Baptism of the Lord
January 10, 2021
William G. Carter
God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of
his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
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. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.
Oh, what a week to be a preacher! I don’t know what you expect me to talk about today. I suppose I could talk about all kinds of things, most of which I am not an expert.
What I want to talk about is the church in Corinth. Corinth is a city in Greece. Greece is a country surrounded by the sea. The country is in two parts, the north and the south, and the place where they connect is the city of Corinth.
It was a cosmopolitan city, an intersection for world travelers who exchanged a wide range of perspectives and ideas. Corinth was a seaport with a mountain temple to Aphrodite, goddess of love and fertility. The whole way up to the temple, there were “specialty shops” where visiting sailors could practice up on love and fertility (but we will get into that next week).
For our purposes, the ancient city of Corinth had a church. There were about fifty souls in that congregation which was established by the apostle Paul. Surrounded by a largely indifferent world, the saints of Corinth met to share the stories of Jesus, to sing and pray together, and to discover ways to witness to the grace and love of God. Paul got them started. Then, as was his custom, he went off somewhere else to start another church.
The text we have heard today, and the texts we will hear over the next six weeks, come from Paul’s correspondence with the church. They wrote to him, he wrote back. They had questions and concerns, he wanted to reply. And Paul has gotten wind of some issues swirling around in the church. It doesn’t matter how big or small a congregation may be, there are always issues. As long as there are people in any group, there are issues.
Did you notice today? No sooner does Paul say hello to these people when he rolls up his sleeves to tackle the first of the issues. “I beg all of you to agree,” he says. “I want you to stop fighting and get along. I want you to stop dividing and come together.” Imagine that – people in a church, taking up opposing sides. Perhaps you thought a church it would be different. Not necessarily.
Michael Lindvall tells about two churches in his favorite town of North Haven. One Sunday in June, half the people of First Presbyterian walked out during a sermon. They formed Second Presbyterian, right down the street, and both churches proceeded to trade dissident members every year. A hundred years after the split, nobody can remember the cause for the split and who stood on which side. But the division remained. When First Presbyterian had a catastrophic fire and burned to the ground, some of the survivors refused to consolidate. They stuck to their principles and became Methodists.[1]
Michael is poking fun at us, of course, but church fights are every bit as terrible as two sisters at war with one another. It’s no laughing matter. Over the years, I have been called in as a fire fighter for congregations burning out of control. Communication has broken down, lines are drawn, and all love has grown cold. It has given me some perspective on the fierce divisions in our nation.
So what was going on in Corinth? A lot of things. The whole group has splintered. In fact, Paul admits that one of the groups has squealed on the others. He calls them simply “Chloe’s people.” We don’t know if that was the leader’s name. “Chloe” is a woman’s name. It means “fertility.” Maybe she used to work for Aphrodite.
On the face of it, the quarrels were based in rival allegiances, a division over their favorite leaders. Some of them liked Paul; he was the founder of the congregation and they remember him fondly. Others said, “No, we like Apollos: he’s our guy. Silver tongued preacher, he could evoke tears one minute and make us laugh the next.” Others said, “No, Paul and Apollos got all their sermons from Peter, who we called Cephas. He was our Rock Star, traveled with Jesus, heard the Sermon on the Mount, saw the healings.”
Meanwhile, over here in a corner, arms folded in smugness, was the Jesus Group. They weren’t interested in those groups. They wanted spiritual truth, not earthly interpreters. Burning incense, chanting the Psalms, zoning out, separating from the mere mortals.”
Paul blurts out, “I’m sure glad I didn’t baptize any of you. Well, wait, maybe a couple of you. And, um, well, a few more – but that’s it. It’s all about Christ, not about any of the rest of us.” So there was some hero worship going on. Empty adulation. Paul didn’t have enough history with the Corinth church to learn what I have learned: that if you stick around long, they won’t be able to remember anybody else.
But there were more issues underlying the dissention. We know this from other sections of the letter. When it was time for the Lord’s Supper, the richest members brought fine wine and got drunk, while the neediest among them couldn’t afford a scrap of bread (11:19-21). Why do you have such contempt for one another? Examine your hearts. Discern that together, you are the Body of Christ! So there were economic differences.
There were social differences, too – divisions between men and women, especially women inspired by the Holy Spirit to break out of old gender roles. In that church, there were slaves as well as free people, bound together by Christ but splintered into sects; and Paul says, “Christ has paid the price for all of us; we belong together through him (7:23).”
Yet there was something else at work, a force far more sinister. You see, the Corinthian church was so divided that Paul brought it up over and over. In chapter three, Paul says, “Beware of envy which leads to rivalry.” That is, you have something I don’t have, and I want it.
