This is the final sermon on our series on unity without uniformity. Week 1 was many gifts, one spirit, where we studied the stained glass window. Up close you can do nothing but compare one shard to another. We compare our lives to those near us, and completely miss the bigger picture. We need to step back and see that together, we are God’s work of art, each part beautiful in it’s own way, none more valuable than another, each part placed perfectly in the whole.
Week 2 was many members one body, where we learned that we are the body of Christ. We honor those parts that are hidden, who serve without fanfare, like our Women’s Fellowship. We protect those parts that are vulnerable, like our children. We keep in touch with those who are far from home, but not far from our hearts, like our shut-ins and those in military service. In the body, we find purpose and meaning as we can finally be ourselves.
Week 3 many opinions, one love. Where we learned that love is not a thing, it’s a person. We can know love specifically because we can know Jesus. The love of God our Father is the one thing that holds us together. At the same time, it’s the one thing that keeps us from uniformity, because God’s love is bigger than our heads. We can truly know that aspect of truth we were designed to know, but we cannot know it all, so we keep a firm faith and an open mind.
It’s no accident that these three sermons reflect the trinity: the gifts of the Spirit, the body of the Son, the love of the Father. The very nature of the trinity is unity without uniformity, community without coercion. The ancients called it perichoresis, which means, “to dance around the center,” each person giving up their place to the next, in a dance that never ends. This is the first great mystery of the Christian faith. Today we will examine the second.
This brings us to week 4. Many Christians, one story. This whole time, we’ve been reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians of Corinth, Sin City of Bible times. Now that they are Christians, he’s teaching them how to build new patterns in their lives. Converting takes an instant. Conforming our lives to God’s? That takes a lifetime.
Paul says, “I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received from those who witnessed it, according to the scriptures.” He received it, from people who saw it, and prophets foretold it. The question you ought to be asking yourself right now is, “So what? What difference does it make?”
It’s not a dumb question. Those are exactly the questions we need to ask every time we engage scripture. Part of the reason the church in America is on its heels because we don’t ask these questions often enough. We’d rather be told than read it ourselves.
Why does Paul write this: received, saw, foretold? Our American mindset says innovation is better than preservation. We don’t care where the idea came from. We care that it works. We only trust things we can see for ourselves. To our ears it sounds like a pointless paragraph. But Paul was no fool, and considering the expense of writing a letter in those days, I can assure you that he chose his words with care. Which means what? It means we’re missing something.
Why does it matter if Paul received it? It means it’s not about Paul. Tradition says he wasn’t much to look at, bald and short, and scripture says he spent a good chunk of his life as a religious zealot who persecuted the church in the name of God. “God!” (smack) “Loves!” (smack) “You!” Talk about a mixed message. It’s not about Paul. It’s about the one who turned his life around.
It means truth is not the property of the pulpit. You have access to the same truth I do. I don’t rule you. You can get greater wisdom from one old saint who lived this book, than from a hundred preachers who just talked about it.
It’s not about us, people. Stop stressing over this. Your life is a sermon in three parts. You were who you were. God’s story took hold of you. Now you are what you are. I guarantee you, the people who know you well already know this sermon by heart because they know you. The question is, “Is it a good sermon? Is it compelling? Do people notice the change?” If not, then maybe the sermon needs to be a little less about you and a little more about the one who is making the change.
Which brings us to our next question. Why does it matter if people saw it? It means it’s not a fable with only one moral, one layer of meaning. It’s richer and deeper than that. It means you can go there and see it. You can walk where he walked and see things he saw. You can study the history of the times and the language and understand the moment, because context is meaning. You can spend your life, understand it a little better every day, and never get it all.
It means Jesus wasn’t just male. He was a man, a specific man, a Jewish carpenter from the house of David, who lived in a specific place in time. So when I talk about God as a “he” I’m not saying God is male. God is beyond gender, but Jesus is not. And he called God, “Father.” The one aspect of the trinity that we can touch called God, “Father.” It is not an adjective. It’s a name. We’re not being sexist. We’re being respectful. We can use other names. The Bible is full of them, some masculine, some feminine. But, at least for me, this will always be the gold standard, because this is the metaphor Jesus used to reveal a God too big to comprehend.
Which brings us to our last question. Why does it matter that it was foretold? Some preachers will tell you that it’s to prove the truth of the story, and that’s true. Jesus said himself that miracles and prophecy were signs or proofs. But to me, that’s only part of the reason.
Suppose you wanted to teach a kid physics. How would you do it? Would you crack open a textbook or take her outside to play ball? Exactly, you start with what they know and you build on that foundation until someday, years from now, they will finally have the vocabulary to explain how we catch a pop fly.
Suppose Jesus had just popped on the scene with no Old Testament, no Hebrew Scriptures, no prophecies, no years of experience and history and vocabulary. He pops on the scene and says, “Take. Eat. This is my body. Take. Drink. This is my blood.” And we think, “What? Was Jesus a cannibal? Maybe he was a vampire!” Thankfully, we have the history, so we can look back through scripture and see the symbolism of Passover lamb whose blood protected the people of God. We know the story of the manna bread from heaven that fed the people as they wandered toward the Promised Land. The Old Testament gives us the vocabulary we need to understand the New.
Paul wasn’t stupid. He did choose his words carefully. It matters very much that he passed along what he received, that he received it from eyewitnesses, and that all this happened in accordance with scripture. He received it because it wasn’t about him. It’s not about me. It’s not about us. They saw it because Jesus chewed the same dust we chew today. Jesus knows us, and we can know him. Prophets foretold it because we need new words if we’re ever going to understand the story God is trying to tell.
The name the ancients gave this mystery is incarnation. Trinity means the heart of God is loving community. Incarnation means we are now part of that love. This is the root and goal of our faith, unity without uniformity. We have many gifts but one spirit. We are many members but one body. We hold many opinions but one love. We are many people, but we share one story. We were who we were. We are who we are. We will be who we will be. It’s our story, but it’s not about us.
