Scripture - 1 Corinthians 3:1-7

Rev Andy Braunston

Introduction

Many Christians live under the glorious delusion that the earliest Church was wonderful and, because it had people in it who had actually known Jesus when he was ministering in the Holy Land, was nearer what God intended the Church to be. A short study in Church history normally stops these ideas very quickly indeed! Even a cursory reading of St Paul’s letters to the Church in Corinth shows that they were, at best, a church in some difficulty.

Paul had some authority over the Corinthian Church. It is likely that he had helped establish it and had left various people in charge. From today’s passage it seems that the prime leader he left in charge of the Corinthian church was someone called Apollos. But Apollos wasn’t having an easy time and word of this had got to Paul.

Maybe Apollos had written to Paul expressing frustration and asking for advice. Maybe the disaffected had written complaining about this new leader and comparing him, unfavourably of course, with Paul their founder. No matter how the news had got to Paul he now has to respond.

The Problem

We are not sure what the actual problem was – though as we read the Letter to the Corinthians we see that Paul had a number of concerns: the right administration of the Lord’s Supper, the fact that their services had become selfish and self centred, the lack of love in their lives, their spiritual immaturity, the fact they had no idea how to use Spiritual Gifts properly and the fact they had an alarming tendency to see themselves as not needing each other. However, I think that Christians don’t change that much over the years and it is easy to see from modern situations what might have been happening in the Church in Corinth.

Leadership change

In my experience as a priest and as a friend of priests it seems to me that the main focus of division in the church is around leadership. We see conflict when leadership changes – typically 6 months to a year after a new minister comes to a church (though this may take less or more time depending on circumstances), conflict when lay leadership changes or conflict if there is disagreement about the direction or focus of ministry in the church.

We see echoes of this in our passage today. Paul started the church but didn’t see his ministry as being pastoral. He was an apostle and church planter. He felt called to have oversight over a number of churches and a passion to see the Gospel spread around the Roman world. This meant that the focus of his ministry as a pastor was preaching, teaching, gathering a community together and seeking leadership within the new church who would be able to continue his work. I suspect he was with churches for less than a year before moving on. Apollos was the person who Paul had left in charge of the Corinthian church.

We don’t know why, but some in that church resented his leadership. Maybe they were annoyed that they hadn’t been chosen by Paul, maybe Apollos had upset them, maybe they were not suitable for leadership positions but didn’t realise it, possibly they disagreed about some mission strategy. Who knows, all we do know is that the end result of their disagreement was to effect the work of the church so much that Paul has to instruct them in his letter about getting on with each other and becoming more spiritually mature.

Conflict and Immaturity

A fact of life is that churches will have conflict. When our new system of elders came into being five years ago, one of the candidates for Region 7 said at the hustings that he had never experienced conflict in any of the churches he had pastored. The other clergy fell about laughing and he wasn’t elected!

Conflict is inevitable in every facet of human life; wherever we work together we will have disagreements, differences of approach, different ideas about what is important. We will disagree, sometimes sharply. All this is normal and healthy. It shows there is life in the body if we can be passionate enough to fight our corners. However, what is difficult is when conflict becomes unhealthy, when people loose sight of the original problem and start to escalate a situation so that it becomes almost impossible to find a solution.

The difference between healthy disagreement and conflict and unhealthy is all about the maturity of the people taking part in the discussion. If we are focused on solutions, grounded in our faith, and able to separate out issues from personalities we are more likely to find good solutions which help a church grow. However, often church conflict gives rise the basest of human emotions.

Avoiding Unhealthy Conflict

There are a number of ways in which we can keep our church health in terms of managing conflict well. These come from experience and from what Paul writes to the Church in Corinth.

Realistic Expectations of Clergy

One of the biggest sources of conflict is that people have unrealistic expectations of clergy. The Bishop of Ripon went to see a parish that had had problem after problem and had seen off several priests in as many years. He asked them to list the skills and qualities they wanted in their priest. When he got the list his response was that they would always be unhappy and dissatisfied until he ordained the Archangel Gabriel to serve them! We want clergy to be wonderful loving icons of Christ, always available, yet have wonderfully balanced home lives. We want them to have the words of wisdom we need to hear yet never to interfere or tell us we have done something wrong. They have to be inspiring preachers, but not for too long. They should be happy on what we pay them, yet appear to come from the same social class as we do. They should be strong leaders but never change anything. They should be friendly with everyone but have no special friends as that might lead to favouritism.

