Sixth Sunday after Epiphany [a] February 16, 2020
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
In the Name of Jesus.
What kind of Church do you want to be in?
We choose where we eat. If I don’t like the food and atmosphere at Cracker Barrel, maybe I go to Buffalo Wings. We choose where we buy our pants. If Burlington Coat Factory’s selection is no good, maybe I go to Kohl’s. We even choose where to drink a beer. If I don’t like the beer at Bosque Brewing, maybe I go to Marble.
What kind of Church do you want to be in?
Surely there’s some sort of baseline. A Church with good preaching? That’s a start. A Church with a nice building? A Church with a Sunday School?
How about the people? A Church with nice people. Kind. Inviting. Friendly.
What kind of Church do you want to be in?
Would you want to be in the Church in Corinth? Corinth, this major city of commerce and trade and education, this city 40 or 50 miles from Athens—you could leave from Plato’s Academy in Athens early in the morning and walk to Corinth by nightfall; would you want to be in the Church in Corinth?
Before signing on, first, what Paul says about this Church, it’s members, how they’ve been treating each other.
There is jealousy and strife among you, says Paul. [1 Corinthians 3:3]
Some of you say, “I follow Paul,” others say, “I follow Apollos.”
[1 Corinthians 3:4]
This congregation has divided themselves up into parties, each group aligning with a different pastor.
Back in chapter one, Paul shows this division even further:
For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
[1 Corinthians 1:13]
So these Christians in Corinth have divided themselves up into at least four competing parties. Those aligning themselves with Paul, those aligning themselves with Apollos, those claiming the name Cephas, those claiming the name Christ, and who knows who might be over on the sidelines forming up another party.
Do you want to be a member of this Church in Corinth?
It gets worse.
Not only does Paul accuse them of jealousy and strife and quarrelling, he also accuses them of judging one another, of arrogance against one another, and then he even goes into sexual immorality in the Church (chapter 5), of holding sins against one another (chapter 6), of husbands not loving their wives even more than themselves, of wives not loving their husbands as they should (chapter 7), and then, after all that, Paul accuses them of mistreating the Lord’s Table, of treating Holy Communion as if it were not actual the holy Body and Blood of Christ the Lord for the forgiveness of sins, but a common meal of wine and crackers to symbolize something.
These Christian in Corinth—do you want to be in this Church?
He accuses them of treating the Lord’s Table not as holy, but as a meal where you are eating with your friends, so that at the end of the day, the rich people are communing with the rich people, but not with the poor.
He accuses them of forgetting whose table it is, so that Christians are communing at altars which teach different doctrines, as if what is taught about Jesus baptizing babies, or about the Body and Blood being the true Body and Blood of Christ, or about the sinner being fully cleansed, purged by the blood of all guilt, so that no sin remains after the blood of Christ, or about the free and full justification of the sinner before the face of God—Paul accuses them of treating the Lord’s doctrine cheaply, as if it doesn’t matter what is taught about Christ and his gifts. These tables, these altars that teach a different doctrine of Christ, says Paul, they are not to be approved. [1 Corinthians 11]
Do you want to be a member of the Church in Corinth?
Three words from Paul, in his address to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 3:1:
“But I, brothers, …”
Paul, knowing all these things about the Corinthian congregation addresses them as … brothers—brothers and sisters in Christ.
This from his salutation at the beginning of his letter to the Christians in Corinth, 1 Corinthians 1:2:
Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus … To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.
Paul, knowing everything about this Corinthian congregation—he had lived with them for several years—knowing their problems, their struggles, their backbiting, their neglect of the Lord’s Supper, Paul addresses them as the Church of God in Corinth, and as those called saints, those made holy by the blood of Christ, those who belong to the grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, as those for whom Paul give thanks.
Do you want to be a member of this Church in Corinth?
You are.
We hear how Paul tells them they are called saints together along with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Meaning, they are saints together along with us; we are saints together with them. The same blood of Jesus that was given to sanctify them each Lord’s day, is given also to us to make us holy, each Lord’s day.
When we have been gathered to the Body and the Blood, we are gathered along with all our brothers and sisters assembled to the true Body and Blood for the forgiveness of all sin.
We are all of the same sinful flesh, we are all under the same judgment of Law, we are all unable to do anything at all to justify ourselves, and we are all cleansed, though, sanctified, made holy by the Body and Blood of Christ. We are all justified by the Gospel of all sins forgiven. We are brothers and sisters in Christ.
This is God’s work, says Paul. It is his doing. From start to finish. The pastor—it’s not the pastor’s doing, he is only the vessel, only the messenger doing what the Lord sets the messenger to do.
What then is Apollos?,
says Paul,
What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
[1 Corinthians 3:9]
The pastor brings nothing to this. He’s only the vessel, the clay pot as Paul calls him elsewhere. The pastor can get himself out of the way. It is God who cleanses the sinner by the Word he gives the pastor to speak. It is God who makes the sinner holy, by the Body and Blood he instructs the pastor to distribute. It is God who binds sinners together as brothers and sisters in Christ, by the Gospel.
It is God who builds up the Church, those in Corinth, those in Athens, in Jerusalem, also Albuquerque—it is God doing it, it is God’s building, all built upon the chief cornerstone, he who cleanses the sinner, Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 3:9:
You are God’s field, God’s building.
In the Name of Jesus.