Christ Again

Christ Again

A Sermon on 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 and Mark 1:29-39

By Griff Martin

For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

On the Fifth Sunday Following Epiphany

February 4 2018

Incarnate God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing Resurrected reality we can all together experience. Be present here in this space and in these words God for if you are present here then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Risen Christ and the Comforter.  Amen.

John Rockefeller opened his first oil refinery in 1863 in Cleveland. From a financial picture only, this was quite the move. Within a few years his company Standard Oil controlled  90% of the oil in the United States. In 1911 the company was deemed too big to exist by the Supreme Court and split up into 34 different companies, including two that would eventually merge and become Exxon Mobile. At that point the Rockefellers largely were out of the oil business and onto other things like building Rockefeller Center, becoming governors and senators and building other large companies. 

The Rockefeller family today is made up of 270 living descendants and is no longer the wealthiest family in America, on the list of wealthiest families in America they actually tie for 23rd place alongside the Texas family, the Butts. Today most of the family have most comfortable nest eggs but little of the influence this family used to have or at least until recently when the Rockefellers have taken on the Rockefellers.

In the last two years the Rockefellers have been arguing and in court with Exxon Mobile, one of the very companies they in an indirect way they created. You see a few years ago the family began to see that the waves, the ocean, was rising higher and higher on their island estate in Maine and closer to their vacation homes and it did not take much digging on their part to link this to global warming and the burning of fossil fuel and the very big problem of oil. Literally a problem of their own making. 

So they began to research and they funded journalist who discovered documents which prove Exxon Mobile has long known about the danger of burning fossil fuel, yet publicly denied it was a problem at all… much like tobacco companies recent lawsuits. They want to expose big oil, drilling practices and the link to climate change. Even though it all traces back to their very own family tree, as a judge said in a recent courtroom exchange between Rockefeller’s and Exxon, the current Rockefellers “care whether subsequent Rockefellers can breath.” 

I discovered all of this in a recent article from a January issue of New York magazine in a brilliant 6 page article with the title: “The Rockefellers vs The Company That Made Them the Rockefellers.” 

The article raises some really good questions about what it’s like for a family, an institution, to have the courage to look back and ask some difficult questions: Is this who we want to be? Is this  world, the one we are created, the one that we want to be living in? Are we helping or hurting our future? 

It’s obviously questions that I think the church must be asking as well. In fact wouldn’t it be quite something to open up a magazine or paper today and find an article about us “Christians vs the Institution That Made Them Christians.” 

There is probably something quite good that would come out of a discussion like that. We might learn ways in which our very history has directly contributed to some of the battles we are waging today and some of the worst problems in our society- racism, homophobia, gender inequality and classism just to name the first ones that come to mind, all areas in which the church has largely been a problematic voice, and if we wanted to we could pause and quickly come up with a whole host of other problems that we ourselves created or contributed to. 

And maybe the first question we need to ask is how have I benefitted from this? 

Which is the exact question that Paul is asking us today. Our text from 1 Corinthians needs a bit of context because we are picking up in the very middle of it with today’s lectionary passage, we start mid scene, mid argument and mid story.

Paul is making an argument about the very nature of apostleship, of those sent out to bring about the Kingdom of God, which is or should be all of us bc this is our calling- bring about the Kingdom of God. In the previous chapter this argument started with meat and idols, could Christians eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols, this is causing a big argument in the church because we always tend to argue about the things that matter most… pay no mind to those who are struggling to eat anything at all, let’s talk about what those who can eat should be able to eat or not eat. So Paul dives into this argument.

And then he continues on in chapter 9 to talk about the bigger issue at play here, his rights as an apostle, his privileges and then he immediately renounces them. Name them and give them up, name and release. And it’s not that the privileges are necessarily wrong…. and in full transparency I am walking a fine line in this text because this includes being paid to preach the Gospel…. but what is more important for Paul than the right or wrong of it, is relationships and freedom. This whole argument hinges on freedom in Christ, which is freedom to identify with others be it Jews or Greeks, strong or weak, although he does note Christ seems to have preference for the weak, for the outsider, for the one we struggle to include, for the one whois hardest for us when it comes to all people.

Paul says this is all about making certain that we can live like Christ, free, not beholden preaching and living like Christ calls us to preach and live. And this might mean changing the Corinthians position on what meat is right and wrong, to check their privilege, and it might mean asking some hard questions about if they are living like Christ… questions like: Is this who we want to be? Is this world the one want to be living in, is it the one Christ wants for us? Are we hurting or helping our futures? 

