The Message of the Cross

Text: 1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Focus: Christian Unity

Function: to help us see the meaning of the cross

¹⁰Now 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 knit together in the same mind and the same purpose. ¹¹For it has been made clear to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. ¹²What 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.” ¹³Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? ¹⁴I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, ¹⁵so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. ¹⁶I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. ¹⁷For 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.

¹⁸For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God

I don’t want to get judgmental. And I won’t. Everyone has to give an account of themselves before God and here it comes! But!

But one day, 30 years ago or so, during the age of modernity, I was camping on vacation in Southern Indiana and I was looking for a place to worship on Sunday morning.

Near the campground was a real pretty white country church. It had an appealing look and was well kept. But. There was this sign in front of the church. It had five lines and it said”

“Everyone welcome.”

“Independent Baptist”

“Fundamental”

“King James Only”

“Pre-Tribulational”

Now I don’t know if that means a lot to you. I am a practicing theologian, so it meant volumes to me. It was a sign defining what they believed.

And It could be that they had that printed on their sign so that the preacher didn’t have to give apologies to anyone disagreeing with him since what they could expect was clearly marked on the sign.

But I took it differently. I took it to mean that this was a sign of who was in, and who was out.

If you understand the sign, it represented a very narrow section of Christianity. I had experience with that when I came back to Christ after leaving the faith for a while.

I attended a church that taught us that they were the only faithful Church in the whole city of Fort Wayne and they they had a mission to convert all the other churches.

This group was proud of its theology and practices. And we were pretty sure that all the others were to far off and may not make it to heaven.

As I look back on those years, I realize that I was in a cult. The preacher had absolute sway over the congregation and we were merely objects of his petty grievances and the pleasure that he got from manipulating others.

The Holy Spirit is faithful and she lead me out of the group into a less authoritative, less patriarchal group that gave me a better balance.

God can speak to us through scripture. And it was this scripture from today’s text that the Holy Spirit used to open my eyes to the fact that I was in a group of believers who had fallen into the sin of pride. Pride. The scripture says: Knowledge puffs a person up, but love edifies others.

We, seemingly like that little church in Southern Indiana, were puffed up with the pride that we had over our particular brand of Christianity.

The letter to the Corinthian Church was a major rebuke for many things the church was doing wrong. Suffice it to say that they were a randy group with a lot of problems ranging from a man having an affair with his step mother, Christians suing each other instead of forgiving each other, alcoholism and gluttony and their love feast, disorderly worship services and the list goes on.

And the very first thing he rebukes them for is the way that they have divided themselves into different house churches that claim to be more authentic versions of Christianity than the others.

Pride puffed them all up. It is a danger for us.

For example, I love the Church of the Brethren. I left the evangelical church I grew up in for them because of their stance on social justice -and also because I love participating in “Love Feast.” In the West, churches are dying. It used to be that our witness was sexual and doctrinal purity. But many Christians confused politics with the teachings of Jesus and all of a sudden, sexual purity and honesty and integrity didn’t matter in politicians anymore as long as one side beat the other. And I believe that the Church of the Brethren’s historic positions on loving others is a complete contrast to the political rhetoric that is dividing our nation. I am proud to be Brethren and I believe it is our time to grow with our witness primarily being love for others instead of some sort of holiness code that assuaged our consciences because we weren’t practicing love for others.

Let me make that simple. I am happy to be Brethren because our theology has always been shown by our practice instead of signs on our lawn delineating who is and isn’t welcome.

But that doesn’t mean we are the only ones who are right. And, if I were to say, “I am proud to be Brethren…” then I start down that slippery slope of dividing Christ into fragments.

And why was that important to Paul?

Because he was sent to preach the cross of Christ.

There is a message there in the cross that we must take time to examine and remind ourselves of on a regular basis, I believe.

Paul said that it seems foolish to the world around us.

The message is that if Jesus Christ, the Creator of the Universe could lower Himself from the throne of heaven to be born in poverty, a virtual slave to the Roman government, could preach against the political systems that kept the rich in power over the poor, and die for that cause is a message that power, wealth, subjugation of others is not the will of God for humanity.

And because of the cross, we don’t need to seek our own revenge. Jesus forgave His tormentors from the cross. And if He forgave them, then they were forgiven even though they probably didn’t notice.

The foolish message of the cross leads us to resist corruption and illegitimate abuse of power even to the point of death.

The message of the cross is a message of faith about living for God’s kingdom instead of our own impulses and desires.

So, don’t take your own revenge. Let God do it. Entrust yourselves to God and God will take your side.

The hope is that God takes our side here on earth and helps us to transform the culture into the loving place that Jesus intended for humanity.

But it may not happen that way. Jesus’ death serves us as an example of how we too can trust in God to redeem us.

Remember. Jesus rose from the dead and has given us that hope.

Jesus’ death showed us how to live for an heavenly reward instead of an earthly reward.

We are called to love others, even our enemies.

That doesn’t mean that we will all agree. We will be differently led by the Holy Spirit to do what God has called us to do.

We let the Spirit lead us. And then we remember that the Spirit of Christ is leading others also.