Sermon. So let us thank God that our scriptures were not written by church administrators with a well drilled sense of proper practice and procedures.

Transcription

1 1 Corinthians 4 : 1 5 Sermon If you were faced with the problem that Paul was faced with, what sort of letter would you write to the church in Corinth? I realise that may not sound like the most interesting question for me to open with this morning, but there is a point to it. While we don't know exactly what Paul has been told or what he has been asked for, from his letter it is clear that there are some serious disagreements going on in the church in Corinth: that people are following different leaders and pulling in different directions. I realise it that you will find it difficult to believe that people in a Christian church could fall out and disagree, but I m told it does happen. Indeed when you think about the situation in Corinth it is not really surprising. After all this whole church thing is rather new. There was no established way of working, no settled leadership structure no fixed procedure for coming to decisions they could all agree on. And Corinth was a particularly multicultural place, so those who came to faith would have arrived with different mindsets, different aspirations and assumptions. Of course there were going to be problems. So how would you go about responding to a request for help in such circumstances? Here is the point... What I suspect is that you or I faced with offering guidance in this situation would think of this as a practical problem. We would assume that the need is for some kind of management structure, some way of establishing authority of giving people clear and well defined roles. If only Paul had a background in a Presbyterian church he would have known exactly what to tell them! Or if only Paul had spent time getting an MBA he could have written something quite different. So let us thank God that our scriptures were not written by church administrators with a well drilled sense of proper practice and procedures.

2 And let us thank God that they were not written by management consultants with all the latest trendy ideas of the time. And while we are at it, let us thank God that our scriptures were not written by you or I! For what has been passed down to us was written by people of faith, people with a strong sense of participation in the mission of God, and an openness to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So what we read this morning is not a practical answer to a particular problem. It is a much more significant answer to a timeless problem. And it is because of that, it is because the words go to the heart of what church exists for, they are as vital and relevant for us who try to be church in Geneva in 2014, as they were for that argumentative and opinionated bunch in Corinth in 60 AD, or thereabouts. It is in that context that we come to this verse which packs a whole lot of meaning into very few words. The church is there to be; servants of Jesus Christ and stewards of God s mysteries. He was writing about the leadership of the church, but of course his words apply to all of us who form the church, whether we see ourselves as leaders or not. We are here to be; servants of Jesus Christ and stewards of God s mysteries. In order to be focussed this morning I am not going to say much about what it means to be servants of Jesus Christ. Suffice to say that it should certainly put issues of church leadership into perspective. Whatever our place and our status and role in any church may be, if we don't do what we do as a servant of Jesus Christ then we will have missed the point, and we will have no spiritual power. The church is there as a servant of Jesus Christ and if we are pulled in any direction that leads us away from the radical generosity and self sacrifice which his life was about then we are being led astray. However it is the second half of the verse which grabbed my attention. As the church, we exist to be stewards of God s mysteries. A steward is - someone whose job is to manage another person's property and affairs. (Chambers UK dictionary) So we are told that things which we handle as a church are not ours. We don't own them. We can't claim possession of

3 them. We have no reason to be proud of them. But we are called to take care of them, to put them to good use. You might remember a story Jesus told about stewards, three men who were entrusted with their masters property while he was away. One of the three was so frightened of losing what he had been trusted with that he just hid it in the ground to keep it safe. He was the one who was not rewarded but punished when the master returned. Whatever it is that we have been entrusted with by God, we are to keep it safe, and we are to put it to good use. So we come to the big question: what is this strange thing which we are entrusted with, which we can never own, but are called to use well? The answer may not be as clear as we would like: we are stewards of God's mysteries. It would be easier for me to preach a sermon about our responsibility as stewards of the human abilities we have been given, or stewards of the financial resources we have control over, or stewards of the good but fragile earth. Yes I could preach about that. You might not want to hear it but I could preach it. This however is something different. As a church, we are to think of ourselves as stewards of God's mysteries. This is difficult because any attempt to explain the mysteries of God is bound to come up short. The phrase implies that whatever it is we have been entrusted with is more than and greater than anything which we could ever explain. It is mystery, and more than that, it is God's mystery This is a challenge for us to come to terms with. Our particular church tradition in the Presbyterian wing of the Church has many strengths, but honouring mystery is not one of them. We tend to value knowledge more than mystery. We are more comfortable talking about what we know than what we don't know. And in this age of uncertainty where so many things now seem open to question, the desire to have some clearly defined religious certainty to hold on to and proclaim does have a strong attraction. Of course the bible does describe a God we can trust in and depend on but never in ways simple and direct enough to us to understand, never mind to feel that we have some control over. For the bible also describes the things of God as mystery, and we do well not to forget that, or to disregard it. We

4 stand in a line that goes back to Abraham of people who have known something fantastic is going on in the world, and who have been drawn into experiencing it and taking part in it, but for whom experience of God has always been a wonderful mystery. People who have known that it is good to trust and obey, but who have never known enough to understand or be certain. That is why it is called faith. For however we might define our faith, we know that we believe in is something which is more than our definition. However we might have come to understand the divine, there is still what Thomas Merton called the God beyond God, the God beyond the God we think we know. At some level, despite our in-built desire for understanding and our longing for certainty, we realise that no matter how hard we try, how much we pray, how often we worship, no matter how well we know the scriptures, we will never fully get a handle on God. What we believe is just too wonderful, too big, too important, for that. What we deal with in the church is beyond human understanding, beyond human words and certainly beyond human control. What we deal in the church are God's mysteries. We know that it is something powerful. We know that it is something deeply true. We know that it is something which connects us with what life is all about. We know that it is something which touches the heart of our experience of life. We are not called to understand it all, but we are called to be stewards: to look after it and to use it well. For now, as Paul would later write, we see only through a mirror dimly. only faint reflections of the real thing. Someday we will know, but that day is not today. So celebrate these great mysteries and we put our trust in them and we share our stories of them and we help others make their own discoveries. We cherish them and we look after them and we seek to use them well. Here, today, we do go beyond words, to an action of sharing, and action of faith, an action which brings us into contact with deep and holy mystery. Here today we obey Jesus' instructions and we trust that in doing so we are

5 keeping the mystery alive, within us, and for the world around us. It is God's mystery. May we guard it well and celebrate it well, and use it well, as servants of Christ, and stewards of God's mysteries.