JANUARY 27, 2008  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! AMEN The text for our meditation today is the Epistle of the day, from 1 Corinthians chapter 1. There we read these words:

I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.

What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas£"; still another, "I follow Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into£ the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. Thus far the text. AMEN

Dear Christian friends:

It is written in the Psalms, "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!" (Psalm 133:1).

St. Paul prays in Romans 15, "May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 15:5-6).

He exhorts the Ephesians, that they "make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace" (Ephesians 3:3).

Then he adds in today's Epistle, "I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought" (1 Corinthians 1:10).

And every single one of these passages arises out of your Lord's own prayer for you, who on the night of His betrayal prayed to His Father that you "may be brought to complete unity" (John 17:23), that you may be unified as one, even as the Father and the Son are unified as one (John 17:22).

Today's Christian Church has become, if I may, intoxicated by its manmade quest for a manmade unity. And, sadly enough, the Church pursues a unity that is neither churchly nor Christian. The sort of unity one sees many times today is a pagan unity, a fallen and human unity that has crept into Christ's Church. You see it when Christians gather together in baseball stadiums with Jews and Moslems and who knows what other false religions, as happened in the days following September 11.

You see it in newspaper editorials written by arrogant men who claim that Jews and Moslems and Christians all pray to the same God, and who chastise Christians for not agreeing with such foolishness. You see it when all sorts of so-called religions, with as many different and idolatrous gods, claim unity in times of disaster. Dear friends, in cases such as these, "unity" simply becomes a nice word for unbelief.

Even within the confines of the Christian Church, the different denominations have all begun to play this same sort of "unity game." Many claim that our differences do not matter, that we are all entitled to our own opinions concerning God, that the church would be unified if we could all simply leave one another alone and let everyone believe as he or she chooses.

For such Christians as these, God's Word does not matter; truth does not matter; the clarity of your confession does not matter. All that matters is that we leave each other alone and pretend to get along. And so "unity" becomes another word for apathy, lovelessness, and indifference.

What about you? Will you dare to say that you are unified with those Christians who not only deny the power of Holy Baptism, but also condemn you as being influenced by Satan because you baptize your infant children? Can you in good conscience claim unity with those Christians who despise the Christ who comes to you in His body and blood of the altar, and who claim that Holy Communion is mere bread and wine powerless for your salvation?

Or how about those Christians who tear great sections out of the Holy Scriptures because they personally do not like them or find them hard to believe? Even more so, how about those who call themselves Christian yet explicitly deny and reject the name of the God of your salvation-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit-and offer up in place of this name other names for God, pagan and Canaanite names, names for a god who does not even exist?

Are you unified with such Christians as these? What price will you pay to be loved by them and accepted by them?

Such unity, dear Christians, is no unity at all. A church that unifies itself by tolerating false teachings and unbelief is like a man whose cancer has not yet been diagnosed. He may look perfectly healthy on the outside, but on the inside, death has already taken hold of him.

St. Paul wrote today's Epistle to a group of Christians who had lost their unity, precisely because each one had decided to go his or her own way. "What I mean is this: One of you says, 'I follow Paul'; another, 'I follow Apollos'; another, 'I follow Cephas'; and still another, 'I follow Christ'" (1 Corinthians 1:12).

Later in this same letter, St. Paul identifies divisions and disagreements, not as Christian, but as worldly: "Since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you," he asks, "are you not [still] worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?" (1 Corinthians 3:3).

Disunity and quarreling, on the one hand, and false unity such as we see in the Church today are not expressions of Christianity, but they are expressions of sin.

St. Paul knows that there is no unity in agreeing to disagree, and so in today's Epistle he appeals to the Corinthians and to you and to all Christians in the name of Christ: "that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought" (1 Corinthians 1:10).

Perhaps the King James rendering is even better. "That all of you say the same things..." Realize, dear friends of God: unity is what God creates for you in the Body and Blood, the suffering and death, of His Son Jesus. This unity does not come to you through human words spoken by Paul or Apollos or Cephas or anyone else. This unity comes to you when God the Holy Spirit acts upon you through His Word, bringing you to repentance, comforting you with Jesus' forgiveness, and enabling you to believe. Unity does not come when you rely on "human wisdom" which "empties the cross of Christ of its power" (1 Corinthians 1:17), but unity comes when God the Holy Spirit directs Your eyes to this cross and creates in you the realization that this one cross is all that stands between you and death, hell, and eternal condemnation. And, you remain unified in the Word of God and in God's Spirit when you attend yourselves to hearing His Word carefully and allowing that Word to change who you are and what you do.

You know, as unpleasant as disunity or lack of harmony is, there is a still a certain blessing to having a problem with disunity in the Church. And there is a certain blessing to being unable, by your own strength and power, to agree with or get along with other Christians.

The blessing is this: so long as sins such as these remain, you never outgrow your need for Christ. So long as the Church remains divided, she will never tire of crying out to the Father of all mercies, begging Him for healing and strength. Without unity, the Church will never be able to parade around and boast, "Look what we have accomplished! Look how unified and perfect we are!"

Rather, the disunity of the Church forces her continually to confess, "I need you, Lord Jesus Christ. I need the power of Your cross and of Your death and resurrection in my life. I need these things more deeply now than when I first believed". Come Lord Jesus, Come.

Dear friends. God is faithful. He will never stop supplying you with His grace and mercy, and these things in overflowing abundance. He will never stop bringing about by His Word and Sacraments the unity you and I so desperately yearn for today. God will not abandon us and walk away. His love for you and me is too great. That’s why Christ Is Risen.

That’s why Paul says for today, I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

And we are, because again, Christ is Risen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Amen.