Last night, our two springer spaniels came looking for a treat. So I pulled out a chew stick, gave it to Oakley, and off he went. Pippa said, “Where’s mine?” So I pulled out another and gave it to her. Pretty soon, Pippa is under the kitchen table, one chew stick in her mouth and Oakley’s chew stick under her paw. Envy leads to rivalry. This is natural animal behavior.
Paul calls this life “according to the flesh,” according to our self-interest, according to “what’s in it for me,” according to the unmediated behavior of what any of us would do, unless we are interrupted by a High Power. According to the apostle, it leads to strife, then wrangling, and then something that Paul calls, “dichostosia.”
What is “dichostosia”? It can be translated as “division” and “dissention.” It can also be translated “sedition.” This is what uncorrected self-interest does. It blows up human relationship. It fractures what once held together.
The antidote, says Paul, is found in our baptism. Baptism announces a new relationship. Those who are baptized are claimed in the name of the Trinity and called away from all the false attachments that are so much less than the love of God. Baptism does not offer some weird kind of spiritual magic. Rather, baptism invites us to invest in the life revealed by Jesus. We choose whom we will follow and obey, and we choose what we will reject.
From the very beginning, the church has asked questions of all who gather at the baptismal font. Do you renounce evil and its power in the world? Do you turn to Jesus Christ and receive him as Lord and Savior?
Like the Corinthians, we know how evil surfaces: envy, rivalry, strife, division, dissention, and sedition, all rooted in self-interest. And we know, through Christ, there’s another way.
Like the mother who confronted a sassy daughter. She was rebellious, always angry, made terrible decisions. Mom called her on it. Daughter said, “Well, that’s just the way I am.” Her mother looked her in the eye, full of righteous love, and said, “Yes, but you could be so much better!” Baptism determines our ethics. When we belong to Someone greater than ourselves, it positively changes the way we live.
Paul says to a contentious church, “I’m glad I didn’t baptize a lot of you.” They were baptized, to be sure. It had nothing to do with Paul and everything to do with Christ. Baptism is the moment when God speaks to us, when heaven claims us on the earth. In a splash of water, a Voice from heaven, a whisk from the Spirit’s wings, we are invited to take part in something greater than ourselves. We are adopted into a Family larger than our natural family. We are commissioned to grow up in Christ, to welcome what grace can do for all of us, and to work for the benefit of all our neighbors because of the love that God has revealed to us.
Last Wednesday was a terrible day for our nation. History will not be kind to those in our American family who have lived by lies and stirred up envy, rivalry, strife, division, dissention, and sedition. But in the aftermath of a violent mob busting into the United States Capitol, there were many who offered a holy alternative and took a higher road. Let me name just two, both Presbyterians.
The first is retired Rear Admiral Margaret Grun Kibben, my classmate from Princeton Theological Seminary. Margaret was just appointed the chaplain of the House of Representatives and Wednesday was her third day of work. As the invaders smashed into doors and climbed through windows, Admiral Kibben took a microphone and offered a prayer like those she offered during combat in Afghanistan, “Lord God, cover us and put a hedge of protection around us. In the middle of this chaos, let your Spirit descend into this room to grant us peace and order. Give us the courage to care for one another, even under stress.”[2]
When Congress reconvened in the evening, she prayed with them once again. In the presence of the Spirit, she says, “The tenor of the room changed significantly. There was a sense of, ‘Our lives are important. Our business is important. The welfare of the country is important.” Call it what you will, friends; I call it “baptismal ethics.”
The second Presbyterian is Andy Kim, a congressman from district 3 in New Jersey. At one o’clock in the morning, Congressman Kim was walking through the Capitol rotunda, through water bottles, discarded clothing, and tattered Trump flags. He noticed police officers putting pizza boxes into trash bags. (I mean, if you’re going to storm the Capitol, order out pizza, right?)
“Hey guys,” he said to the officers, “do you have any more bags?” And Congressman Kim got down on his hands and knees and helped to clean up the debris. He did that for about an hour and half, by himself, when nobody was looking. When asked, Andy said, “When you see something you love that’s broken, you want to fix it. I just felt compelled to do something. What else could I do?”[3]
This is a broken world. Christ was crucified in a world like this, a world prone to hostility and division. But we affirm Christ has been raised from the dead, wounded but thoroughly alive. And our Risen Lord is now at work with those awakened by faith, providing assurance, taking out the trash, and rebuilding relationships.
There is something for all of us to do. Because
we’ve been baptized.
[1] Michael J. Lindvall, The Good News
From North Haven (New York: Pocket Books, 1991) 2-3.
[2] “How House chaplain calmed tense
hours in besieged Capitol,” Religion News Service, 9 January 2021, https://religionnews.com/2021/01/09/house-chaplain-siege/
[3] “What else could I do? https://apnews.com/article/andy-kim-cleans-capitol-siege-c5a303337cd63e4312ef7e1a17509371?
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