United in Christ

Fandom vs Fandom

lets start off with a quick game of Fandom Battle Royale, Fandom Vs Fandom. I am going to pair up different Fandoms and your job is to cheer for your preference. Pretty simple, lets see which Fandom’s are the most popular.

Being part of Fandom can be fun saying I am whovian, Ford or Holden Fan can be fun and some of my happiest memories have been talking late into the night with some mates over whether this band was better than that, or why Punk and heavy metal are the only real types of music.

But sometimes this kind of clan thinking can be dangerous and has led to people being badly hurt, ostresized, bullied, physically harmed or killed

Talk about how at some point being a fan of something, seeing something as better is fine but there comes a time when this sort of thinking is unhelpful and breaks communities down.

LIST SOME NEGATIVE CONFLICTS

Will we never change - it was the same in the time of Paul as it is now

Will we never change - it was the same in the time of Paul as it is now

I think this type of dividing is fundamental to human existance, we are all different and it is Ok. No it is Great That we are different. The amazing diversity in Art, Music, Movies, Literature, Games, Fashion, food and a million of other things come from humanities diversity, and I love it! But that difference can be used as a weapon against others to fracture things that Christ is bringing back together, when that occurs it is tragic. This is not a new thing and in every period of history it is the same thing with different flavours. Lets go back in time to the First century and the the Church in Corinth.

Historical Context

The City of Corinth, the original audience for our passage, was an awesome city. One of the greatest in the ancient world. Because of this it was filled with people from all different walks of like and was on the cutting edge of Grecco-Roman culture. It was much like modern Australia, as you walked down its streets you would have met with food, clothes and people from cultures from all over the world in all their glory. But also like modern Australia it also saw itself as one of the most progressive people in the world, at the cutting edge of Grecco- Roman thinking.It was that cutting edge that was hurting people.

In the world at that time there was this movement called the Sophists movement. This is where we get the idea of sophisticated from. Sophists were the intillectual elite of their world, Deep thnkers who went from speaking gig to speaking gig. If they lived today they would be Youtubers and Influencers on the internet who spent their lives trying to get people to like their videos and to follow them on instagram. They would speak on the corners, in public spaces and they would gather their followers. People would travel from all over to see their favourite Sophist speaker and huge crowds would gather in their wake. But Oh my goodness when the follower of one Sophist met the follower of another then all hell would break loose. Think Mean Tweets with Jimmy Kimmel or Youtube comments section, or for all those who are football fans think the crowds at Man united vs Liverpool Game. (WORK ON THIS AND LOOK UP SOME POPULAR YOUTUBERS/ INFLUENCERS AT THE MOMENT TO ACT AS COMPARISON)

it is messy and horrible. But jusst like today where these kinds of speakers are making millions of dollars and everyone wants to be like them, the Sophists were seen as best of the best in the Roman world. If you could be like, or be one of these Sophists then you had made it.

This kind of practice had crept into the Church as well, we call it factionalism and it was as dangerous for the church then as it is today.

In Corinth the church had caught on to this idea, it was part of their culture. And so people would identify with the apostle or religious leader that led them to Christ.

each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”

Paul is hearing about this and is like whoa, hold on there what is going on This is not Christs way, we are Followers of Jesus. (TIDY THIS UP)

Today

How familiar is that for us today, I listed it before. too often we fall into traps of factionalism, our society is still rife with it. We are forced to take sides in every debate, especially on the internet, and if we don’t then we run the risk of being accused of being against people.

And it is not just in the secular world it is also in the Christian world. We all come from different denominations. Tonight we have people from a heap of different denominations.

Lets here it for:

Baptists

Anglicans

Pentecostals

Independent Churchs

Presbiteryan

Each of us comes from different traditions, and even within our traditions we have differences. For some of us the traditions of the past hold a great influence over our churches, for others it is all about the Spiritual Gifts, others it is about strong theological positions.

Each of these are valid expressions of the faith of Jesus. we each proclaim Jesus. These differences become problems when they lead us into conflict with each other. When we start saying I’m Baptist; Im Anglican; Im Evangelical; Im Charismatic; Im a Potato.

