Divided We Fall
Isaiah 9:1-4, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Preached at Laurelton United
Presbyterian Church
January 22, 2017
When I first heard a few months ago that Laurelton was
looking for someone to fill in for a few Sundays and I picked the date that did
not involve communion (I am not ordained and do not have the magic hands to
preside over communion) and was not at the end of my last semester of school, I
was not aware of the, shall we say, political significance of January 22nd.
Or more specifically, of January 20th. I was more focused on the
excitement of getting to preach before a group of people that was not my school
community, my home church, or the church where I did my field education. The
election hadn’t happened yet. And then it did. And then I was out to breakfast
in December with my fellow Presbyterian folks from CRCDS and a couple pastors
from the presbytery and during the conversation I realized: I would be
preaching two days after the inauguration. Intimidating for any pastor I’m
sure, extremely intimidating for a newbie such as myself. But then I said,
“Self, why don’t you wait and see what the lectionary texts are before you get
all worked up?” As an aside, if you don’t know, many churches and pastors
follow something called the Revised Common Lectionary. This breaks the Bible
down in to a three year cycle and gives us an Old Testament, Psalm, Gospel, and
New Testament text to preach from every week, so that by the end of three
years, in theory, one will have heard a good chunk of the Bible. All of this is
to say that you can imagine my surprise when I read the texts for this week,
texts that were not chosen based on what is going on in our country, and yet…..
incredibly appropriate. We have here a passage written to a people in darkness
and a people divided. In both our Old Testament and New Testament worlds we
have a community that is full of tension, strain, frustration, a community
trying to do the best they can but stumbling in the process. We have a
community in anguish and a community who can’t seem to stop quarreling. In
short, we have a community not unlike America in 2017.
Now, let me confess something before we go much further. On
the list of things that I enjoy, politics is nowhere near the top. As I said
recently on my Facebook page, I like my politics fictionalized in a TV series. But
in the past year, it has been almost impossible to hide from politics. And it’s
not just on our news or in our papers. Social media is saturated with it. I
don’t know about you, but I can’t be on my Facebook or Twitter for more than
five minutes before the political posts start filling my feed. Even my
Instagram, which is supposed to just be pictures of cute animals and
celebrities exotic vacations! And of course in the past couple of weeks it’s
been nothing but cabinet hearings, the inauguration, the protests surrounding
the inauguration, or farewell’s to the Obama’s. It’s been overwhelming and
exhausting and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. The division isn’t
going away.
If only we
had a Chloe to deliver a letter to a Paul for us. We don’t know who Chloe is,
and in fact she’s not mentioned anywhere else. We don’t know what she said,
only that her and her people have reported quarreling among the people of the
church of Corinth. The people are claiming to belong to or follow a certain
person, whether it be Paul, Apollos, Cephas (aka Peter), or Christ. They are
divided and seem to be more focused on what separates them rather than what
brings them together. They are more concerned with following a specific
person’s views than following what the Church as a whole is doing. Paul isn’t
quite on board with that. For him, the only person they should be concerned
with is Jesus. “Has Christ been divided?” he says. “Or were you baptized in the
name of Paul? 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.” The gospel of Christ speaks for itself. The people of Corinth
shouldn’t be swayed by the words of someone, no matter how pretty they are.
It’s easy for someone to say what you want to hear, to twist words so that you
see things a certain way, but what is the truth underneath it? That’s what Paul
wants the Corinthians to see. If one speaks the gospel plainly and clearly then
there will be no division. Everyone will be on the same page. No one will be
able to hold up a specific person and say, “See, they know more. They’re
better. Their way of gospel is the right way.” Paul can’t even remember who he
baptized, that’s how unimportant what he does or says is in comparison to
Jesus. What Jesus did, what Jesus said, that’s what’s important.
What would a
modern day Chloe say if she was writing a letter in 2017? What divisions would
she talk about, what names would be mentioned? Would she talk about the abuses
the African American community face at the hands of cops and the cops who are
killed in retaliation? Would she talk about the LGBTQ community who just want
the same rights as their heterosexual neighbors and the heterosexuals who claim
that by doing so it goes against what they believe in? Would she talk about the
parents who have lost their children to gun violence and the parents who are
afraid that without a gun they can’t protect their children? Would she talk
about refugees, women’s rights, unemployment, immigration, or any one of a
thousand topics that have led us to see ourselves as an us versus them? Would
she mention Trump versus Hillary? Hillary versus Bernie? Obama? Would she even
find room in the letter to talk about Jesus Christ? God?
