A Sacred Place of Meeting – David Brubacher – Jan. 27/08

 

A Sacred Place of Meeting

January 27, 2008

David Brubacher

Text:

Psalm 27:1, 4-9

I Corinthians 1:10-17

 

Introduction:   When I began ministry at the St. Jacobs Mennonite Church, my home church, I was as green as they come. As Youth Minister I related mostly to the youth in the early years. While in the first months it felt like I did little more than get the hot dogs and roasting sticks for youth events, I did develop significant relationships with the youth. One parent was particularly affirming of the way I related to his son. It became clear to me that this parent was interested in my success.

 

After one of my first sermons this parent commented on the way out, “I liked what you had to say, but…” I tend to get nervous when that happens. People flatter you only by way of setting up for the “but.” I suppose we all do it.  In this case it worked for me. The “but” that followed was “… but I could hear you a lot better if you spoke more slowly.” He was right. The man was hearing impaired. And to this day I know I tend to speak too fast when I am nervous or excited, or feel under the pressure of time. But I could hear what was being said because I knew he was genuinely interested in my success. Now almost thirty years later I can still hear that voice. It is a voice of affirmation, not negative criticism. It takes me to a place of sacred meeting that was cultivated out of a relationship of mutual trust and respect. It is a place from which I grow.

 

We encounter a similar dynamic in I Corinthians 1:10-17 as read today. In the verses preceding Paul speaks of the Christians in Corinth in somewhat affirming terms. At least he refers to them as saints when his reason for writing the letter in the first place was anything but for their saintly behaviour. In today’s text we hear the “but.” “But,” or “Now,” as the NRSV says, “I hear there are divisions among you.”

 

In considering the history and the social make up of this young Christian group in Corinth, the divisions may be understandable. Ancient pre-Roman Corinth was a prosperous city on a major east-west crossroad of trade and commerce. Influences from around the known world made there way to the city. Corinth also had the reputation as a centre of sexual promiscuity. In reality it was probably no better or worse that any major centre of its day.

 

The Romans captured the city and destroyed many of its buildings in 146 BCE. Not until almost one hundred years later was the city reestablished as a Roman colony settled by people recently freed from slavery. This upwardly mobile population quickly regained a measure of prosperity. At the time of Paul’s writing the city was again flourishing as noted in is ability to support many pagan centres of worship. There was not much that one could not find in Corinth.

 

I imagine the similarities between Corinth and Toronto to be obvious. These upwardly mobile people were highly steeped in the values of progress. In their every day lives they were involved in a wide variety of business, commercial and educational enterprises, each with their own set of values. When they came together these values clashed. These busy people probably did not always have the time and energy to deal with the personality issues that are also a part of group dynamics.

 

Paul first met these folks on a missionary trip that took him through Corinth. He told them about a way of life that operated from a different set of values than what these people encountered daily in their religiopolitical world. Paul told them about Jesus and the larger story of God’s people – the Jewish people. He spoke of Jesus who lived, taught, died and rose again. In sacrificial love Jesus modeled a way of embracing others that overturns the world’s notion of power and social standing. For Paul, the bottom line is that the cross of Jesus models a transforming of power and status for all human relationships especially in the community of faith.

 

Diverse as they were in religious, social, professional and cultural background this group found something compelling in the story Paul told. As they began to live into this story and relate to each other according to the values modeled by Jesus their lives were changed. Even though they came from very different places in life, they found in Jesus a sacred place of meeting.

 

As was Paul’s pattern he moved on once a group became established. With Paul off the scene it appears the people drifted back to earlier patterns and before long old divisions fractured the community. In writing to address their divisions Paul begins by reminding them what they continued to be in the eyes of God. Even in their brokenness he refers to them as the “church of God in Corinth,” those “called to be saints.” He gives thanks for the grace of God evident among them. Even in their experience of division they were not lacking any spiritual gift. Paul portrays the Corinthians as important players in the larger story of God’s people.