When we start using this kind of thinking we move into a dangerous area where we start looking for uniformity not unity.

The push for Uniformity not unity

This is the bad side of humans forming groups. This is where we start creating barriers between who is in and who is out. When people start using sentences like “I am a ...” it often leads to the next sentence, “and if you are not for me you are against me.”

This kind of thinking is called uniformity. Where people and groups try and force others to either become like them and it is destructive, abhorent and ungodly. What is worse it is the flavour of our culture at the moment.

One look at the Youtube comments section is enough to get that vibe. People seek other people who share their views they then band together and then visciously attack with words or physical violence those who disagree.

and the Church has done it in the past and rightly been condemned for it. We went on Crusades and inquisitions, the Reformation saw thousands die between catholics and protestants, as did the wars in Ireland. and even now it seeks to divide us.

A Better way - What unites us should be more important than what doesn’t

Paul sees this problem 2000 years ago and seeks to fix it before it gets out of hand. I wish we had listened.

lets look at his argument world view. The book of Corinthians is basically a tour de force on unity. from the opening chapter until the Last Paul seeks to break this factionalism before it takes route.

Our reading today kicks us off.

vs. 10-13: Be in agreement, what is with this faction thing. and here is kick off point.

HAS CHRIST BEEN DIVIDED? WAS PAUL CRUCIFIED FOR YOU? OR WHERE YOU BAPTISED IN THE NAME OF PAUL?

We all worship Jesus, we all put our trust in Jesus we are all baptised by the Holy Spirit and possibly by water into Jesus. What unites us is far greater than what divides us.

The rest of Ch1 and Ch 2 is reminding them we are not trusting in worldly power, in winning arguments, in being right, in what the world values. We are trusting in the power and promise of a Middle Eastern man who died as a criminal and then broke the laws of nature by rising again. This faction fighting, this I am right and you are wrong thinking that is not wisdom from God.

Skip to Ch 3: 3-23 and Paul picks up his argument. He tells the Corinthians you know Apollos, Cephas and I we are all working together right? seriously we are? We are kind of like builders one of us might lay a foundation and the other will put up the frame, another might roof this sucker but we are all building the same house.

Skip to

Then to finish off we skip down to Ch 12.Paul compares the church to a body where each person is gifted with specific capabilites and skills to build up the whole, just like a hand is set up for grabbing and the mouth for eating and talking. our hand would be useless without the mouth to consume the energy to make it happen and our mouth is hamstrung without the hand to get the food and put it in it.

But no our body works together, Every part of it working together in complex ways. And when problems occur, like a part is a

So to I am less able to do my part in the Jesus Kingdom, the Church, without you doing your part. What ever it is? we are all together part of the same community, each doing its bit for the betterment of the kingdom.

If you don’t believe me that what you do impacts on me and vise versa. Then think about this. Why is it that Christians are seen in our society as judgemental, as hypocrits, bigots, or any number of things. I didn’t act like that, and you havent but some Christian somewhere has acted in that way and because of that choice of theres we are now all tarred with that brush.

It is not the point of todays teaching to go into this, and if you have questions hit me up in question time. Before I finish I want to touch on one question. Is there a time when we should divide? Is there a point where we should say that is not God’s way. The Simple answer to that is Yes, but knowing when is difficult. Paul highlights this by the way he answers some questions the corinthians asked him. Paul Chooses to answer these questions in between his teaching on Unity, basically arguing if the Corinthians are behaving in this way they are not living like followers of Jesus. These guys were doing some pretty horrid stuff and it was because they were not united in Christ. So we divide from people who are not following Christ.

There is still the question of

I am so glad we are different. We each have different roles to play in the church, we each bring a different element of beauty and diversity to the Kingdom of God. Each of us come from a different tradition that has unique strengths and weaknesses.

They will know us by our Fruit

But we are all united by one thing, we all trust in the crazy, back to front wisdom of Jesus who was in very nature God made himself nothing, taking on the nature of a servant to die on a cross and then against all conventional wisdom rose from the grave.

It is when we come together, each of us different, each of us working together people see the Kingdom at work to the greatest extent.

Lets pray