This week again the Gospel tells us about the call of the first disciples. Last week we heard John’s version, this week we hear from Matthew’s, and if you remember we have already highlighted some differences in the way the two evangelists understand Jesus’s call: Matthew is focused on the building of the church and the mission, while John is more interested in the spiritual part of the call: Experiencing life with Jesus, learning to depend on him, to be united to him as the branch on the vine (John Ch 15). But before we have a closer look at today’s Gospel, I would like for us to spend a little time with the reading from the New Testament.
This passage from the first letter to the Corinthians jumps at me because it seems to address some of our concerns in this congregation. Again, if you remember from last week, we talked after the service about the rite of baptism and the different ways we practice baptism among Christians, and this is where Paul opens his epistle. To give you a little bit of background, Paul started a church in Corinth which was a large, prosperous Greek city. A few years after he left though, as we learn in our reading today, Paul heard that there were some divisions and some conflicts in the church, and he sent his letter to address that. The root of the problem seemed to be that some members of the congregation were after different leaders, they acknowledged the authority of some and denied the authority of others: Some said they belonged to Apollos (a colleague of Paul), some to Cephas (Because of last week Gospel, you now know it’s Simon Peter), some claimed to be faithful to Paul, some claimed to be the only ones faithful to Christ. But Paul warns them that they are all very wrong. Christ is not divided, and they all have been baptized in the name of Christ. It’s not the minister who matters, but the one in the name of whom they have been ministered to.
And so this reminds me of our conversation, when we talked about where we have been baptized and by whom. I don’t think many of us remembered the minister who baptized us, but we noticed some important difference between denominations in the practice of the rite: Catholics, Baptists, Episcopalians…And yet we had to acknowledge that there is only one baptism in Christ. As the church in Corinth was divided between ministers, Christians today often have the temptation to believe that church denominations are somehow in competition. But what we can learn from Paul’s letter is that, in the same way that the Corinthians weren’t bound to the minister who baptized them, baptism does not bind us to our denomination. Baptism, as we remembered last week, binds us to Christ, all of us, so not only are we united to Christ in baptism (as we also saw reading from John’s Gospel), but baptism also units us to one another. Unites us and not divides us! And yet so often we look at others and believe they don’t do church “the right way”. So what does Paul have to say about it?
Well, we see that Paul invites the Corinthians to be “in agreement and that there would be no divisions among [them]“. Inviting them to be “in agreement” does not mean that Paul believes Christians should agree on everything though. If we read further in the Letter, we will see for example that Paul says that Christians do not have to eat the same things. At the time, some believed they could eat any kind of meat, including the leftover of the animals sacrificed to the Greek and Roman gods, but some other Christians were horrified at the thought of touching the sacrifices of a pagan religion. Paul addresses the situation saying that they just had to do what seems best to them without provoking each other. The “agreement” Paul invites them to have are all centered on Christ and especially Christ’s work of salvation in his death and Resurrection, what Paul calls “the cross”. Paul always invites Christians to be humble, not boasting about their own wisdom, their leaders, their way of doing things, only boasting about Christ, Christ who is God’s wisdom, a wisdom not of knowledge, but the wisdom of the cross: humility, service and sacrifice.
I think it is important for all Christians to be remembered of these teachings: We should worry first about being in agreement:instead of trusting our own wisdom, being in agreement about Christ, and if we have different ways of practicing our religion, look at them as secondary.Practices are an expression of our faith, but not faith itself, and we shouldn’t believe we are wiser or smarter than the others because of our liturgy, our church leaders, or even our way of reading the Scriptures.
Now, it does not mean that we don’t have to be educated, and certainly Paul was very educated. But instead of using his education to become the center of attention (as did so many preachers at the time… and still now), Paul used his education to build churches and bring people to Christ, to explain the mysteries of the faith. To use the example I have used before, Paul actually didn’t believe Christians should abstain from eating meats offered to the pagan gods, Paul reminded people that Christ had declared all foods clean, and yet Paul wouldn’t force anyone to eat meat or judge anyone for being a vegetarian because he knew it was these people’s way of showing respect and Paul honored that. It’s an important lesson for Christians to remember: how we can respect each other, and each other‘s way of practicing Christianity, seeking to learn from each other instead of being dismissive or judgmental. It does not mean we don’t have to teach what we hold for the truth, but we need to discern what’s central and what’s secondary. Another example is how Paul always fought church leaders who taught the ancient law (and especially circumcision) could save people, because the core of Christian faith is to believe Jesus is the Son of God and that he saved us on the cross (so it’s wrong to teach we can save ourselves by our own doings and our faithfulness to the law).
But enough on Paul already! And yet, if we turn to Matthew’s Gospel we will find many of the themes highlighted by Paul. Matthew, as I have already mentioned, is the evangelist that is the most interested in the way Jesus started building the church community and we see that Jesus calls fishermen and will make them “fish for people”. Now we have gotten used to that, that most of the disciples were fishermen, and yet, reading it with Paul’s letter in the back of our minds, we realize that Jesus wasn’t recruiting the most educated, the wisest in the eyes of the world, to follow him. The first disciples were simple people who had to work with their hands for a living. And yet, Jesus will teach them the secrets of the kingdom (and we will see that in the three coming weeks with the “Sermon on the Mount”). There is a knowledge and there is a wisdom but it’s a very different kind of knowledge and wisdom that the one we often end up boasting about,as did the Corinthians. Jesus teaches the wisdom of the cross, which is the wisdom of love and that is this wisdom we are all invited to learn and to practice. Matthew tells us that Jesus went trough Galilee “(…) teaching in [the] synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people“. Jesus’s ministry is characterized by his desire to reach out to all, to help them understand who God is and how God cares for them. He does not reject or judge anyone who turns to him, but welcomes them, reconciles them to God, blesses them and encourages them to live a life of faith. Well, that’s of course what we are invited to do as disciples and as Christians!
This week is the week of prayer for Christian Unity, and the theme is: “doing good, seeking justice”. I think we can all agree on that. Maybe by focusing own our mission it will be easier to not let ourselves be divided by secondary matters, so let’s pray together the prayer for unity:
God of all, our hearts and bodies are thankful for this opportunity to come before you to confess our sins of injustice and divisiveness.
Together we come before you, a holy family, united in the beautiful diversity of your creation: some of us are Indigenous peoples, some of us are descendants of the enslaved, some of us are descendants of the enslavers, some of us are migrants, some of us are refugees, but all of us are part of the one Body of Christ.
We praise you that through the living waters of baptism our sins, red as scarlet, were washed away and we were healed, as we became part of the beloved community, the family of God. We offer our thanksgiving and praise to you, Creator God.
Together on this journey, we celebrate with our hearts and eyes open to understanding and growing in the sacred wisdom that is shared and passed amongst all people. Help us to embrace unity with each other, and remind us that we are of one family gathered by your Holy Spirit, in the midst of your creation. Amen.