 

BUT, Paul says, the divisions among you are hurting your witness in the world. Well, Paul does not quite say it like that, but I might have. Paul appeals to them in the name of Jesus urging that there be no divisions among them but that “they be united in the same mind and the same purpose.” In 1:10 Paul makes a clear appeal for unity in Christ, a theme that continues throughout the entire letter. As I hear Paul’s appeal I hear him calling this divided group back to that sacred place of meeting; to that place where they themselves met Jesus and where they learned to see each other through the eyes of Jesus. In Jesus they had once learned to understand themselves and the world in which they lived in a new way. Commentator Richard Hays refers to this new way as a “conversion of imagination.” Such a conversion is required in order to create an identity of Christian community within a pluralistic pagan world. Paul encourages this divided and fledgling group to see each other and their world in light values shaped by the Christian story. T
he flip side goes without saying that they were to resist seeing the Christian story through values from the world in which they lived and moved.

 

Paul’s writings issue a passionate plea for unity in Christ. When individuals in the church place a greater emphasis on personal views and groups to which they belong than the sacred place of meeting found in Jesus then lines of division easily emerge.  Today, the third Sunday after Epiphany, we continue to celebrate Jesus’ coming as the light of the world. For two millennia Christians have gone to the far corners of God’s creation to represent the light of Jesus. In our worship today we are observing World Fellowship Sunday. With our sisters and brothers of the Mennonite communion around the world we celebrate Jesus as our sacred place of meeting.

 

Almost five hundred years ago a handful of Germanic men defied their government’s orders and baptized each other upon the confession of their faith in Jesus. They had found in Jesus a sacred place of meeting and from there a movement has grown to include women and men of many races and languages in all hemispheres of the world. It is a dynamic and growing community that now boasts more members in the southern hemisphere than in the north. We who understand ourselves to be of Germanic Mennonite stock should be humbled to know that there are now many Mennonite traditions.  Today at TUMC we are celebrating our being a part of this growing communion by welcoming new members and celebrating the communion feast which for all Christian brings us to our sacred place of meeting in Christ.

 

I believe the celebration of our unity in Christ is also significant for this time in our life together at TUMC. During this year of interim ministry we will be undertaking a process of discerning a vision for the next segment of TUMC’s history. Following the long and fruitful ministry of Gary Harder this interim period presents an opportunity to reflect on the key values that should guide and shape the years to come.  In my years of congregational and denominational leadership I have come to appreciate the role of a well-crafted statement of identity and purpose to embody the guiding values of the community. In I Corinthians we heard Paul’s appeal for Christians to rise above their points of division by embracing the way of Jesus. Here a diverse people could be united in the same mind and the same purpose.

 

Next weekend at the AGM and during the Adult Education hour we will be introduced to Betty Pries who will lead us in our visioning exercise. One of the first things we will do after listening to each other is working toward a statement of identify and purpose to both evaluate our present reality and to guide us into the future. As Jesus is the sacred place of meeting for the global and local church, I like to think of a congregation’s statement of identity and purpose as another sacred place of meeting. In such a statement we who may be of many differing views come to agree in the core values that hold us together. Such a statement should not be seen as a lowest common denominator but rather as a link on a website.

 

Think about it, when we click on a link on a website we are taken to a whole new place of experience and learning. From there we can go to other new places and the expansion of information and potential growth is virtually without end.

 

Conclusion:           

For Christians Jesus is the first place of sacred meeting. A second place of meeting is in the local community of faith. Here we gather around a set of values to which we seek to give expression in our lives. These values are most effective when tangibly expressed in a statement that embodies our sense of purpose in the world. Jesus and an embraced set of community values may well serve as a place of meeting but they only become effective when we live into the story they represent.

 

Like on a website we can come to a link but only when we actually click on it does a whole new world open before us. As an exciting body of diverse Christians who lovingly refer to their collective identity as TUMC there also is an action required for new worlds to open for us. As we move beyond the places from which we have come and click on the story of Jesus lived among us we will find unlimited opportunities for growth and ministry.  At that sacred place of meeting we will discover that indeed “we are strangers no more but members of one family.” 

 

Amen.