St Margaret's Church Prestwich

Rev Sue preached this sermon on Sunday 26 January, the third of Epiphany. Here it is for you again:

Picture the city of Corinth 2000 years ago. It sat on a tiny strip of land connecting northern and southern Greece. It had two ports – one trading with Asia in the east, the other with Italy in the west. It was always a hubbub of activity with merchants and travellers passing through, bringing with them the latest news and ideas. Corinth was a wealthy city where riches brought respect irrespective of background. It was a city of contrasts, with many poor people, too. There was a vibrant mix of cultures and languages as people from all over the Roman Empire passed through or settled. The darker side was that Corinth became proverbial for being a place of debauchery and immorality.

When Paul visited Corinth in AD 49, he found Christians already there – Priscilla and Aquila, a couple who had moved to Corinth after the Emperor expelled all Jews from Rome. He must have been delighted to find that they, like him, were in the tent-making business, and he worked and lodged with them. On the Sabbath, Paul worshipped in the synagogue, preaching there from time to time. Many people came to believe in Jesus, including the leader of the synagogue himself. Members of the Jewish community were outraged and complained to the Roman authorities. But Paul weathered the storm and stayed for 18 months to nurture and strengthen the growing church.

Given the city’s chaotic and transient nature, it’s not surprising that the church faced challenges after Paul left. He wrote four letters to teach and encourage them – frustratingly the first of these is lost, but we know Paul wrote it because he speaks about it in what we call 1 Corinthians, which was written as a response to questions they were asking. The church in Corinth needed to be radically different from the money-worshipping, fragmented culture around it. How could difference be celebrated whilst maintaining a unity of belief and purpose, and how could rich and poor alike put aside condescension and envy to live as true brothers and sisters in Christ?

Last week’s reading from the first half of chapter 12 was about the different spiritual gifts that God gives to Christians. Paul reminded the Corinthians that their days of worshipping pagan idols were behind them. The different gifts all come from the one Spirit, and they are given to benefit the whole congregation. After celebrating this diversity, Paul moves on to emphasise the unity of the church using the image of a body. There’s a play on words, as we talk about members of the congregation and a member can also mean a body part. Paul introduces some humour into the discussion by imagining the parts talking to each other as if in an animation. Picture a talking foot saying “I’m not a hand, so I don’t belong to the body”  or an ear deciding it’s not part of the body because it’s not an eye. On the flip side no part can think it’s all that is necessary – an eye can’t say to the hand “I don’t need you” and the head can’t dismiss the feet. What use is it to see if you can’t act, or to be able to think if you can’t move? Not only that, but Paul emphasizes that the weaker parts of the body are the ones we honour by clothing them.

If one part of the body suffers, the whole body feels it. If your feet are aching it is only minimally comforting to say that your hands are OK today. A cold in the head makes exercising less attractive. Unarguable common sense.

We are the body of Christ. Note that in this particular analogy, Christ is not the head, but the whole body. Now Paul lists all the different roles within the church. It’s not quite the list we would make today, because we live in a different context, but the principle is the same. The one I find interesting is the phrase “forms of assistance”. I reckon that covers cleaning the church, and keeping the graveyard records, to name but two of the jobs that are less visible, but still essential to our well-being as a church. Pastoral care doesn’t get a mention, but then the gift of healing does. You don’t have to be trained and given a title to be a good listener, and we all know the healing that comes from pouring out our hearts to a friend.

The message is the same today as it was for the people of Corinth. Do we value everyone whatever their background or skills? Paul speaks of Jews or Greeks and slaves or free. What are the divisions in our society? Rich or poor, black or white, gay or straight, homeowner or homeless, citizen or refugee? Add your own to the list. Can we both as individuals and we as a church welcome people not like us, not expecting them to conform to our way of doing things, but going more than halfway to include them? Can we value each other’s gifts without pride or envy? This works both ways – can we have the courage to believe that being baptized into the faith, we have exactly the same status as anyone else, never needing to feel inadequate or inferior?

Conflict and disagreement are inevitable in any group, and expressing different points of view is healthy. Your feet may complain after a long walk, however much the exercise benefits your heart and lungs. They have a different perspective. What matters is the unity in the Spirit. We are called to love even those we disagree with or don’t like. Pray not only for your family and friends, but also for those people who challenge or frustrate you.

I’ve spoken before about being a member of the Franciscan Third Order. Every day we read a passage from a document called the Principles which describes how we can live our lives dedicated to Christ in the light of the example of St Francis. On the 26^th day of each month, we read

 “we seek to love all those to whom we are bound by ties of family or friendship. Our love for them increases, as our love for Christ grows deeper. We are on our guard against anything that might injure this love, and we seek reconciliation with those from whom we are estranged. We seek the same love for those with whom we have little natural affinity, for this kind of love is not a welling-up of emotion, but is a bond founded in our common union with Christ.”

 It is every Christian’s responsibility to forgive, to understand and to accept. Our church should be a model of generosity and forbearance, kindness and love. And those qualities shouldn’t stay within the church building, they should spill out into the world, transforming our families, our neighbourhood and our workplaces. And so Christians throughout the world can transfigure the places where they live until the whole world is transformed.

Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another”. What would the world be like if in the words of the hymn “They will know we are Christians by our love”?