Now no cleric will ever meet these expectations. We need to learn to be realistic about the strengths and weaknesses of clergy or we will find ourselves getting very cynical and jaded. I have just started to visit someone in prison who identifies as a gay man. He comes from an evangelical background and is very excited to hear about MCC. I have become this wonderful figure in his mind – a sorted well adjusted gay man who is a pastor. Eventually I will disappoint him, as he wants me to be evangelical, always patient, totally accepting of him and leading a perfect church which bears a striking similarity to the church he left. Hopefully over time his expectations will change as he gets to know me for who I really am, not who he wants me to be.

Doctrine of Original Sin

We don’t talk about original sin much in churches these days, yet this doctrine is essential if we are to develop a healthy approach to our life together. The doctrine of original sin means that we are flawed. We strive to be good, but something in our make up drags us down. We are like a wonderful diamond but with a significant flaw within us. This means that we can leave behind our perfectionism. I know I have flaws, I know there are some things that I will never excel at, some things that will always make me short tempered. I need to work on these areas but I don’t need to beat myself up simply for being human. I don’t need to beat up others either simply for being human. The idea that we are imperfect, flawed creatures is incredibly liberating, as it means we can be ourselves.

Realising what we all have different gifts and skills

Paul is very clear later on in his letter to the Corinthians that God has given the Church many different gifts and skills. He shows that these gifts and skills are complementary, not competitive. We all have different gifts and skills and together these make us into a wonderful church. We wouldn’t be that good if everyone could play the guitar but no one preach. We would be dreadful if everyone was happy to wash up but no one happy to welcome. We would be really strange if those who are really good at technical stuff were suddenly given the job of creating liturgies. Our gifts and skills, together, make us into a wonderful community. We need to realise that our gifts and skills are used alongside those of others – other people will be different to us, sometimes very different, but together we are woven into a rich tapestry of God’s own diversity.

Speaking truth in love

Paul is someone who is very good at speaking the truth in love! He tells the Corinthians in today’s readings that the are immature. The passage we read last week has him tell them that their worship does more harm than good! Most clergy that did the same would be run out of town very quickly indeed! Yet we need to learn to be truthful with each other. We are as a church very willing and able to challenge behaviour which is harmful, we will tell each other the truth about the way we behave if that behaviour is doing harm to ourselves or others. We don’t tell an alcoholic that it’s ok to drink because it’s the “nice thing to do”. We don’t tell people that destructive behaviour is ok – nor do we ignore it – simply because we want to be “British” and not really name what is going on. Similarly we all need to become good at listening when people come to tell us the truth in love! It isn’t always easy!

Realising that different views can help see the bigger picture

The famous story that was reputedly told by the Buddha helps us realise that we all have part of the big picture. The story is told of a king who was fed up with his priests, he called them together one day and had them blindfolded. Then he had them led into a room and told them to feel around them and tell them what they thought was there. One felt a long smooth horn and thought there was a rhinoceros in the room, another felt a long tall trunk and confidently said there was a tree there, another felt a long tube and rather fearfully said there was a snake in the room, another felt a thin leathery piece of material and thought there was a hide of a beast there. When they took of their blindfolds they saw the tusk, leg, trunk, and ear of an elephant. All of us have a partial idea of what God calls us to, together as we share our ideas we get a better picture of what we are called to do together. This is why we share leadership in MCC – so that more voices get to be heard, so that we can hear the voice of God better.

Working out what the end goal is

Sometimes we need to focus on the end goal and agree to differ on how to get there. There are lots of competing needs each Sunday. We try, in the time slot we have to offer a professional uplifting service where we have lively excellent music, relevant sermons, prayers which speak from our own experiences, a meaningful, reverent and joyful celebration of Holy Communion, connect people with God and each other, welcome new folks and bind up our community - and do all this in just under an hour! This means we may disagree about how we do different things in worship, but when we do we need to keep focused on what our pre-eminent goals are in a particular area of our life. Another goal is to be a truly inclusive community that welcomes all types of people; sometimes we find this difficult as one group may have issues with other groups within the church; yet our end goal is to join together in our diversity to truly reflect the One who calls us into being.

Conclusion

Paul is very pragmatic about church, seeing it as both a means of grace and a place of all too human conflict. He realises that people need a lot of teaching in order to help them move towards the Christian maturity they need in order to have a healthy church that reaches out to others. We too have learnt much over the years about being a church which can disagree healthily without degenerating into self-destructive conflict. As we continue to be realistic in our expectations of each other, in our realisation that we are not yet perfect, seeing how our gifts and skills interact, speaking the truth in love to each other, helping each other see the bigger picture and working towards the goals that God gives us we find that we grow and mature into the type of Church that God dreams of.

Amen

(Rev Andy Braunston)