Rev Frank’s Jan 18, 2014 Sermon

PAUL’S FIRST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS
Part I
I Corinthians 1: 1‑9
THE GRACE OF GOD
January 18, 2014
Westmount Park United Church

The southern part of Greece is a large peninsula separated from the rest of the country by a narrow isthmus. Near that isthmus, at the northern end of the southern peninsula of Greece, is Corinth, a city which had been very important when Greece was the dominant power of the eastern Mediterranean, but which had been completely destroyed by the Roman conquest and in New Testament times had been rebuilt as a very cosmopolitan city of the Roman Empire. Like so many centres of the Empire, Corinth had a significant Jewish population that gathered for worship in synagogues, and these synagogues also attracted other people who admired the Jewish religion. Gentiles who associated with synagogues were known as “God fearers,” and it was to this population of Gentiles that a Jew, who was also a Roman citizen, and who, most important of all, was called by God to be an apostle to the Gentiles, [Romans 11:13] brought the good news of Jesus Christ. We know about St. Paul mainly because he sent several letters to the churches he helped to establish as he travelled throughout Asia Minor and Greece. He wrote a number of letters to the church in Corinth which have been gathered into what we know as First and Second Corinthians, and for six weeks our epistle readings are being taken from the opening chapters of First Corinthians. This is how it begins.

(I Corinthians 1: 1‑9)

Paul wrote to Corinth nearly two thousand years ago, at a time when the Church of Jesus Christ was just beginning, but the fundamentals of the Christian faith, of what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be the Church, are still the same today as they were then. Therefore Paul’s correspondence is of timeless value. His letters addressed to the church in Corinth, province of Achaea, in the Roman Empire of the early first century, can also be addressed to a church in the city of Westmount, province of Quebec, in Canada of the early twenty first century. I hope we will be able to hear the words of Paul speaking directly to us, so that our faith can be renewed as I am sure the faith of the Corinthian Christians was enriched and strengthened when they received this inspired and timeless message.
We turn first to the beginning of the letter, and it is very important that we do so, for as he begins his letter Paul lays out the fundamental principle which makes any community of Christians a “church of God.” He identifies himself as a man who is “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,” and then he addresses the church of God in Corinth as “those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints.” [I Corinthians 1:1&2] Paul wrote to the Corinthians because of a number of issues that concerned him and them. Paul was worried because of rivalries between different factions in the church. There were concerns about marriage, about whether or not one should eat food offered to idols, about proper decorum when celebrating the Lord’s Supper, about the value of spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues. These were all issues which affected the life of the Christian community in Corinth and which needed careful consideration and arbitration. That’s why Paul was writing to the saints in Corinth, to help resolve the controversies which beset them. I’m sure it would have been very beneficial for the Christians of Corinth to heed Paul’s advice on these matters, but whether or not they did would make no difference to the fundamental truth that they were the Church of Jesus Christ in Corinth because God had called them into that fellowship. They had problems, and Paul was very concerned about those problems, but where he begins his letter is with the basic affirmation of who they are no matter how many or how serious their problems might be. They are called into being by God’s grace, and so as Paul begins his letter he gives thanks to God for all that God has done for them. “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind … so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift.” [I Corinthians 1:4,5&7]
Paul wouldn’t write the same letter to us as he did to Corinth. We live in different circumstances from them. We have different problems, different strengths and weaknesses. So a letter from Paul to us would go in quite different directions. But it would start in the very same place, making the very same affirmations, that we are called to be saints and called into being as a church by God. Like the Christians in Corinth, all that we are is because of God’s grace towards us. Who we are and what makes us a company of saints is the same as what made the Christians in Corinth a church. We also are a church because we are called into fellowship by God’s grace. Our foundation is not our economic support, not our population base, not our activities and programmes, not even the strength of our beliefs. Our foundation is God’s grace.
The United Church of Canada was created by an act of Parliament in 1925. It resembles other corporations and institutions in that it has a constitution and a system of governance. There are people with varying talents who are in charge of its assets and activities. But none of that is what makes it a Christian church. There is one thing and one thing alone that makes us a part of the Church of Jesus Christ and that is the fact that we are called by God and empowered by God. There is no other credential, no other asset. Size, power, influence, talent, all mean nothing, only the grace of the God who calls us into fellowship with Jesus Christ.
In the course of his letters Paul offered his criticisms of the Christians in Corinth. They were making some mistakes. They could be doing better. But doing the right thing would not qualify them in any way for God’s grace. Nothing they could do would earn them God’s favour. We need to hear criticism and act upon it. We can do a better job. We can be more diligent, more faithful. But we cannot make God love us more than God already does. We do not qualify for God’s grace by anything that we do or say or believe. That’s why Paul, when he visited the church in Ephesus, said to the elders (as recorded in the Book of Acts), “I commend you to the care of God and to the message of God’s grace, which is able to build you up and give you the blessings God has for all God’s people.” [Acts 20:32] And in his letter to the Ephesians he said, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” [Ephesians 2:8&9] Later on in First Corinthians Paul states the matter as simply as this: “By the grace of God I am what I am.” [I Corinthians 15:10]
Who we are as Christians and as a church is people who have been blessed by God’s grace. We stand in the same relationship to God as did the first century Christians of Corinth, to whom Paul wrote and said, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus.” [I Corinthians 1:4] What we have been given, in our relationship to God through Jesus, is ours, not by our merit, but only because of the grace of God.