Undivided Attention

 

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January 22, 2016

New Testament Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:10-18

10 Now 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 united in the same mind and the same purpose. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12 What 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.” 13 Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For 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. 18 For 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.

Sermon: “Undivided Attention”

The forest was my home. I lived there, and I cared about it.

I tried to keep it neat and clean.

Then one sunny day, while I was cleaning up some garbage a camper had left behind, I heard footsteps. I leapt behind a tree and saw a little girl coming down the trail carrying a basket.  I was suspicious of this little girl right away because she was dressed funny — all in red, and her head covered up as if she did not want people to know who she was.

Naturally, I stopped to check her out. I asked who she was, where she was going, where she had come from, and all that. She gave me a song and dance about going to her grandmother’s house with a basket of lunch. She appeared to be a basically honest person, but she was in my forest, and she certainly looked suspicious with that strange getup of hers. So I decided to teach her just how serious it is to prance through the forest unannounced and dressed funny.

I let her go on her way, but I ran ahead of her to grandmother’s house. When I saw that nice old woman, I explained my problem and she agreed that her granddaughter needed to learn a lesson all right. The old woman agreed to stay out of sight until I called her. Actually, she hid under the bed.

When the girl arrived, I invited her into the bedroom where I was in bed, dressed like the grandmother. The girl came in all rosy-cheeked and said something nasty about my big ears. I’ve been insulted before so I made the best of it by suggesting that my big ears would help me to hear better. Now, what I meant was that I liked her and wanted to pay close attention to what she was saying. But she made another insulting crack about my bulging eyes. Now you can see how I was beginning to feel about this girl who put on such a nice front, but was apparently a very nasty person. Still, I’ve made it a policy to turn the other cheek, so I told her that my big eyes helped me to see her better.

Her next insult really got to me. I’ve got this problem with having big teeth, and that little girl made an insulting crack about them. I know that I should have had better control, but I leaped up from that bed and growled that my teeth would help me to eat her better.

Now let’s face it — no wolf could ever eat a little girl — everyone knows that — but that crazy girl started running around the house screaming — me chasing her to calm her down. I’d taken off the grandmother’s clothes, but that only seemed to make it worse. All of a sudden the door came crashing open, and a big lumberjack is standing there with his axe. I looked at him, and it became very clear that I was in trouble. There was an open window behind me and out I went.

I’d like to say that was the end of it. But that Grandmother character never did tell my side of the story. Before long the word got around that I was a mean, nasty guy.

Everybody started avoiding me. I don’t know about that little girl with the funny red outfit, but I didn’t live happily ever after.

“The Maligned Wolf” by Lief Fearn retells the old tale of Little Red Riding Hood in the most imaginative way, showing how misunderstanding after misunderstanding, and snap judgment after snap judgment, escalated conflict.  It’s a great illustration of our human tendency towards defensiveness, the quickness with which we perceive slight or insult, and retaliate and how quickly we categorize the world into “us” and “them.”

The church, as you well know, has never been immune to the divisions and conflicts that plague society, and sometimes it seems the deeply held convictions of faith and theology lead to even greater conflict in congregations.

I suppose there’s comfort found in the solidarity of knowing the church as an institution of flawed human beings has never been perfect. This letter to the church in Corinth is a textbook example. What we have here is conflict rooted in religious rivalry for power and control of that small congregation.

Several divided groups are mentioned here as witnessed by those described as “Chloe’s people.” Chloe was probably a Christian woman of great social standing, and her “people” might have been members of her household or business associates. (I think it’s safe to assume they discovered all this church discord while chatting in their parking lot.)

The first group they name are those who claim, “I belong to Paul,” which is clear enough. Then there are those who “belong to Apollos,” who was a popular Christian who spent time in Corinth according to the book of Acts. Then we have those who “belong to Cephas” (the Aramaic name for Peter) and finally, those who belong to Christ. An exasperated Paul responds to this news of faith factioning by asking a question for which the answer should be very obvious: “Has Christ been divided?” Though the nature of religious rivalry may change with different circumstances, theologies and power plays, the answer to that question does not change: no. No, Christ has not been divided.

But goodness, we human beings, especially we Christians, have. It all goes back to the tendency we learned from the so-called Big Bad Wolf at the start of this sermon. When we don’t understand someone, how they look, what they say, how they carry themselves, we have a choice, every single time.

That choice is between curiosity or suspicion.

We can be curious about the “other,” even if that other is someone in the pew next to us with different theological or political leanings than our own. Forget the old adage about the cat, curiosity is holy: it will lead us to ask, to grow, to adjust, to learn. The goal is not to agree with each other through some superficial watering down of who we are; the goal is to understand and value each other, not despite of, but because of, our differences.

Suspicion, however, will lead us down a very different path. If we choose to be suspicious of the “other,” then we will color our understanding of them, not by asking questions, not by learning of their reality, but like that wolf in our story, by assuming we know who they are, what they think, and what they believe, based entirely on our own limited experience. This path is not a holy one, but the path towards intolerance, defensiveness, and finally, if left unchecked, fear, hatred, bigotry and violence.  We do not grow on this path as a church. Like that wolf threatened with the angry ax, instead, we face death.

And so this essential choice between engaging people who differ from us – both within and without these walls – with either curiosity or suspicion is a choice between life and death. The survival of the church, not just our church but the church universal, depends on us choosing the path of curiosity.

It’s the path Peter, Andrew, James and John took when they left their responsible career paths for the risky adventure Jesus offered them.  It’s the path Linda, Jane, Shan and Kathy take today when they follow Jesus on the adventure of leadership in our church as elders.  It’s the path of the cross, where the foolishness of “us” and “them” is defeated in sacrificial love and irresistible grace.

We have a choice, every time we encounter someone different from us, whether that difference be rooted in age, gender, ethnicity, religion, economics, politics, or even personality. We can choose suspicion, and give way to our basest instincts of defensiveness and conflict. Or we can choose curiosity, rising to Jesus’ holy path of peace, and see the “other” not as a threat but as a blessing in disguise, maybe even if they’re wearing a little red riding hood.  Amen.