A More Excellent Way
I Corinthians 12:12—13:13
Epiphany 4C, January 28, 2007

A Sermon by Fr. James Haney V

It was a church in deep conflict. It was a church with internal divisions. It was a church with various factions. There were sharp disagreements over issues of human sexuality. There were heated debates about which sexual behaviors were and were not appropriate for Christians. There were arguments over how much the church should be held captive by the surrounding culture. There were some who felt that they were living the Christian life in a more perfect way than the others were.

Nonetheless, is to the divided church in the city of Corinth that St. Paul writes some of his most powerful words about unity. If we hadn’t canceled services last week, we would have heard Paul talking in our epistle lesson about the basis for unity in the church. This week, in our epistle lesson, Paul tells how that unity can be maintained.

The church in Corinth faced many problems. We face some of those same problems in the church today. So I want to look at both last weeks and this weeks epistle lessons, 1Cor ch12 & ch13 p1046. It is helpful for us to spend a few moments meditating on what scripture has to tell us.

In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul uses the image of the human body and compares it to Christ’s body, the church. ch12 v12 “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” The word “members” is used in its original sense. Originally, members meant parts of the body: organs, limbs, etc. It is only later that members will also mean people who belong to a certain group or organization.

Notice what’s being said here. The body is one, but it also has many members, many organs, limbs, and parts. Yet it is one body. There is simultaneously diversity and unity in the body. For the Corinthian church that is in danger of being torn apart by differences, this is an important reminder. You are part of one body. v13 “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body —Jews or Greeks, slaves or free —and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”

The message is that unity through baptism into Christ’s body transcends all those categories that seemed so important in the world at that time. Jew or Greek, slave or free, and in Galatians Paul adds, male or female. We could expand the list: liberal or conservative; Republican or Democrat; gay or straight; anglo or african or hispanic or arabic or whatever. In baptism, in Christ, all are made part of one body.

Then Paul plays with the image of the body and its various parts and members. v15 The foot may not be a hand but it’s still part of the body. v16 The ear may not be an eye, but it’s still part of the body. v17 If you were all eye, you couldn’t hear. If you were all ear, you couldn’t smell.

All those statements make lots of sense. But Paul moves from anatomy to theology. v18 It is God’s will and God’s doing to create diverse functions within the body. v19 If everything was the same, you wouldn’t even have a body. If every cell in my body was a liver cell, I would cease to be a body. I’d just be a huge liver.

In other words, in complex systems, unity does not mean uniformity. Instead, it is diverse parts that make up the unified whole. Think of our country for example. As Americans we trace our diverse ancestries from every country on earth. As a people, Americans do not have one ethnic or racial identity. Even as individuals, most of us don’t come from only one racial or ethnic group. Most of us are not AKC registered purebreds. Most of us are mutts. Personally, I can count at least 8 different ethnic groups in my own bloodline.

And yet, we find our unity in an idea. We find unity in our Constitution, which binds us together under the powerful heading, “We the people of the United States.” Valuing that unity in the midst of our diversity is what has made us the strongest nation in the history of the world.

The same thing applies to the church. Our unity stems from accepting the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and not from the fact that we’re all the same, because we’re not. Diverse parts make up a unified whole.

But with diversity there is always a danger. The danger is focusing on the differences and forgetting about the unity. And that’s one of the hardest things to live out, in our nation, and in our church. Back up to v21. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’”


This is probably the most important verse in the chapter 12. Because it’s a very strong temptation. “You’re not just like me? Then I won’t have anything to do with you. You don’t think like I do? Then I’m going to go form a like minded group over here, and to hell with you.”

We see this playing out right now our world right now. We see it in the way the world is divided into haves and have nots. We see it in red state/blue state divisions in our country. We see it the Episcopal Church and other churches over disagreements over gender, human sexuality, and other hot button issues.

Thus, there is always the danger of being divided by differences, instead of being unified by the things that we share in common. In a body, the different parts need each other, even if there are disagreements. In fact, to be a church, there have to be two opposite poles that we hold in tension.

