Who's in charge? God's in Charge

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, January 22, 2023
1 Corinthians 1:10-18

    As many of you know, our family had a great time visiting family in Nebraska after Christmas, but flying back home was not the best, to put it mildly.  Long story short, we ended up flying into JFK at 12:30am with our bags ending up at LGA and it took several days to get all of our luggage back to our house.  In the airport, as events were unfolding, I had that sinking thought that I have more often than I’d like to admit, “I am not in control here.  My options are limited.  We will get home, but not when and how we wanted to.  I wish I could do something about this situation, but I can’t.”
    I like to be in control.  When I am in control, I know what’s going to happen, when, and how I want things to go.  I feel calm, confident, and powerful when I am in control.  Doesn’t it feel good to be in control?  The funny thing was, as we had WAYY more downtime than we had originally planned in the airport, I took out my daily devotional book.  The message was so relevant to our out-of-control stranded situation, I laughed out loud and showed the page to Rich, who also laughed at the irony.  The gist of the devotional was to trust God in all things at all times, especially when life is stressful and feels out of control.  I think it even suggested giving thanks to God when we feel out of control to remember to rely more on God than on ourselves.  To be honest, I did not want to hear that message at that moment; I just wanted to be angry and wallow in our misfortune.  What did that devotional writer know anyway about my situation?!  As I have experienced many times before, I thought about it later and realized God was probably trying to get through to me.  It was another reminder, that I need pretty regularly, that I am not in control, ultimately.  God’s in charge, not me.
    We’re turning to the next chunk of verses from the first chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians this morning.  Last week as we looked at the beginning of his letter, the greeting, we learned that Paul is writing to the church he started in Corinth, a highly diverse and cosmopolitan community.  Church members are disagreeing with one another about several issues.  Today, we hear that Chloe’s people have brought Paul a verbal report that things aren’t going so well because of one particular disagreement.  Apollos is the new “pastor” of the Corinthian church who took over after Paul left, but some people preferred the old “Pastor Paul.”  Others say they belong to Cephas (Peter) or to Christ.  They are not one united Church, but divided into factions of which Christian leader they follow.
Notice how a big part of the problem here is that everyone is arguing using “I.”  Often to work through disagreements, counselors and communication experts recommend using “I” statements. This is an example where using “I” statements is not helpful, though, because people of faith are putting their trust in themselves or others, not God.  They are thinking they get to pick and choose who they belong to.  They’re focusing on themselves, what I want and how I want things to go, rather than on what God wants.  And another part of the background of these statements as you see when you read more of 1 Corinthians is that being baptized by Paul rather than by Apollos or someone else meant that some people thought they were better than other people in the church and had more rights and a higher status in the church because of that fact.
    Paul has this somewhat humorous retort that he can’t even remember who he baptized except for Crispus, Gaius, and the household of Stephanas. I feel kind of bad for the people he baptized but forgot about – I mean it wasn’t even that long ago, Paul!  But the point is – regardless of the spiritual leader of the church of Corinth, regardless of who baptized you, you belong to Christ. It is in his name that we are baptized.  
    Bishop Brian Maas, who was my boss for five years in the Nebraska Synod, would almost always open his sermon with a question, “What’s the highest position of leadership in the Lutheran church”? Most people know we don’t have a pope, so people generally would answer Bishop Eaton, our presiding bishop, or well, “You are, Bishop Brian.”  Then he would remind us all that the highest position, according to scripture like the passage we’re reading today and according to Luther is the baptized Christian.  There is no hierarchy in the Christian church; “we are united in the same mind and the same purpose,” Paul says.
All people of faith, no matter their position in the church, are under God’s authority, ultimately.  Good pastors and leaders in the church help us grow in faith, but God’s in charge; we aren’t.  And unity in the church works better when we use more “we” and less “I” language.  We belong to Christ, in whom we are baptized.  We don’t need to compete with one another.  When we start seeing others as a part of us, as “we,” as the body of Christ, then we can make better decisions in faith, together.
    When we turn to our gospel, we see amazing things happen when Christ is in charge – people hear good news, diseases are cured, healing is experienced, people are learning and growing in faith.  Peter, Andrew, James and John pretty quickly leave their livelihoods to follow Jesus perhaps for this reason – they see that life can be better with Jesus in charge rather than the way things were going trying to go it alone by their own strength.  As any adult knows, sometimes being in charge is not fun – there are a lot of responsibilities and stresses to deal with!  Giving our stresses and worries over to God can actually be helpful.  Sharing our burdens with other believers can calm our fears and assure us we are not alone.  Jesus invites us to consider what we need to leave behind, including our sense of control, in order to more fully follow him.  Who’s in charge?  God’s in charge.  And when we let Christ lead, like the first disciples, we start to see our lives changed and other people’s lives changed because of Christ working through us, for the better.
    We’ll see again next week how Paul points people back to the cross of Christ as a model for the church.  On the cross, Jesus’ death looks like foolishness to the world.  It looks like he gives up all control and loses to the powers of this world, but to those of us who are being saved Christ’s death on the cross is the power of God, reclaiming control over all the forces of evil that threaten to defeat us.  Christ’s cross calls us to humility – to put others before ourselves, to work in collaboration rather than in competition with others, to see others as just as good as we are, and to even give up some of our control or our way of doing things so that others can also serve alongside us.  In this way, Jesus asks us to take up our cross and follow him, proclaiming the good news, and bringing Christ’s healing to a world in need.  Amen.