Partying when the parents are away

1/8 July                    1 Corinthians 4-5

                                                           

Mum and Dad are having an evening out. They’ve left a friend to sit in the house with their teenage children, but the young people have the sitter twisted around their little fingers – those sitters just don’t have the rights or authority over their teenage charges that Mum or Dad would have. And this is too good an opportunity to miss. Mum and Dad are out – we’re having a party!

Many a tv soap, sitcom, coming of age movie, teen novel or even advert has included this scenario. The results vary. Yellow Pages got the French polisher out in time to ensure that Mum and Dad never found out. More often, the parents walk in on the party, with predictable results.

Paul, writing to the Corinthians, is the Dad in the scenario. He’s had a call – perhaps from the outraged next door neighbours. Your kids have ignored the sitters and now they are having a very wild party. Do something about it!

First, Paul has to remind the Corinthians that he is the dad, and that he does have authority. They have been treating him, and other people who’ve been in leadership in the town, with disdain. They’ve treated him as if he were a babysitter – and in the Roman period a babysitter was likely to be a household slave, and so of less importance in the household than the children he is trying to care for. But I’m not the sitter, said Paul. I’m the father – the head of the household – that’s my place as an apostle.

The Corinthians imagined that they could judge the worth of Paul as an apostle, as if he were a slave in the household. Imagine if a modern Anglican congregation decides that they won’t have the bishop to visit, because they don’t like the way he tells stories in his sermons. That would of course be inappropriate. The bishop has authority in his or her diocese, and has the right to come and talk to a congregation, whether or not they like his storytelling style. The same was true for Paul, in his opinion, and he felt that in suggesting otherwise, the Corinthians were getting puffed up – a phrase he uses a lot. It’s often translated as arrogant in the translation we hear in church.

And the worst of it was, that while they were behaving in this puffed up way towards Paul, the Corinthians were behaving pretty badly themselves. Yes, Paul admitted, he had faults. Everyone has faults, and they will, quite rightly, be judged by God. There must be judgement, our faults must be corrected, and the day we each have to face that will be very uncomfortable indeed. But it seemed that the Corinthians were pointing out the speck in Paul’s eye while ignoring the plank in their own. And it was a very big plank.

Now, Paul had written to the Corinthians about this particular plank on a previous occasion. He had outlined the problem: there was a particular case of sexual immorality which the church was not only ignoring, but even seemed to be boasting of their tolerance and liberality in permitting it. In this case, the immorality involved both adultery and incest – a man living with his stepmother. Paul had explained that such sin could not be tolerated by Christians, and that they could not mix with people who sinned in this way, but his letter had not been fully understood. Rejecting his authority to speak on the matter, the Corinthians had objected that if they could not mix with sinners, then the only way to avoid them would be either to die or to move to another planet. The world is full of immorality, it’s unavoidable. You can almost hear the teenager from the movie saying ‘duh’ or see her rolling her eyes in despair at the daftness of what is being asked of her.

So Paul corrected their misunderstanding. Yes, the world is full of sin, and we don’t have the option of moving to another world. But that’s not what I meant, said Paul. What I meant is that people call themselves Christians, and yet who commit sin in this way, knowingly, are no longer welcome in the church. They should be thrown out. I am telling you, he said, to meet together and to throw out the man who is living with his stepmother, and because I believe that is what you should do, I’ll be with you in spirit when you do it.

That’s tough. It means doing something really uncomfortable. Something that will, without question be very unpopular with some people. But it is necessary. Paul expected the Corinthians to act on his instruction – and not only with regard to the man living with his stepmother and other sexually immoral people, but to anyone who thought they could be a part of the church and yet still be a thief, or live greedily at the expense of others, or continue to worship idols, or be deliberately rude and belittling of other Christians, or be a drunkard. Any such people must be cast out.