Let me say that one again. To actually be a church, and not something else, there have to be two opposing poles that we hold together in tension with each other. If we don’t have both, we are not a church. And if we slide too far to one extreme or the other, we cease to be a church.

On the one hand, we do have to be in agreement about our core beliefs. If we do not hold that God the Father is our creator, Jesus Christ is our savior, and the Holy Spirit is our sanctifier, then we are not a church. These beliefs are central and essential to who we are.

However, while agreeing on essentials is vital, we can get into deep trouble if we try to force agreement on matters that are not as important. If we get too narrow and too specific and demand that everyone agrees on nonessentials, then we would no longer be a church. We would, in fact, become a sect. A sect is a religious group that centers around a narrow shared philosophy. In fact, the New Testament word for sect is airesis. Airesis/sect is where we get the English word “heresy.” Heresy stems from being too narrow in demanding uniformity. And in its extreme form, a sect becomes a cult. So on the one hand, we need agreement on core beliefs without an overemphasis on uniformity leads to becoming a sect or a cult.

In the opposite direction is inclusivity. As a church we are called to welcome all those whom God has called. In fact, that’s the New Testament word for the church, the ekklesía, those who are called. Go back to v18: “God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.” God chooses the people who come into the church. We don’t. Republican or Democrat, black or white, gay or straight. Our job is to welcome them. If we don’t, we are not a church. Of course, there is danger in this direction as well. Inclusivity is not an end in itself. If we are so radically inclusive that we blur or even jettison our core beliefs, then we are not a church. At the far end of the inclusive spectrum is a watered down bunch of nice welcoming people who are no different from the world around them.

We need both poles. Adherence to core beliefs and the practice of inclusivity must both be held together in tension, and we mustn’t slip too far to one extreme or the other, or else we won’t be a church.

One of my favorite statements along these lines comes Philip Melancthon. 500 years ago, during the very polarizing theological differences of the Reformation, he was the second most important Lutheran theologian after Luther himself. Melancthon said this:“In the essentials unity, in the nonessentials diversity, and in all things charity.” What a wonderful statement.

“In the essentials unity.” Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. Holy Scripture is the Word of God and contains all things necessary to salvation. “In the nonessentials diversity.” We don’t have to agree on each and every piddly issue in order to be the church. “And in all things charity.” Charity comes from the Latin word for spiritual love. In fact, the great chapter in the Bible about charity or agape or spiritual love is the very next chapter, 1 Corinthians 13.

Paul says at the end of ch12, “I will show you a still more excellent way.” And then in ch13, he lays out what that way is all about. ch13 v1 Paul is saying, ‘I may speak with perfect human or angelic eloquence. But if I speak without love, I’m just making empty noise. v2 God may reveal everything to me, God may give me perfect faith, I may be completely orthodox. But if I don’t have love, I’m nothing. v3 I may give away all my possessions, and even give up my life, but without love, it doesn’t do me any good.’

Those are astounding statements. I can be spiritually and/or religiously perfect in almost every way. But if I’m not loving, I’ve missed the boat entirely. That means that we’re not just called to be tolerant of people who are different from us. We are called to genuinely love them. The kind of unity we’re called to seek is not a grudging, stubborn acceptance. It’s real love. We’re called to live out and live into the very same kind of love Jesus had for us.

Paul begins to describe that kind of love in v4: Patient; kind; not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. Not insisting on its own way; not irritable or resentful. Those were the qualities Jesus showed in his life, and in his death. Those are the qualities he calls us to show.

In response to conflict, factions and infighting, 1Corinthians prescribes the practice of love. Nothing is more Christ-like. Nothing is more important. That’s the bottom line. We are the body of Christ. I cannot say to another member of the body, “I don’t need you.” And in all things, and above all things, we must have love. That’s the only way unity can be maintained.

“In the essentials unity, in the nonessentials diversity, and in all things charity.” May God continue to give us his grace, that we may love one another, and be the people and the church he has called us to be.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Rev. James P. Haney V
Good Shepherd, Wichita
January 28, 2007