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Deeper Into Communion
1 Corinthians 1:10-18 preached by Rev. Susan Murtha
January 27, 2008
In the week of Christian Unity Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that all of you be in agreement
and that there be no divisions among you,
but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.
– 1 Corinthians 1:10 I suspect you’ve had conversations, as I have, in which someone said to you, “I definitely have God in my life, but I don’t do organized religion.” I guess they think we’re organized (you’ve got to take the compliments where you can). Or another common variation is, “At this point in my life, I feel I’m getting less religious, but more spiritual.” I usually just listen, but inside I’m thinking, ‘At this point in my life, I’d have to say I’m getting more religious.’ It’s a very popular notion isn’t it: God without church. So popularized is this sentiment that even dating websites now have an entire category dedicated to this group – not that I’m saying anything about first-hand knowledge of such websites, only that I am aware of their categories. You describe yourself by checking a box: Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, … but then for those who don’t identify with religion, there’s an alternative. You can check “Spiritual but not religious.” Notice there’s a category for “not religious,” but there’s no category “not spiritual.” Apparently that would not get you a date. Spiritual is definitely in.
It’s easy to romanticize the spiritual and not just contemporary spirituality. I think most people tend to see the early Christian churches as sort of spiritual powerhouses. We have a sense that the Spirit was closer back then, that the message of Jesus was purer and received more directly. People were healed; they shared their goods in common; for their worship and meals, they met in each other’s homes; and there were no rituals and traditions and (God forbid) bylaws bogging down their spiritual fever. It’s an attractive picture and I think there’s some validity to it, but it’s only half of the picture. The other half of the picture is that human beings don’t do particularly well when there’s so little structure upon which to hang their common life. Even a cursory look at Paul’s letters makes clear that life in the early church often got very chaotic and heated. Imagine hearing this message on a friend’s answering machine: “Hello. We’re in the middle of a family fight right now. Leave your name and number at the beep and whoever wins will call you right back.” If there had been telephones in the first century, you might have gotten just such a message from First Church, Corinth. Super-spiritual? Maybe, but with it came a lot of messes. People were parading their spiritual prowess by speaking in tongues and that made other people feel spiritually inferior; not to mention that they were also suing each other in public courts. The problem highlighted in today’s reading is that there’s some sort of personality contest going about who’s got the best leader. ‘I belong to … ; Well, I was baptized by … .’ So much for the spiritual ideal of the early church. I guess we all really want to believe that at some point there was such a thing as a perfect church or, you know, nearly perfect. But it never existed. Only Christ is perfect. It’s good to be reminded of that from time to time – that there really is no such thing as a perfect church or for that matter, a perfect marriage, or a perfect relationship of any sort. Only Christ is perfect. There is no other perfect to believe in – then or now. And the reason for that is simple: every relationship is made up of two imperfect human beings. There are only better and worse relationships between imperfect people. So, that’s where we start – in all matters, including the spiritual and the religious. In our current culture, the remedy offered for this human imperfection is communication – you need to talk, you need good communication. Right? This is said to prevent problems and to cure them. Certainly there is no denying that good communication in our relationships is essential and that it can be healing and sometimes sacred. And because sometimes it can be extraordinarily difficult, we do well to heed this counsel. That said, I would say that the potency of “communication” is overstated and overrated. Communion, on the other hand, is of extraordinary importance and hardly ever mentioned – except in church. When Paul tells this young church to be of one mind, when he calls for unity, he’s reaching – out of the noise, out of the chaos – reaching for this thing we call communion. He’s not saying that everyone has to agree; there are some things that need to be argued about and he’s right in there with all that. He’s talking about a deeper union, a communion in Christ that has been lost in the midst of all the noise that a church can generate or perhaps, for this young church, a communion not yet found in the youth of their spiritual maturity. Some people call it prayer, some call it meditation, some call it quiet time. It doesn’t matter what you call it. Holding the hand of your brother or sister and being silent together is one of the most healing things you can do when you’re up against imperfect love that is hurting or breaking. Everybody tells you to talk about it and if you are talking a lot and things still aren’t getting better, then they tell you to talk less and listen more to the talking of the other person. I say stop talking. ….. The communion that happens in shared silence is more profound than expressing or listening to one another. It is the space where grace dwells and grace is all we have to move – to move to openness, tolerance and forgiveness. In shared silence, problems aren’t solved or resolved. That’s why it’s my last resort. I like to solve problems and I’m good at problem solving and if I can’t solve a problem, I like to resolve it. In shared silence problems are neither solved nor resolved; it is where they are dissolved as a deeper truth can speak – one you cannot hear if you are talking. I can say no more than that this is mystery and gift. Only Christ is perfect. And so communion with Him and one another is the grace we need for our imperfect unions. The verb Paul uses to call the church into this communion is significant. Katartizo. It’s a complex word. It’s used in medical vocabulary to express the setting of a bone that has been broken; in the political world it means the settling of civil discord; in Mark’s gospel it is used to describe the disciples sitting in a boat mending their nets. Setting, settling, mending – Paul, I think, must mean something of all of these. This communion has something to do with the “bones” of the Body of Christ being carefully mended. Division breaks the bones. What is needed to set the bone that’s broken? Communication yes, but also something deeper, something of God – Paul’s reaching for that. On our family ski trip this year (yes, we did have snow this year), I was on a trail with my son Simon and my sister. Simon was going to head over to another area of the mountain while my sister and I were going down to the base. We reached a trail fork and when I looked down I remembered that there were several other forks along that trail and so before we parted, I called to Simon, “Which way to the base?” He didn’t call back with any trail names or direction indicators. Expressionless (a quality he did not get from his mother), he just pointed and said, “Go down.” That was it; that’s all we were getting. My sister looked at me and chagrined she said, “Why can’t they be more helpful?” I said, “I think he’s trying to say that all the trails eventually lead to the base; that’s the definition of the base – it’s the thing at the bottom of the trails.” Just go down. Simon gave no further instructions; he just stood there with his poles planted and waited until we set off with a look on his face like, ‘My mother – so good at some things and so clueless about others.’ Which way to the base? The way you get to the base is to go down. Just keep going down, you get to the base. The root of Paul’s word, kata, means “down from.” He’s calling us down from all the noise and into something deeper. I think it’s safe to say you might bump into Jesus on your own, but you will not grow into spiritual maturity on your own. For that you’re going to need to connect with other people. With all my human limitations and imperfections, I need you. And then once you’re connected with other people, you’ll have problems and difficulties and conflict; as the saying goes, where two or three are gathered, there will be conflict. So then you’ll need to talk and to listen and then you’ll need to turn together in silence to the Perfect One. This is so much more than communication; this is communion. And when you have communion, then the next thing you know they’ll be calling you a church – religious and spiritual, all mixed together. By the grace of God, may we have it now and until the end of this imperfect time. Blessings in this week of Christian Unity. Amen.
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