Well-behaved churches rarely make the news. And to be honest, I’m fine with that. Pick up a newspaper these days and if you see any reference to Church or religion, it’s often disturbing. There’s a brewing schism in one denomination threatening to tear churches apart. There’s an abuse scandal in another. Some priest or pastor has committed financial impropriety. A church leader has sued other church leaders. And another one has drawn a line in the sand on a controversial issue.
As I said, well-behaved churches rarely make the news, which is why the first-century Church in Corinth received a letter from St. Paul. Paul had a practical need to write to the Corinthians, and it’s not because they were behaving well. We don’t know everything that the Corinthians were up to, but they were up to no good. There was petty quarreling. Some of the Church folk decided to side with certain leaders, favoring individual charisma over unity. Some claimed Christ themselves for their own specific causes and purported to have a monopoly on truth. Many were perversely thrilled by fighting rather than by living together in love and peace. Does this sound only like the first-century Church or eerily like the Church today?
It's perhaps one of the most unfortunate ironies of history that St. Paul’s theology has been coopted to promote rancor and schism, when his theology is, at its core, a moving explication of sacrificial love and unity. It’s easy to dislike Paul because of how we sometimes interpret his more controversial words. But could it be that Paul gets under our skin because his theology cuts too close to the bone, whether you consider yourself a liberal or a conservative? Isn’t it easier to use Paul’s words as ammunition against targeted scapegoats rather than accept his challenging call to unity? Isn’t it easier to give up on Paul than to admit that we are being summoned to dialogue with those most different from us?
When we think of news headlines and making history, we might think of the unfavorable tones of Paul’s theology. If we move down to the subheadings or to those news clippings that never make it to the front page, we will find the real meaning of the apostle’s controversial message.
It's not surprising that well-behaved Church people rarely make the news. The media knows what gets people’s attention, and what gets people’s attention makes the most money. And this is why Paul is suggesting something so very foolish. He knows it’s foolish, too. “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The word of the cross may not make the news headlines, but it doesn’t need those headlines to work its power. Its power is in its understated simplicity, its denial of competitiveness, and in its focus on the Body of Christ rather than on the self.
To most ears, St. Paul’s understanding of Christian living is, at worst, nothing short of stupidity, and at best, nothing short of naivete. To lawmakers who pass the popcorn while their political rivals fight among themselves, it does seem foolish that we can agree to disagree. To autocratic leadership that demands monolithic conformity, it seems ridiculous that we would choose to be in relationship with one another even if we don’t think alike. In an increasingly polarized political climate, it seems absurd that we could have a common mind on anything when we vote differently, have a variety of opinions, and are so different. To some in other denominations, Anglicanism seems mealy-mouthed because it paves a via media of humility rather than of dogmatism. When life is merely survival of the fittest, it seems like a death sentence to put not self first but the whole. And if we’re convinced that we’re right, then it feels like a compromise of our values not to force others into thinking as we do. No wonder manipulating St. Paul’s theology gets you into the headlines. It’s much easier to use him to help you put others down and puff yourself up. Which is exactly the opposite of what his theology is about, if we’re not afraid to let his difficult message convict us.
Paul’s words—the words of the cross, we might say—leave no one untouched and unjudged. Preachers, point not to your brilliance or your eloquence, Paul says. Point to Christ, step aside, and let Christ step in. Churches, point not to your wealth, success, or power. Point to Christ, step aside, and let Christ step in. Church leaders, point not to your own authority or so-called monopoly on truth. Point to Christ, step aside, and let Christ step in. Moralizers, consider whether your judgmental speech is really about immorality or, rather, about your own ego. Point to Christ, step aside, and let Christ step in.
The risk is that, before too long, we are simply repeating the behavior of those we perceive as judged by Paul’s theology. We rejoice at the conviction of those who skew Paul’s words and render them towards anger and hate. But the invitation is to look at where the fingers of Christ’s true disciples are pointing. They are pointing not to division, schism, and fighting. They are pointing to those acts of love, mercy, and compassion that rarely make the headlines or history. The truest test of whether something is of the Gospel is whether it manifests reconciliation instead of division.
We can be sure that Christ is truly present when enemies are reconciled. We can be sure that Christ is truly present when two very different ideologies meet at the Communion rail. We can be sure that Christ is truly present when people who disagree nevertheless agree to sit together and talk. These actions rarely make the headlines, but they don’t need to because they are all pointing to Christ.
It’s a lovely gift of the lectionary that on the day we hold our annual parish meeting we are forced to reckon with Paul’s theology of the Body of Christ. In an age when the Church commandeers more bad headlines than good ones, we may wish to make our own headlines. Isn’t it sorely tempting to prove to the world that some of us are trying to do good? Don’t we want to defend the Church, whether Christianity, our denomination, or our parish church? And it might seem foolish not to.
But Christ’s call is simply to point to him, step aside, and let him step in. Our job is not to make the headlines. It’s enough to be in a subheading or no heading at all. It’s enough to be praying daily for the kingdom and for others. It’s enough to show up for Mass when others sleep in. It’s enough to pray in our rooms with the doors closed. It’s enough to be one of two people at a Low Mass or a weekday service of Morning or Evening Prayer. It’s enough to visit the sick and care for the poor without others knowing about it. The quiet witness of a faithful remnant[1] energized not around fighting but around common purpose has the potential to change the world. The ordinary life of prayer, and not newspaper articles, will bring souls to Christ. And submission and obedience to a rule of life and a way of being together in community–not individual stubbornness–will lead us towards the vision of God. It’s enough to point to Christ, step aside, and let Christ step in.
Dear people of Good Shepherd, as I say this to you, I say it perhaps most to myself. We can lament our past and throw stones at it, or we can ask God to present it to us as a gentle gift of memory, a quiet reminder that we are always at risk of letting our own viewpoints, our politics, our preferences, or our anger and emotions, supersede the place rightly accorded to Christ himself. Those who can most effectively decide whether we are living cross-shaped lives are those on the outside. We should pay attention to the ones who affirm that the quiet power of reconciliation, unity, and the fruit of the Spirit are manifest among us. And I believe they are.
We may never make the headlines again, and in some sense, I hope that we don’t. It’s enough that we are striving, in all our diversity and difference, to be of one mind and one heart. It’s enough that we are making our lives about Christ and not about ourselves. And above all, it’s enough that we point to Christ in our own authentic way, step aside, and let Christ himself step in.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
January 22, 2023
[1] The use of the word “remnant” is inspired by Martin Thornton’s theology of the remnant in The Heart of the Parish (Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 1989).