We are a
people in darkness. No matter who you voted for or even if you voted at all,
whether you were glued to the TV watching the inauguration or made a point to
be nowhere near a TV, it is clear that we are divided. We are in anguish. Our
yoke is heavy on our shoulders. We are all, as a nation, hurting in some way.
We feel misunderstood, unheard, pushed aside. For some of us, this is more
recent. For others, they’ve felt this way for the past eight years, or longer.
For most of us when we’re hurt we either lash out or we shut down. There’s a
saying that hurt people hurt people. When we’re hurting we want others to hurt
just as bad, either to make ourselves feel better or so that we’re not alone in
our pain. Or we don’t want to risk being hurt even more so we close ourselves
off from those around us. But what is happening in these situations, or rather,
what isn’t happening? We aren’t communicating. We aren’t talking and we sure
aren’t listening. We become so self-focused that others don’t exist, or if they
do, only as an object to lash out at. It is all too easy to point fingers and
cast blame. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
But you know
what? You’re here. We’re here. We are here, in this space, together. Now, I
won’t ask you who you voted for or what your feelings on our newest president
are. I don’t want to know and I don’t need to know. That isn’t what’s
important. What is important is that
we’re trying. We’re trying to learn how to be in community with each other. We
are trying to be the light. One of the things I love about my faith and this
denomination is that there is room for people on either end of the spectrum and
everything in between. I know that the person sitting next to me doesn’t have
to believe the same way I do. We may not see eye to eye on everything we read
or hear on any given Sunday. But our faith teaches us to love each other. Love
isn’t about agreeing or thinking the same way. It’s about listening. It’s about
understanding. Sometimes it’s about agreeing to disagree. There is no harm in
saying I don’t agree with you but we can be friends anyway. I think the greater
harm is saying agree with me or else. It is that very “or else” that has led to
the division that we see all too clearly today.
But make no
mistake, it is hard. It is so so very hard to do this. The temptation at times
is too great to surround ourselves with like-minded people and call it a day.
It is so hard to look someone in the eyes when they express a feeling or an
opinion or a belief that goes against everything you stand for or believe in
and to accept them. But if we are called to love our neighbors, if we are going
to follow Christ, then friends, this is exactly what we need to do. Christ
didn’t tell us to love our neighbors as long as they think and act like us. He
also didn’t say that following him would be easy. But the world needs us, our
country needs us. If we ever went to emerge from this darkness, if we ever want
the rod of oppression to break, then we need to be the light of Christ in the
world.
Now here’s
where it gets harder: we are also called to stand up for the marginalized and
oppressed, and there are plenty of times when that seems to contradict
accepting people who think and act in opposition to that very notion. So, we’re
supposed to love our neighbor who is doing whatever they can to put down the
ones we are standing up for? Yes. I did mention following Christ was hard, right?
I struggle with this too. All the time. How can I love someone whose actions
seem to say they oppose the things I stand for? How is that being a light?
Because Martin Luther King Jr said it best: Darkness cannot drive out darkness,
only light can. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can. If hate is darkness,
then love is light. We will continue to be in darkness if we continue to hate.
If we continue to hate we will continue to be divided. And we cannot remain
divided. It will end us. What we see happening now will get worse and worse
until we can’t come back. We need the love. We need the light. This may be the
hardest thing we as Christians will ever do. I wish I had an easy fix, an easy
answer, a magic spell to make this easier. Believe me, I wish I did. I wish I
could tell you that if you do this or if you say that then everything will be
okay. I wish I could tell you that love means being unafraid. But I can’t. I’m
right there with you, wondering how all of this is supposed to fit together,
wondering how things can get better, wondering if maybe this is all being a bit
naïve. But we have to trust the Gospel. We have to trust the model of Christ.
We have to accept the hard road ahead.
Isaiah
prophesied that the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. We
can be that light. If we are to be Christ’s disciples then we are called to
bring the light to those that are still in the darkness. Love your neighbor,
even when you don’t want to. Talk to them. Listen to them. Realize that there
is a reason they feel the way they do, and remember that their reasons are just
as valid to them as yours are to you. Don’t be afraid to stand up for others.
Give voice to those who can’t be heard, and do it with love. And pray, not that
the other person will see your way, but that you can both see God’s way. You will
stumble. You will fall. You’ll act in hatred and spend time in the darkness.
But the light will shine on you. We can be united in the same mind and the same
purpose some day, but that day will never come if we don’t try. We are all God’s children. We can see Jesus in
everyone around us. And if we hold on to that, if that is the one constant in
our hurt and our struggle, then we will make it to the other side. Maybe we’ll
be bruised or broken, but when that light shines on our faces….. we will be
divided no more.
Amen.
