1st Corinthians 1.1-9
“I give thanks to God for you because of the grace of God that has been given to you in Christ Jesus.” So St Paul begins his first letter to the Corinthians, today’s second reading.
From those words, you might get the impression that the people of the church in the city of Corinth were an ideal example of the godly life. And at the start, Paul certainly has good things to say about them: they have been caught up in the power and love of Jesus; they are “enriched in speech and knowledge of every kind;” they aren’t “lacking any spiritual gift.” All these good things spring up from God at work in their life. God’s wisdom, power, and grace have given them a way to live in the world with values that are different from the world’s values; the Spirit has given them gifts to be holy so that they can extend the life and love of Jesus in thought, word, and deed. They are, Paul says today, “called to be saints.” This is God’s call for each of us, of course—to be sanctified and made holy in Christ. Yet the way Paul describes the Christians in Corinth sounds most impressive. Who can compare?
Only these early verses don’t tell the whole story. Over the next few Sundays, our second reading will be taken from 1st Corinthians. To be able to hear what Paul has to say in the weeks to come, we will do an overview of this New Testament letter today. These verses from the first chapter of the letter are like the music at a movie’s opening credits that sets the mood and themes of everything to come. The themes of the letter are that the church exists by the grace of God, is continually strengthened by the Spirit, and is being drawn into a deeper participation in the life of Christ.
Paul is truly and genuinely grateful for what they have received. “I give thanks to God for you because of the grace of God that has been given to you.” But as you read through the letter, another picture emerges. The Corinthians had gotten a good start in faith. But where were they headed? That is the question and that question, one fraught with challenge and uncertainty. Those challenges included believers aligning themselves with particular leaders at the expense of their unity in Christ; = divisions surfacing at the Lord’s Supper where the wealthy ate well while the poor went hungry, undermining the meaning of communion as participation in Christ and with each other; and there were matters of morals that would, these days, come with a parental advisory. Competition, divisions, and confusions were emerging.
Now at one point in the letter Paul does say that not every distinction among them is bad. Some distinctions make clear people with faith that overflows with generous love for the sake of others in contrast to those who might try to turn God’s blessing to their personal advantage. Some distinctions reveal where the Spirit is bearing fruit in people’s life—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and more—or, in contrast, shows where strife, jealousy, and anger have taken over and made faith barren, fruitless.
This is the sort of useful distinction you make if, in your yard, you have a bed of flowers that is blooming and bountiful set next to a bed of flowers that is barren and needs either tender care or to be uprooted and tossed on the compost pile. Among Christians, the only things meant to take root among us and grow are the grace of God and the love of Christ; and some distinctions show where that grace and love are active.
But other divisions, the divisions that Paul addresses—the well-educated looking down on the less-informed, the well-fed ignoring the hungry, or the persistent need, then and now, to be right at the expense of being loving—those divisions expose the church’s failure to live out the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ. And that, Paul says, is a public defeat for faith.
In the church, ethnicity, race, and social status are to give way as we show the world the value of reconciliation across human divisions, that “we are all one body in Christ.” Or, in the world where old mistakes and past failures all-too-often haunt with present shame and regret, Paul later says that “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation;” in God there is always the opportunity to begin again. And within the church as a living sign of the justice, joy, and peace of the Kingdom of God, political loyalty as a marker of identity gives way to the declaration that Jesus is Lord; anything else needs to be weeded out and composted. Our life together, and each of us individually, is permeated by God’s grace and peace filling us so that we can extend the life of Jesus to others.
The Corinthians are, as Paul makes clear at the beginning of his letter, rich with God’s gifts. But as we discover while reading the letter, they are poor in love. They don’t lack any spiritual gifts, but they’ve lost their way in how to use those gifts. They may excel in knowledge of every kind, as Paul acknowledges today, but you’ve seen how some of the smartest people can use their intelligence at the expense of others, even to hurt them. Paul sees this too; at one point in this letter he says, “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Knowledge itself is not rejected; it is a gift of God. But when detached from love, it is distorted.
We see this theme especially worked out in Paul’s famous chapter on love, 1st Corinthians 13. “Love is patient, love is kind.” When Paul says, “Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude,” he is writing to the church at a time of crisis when they are falling into the trap of those very things—boastful, arrogant, rude. He is showing them, and us, a better way. “Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth,” the truth of Jesus, the truth that is Jesus. This is the life and calling of all Christians, applied and lived out every day of our lives, in every circumstance and setting, including the challenging ones where arrogance, rudeness, envy, and even delight in the misfortune of others become the default setting of our hearts. So Paul reminds us of the value of another way. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
As Paul lays out the themes of 1st Corinthians in today’s opening verses, his desire for the church—for all of us—is found in the love of God that builds us up together. “I give thanks to God for you because of the grace of God that has been given to you in Christ Jesus.” Paul’s words for the Corinthians are his words for you, too. This New Testament saint wants all of us to grasp what it means to have Jesus and his life at the heart of our life and imagination, and then to pray and watch how, through the Spirit, God works to change you, even making a saint of you as you extend God’s life and love to people around you: patient, kind, not critical, irritable, or resentful; but thankful, humble, building up others in Jesus Christ. ‘Let me show you a better way.’
That better way begins today. We need that better way. The world needs that better way. GK Chesterton was an English writer, humorist, and philosopher in the last century. He lived through WWI and died as WWII was on the horizon. He once said of his dark days and time, “The world stands at the same stage as it did at the beginning of the Dark Ages. And the church has the same task as it had at the beginning of the Dark Ages; to save all the light and liberty that can be saved, to resist the downward drag of the world, and to wait for better days.”
To be caught up in the power and love of God is the way that resists the downward drag of the world. In Jesus Christ we are lifted into the grace, peace, and life of God. By grace, Paul means God looking on the world and the people in it with infinite love—looking at you with infinite love. The peace Paul has in mind when he writes about God’s grace and peace—the peace Paul has in mind, is the intended result of grace: peace within ourselves and peace with others. This is our hope and assurance. Christ is our hope and assurance. Our life together, and each of us individually, is to be permeated by God’s grace and peace filling us so that we can extend the life, love, and grace of Jesus to others. We exist by the grace of God, are continually strengthened by the Spirit, and are drawn daily into participation in the life of Christ. “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus.” And when we face challenges—and you know there are many—Paul’s pledge and promise today is for you, too. “God will also strengthen you to the end…God is faithful.”
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