sacred space and sit down beside one with whom you disagree and open the hymnal and pray the prayers and pass the peace of Jesus Christ. Alex said it best: how very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!

Last week’s New Yorker magazine features a fascinating column by David Brooks, the political and cultural commentator. The column, titled Social Animal, follows the life an imaginary person living in the complex world of the 21^st Century. The man’s name is Harold, and he is a composite of all that scientific research and sociological study says about how we humans live today. While every outward indication suggests that Harold is living the American dream (happy marriage, top-notch education, financial success, time for golf and vacation and leisure), he is plagued, haunted, by the sense that something is missing. He is a victim of the 21^st Century American cultural epidemic—isolation. He lacks a sense of community and a place to belong. He is alone, divided not only from other people but from his own deepest longings for a sense of true fulfillment.[iii]

Here is the good news that Paul knew instinctively with no help from David Brooks or even the field of sociology. We belong to one another and to the God who created us. We are most fulfilled when we are united. And the church, even now, can be the place where that unity is given full expression.

Here is the challenge: the church has been divided and dividing since First Century Corinth. From the outside looking in, many see us as a hopelessly fractured and irredeemably irrelevant relic of an era long past. Spiritual but not religious, they say. But it is not too late. We can be the community we were called to be. We can be a place of unity and connectedness. We can be a remedy for the isolation that is felt by nearly everyone in our time and place, when one can feel alone even with 750 Facebook friends. Ask our youth, who see it so clearly and who know, perhaps better than many of us, that the church is either a beloved community or a hypocritical and hurtful mockery.

Passionately, Paul urged a unity with roots deeper than passing trends or human leaders. Friends, our unity is the strongest witness to the truth we proclaim because it commands us to transcend discord and to raise voices in harmonious hymns of praise. It is, after all, nearly impossible (I asked Emily!) to quarrel with one another when we are singing together. It is difficult to debate when we are swinging hammers to build houses for homeless families. We cannot speak angry words when we are instead listening to the story of another. When we are united in worship and in mission, everything else seems to fade away and we remember the reason why we are. Not because of common allegiance to a human leader or even a single theological perspective. No, we belong to each other because of the cross. Because in Jesus Christ, God was reconciling not just you or me, but the whole world to God’s very own self and giving us the ministry of reconciliation.

Many of you know that Sara, my wife, serves as Executive Director of a Tri-Presbytery Commission on New Church Development. Her territory covers half of Georgia, from Augusta to Carrollton, Blue Ridge to LaGrange. Her community of thirty-three New Church Developments and Immigrant Fellowships also represents the vast diversity of Presbyterianism in this region. Last year, I had the privilege of attending the Commission’s Annual Celebration in Marietta. The event was hosted by Bethany Presbyterian Church, a Korean congregation that share facilities with an Anglo congregation and opens its doors to a Brazilian fellowship. At dinner, taquitos shared plates with kimchi, and even Georgia fudge cake. In worship that evening, Korean and Kenyan Choirs sang, we prayed in Vietnamese, we heard proclamation in Spanish and English. Young joined hands with old, national boundaries lost their divisive power and we worshipped God. We worshipped the God of the whole church. It was a picture of the kingdom right there in Marietta.

The world is watching. Our unity is our witness. One Lord. One Faith. One Baptism. May it be so in our church. Amen.

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