Paul might be using their arguments and his very testimony to help them to have a discussion that might easily be titled: Corinthians vs The Institution That Created Them. He might be leading this church- a healthy church from a bird’s eye view, a church that seemed to be on the right side of issues, a church that was influential and yet a church that was a bit self-centered and self protective and had developed a bit of a sense of entitlement…. a church that might be well, very much like ours.

So First Austin hear Paul’s words again this morning, this time from Eugene Petterson’s more contemporary translation: 

“I’d rather die than give anyone ammunition to discredit me or impugn my motives. If I proclaim the Message, it’s not to get something out of it for myself. I’m compelled to do it, and doomed if I don’t! If this was my own idea of just another way to make a living, I’d expect some pay. But since it’s not my idea but something solemnly entrusted to me, why would I expect to get paid? So am I getting anything out of it? Yes, as a matter of fact: the pleasure of proclaiming the Message at no cost to you. You don’t even have to pay my expenses!

Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!”

And when I listen to that I hear an echo of the one he is following. I hear “Foxes have dens and birds have nest, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” I hear the prologue to John: “The Word became flesh and blood and dwelt among us.” I hear the Philippians hymn that might have been sung by this community as well the “One who emptied himself and took the form of a servant.” 

I hear some really hard questions that we better be asking:

What are we compelled to do? What are we struggling to do? 

Where have we failed and taken on culture’s way of life?

What are we willing to do to become Christ?

What are we willing to surrender to be Christ?

What do we need to stop talking about and be in on? 

And if the Holy Spirit is not stepping on some toes yet… well here is one example of what I am hearing: I hear questions about if First Austin is often compelled to fund a mission but too busy or too lazy or too important to actually be involved in the doing of the work. It’s easy for me to write a check to help fund an RV, but when am I actually going out and working at Community First or doing a food truck run with Mobile Loaves and Fishes? 

First Austin can raise some money, I have no questions about that. Your generosity is impressive, however what about the follow up? What about not just collections but community? What about our call to be kin, our call to be invested and part of the lives of the poor? The very call of Dorothy Day when asked by a young man studying to be a priest, Dorothy Day how can I live the Gospel? Her response: “stay close to the poor.” Note not help, rescue, fund, save, buy beds, buy RVs, buy meals… but stay close, be community, be involved in the lives of all those around us. 

Our mission is not to Come and Give, our mission is to Come and See.

Paul is calling us to take the Incarnation seriously and not just as a theological construct, but as a reality that forms our everyday… and more than that, not just a reality that forms our everyday but the event that shapes our every moment. The Incarnation is our model of living. The Incarnation is our standard.

And every generation of Christ followers needs to look and see if that is what we are still doing, living the Incarnation out and then they better be willing to speak up and tell us where we have failed and where we are flourishing. And that might mean we hear some hard truths… we might hear that we aren’t giving enough direct aid to our homeless siblings, we might hear that we have some real work to do on our own history with race, we might hear that some of our programming has outlived it’s usefulness, we might hear that we need to ask some real questions about our theology, we might find that we have some real work to do in identifying with others and truly being all people.

We might hear that we have somewhat gotten off the road of Christ following and we are not longer creating the world we want our children to grow up in. And hopefully that makes us all take a deep hard look at our own lives because this is not just about institution, this is about Christ followers: Are we giving all we can or are we building storehouses? Are we leading lives that make the world better for all our children? Are we creating a church that our children are going to want to be part of? Are we living lives compelled by Christ? Are we servants to those around us? Are we sacrificing so that we can truly love?

Pauls entire message here is based on this incredible call: to be like, to live like Jesus… and like Christ, his entire life is based on the God who called him and those who need the Kingdom of God.

Tough questions, unsafe questions, risky questions…. which seem to be Christ’s favorite questions.

Our Gospel reading today has a line that stuck with me all week, it’s this passage that seems to just move so quick, we have Jesus in the synagogue, we have Simon’s mother in law sick and healed, we have those who are ill and demon possessed brought to Jesus and healed and we have Jesus getting up early and finding a place to pray. And then we have this: the disciples awoke and searched for Jesus, they found him and said to him: “everyone is looking for you.”

I think it’s the same report the disciples would give us this morning if they came running in from off the streets: “Everyone is looking for Jesus.”

The question is, are we finally going to go out there and live like Christ for those who are searching? 

In the words of Martin Luther King, "(Church is) not a place you've come to, it’s the place you go from."

And everyone is looking for Jesus.

Church, there is important work to do, may we make sure we are doing the right work and then get busy doing so.

Amen and Amen.

*artwork: Healing Touch, by Deborah Nell, deborahnellart.net