Now, let’s be clear. Paul was not advocating intolerance. We are all sinners and we are all relying on Jesus for the grace that saves us from our sin. Paul’s whole theology is a theology of the cross, of the astonishing gift of forgiveness that comes to us as a gift from Jesus. Because of that gift of forgiveness which saves us, given to us by the Son of God, we call Jesus ‘Lord’. Jesus, the Son of God, is our King, our Lord – and that isn’t just a title or a phrase without further implication. If we call Jesus Lord, then we are saying that we submit to Jesus’ authority, that from this point onwards we live according to Jesus’ principles. These principles are found in scripture and are the basis for all our behaviour and choices. Thus a thief who calls Jesus Lord is forgiven, and receives eternal life with Jesus. But that new Christian must cease to be a thief, because robbery is unacceptable for a follower of Jesus – God’s commandments forbid it. If the man who was a thief really means it when he calls Jesus Lord, he will never steal again. Indeed he will try to make good the hurt he caused in his previous life of thieving. But what if the thief reasons differently, and thinks that because God forgives us, that he can continue to steal? As soon as he takes something that does not belong to him, he is as good as announcing that he does not believe Jesus to be Lord after all. Because he is not obeying Jesus’ principles, he is not living according to God’s law of love, rather he is choosing a human way of selfishness. Every time he steals, Jesus is not his Lord. To steal and then to join other Christians in worship is hypocrisy, a lie, and it must be challenged. The Christian community must say to him: change – really change this time – or go.

Over the years, much of the Christian church has become as soft and confused on this subject as the Corinthians were. The distinction between a tolerant, forgiving welcome for all, and the obligation to live according to God’s holy law for those who have accepted and proclaimed Jesus as Lord, has become blurred. We tell ourselves that tolerance and love are the same thing. But sometimes tolerance isn’t love, its lazy. Sometimes tolerance is a way of avoiding the unpleasantness of saying hard things, or of being seen to act in a way that the community around us would not like. And occasionally tolerance is code for not wanting to challenge the community leader, if she or he is the person who is failing to live out the life of one who lives what they proclaim: Jesus is Lord.

The results of that failure can be horrendous. In Corinth, a horrible sinful situation was being tolerated in a way that reflected very badly on the whole Christian community. At the present time we can see it in the investigations into sexual abuse in the church. In living memory, leaders in the church have committed acts, or turned a blind eye to others committing acts, that deny Jesus’ lordship. Jesus was clear about sex having a place only in a monogamous marriage. He was also clear that to hurt a child was the worst of sins – better to have a millstone tied around your neck and be dropped into the sea than to hurt a child. And yet abuse has happened in church schools and camps, in church choirs and confirmation classes, in convents and private homes. It has been perpetrated by choirmasters, nuns, children’s leaders, churchwardens, vicars, even bishops. And others have seen it happening and said and done nothing. It is shameful. It is sinful. It stains every one of us. And every time it happened, every time a leader let it by without passing, the act denied that Jesus is Lord. Anyone who has been involved in such behaviour and does not repent, utterly and unchangeably, does not have a place in the community of people whose bottom line is ‘Jesus is Lord’.

As a whole church, we are in the same shamefaced position that the Corinthians were in over that poorly judged relationship. Just as the people of Corinth could be justified in thinking that Christianity was immoral and not to be trusted, so the people of our world today might feel the same. As they read the papers or listen to the news and hear the stories coming out from the inquiry into sexual abuse in institutions in this country, including many shameful stories from our churches, they can justifiably wonder just what it means to be a Christian. And it means this: we reject such appalling sin. And any sinner who does not repent can not be a part of the church.

St Paul made it very clear to the Corinthians that he expected them to get into line on this. Sort it out he said, before I get there, because I want to arrive smiling, not threatening you with a big stick. Imagine again, if you like, our teenage party throwers. Someone told Dad and he has phoned them. I’m on my way home now, says Dad. You’ve got time to sort it out – in fact, I’m sending uncle Tim to give you a hand. Clean up! I want to find the house clean and tidy and empty of party guests when I get back. If I do, all will be well, but if I find it’s still a mess and that you’re not sorry, well, you’ll be in trouble.

Perhaps, when we look at ourselves and the way we live today, we need to imagine that phone call happening now. Imagine a hotline from heaven, and Paul calling us, and saying, I’m coming, and I really want to be pleased when I get there… make sure I am. However hard the sorting out is. As a church that means getting to grips with issues like sexual abuse and really, properly changing and challenging each other. What does it mean for each of us, who are listening today? Can we all say ‘Jesus is Lord’ and not undermine that declaration by our actions when we’re not in church? And if not, can we find the courage to sort ourselves out, and to remove all that falls short of our declaration? Would Paul be able to greet us with a smile, or will he need his big stick?