Emptying the Cross of its Power

A sermon about the Corinthian church and individual freedom vs. communal freedom

After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together — by trade they were tentmakers. Every sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks. ~Acts 18:1–4 NRSV

Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ~1Corinthians 1:10–18

Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, “If you put two Baptists in a room together, you’ll get three opinions.” We’re almost as famous for our propensity to argue and split churches as we are for our fondness of bringing casseroles to potlucks and of driving one town over to go to a liquor store. They don’t call us “Battling Baptists” for nothing.

When the “fundamentalist takeover” or “conservative resurgence” happened in the SBC (the name that you call it depends on which side of the fight you were on), those booted from the SBC formed two different groups: The Alliance of Baptists, which we are part of, a group that has been solidly affirming of women in ministry and LGBTQ inclusion since its beginning, and The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which calls itself a more moderate organization. You may not be aware that now there’s another potential split brewing in the SBC. A group calling themselves The Conservative Network has formed within the denomination because, believe it or not, some think the current SBC is getting too progressive. Those in The Conservative Network are concerned that the SBC is getting too liberal on issues of race, social justice, and women in ministry.

I share all of this to demonstrate that it shouldn’t surprise us in the least that there are nearly 300 different organized Baptist groups. It’s not just us, though. Different websites report that there are between 33,000 and 44,000 different Christian denominations or classifications worldwide. Have you ever wondered how in the world we got from one group of apostles who received the Holy Spirit and became the first church to as many as 44,000 different groups of people who claim the name Christian but have different beliefs, traditions, and means of governance? In light of this reality, Paul’s calls for unity in the Corinthian church seem pretty naive, don’t they?

It’s not like Corinth was a homogenous place to begin with. The city is located on a little isthmus near the center of Greece, so people traveling between the northern and southern ends of the country, as well as those traveling across Greece to Rome all stopped through Corinth. It became a rather cosmopolitan city with lots of cultural, religious, and socio-economic diversity.

When Paul first arrives there to plant a church, he makes friends with Aquila and Priscilla. All three are tentmakers by trade, so Paul literally sets up shop with the couple. They work together, plant the church together, and Paul moves in with them. Priscilla and Aquila become steadfast friends of Paul’s because they’re mentioned multiple times in his letters. This part of the story is a picture perfect image of unity.

Paul spends this sabbaths engaging in the art of debate in local synagogues. That’s how he starts his church. By poaching. He nurtures and leads the new church for about a year and a half before he moves on the Ephesus to start the whole process over again there.

At some point, Chloe’s people (whoever they are), bring Paul a letter from the church in Corinth. The church has some questions, and they seek answers from Paul. Chloe’s people let it slip that there aren’t just questions brewing in the the church, but that division is arising in the congregation, too.

It seems that people in the Corinthian church are claiming allegiance to different leaders. Some say they belong to Paul. Others say they are with Cephas, or Peter. Some claim they’re an Apollos kind of Jesus-follower, and still others say they are with Christ. Of course, to us it’s no surprise that Paul scolds them saying that their allegiance should be to nobody other than Christ.

That answer seems obvious. Kind of. How many of us have ever described ourselves as “not that kind of Baptist” or tried to help people understand our faith by saying something along the lines of “Think more William Barber than Joel Osteen”? We find our niches, and we often align more closely with them than we do with the bigger picture of what we’re a part. For example, studies show that many Americans now align more closely with their political affiliation than they do with their religion.

Paul responds to this division by saying that Christ sent him to proclaim the gospel, the good news, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. That phrase stopped me in my tracks this week. Could Paul be implying that certain kinds of division might empty the cross of its power?

This week I read an essay published by The Atlantic. The essay entitled “We’re Still Living and Dying in the Slaveholder’s Republic” was written by Ibram X. Kendi, director of The Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. Kendi writes:

Slaveholders desired a state that wholly secured their individual freedom to enslave, not to mention their freedom to disenfranchise, to exploit, to impoverish, to demean, and to silence and kill the demeaned. The freedom to. The freedom to harm. Which is to say, in coronavirus terms, the freedom to infect.

Slaveholders disavowed a state that secured any form of communal freedom — the freedom of the community from slavery, from disenfranchisement, from exploitation, from poverty, from all the demeaning and silencing and killing. The freedom from. The freedom from harm. Which is to say, in coronavirus terms, the freedom from infection.

We see this playing out all over America right now, don’t we? People are spitting on workers and law enforcement officers who ask them to wear masks in public or practice physical distancing. In Michigan, a Family Dollar employee was shot and killed for this. An individual’s freedom to not wear a facemark overrides the community’s freedom from getting infected with the individual’s sickness. People are bringing AR-15s to state houses to protest stay-at-home orders. The individual’s freedom to get a haircut or a manicure supersedes other community members’ freedom to wait until it’s safe to go back to work. In Georgia, two white men murdered Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man, as he jogged because they suspected he was a burglar. To them, their freedom to name themselves judge, jury, and executioners exceeded Mr. Arbery, or I would say any black man’s, freedom from harassment, unfounded accusation, and being killed while jogging on a public street.

Freedom to vs freedom from. I guess the thing is that we may want both, as long as they pertain to us or those inside of our self-proclaimed little factions. Many calling for their personal freedom at the expense of communal freedom are doing so in the name of Jesus. I find myself asking the question, “By doing this, are we emptying the cross of its power?”

You see, Jesus’ death on the cross demonstrates the depth of God’s love for all, not just a chosen few. Remember, “For God so loved the world…” The cross shows that there is grace enough for everyone, not only those who think like me. It proclaims freedom for all, especially those with the least social power. If our American culture leads us to think mostly of “me”, then it is at odds with our faith, which calls us to think in terms of “we”.

Perhaps pulling us out of our selfishness and inviting us to experience wholeness by thinking of others is part of the power of the cross.

Yesterday, I read a second essay that is also sticking with me. The Guardian published the essay “The Real Lord of the Flies: What happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months”. It’s adapted from Rutger Bregman’s new book Humankind.

In 1965 six teenaged boys got bored at boarding school and decided to “borrow” a boat and escape to Fiji. Well, they got lost at sea and ended up on a small, rocky island that had been uninhabited since the people who originally lived there were kidnapped and sold into slavery hundreds of years earlier. The boys were discovered, by accident, 15 months after they arrived at the island. Their experience of survival was not what you’d expect if you’ve read Lord of the Flies.

The boys did divide into teams, but they didn’t let those teams become factions. Instead, they formed pairs that worked together to carry out responsibilities needed to take care of the whole group. They made a pact not to quarrel, and, when they did, they committed to resolving the issues quickly. When one of the boys fell off of a cliff and broke his leg, the others risked their own safety to climb down to him. They made a homemade cast and jokingly called the injured youth their “king” as they carried out his work, in addition to their own, while he healed. The boys worked together and took care of one other, and so they all survived. They ended each day with singing and prayers, so maybe it’s not too much of a stretch to call them a model of a unified church.

I fear that we empty the cross of its power whenever we align the gospel message with those who are most powerful, those who are able to think mostly of themselves. Honestly, most of us have that privilege. The cross calls us outside of ourselves and into community with others so that we can look out for one another and grow to love each other. That is power, isn’t it? The power of the cross.