I Corinthians 1:10-17
“Party Spirit”
January 23, 2011 - Third Sunday after Epiphany

         All my problems in life may stem from the fact that I went to an elementary school named after a comedian, Will Rogers Elementary in Santa Monica, California. At any rate, when it came to politics, Rogers had lots to say, but he attributed that to the politicians themselves. He said, “There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.” He also said, “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” You might try a paraphrase of that line when people criticize you for belonging to “organized” religion.

         More relevant to our text today, Will Rogers said, “The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.” That may have been how the apostle Paul felt when he wrote to Corinth about the parties which had developed in the church there. Each was worse than the others.

         I mentioned last time that the fledgling church at Corinth was seriously messed-up. After a brief encouraging word at the beginning of the letter, Paul dives right into the mess. The first issue is something he’s heard, as he says in verse 11, a report of factions in the Corinthian church.

         As we heard and had fun with last Sunday, Paul begins at the end in verse 10 by stating what he expects the Corinthians to be. Before even mentioning the factions, Paul insists on unity. He insists that Christians must agree. He asks this not in his own name, but “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This Christian agreement and unity is not some optional feature, like heated seats on your new car, that can be left off if it’s too difficult or too expensive. For the Church, unity is part of the base package, a necessity for its existence. “In the name of our Lord Jesus…” Paul says. Unity is part of our identity with Christ.

         In our translations of verse 10 we hear Paul using language like “that all of you agree,” and “be perfectly united.” That’s strong enough, but a literal translation is even stronger. He is asking that they “all say the same thing,” and that they all be of the “same mind and the same opinion or purpose.” Paul is asking and expecting a sameness of word and mind and heart to mark the churches of Jesus Christ. But that seems impossible.

         With verse 11 Paul carefully gives the source of his information about the Corinthian church. The apostle does not deal in anonymous rumors. That’s good practice for leaders in the church today. It’s not “someone told me this” or “a person I can’t name said that.” It’s “I heard this from members of Chloe’s household.” Paul and those who spoke to him are willing to own what they say about this church and be responsible for it. That’s why your own church leaders are asking for your names on a survey they’re giving out today.

         Paul heard about “quarrels among you” in verse 11 and he goes on to give the details in verse 12. This is a crystal clear slice of church life in 54 A.D., and it’s not pretty. In a way that sounds all too familiar, the Corinthian Christians had split up around their allegiances to different leaders, Paul himself among their choices.

         So there they are, says Paul, each member at Corinth choosing a side by claiming a different spiritual guide. “I follow Paul.” “I follow Apollos.” “I follow Cephas (who is Peter).” And finally in a great burst of hyper-spirituality, “I follow Christ.”

         We don’t really know what these parties in the church were about in their details. Paul was the original founder of the church, staying there a long time on his second missionary journey in 51 A.D. So his party may have been the “old guard,” the original converts that had heard him speak and could claim charter membership.

         Apollos was an eloquent orator who possibly had training in philosophical interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures. He came along later and perhaps appealed to an educated, sophisticated minority in the congregation.

         Then some Jewish Christians came along and may have adopted the name of Peter for their notion that Gentile believers in Christ should be circumcised and eat a Jewish diet in order to be real members of the church.

         All that detail about what drove the parties is guesswork, and what the “Christ party” was about is anyone’s guess. Maybe they were a disgusted but arrogant bunch who thought they could rise above all the factions by claiming to be the only ones who really followed Christ Himself.

         Whatever the parties were actually about, Paul had no use for them, including the one that used his own name. Would he have any more use for all the ways in which the Christian Church has divided itself since? Would he be any happier that this morning we are separated from brothers and sisters in Christ by parties that have crystallized into the formal structures we call “denominations?” Would he be pleased even about the reports he might hear from individual churches regarding our internal divisions and factions?

         Yet what can we do? The very fact that such divisions showed up in the earliest years of the Church tells how deep divisiveness runs in our hearts and minds. We don’t all say the same thing or have the same mind or hold the same opinion, not in the Church, not anywhere.

         One of the deeply divided arenas of our time is in our Senate and Congress. The antipathy between Republicans and Democrats is at an all-time high. The scene at Tuesday’s State of the Union address will probably include, as it has in the recent past, one party clapping and cheering the President while the other boos. Unfortunately, we bring that same party spirit—and often those same political divisions—right into our Lord’s Church.

         Paul addresses the party spirit with a rhetorical but devastating question in verse 13, “Is Christ divided?” The word “divided” has the fuller sense of “divided up and parceled out so everyone gets a piece.” Is that how we are treating Jesus when we split up in the church? Are we carving up our Lord into slices in an effort to try and make everyone happy in separate little cliques and parties?

         If we split Jesus up, then no one really has Jesus. It’s like the Old Testament story of Solomon’s facetious offer to take a sword and split a baby so that two women who both want him can each have half. A piece of Jesus is no Jesus at all. Even the party that claims to “follow Christ” is no good if they mean that other believers follow Him less.

         In the rest of verse 13, Paul discounted his own importance in order to argue that all these divisions in the Church make as little sense as cutting up Christ. “Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?” He’s trying to haul them out of their party spirit into a memory of why they are in the church in the first place. It’s not Paul. It’s not Apollos. It’s not Peter. It’s not even some sort of exclusive, privileged, unique experience of Christ. It’s that Jesus died on the Cross for them all. It’s that they were all baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

         Evidently one point of contention in these parties in Corinth were claims about who baptized whom. So Paul distanced himself from that contention in verses 14 to 16 by being thankful he didn’t baptize very many of them. His ruminations here are wonderfully human. As Robert Farrar Capon says, Paul “…produced a rather feeble-minded list of people he thought he remembered baptizing…”[1] He recalls Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, and Gaius, who had a big house, right off the bat. Then he must have slapped his head a sentence later, because he remembered Stephanas, who he says at the end of the letter was the first convert in Corinth and was the one who brought him their letter. Finally he has to admit, in a way comforting to all us older folks, “beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.”

