2 Corinthian 5:16-6:2
Ash Wednesday
February 22, 2023
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!
I hoped to get a lot of work done yesterday but was interrupted by a lot of well-wishers for my birthday. It is not every year that my birthday falls on Fat Tuesday, so everybody was in a festive mood. This was especially true of a somebody who called from another state to check in and wish me the best. We had a long chat, about a half hour. It was a warm conversation. We hadn't talked in a while, and it was good to catch up.
She is United Methodist now, at least for the time being. As you may know, the Methodists are in a turmoil over issues of sexuality. Different factions are not sure they want to be in the same church together. We live in a consumer environment in America, which many folks think they get to pick and choose what church they want to be in.
She said, “I'm not sure I can be in the church where I don't
agree with the preacher, much less the person across the aisle.” Drawing on my
experience, I replied, “It’s not so bad. Sometimes people disagree with me, but
we're in the church.”
She said, “Well, that's not the way that I see it.” And the conversation went on from there.
I tell this brief episode because it illustrates what it's like to be in the household of God. Not just the consumer based American church, where people want to buy and sell their preferred form of religion that coincides with their preconceptions, but the church through the ages where this has been a recurring issue. How can we worship together, and serve together, and bless the world together if we can't agree on being together?
There is consolation to recall the apostle Paul wrestled this through with his congregations. He started a lot of congregations, often in the thick of conflict, and then moved on to another city. As a good pastor, he checks in with them by letter and discovers the turmoil continued. The same world that divided itself in response to Jesus is the same world where the church resides. Division, disagreement, and estrangement seem to persist in the baptismal water.
In the church of Corinth, Greece, divisions formed between the rich and the poor. That is, those who had communion bread and those who did not. The church was divided between the so-called true believers and the rank and file. The Christians – and they were Christians all - were divided over supernatural experiences and their significance. Sometimes they divided simply because they were cranky people. I know it's hard for you to imagine cranky people in a church, but it can happen.
In the advice which we overhear tonight, Paul offers a two-part response. First, he declares everything is different because of Jesus. “If anybody is in Christ,” he says, “there is a whole new creation.” Not simply a new person but a new universe, a new perception of reality, a participation in a new kind of community. Christ stands at the center of it all, as he has always stood at the center. When other distractions refocus the center, we obscure and divide.
The second truth he invites us to claim the reconciliation that Christ has created. From heaven, there has come a cessation of hostilities. Our tendency to divide has been canceled from the cross. For the true spiritual reality is not that we are divided, but that we are included. We belong to God through Jesus Christ, and not through the clarity of our devotion or the superiority of our character. Inclusion is always through Christ, who opened his arms to all of us, giving himself on the cross that all hostility will cease between people and their God.
If we take seriously God's peacemaking with us, we are invited to step into our peacemaking with one another. In the words of Paul, to “be reconciled” in the name of the Christ who has already broken down the walls between us and God, and between us and others. That is what his forgiveness from the cross establishes. Our task is to agree to the gift and live in its light.
You may have heard me describe how my mother handled
conflicts between me and my sister. When a fight became intractable, she placed
two kitchen chairs to face one another. Then she commanded each of us to sit down.
There were two conditions: we were required to look at one another and we could
not smile. Don’t smile. Don’t laugh. Don’t discuss. Sit and look at one another
without escaping.
You might guess what happened. Within a few minutes one of us cracked a grin. Or one of us began to cry in remorse. Or one of us decided we were done with the fight because we were stuck with one another.
I later learned this is a common technique in psychotherapy. The technique is to push people toward their pathology until they become repulsed by it. They decide to live a different way.
So, Paul says to his cranky and divided congregation in
Corinth, “Be reconciled.” He does not specify. Reconciled to God through Christ,
which is a given? Reconciled to one another through Christ, which is an ongoing
task? Paul will not separate the love of God from the love of one another. If
there is peace from God, we cannot claim a selfish salvation which is reduced only
to a relationship between me and Jesus. No. If anyone is in Christ, there is a
new creation.
Huddled in the shadows of the Nazi empire, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these words to a group of church people:
Christian
(community) is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality
created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly, we
learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our
fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serene shall we think of our fellowship
and pray and hope for it.[1]
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life
Together (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1954) p, 30
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