         Of course Paul doesn’t remember whom he baptized. It’s not that he thinks baptism is unimportant. Turn over to Romans 6:4 to get a picture of the huge value Paul places on baptism. “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Baptism is at the heart of death and resurrection, of new life. It matters. But the point is that who did the baptizing is not all that important. It’s the one whose name is used in baptism that’s important. It’s Christ.

         That’s why Paul says in verse 17, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel…” Paul’s job was to keep the focus where it mattered, on the Good News of Jesus Christ, not on peripheral matters like how and by whom baptism was performed. That’s the same spirit with which Covenant churches hold our view that both infant and believer baptism are acceptable in the Church. It’s not the way or when it’s done but the Savior in whose name it’s done that matters most.

         In the end Paul politely dropped the subject of the Corinthian factions as he moved into verse 17 and beyond. He wants them to get over what divides them and their party spirit and do what he asked in verse 10, to say the same thing, have the same mind, hold the same opinion. But there’s only one way to do that and that’s to stay close to what is at the center of who they are.

         In the last few weeks there’s been a grassroots campaign to alleviate party spirit at the State of the Union address. Senator Mark Udall from Colorado was the first to suggest a new seating chart. Instead of the two parties seated split from each other on either side of the aisle, let the parties sit together, Republican next to Democrat. It’s a little like teachers in the old days trying to calm a class down by seating everyone boy, girl, boy, girl.

         Udall’s idea has found some traction and at least some of our representatives are going to give it a try, cross the aisle and sit with the other party Tuesday night. It’s a nice thought and maybe it will make a difference, though I’m not very hopeful for much change in the way party spirit has divided our nation.

         I’m more hopeful for the Church if we are willing to accept and live out Paul’s direction for being undivided and of the same mind. The way to do that is to know and love and live the Gospel and to let its power, the power of Jesus Christ who died and rose again, bring us together.

         Paul doesn’t want to us to get stuck in our party spirit. It’s not about how or by whom baptism is done. It’s not about “wisdom and eloquence” he says in verse 17, maybe chiding those who preferred the powerful preaching of Apollos. If we make our faith about those things, then Paul fears that “the cross of Christ [will] be emptied of its power.” It’s that Cross which is at the center, not leaders or ways we worship or theology or church politics.

         You and I will want to think about the divisive stuff we sometimes put at the center instead of Christ and His Cross. We will want to reach across the aisle between those of us who prefer praise songs and those who prefer hymns, to bridge the distance separating those in our church who support recent wars and those who are pacifists, to bring together those who want to budget in great leaps of faith and those who want to be conservative stewards of what God actually gives us.

         All that and more can divide us here at Valley Covenant. You may prefer one Sunday school teacher rather than another. You may feel slighted by a clique you perceive in our midst. You may just believe some of us aren’t very spiritual. It all pushes us apart, but the big question is what Paul asks, “Will Christ be divided?” Will we let party spirit carve up our Lord Jesus so that His power and His salvation get watered-down and lost in all the confusion?

         When President Obama enters Congress Tuesday night to speak, he will likely pause near the door and honor a silly tradition. It has to do with Will Rogers, that humorist who had such scathing words for political parties.

         Rogers’ home state of Oklahoma honored him by making a statue of him one of Oklahoma’s two statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection housed in the Capitol. Will Rogers consented to the honor on the condition that his image would face the House Chamber so he could, “keep an eye on Congress.” And the Rogers sculpture is the only one facing the Chamber entrance. According to Capitol tour guides, every president entering for the State of the Union address rubs Rogers’ left shoe for good luck. President Obama is going to need it.

         Paul wants us to know that we are not just wishing for luck when we come together and seek to be one in Jesus Christ. Much better than touching the foot of a dead political wit, you and I are invited to fall down and touch the foot of the Cross.

         I invite you to look at and touch the Cross today. If you are not already a Christian, if this unity and love that we’re talking about seems like a dream, then I encourage you to reach out and touch and accept the Cross of Jesus as your own salvation and your own welcome into a community that rises with Him above the parties that divide us.

         If you are a Christian, if you are part of this church, then may I encourage you to touch the Cross when you feel tempted by party spirit, when you feel anger or jealousy or superiority or even fear separating you from brothers and sisters here. Look to the Cross and remember that Jesus died for you and He died for that other Christian across the aisle. Reach out and touch the Cross in prayer and let God heal the brokenness that divides us from each other.

         Before our Covenant logo that you see on our bulletin and in the stained glass above us, there was a more pictorial logo that showed hands shaking above an image of a Lamb recumbent, with a Cross. A slogan ran across it, saying Conjuncti in Christi, “Joined in Christ.” Some of us miss that old logo with its sophisticated Latin motto, but our new logo says the same thing. The Lamb of God, Christ with His Cross, is at the center. We are gathered around and in Jesus Christ our Lord who gave His life for us. He is our center. He is our unity. On that we may all agree. We may all say the same thing, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” We may all have the same mind, the mind of Christ. We may all hold the same opinion, the same purpose, to love and glorify and be in and with Jesus, forever and ever.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2011 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj